DROP and Roll

Taming the DROP monster.

by Brian Howard

When we decided to bite on veteran reporter Ralph Cipriano's pitch to investigate the city's Deferred Retirement Option Plan (that's DROP to you), it was with some apprehension: DROP's a bitch of a concept, a statistical bouillabaisse, a numerical goulash, an algebraic paella. So thick with figures, advanced investment concepts and pension plan mumbo-jumbo is the program, Cipriano enlisted the pro bono aid of actuary Joe Boyle to help him wade through the mire. When we finally sent "The Billion Dollar Boondoggle" to print April 22, we feared it might, like a lot of DROP stories in this city's past, fall with a thud, confuse a few people and roll away.

But we believed in the piece — which posits that DROP does not do what it was meant to do, costs taxpayers a bundle and further imperils the city's pension fund. With the aid of a dead-on cover illustration and charts and graphs, we tamed the monster. And inspired other media to get into the ring with DROP, too.

As Cipriano recounts in this week's follow-up ("I'm Not Going to Deal With That"), the Daily News, Inky and especially Fox 29 went gangbusters on the issue. We're particularly fond of news anchor Kerri-Lee Halkett's wonderful misspeak, "The Billion Dollar Boondoogle."

It was all, honestly, a bit of a surprise because, as Cipriano pointed out in a sidebar to the original story called "Corrupt and Contented" — a title cribbed from Lincoln Steffens' 1904 characterization of the city — Philadelphians have not yet gotten riled up about this the way the citizenries of San Diego and Milwaukee did over their municipal DROP programs. Nobody said it better or weirder than the Daily News' Stu Bykofsky, who noted in his April 29 column, "Philly politicians stick their snouts into a Deferred Retirement Option Plan that wasn't designed for them, and there are a few hoots from Good Government owls while the rest of us wander in the woods looking for nuts."

But maybe, just maybe, there's a movement afoot here. The low-hanging fruit in this program is the bunches of big payouts going to some elected officials and high-level employees. But Cipriano's story shines the interrogation lamp on the eye-poppingly large number of city employees enrolled in a program that appears to be costing the city lots.

Cipriano went straight to hizzonor, asking Mayor Nutter how he responds to calls to end DROP. Nutter, awaiting due-soon results of an $80,000 study by Boston College, cagily sidestepped the issue. City Council prez Anna Verna demurred less artfully when Fox 29's Dave Schratwieser got up in her face about it.

It'll be interesting to see what that report reveals — and how worked up the people of this city get, should those results confirm what Cipriano and Boyle postulated.

And whether the powers that be decide to deal with the boondoggle, or bank on our apathy and let the whole thing drop.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)