City Wants to Extend Police Chief’s Position Past His DROP Date

The City Commission is trying to find a way to extend Police Chief Russ Mager past his DROP retirement date. The DROP is the Deferred Retirement Option Program. In the Police Department, the DROP is optional, but it must be opted into between 20-25 years of service and it is a five-year DROP period. It is essentially a promise to retire after five years and be rewarded for staying on.

After entering the DROP the employee is actually retiring but can work five years beyond retirement at full pay (with no employee contributions) PLUS the retirement benefits calculated at the time of entering the DROP will begin being paid out and will be deposited into an interest-bearing account.  The benefit of the DROP is that it is a way to keep senior talent in service while training new officers. The program benefits employers because the employee stops earning service credit towards a future benefit and the retirement benefit is calculated at the time of the DROP.

At the December 12th City Commission meeting, a vote passed unanimously to approve ordinance 50-23,  which amends the eligibility and benefits provision for the city’s most senior officers, the City Attorney, City Manager and City Auditor.  The ordinance tweaks vesting percentages for these positions.

After the ordinance passed Rob Long said, “Since we’re talking about vesting which to me translates to employee retention, I think we’re all very fortunate to have stable leadership across our city right now….and I think we can agree it’s crucial for employee morale and retention.” “I’d like to ask the City Manager and City Attorney if there  is a way to extend the tenure of our Police Chief Russ Mager who has been doing an excellent job in his 16 months…” Long said, “In the interest of retention and building succession plans, I d like to get my colleagues opinions on the city manager and the city attorney drafting an ordinance to extend the drop on just the Police Chief.”

City Attorney, Lynn Gellan said that she did not think the drop extension could be done but said, “As you know, I did send a draft ordinance to Tallahassee and we’re still waiting on that.” She went on to explain that it is possible by passing an ordinance that would allow the Chief of Police and the Fire Chief to be put in a separate pension plan, therefore extending their employment past their promised retirement date.

The Police Benevolent Association (PBA) is not in favor of extending the DROP or circumventing the DROP extension by ordinance to overcome that.  Meer Deen, President of PBA, said that “a few members of the command staff wanted us to extend the DROP to eight years and we are not in favor of that.”  It keeps people stuck in positions and the officers would have an additional 4% employee contribution during their DROP period when they currently have none.  The troops are not in favor.

The PBA is also not in favor of circumventing the DROP. Meer says, “The whole thing stinks to us because they’re trying to circumvent it” “It stagnates the organization and prevents growth from within.”  It jams the whole upward mobility and affects morale and troop retention.

There are many people who have concerns that what happened in Boca could happen here. The City of Boca Raton had a change in ordinance that allowed command staff work beyond their DROP and the organization stagnated with no upward movement.  The Boca Police Department is down thirty officers.