No DROP hearing until January

Philadelphia City Council is still waiting for a consultant’s report on the Deferred Retirement Option Program or DROP.  A public hearing on the mayor’s request to end the incentive program is still on hold.

The report by a City Council consultant on DROP was supposed to be ready this week, but Council President Anna Verna says it has been delayed.

“Now we are being told it could be possibly sometime mid-December,” said Verna.

Councilman Darrell Clarke says when the report comes, there will be changes.

“Once we get that information I can say we will do something, and it will not continue in its current form at a minimum,” Clarke said.

Council President Verna says she wants hearings as soon as possible but that probably won’t be until January.

“I feel that it’s been an elephant on everybody’s back and I’m really tired of carrying it I really am,” Verna said.  She and five others on council have enrolled in DROP.

Those other members are Donna Reed Miller, Marian Tasco, Frank DiCicco, Frank Rizzo and Jack Kelly. 

Mayor Michael Nutter says the program is too costly and must be eliminated.