Philadelphia doesn’t know DROP worst case scenario

City says it would take pension officials two weeks to figure out how many workers could opt into the program and at what cost

Just how many people are eligible for the Philadelphia’s controversial DROP retirement incentive program and how much would it cost if everyone signed up? WHYY has been told by the city just calculating those figures would take two weeks.

The pension board says optimistically it would take two weeks to figure out the liability of the city if everyone eligible for the retirement incentive decided to file their paperwork and join the program. Controller Alan Butkovitz says he’s surprised, but not shocked.

“There are three or six different pension plans under the city so we should know how many people under each plan, the question is going to be if it’s quickly accessible how many people have the age and the seniority under each plan.”

Councilman Jim Kenney says the city needs to be prepared in case there is a mass exodus of workers if DROP is eliminated.

“Once it’s passed there will be a window, a 30 day window and there will be a torrent of people then.”

Butkovitz says he wants to know the answer to the question and will work with the pension board to find out.