House Gives Final Passage To DROP
By: Stephen Crews
Updated: March 23, 2011
Signaling the beginning of the end for the state’s luxury, “Rolls
Royce” benefits
plan for government workers, the Alabama House of Representatives today
voted to repeal the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP. The House
vote gave the bill final passage in the Alabama Legislature, and it
will now be transmitted to Governor Bentley for
his signature.
House
Speaker Mike Hubbard said repealing DROP is the right thing to do in
order to build
a sensible bonus structure that will allow the state to attract and
retain the “best and brightest” classroom teachers and essential public
employees. But a “come one, come all” luxury benefits plan like DROP
was excessive, unnecessary and counter-productive
to the state’s educational goals.
“We’ve
discussed the issue at length and reached the simple conclusion that we
need to do
away with DROP and start over,” Speaker Hubbard said. “Extending DROP
by even a matter of weeks could cost hundreds of classroom teachers
their jobs. Laying off hundreds of teachers just to salvage a luxury
benefits plan is wrong. I look forward to exploring
a new way to provide incentives that encourage the highest-caliber
classroom teachers and public servants to come to Alabama, and to stay
here. That’s not what DROP did.”
DROP incentivizes
government
workers to delay retirement by allowing them to participate in a
luxurious benefits plan in the latter part of their careers. According
to the Legislative Fiscal
Office, DROP costs taxpayers $58 million annually in additional
benefits to government workers who work beyond retirement age.
Participation in DROP is based only on age and duration of employment,
not performance or any qualitative measure of service.
Opponents
of repeal have called the proposal “an attack on teachers,” and
“anti-public employee.”
However, recent reports have shown that high-ranking administrators and
public sector union bosses – not teachers – have benefited the most
from the program. In addition, repealing DROP allows the state to
avoid public sector layoffs, including those of teachers.
“We
knew this Legislature would have some difficult choices to make,”
Speaker Hubbard said.
“We will not shy away from making these tough choices because that’s
what we were sent to Montgomery to do. We must set priorities and
ensure that taxpayers’ money is being spent wisely on programs that
work. That’s what the people of Alabama expect of us,
and that’s what they deserve.”
