[quote=SK in CV][quote=no_such_reality]The lump sum payments are stunning.

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I suspect much of these “one time payments” are their own money they’re getting back. My brother retired after 33 years with the SDPD last year, and would have been 4th on the list if the search criteria would have been different. But more than 2/3 of what he got was his money that he elected to defer. More than 90% was eligible for rollover. His ongoing pension, while healthy isn’t astronomical, and is much less than he earned while working.

Edited to add: I DID change the search criteria, and sure enough, he came up with a huge pension payout. Not quite as much as I thought, but I know to the penny what he got, and for some reason it doesn’t include everything. But it does include both his DROP payment and most but not all, of his deferred comp.[/quote]

Once again, thanks for pointing out the nitty gritty, here, SK. The general public really does not understand the concept of a public employee funding part of their own retirement. The truth is often not as glamorous-sounding as no_such_reality’s carefully-worded soundbyte.

I personally know of several former members of local law enforcement agencies (incl SDPD) who retired in the last five years and have already died (age 57-63). None of these deaths were due to being out of shape or an alcoholic … far from it. They were all due to heart disease exacerbated partly from uncontrolled or unknown high blood pressure and stroke danger. Some who met the fate of an early demise couldn’t get out fast enough. That’s what constant stress of being in the force will do to you. So I don’t think all this worry about the perceived drain on taxpayers of future “Class C” (law enforcement) pensions is warranted. Not only does the typical CA law enforcement officer work 8+ years longer than the year which they are able to retire, a portion of them don’t last very long after retirement. Not ALL are still married at the time of retirement and some never married so not ALL elected to have survivor benefits upon retirement. In any case, their very costly survivor benefit premium is deducted from their monthly retirement check. their survivor benefit amounts to 1/4 to 1/2 of their pension check for their beneficiary, should they die first.

There’s a lot of misconception out there about what a public pension award actually consists of (actual % of employee contributions + % of employer contributions + investment proceeds + possible deferred comp) such a the DROP program which SK mentioned. Note that SK’s brother worked 33 years before retiring. There is absolutely no financial incentive to work past 30 years in any level of government. I would venture that 99-100% of SD employees who participated in DROP did so only because they were begged by their superiors to stay beyond their retirement age for a fixed number of years and the DROP program was used to sweeten the pot at the time (the program doesn’t exist anymore). I have a neighbor who was offered DROP to stay with City of SD past 30 years (back in the late 90’s) and he told them to pack sand …. he was retiring (he’s still alive, btw). The DROP incentive didn’t always work to keep all of an agencies’ valuable intellectual property (in the form of longtime employees) from walking out the door.