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NPR City Manager O'Neill Retiring - For A Month

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: March 7, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - On Tuesday, the City Council accepted a memorandum officially announcing City Manager Thomas O'Neill's retirement, effective May 31.

A successor to the position has already been selected - Thomas O'Neill, as of July 1.

"I like to think I can still contribute in a way the City Council likes," O'Neill said on Wednesday in discussing his looming month of temporary retirement. "They've expressed that to me. I'm very appreciative of it and am very fortunate to have the opportunity to do it for them."

O'Neill has to take the brief period off the city payroll because of his participation in the Florida Retirement System's Deferred Retirement Option Program. In 2004, with 30 years of service under his belt, O'Neill enrolled in DROP.

Introduced in 1998 for state, county, municipal and special district employees, DROP is an optional program in which members who are eligible for retirement continue to work for five years. During that time, they continue to draw a regular paycheck, while at the same time monthly retirement benefits are deposited each month in a separate account.

On the one hand, DROP encourages highly skilled, knowledgeable workers to continue to contribute. On the other, it guarantees room at the top for up-and-comers.

At the end of the five years, the employees In DROP are required to terminate their employment and take their retirement benefits in a lump sum, monthly payments or some combination of the two.

If he hadn't been named city manager, O'Neill would have been director of public works or 25 years and a city employee for 35 when his DROP term expired, he noted.

"After being with the city that period of time I can look back at a lot of what we did collectively and feel fortunate that I was delegated a key role and participate in a key way in a lot of projects that people will benefit from for years."

The DROP program sounded like a good deal at the time, and financially speaking it still does, O'Neill said. With the city facing unprecedented challenges because of the current economic situation, neither O'Neill nor the council members relished the prospect of having the city face the future without his talents.

"When we discussed Mr. O'Neill's performance about a month ago, we all agreed he's done a fantastic job," Councilman Bob Consalvo said Tuesday.

By voting Tuesday to endorse O'Neill's temporary retirement, council took the first step in activating the DROP provision that makes employees in the program eligible for re-hire 30 days after their retirement officially takes effect.

After accepting his retirement, council directed O'Neill to draft his new employment contract so it can be submitted for its approval as soon as it is legally appropriate to do so.

"If I had my druthers, I would wave to Tom and tell him to go do your fishing," Councilman Rob Marlowe said. "But we are living in some extraordinary times. The city desperately needs to maintain a strong, stable person at the helm."

The provision that allows for rehiring retirees is controversial. Critics say it allows public officials to "double-dip" and collect paychecks and retirement benefits at the same time. Mayor Scott McPherson addressed that argument head-on Tuesday.

"This is a different scenario," McPherson said.

O'Neill, 55, is nowhere near ready to retire, nor does the city want him to go, McPherson said. If there is a problem with the DROP statute, that's for the Legislature to take up, he said.

In the meantime, it is unquestionably in the best interest of the city to take advantage of the provision, McPherson said. It is also O'Neill's personal preference.

"I still would like to work a little bit," he said Wednesday. He admitted, though, he was looking forward to his 30-day retirement.

Of course, he added, like any vacation, it just means he has to work that much harder between now and May 31.

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