City floats early retirement offer

The Long Beach City Council has approved an early-retirement incentive program that could affect 19 employees and eliminate 11 city jobs, part of an effort by the city to trim its work force and cut costs. State lawmakers recently passed legislation urging municipalities to offer retirement incentives as the state grapples with a $9.2 billion budget deficit.

At its Aug. 3 meeting, the council voted unanimously to adopt New York state's 2010 Retirement Incentive Program Part A, which is aimed at reducing public employers' costs and avoiding layoffs as the economy continues to lag.

Nineteen Civil Service Employees Association employees have expressed an interest in taking early retirement. Under the program, employees must be at least 50 and have 10 or more years of service. City Manager Charles Theofan said the program offers eligible employees a chance to add three years' worth of retirement service credit onto their pensions.

"That means they can retire now and get what would have been the increases that would take place if they had worked an additional three years," Theofan said at the meeting.

In May, state lawmakers passed a bill authorizing the incentives, which targets positions that can be eliminated due to "the economy, consolidation, abolition or curtailment of governmental activities." The Part A program offers an additional month of retirement service credit for each year of service up to three years.

The 19 retirements would save the city roughly $2.2 million over the next several years. The city approved a $79 million budget in May that featured numerous cuts, particularly in overtime, in an attempt to trim costs. City officials have not indicated that they would pursue any layoffs during the recession, but they say that the retirement incentive program makes financial sense because it would save money in salaries as retirees leave the work force.

The 19 employees are spread among the city's sanitation and beach maintenance departments, the water treatment plant and city clerk's office. Most are in their late 50s and early 60s, Theofan said. The lowest salary among them is $49,000 per year and the highest is $98,609.