Readers React: L.A.’s ridiculous DROP program should be killed, not ‘reformed’

To the editor: Mayor Eric Garcetti now promises to reform Los Angeles’ Deferred Retirement Option Plan. I am an attorney who has been practicing for more than 40 years, and no matter how many articles I read about the DROP program that somehow pays police and firefighters a pension and a salary over the final five years of their career, even when they stay off the job, I cannot understand the purpose, the operation or the results.

I was particularly shocked to read in the Aug. 25 article, way down in the middle, a former City Hall official say that “there had never been a reason to include firefighters in the program because the city has no problem retaining them.�

Because of this program and so many others, and even though I am a very left-wing Democrat, I will vote no on any propositions asking for increased taxes for anything. Literally giving away millions of taxpayer dollars for something as inexcusable as DROP cannot be tolerated any longer.

Lawrence Halperin, Los Angeles

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To the editor: The DROP program is an outrage. Thanks to the Los Angeles Times’ excellent reporting, taxpayers are now aware of what is tantamount to the theft of city funds by a number of those who are here to protect, defend and serve residents.

Where were our City Council members and Garcetti when former City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana urged that this program be “eliminated or drastically amended�? Where were the basic ethics of our cops and firefighters who have abused this program?

And why did it take Garcetti until this year finally to call for a report on the true costs of this unjustified program?

Jerry Stern, Studio City

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To the editor: Why is no one talking about the physicians who placed these DROP enrollees on disability for extended periods of time? Is the patient satisfaction, have-it-your-way culture catching up to us?

Gregory Morales, Los Angeles

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