Balances were smaller in the new system, which tallied a total of $4 million on 103 accounts. The largest was worth $114,000.
City police are governed by a separate pension system. The newspaper has requested the data but it was not yet available.
‘Pretty good deal’
Daly, the collector, has the largest DROP balance among all non-fire employees. If he cashes out that $400,000, it would be larger than any distribution for a nonpublic safety employee over the last decade.
Part of the reason is Daly, 70, has some 40 years of service under his belt at City Hall. He also has nearly the largest salary in city government: $200,000. That’s well above what the mayor makes and more than any municipal employee except for the airport director.
The city collector job is mostly administrative, yet it’s an elected position. Prior to Daly’s election in 2007, he was city license collector, another elected City Hall office. Gov. Mel Carnahan appointed Daly as license collector in 1998. Before that, he worked as administrative assistant for three aldermanic presidents, a span of 17 years that stretched to the early ’80s.
Daly said in a statement that his office has a big job overseeing the collection of hundreds of millions in tax dollars. He said his understanding was that DROP was designed to help compete with the private sector for quality employees, and he had nothing to do with establishing the policy or guidelines.