The D.C. government will offer thousands of employees a paid incentive to retire now as the District moves to transition out some its oldest staffers with new blood, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Monday.
Roughly 5,127 retirement-eligible employees could take advantage of the so-called “Early Out/Easy Out” program. Nearly one in six District employees is eligible to retire today and another 20 percent will be eligible in the next five years.
“This is a program that is used not only in the District government but in other governments to make sure that those who want to retire are able to do so more comfortably,” said Fenty, who turned 37 two weeks ago. “It is also there just to continue to recruit, retain and develop our next generation of leaders before all of our institutional knowledge walks out the door.”
The initiative is not “forced retirement,” Fenty said, but rather a way of opening the door for those longtime staffers who stayed on because they couldn’t afford to leave. Employees who take advantage will have to retire by Dec. 31, 2008, and will not be allowed to return to the D.C. government for five years.
Incentive payments will range from $20,000 for those not yet at retirement age to $25,000 for retirees. The initiative, which still must win D.C. Council approval, will be funded through the savings derived from the vacated positions.
“This is not an entitlement program,” said Brender Gregory, director of the human resources department. “It is subject to the availability of funds in the agencies.”
Police officers, firefighters, nurses and other “hard to fill” positions will not be eligible for Early Out/Easy Out. The city’s retirement age varies depending on an employee’s age, length of service and the agency for which they work.
