But looming retirement liabilities have threatened so many budgets that some pension experts say workers may lose the suits, paving the way for more sweeping overhauls.
In Philadelphia, the fear of losing DROP is so great that when Nutter asked Council to eliminate it for any employees not yet enrolled, he triggered a flood of 933 new applications.
Despite those fears, DROP is not going away soon - and possibly not at all.
"You can't make a unilateral change in a term and condition of employment without incurring liability," said Robert D. Klausner, a Florida lawyer and expert on public pensions.
On Aug. 3, Nutter asked City Council to repeal DROP, meaning that it could no longer enroll city workers, citing a Boston College study that put the program's cost at $258 million over the last 10 years. The unions have attacked the report and are lobbying Council to keep the benefit.
Council plans to consider DROP sometime after it returns Sept. 16.
The program lets city employees collect a lump sum upon retirement in exchange for accepting a lower monthly lifetime benefit. Seven of the 17 Council members have enrolled.
Of the city's four unions, only the police have a contract that mentions DROP. Since its inception, DROP has paid $673 million to 6,921 retirees, and an additional 2,129 of the city's 22,500 employees are enrolled in it.
Joe Rudolf, a lawyer for Reed Smith who represents public employers, said pensions "are a bargainable item. Court decisions have repeatedly upheld a union's right to the continuation of certain benefits as a past practice even when those benefits are not spelled out in the labor contract."
The DROP ordinance, enacted in 1999, does not clearly say whether Council can revise the program. The only language that suggests that possibility refers to DROP continuing "indefinitely unless and until further amended by Council."
