Mayor Thomas Menino recently lifted the cap on an early-retirement incentive program for city employees, increasing dramatically the number of employees expected to retire later this month and raising the specter of a further " brain drain " from the ranks of his administration.

Menino, who took the oath of office for a third term in January with the promise of reinvigorated leadership and new blood, has struggled to fill several key positions in his administration. More than a year since chief of staff Jim Rooney left to head up the Convention Center Authority, his former position remains unfilled. Last month, a long-time political confidant, senior policy adviser Peter Welch, defected to the private sector. The early-retirement program is expected to take a further toll. One close observer of City Hall’s comings and goings says Ed Collins, the city treasurer and the mayor’s chief financial officer, is among those who will take the early-retirement package. Collins has had a difficult recovery following a stroke suffered early last year.

Nonetheless, two weeks ago, the mayor notified the city’s retirement board that he supports lifting the cap on participation in the program, raising the number of employees expected to retire from 350 — the number included in his budget projections for fiscal year (FY) 2003 — to 502, or essentially all of those who applied by the August 31 deadline. The retirement package, which allows qualified employees to add five years to their service record, five years to their age, or a combined total of five years of both to meet the retirement threshold, was a local option authorized by the state as part of its FY ’03 budget package in anticipation of cuts in local aid funding. Some 9000 city employees were eligible for the incentive program. It did not include teachers, police, or firefighters.

" It will definitely be a brain drain ... you can’t lose 500 people and it not have an impact, " says Sam Tyler, president of the business-backed Boston Municipal Research Bureau. " But on the plus side, most of the people retiring were here before Menino was elected, so it gives this mayor an opportunity to bring in some people with new experience and fresh thinking. " Coupled with retirements at the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, the city’s Public Health Commission, and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office — all of which are administered by the city’s retirement board — the total loss of employees is expected to rise to more than 600 people, Tyler says.

" It is difficult when you lose people who have done a great job ... but we don’t get to pick and choose the employees who can participate in the program, " responds Menino spokesperson Carole Brennan. " The mayor does not see it as a brain drain because there is an ever-flowing stream of talent flowing through this city, and other people are picking up where their colleagues have left off. "

As for the decision to lift the cap, Brennan says there was always an expectation within the administration that the final number would rise beyond 350, and the mayor simply decided to accommodate all those applying for early retirement. With the city facing a floundering economy and the prospect of deep cuts in local aid from the state for the next fiscal year, she says, the decision was ultimately about savings. Initial estimates have pegged the city's savings at approximately $2 million, assuming that the combined cost of any replacements will not exceed 20 percent of the total value of the retiring employees’ salaries and benefits.

But that may be easier said than done, at least among the ranks of the Boston School Department, which had over 225 non-teaching applicants apply for the package. The largest percentage of applicants were paraprofessionals (85) — teachers’ aides who assist in the classroom — followed closely by school clerks and secretaries (53) and custodians (32). The remainder came from the already thinned ranks of the central administration.

" It’s not so much a brain drain here as it is the pressure it will put on the infrastructure of the individual schools, " says one high-ranking School Department source. " The secretaries and custodians are problematic because there is oftentimes only one such position at a school ... and in some instances, we are contractually obligated to backfill some of the paraprofessional positions. "

Brain drain or no, the city will have to learn to do more with less, according to Boston City Council president Michael Flaherty. " Clearly more people than expected have opted to take early retirement, and it may leave some city departments without some key people that we have relied on for many, many years, " he says. " It is important for other people to step up to the plate to fill in for those folks ... and we are going to have to do our part to attract talented men and women from other walks of life, including academia and [the] business community, to help manage the city in new and innovative ways. "