Mayor gets the raise he rejected

PHILADELPHIA —  Democratic Mayor John F. Street is getting more than $111,000 as he leaves office, money that a city official said comes from pay raises that he was entitled to but did not take.

Street vetoed a pay-raise bill in the middle of an election in 2003, and the City Council overrode it. The mayor, however, chose not to take an increase, which at the time would have raised his salary from $146,000 to $165,000.

Now he has decided to collect it retroactively.

Street referred questions to city Finance Director Vincent Jannetti, who said the mayor was entitled to the money. “He deferred it and held back on it,” Jannetti said.

Street is participating in the city’s Deferred Retirement Option Program, which allows employees eligible to retire to pick a retirement date four years into the future, then amass pension payments while working and collecting salaries.

The idea was to encourage longtime employees to stay on the job past retirement age, allowing the city time to seek replacements. Street wanted to end the program in 2003, saying the city could not afford it. But he applied for it in 2004 once the city Pension Board voted to continue it.

“Whether he opposed it or embraced it at the outset, it became law,” Jannetti said. “He is one of those eligible employees, so he availed himself of it like anybody else, and that’s his right.”

Street, a longtime city councilman before he was mayor, is to receive an annual pension of $115,700.

Term limits prevented Street from seeking a third term. Democrat Michael A. Nutter takes over next month.