At 64, Jim Aulbaugh has long been eligible to retire from Dallas Fire-Rescue. He loved working too much to call it quits, but he says he might have to now.
A new state law aimed at fixing the ailing pension fund contains a provision -- a vestigial part of the original proposed fix -- that could cause him and dozens of other police and firefighters to finally leave their shrinking departments in January.
The provision limits the amount of time police and firefighters can continue to receive credit in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, known as DROP, to 10 years as of Jan. 1. That means first responders like Aulbaugh, who has 12 years in DROP, will continue to pay a chunk of their paychecks into the pension while receiving no additional credit for it.