300 DART employees take early retirement offer due to drop in ridership
DALLAS - As a result of DART's ridership dropping dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, employees were offered a generous retirement proposal.
All employees with at least 10 years of service were eligible to receive the following incentive package:
- three additional years of service applied to the pension calculations (for employees with pension plan)
- six months wages in a lump sum added to the 401(k) plan or as taxable wages (for employees with 401K plan)
- one-month severance pay
- service pay of one week of base pay for each year of service
Nearly 300 employees took the agency up on the offer, including its CEO of two decades.
DART Police Chief James Spiller also took the offer, along with two other key leaders who were heading up the silver line and D2 line projects.
DART says those projects will still move forward because the Silver line project was already financed.
DART ridership has dropped 50% since the pandemic hit.