City’s top cop never off duty
Armstrong reflects on service
A day after his unexpected announcement that he plans to retire in three years, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong elaborated Thursday on his decision.
Armstrong cited the job’s “frustrations,” its stress and his desire to remain physically and mentally healthy as part of the motivation behind his decision to leave the job in 2017.
“It was always my desire to leave this job with my health. You know all the stress associated with this,” Armstrong said at an impromptu news conference after the department’s annual officer awards program. “You cringe at night when the phone rings because you don’t know what it is. You’re always there, on duty all the time.”
Armstrong’s announcement came Wednesday, when it became known that he’d entered the city’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP.
That plan allows eligible employees to retire in 1-3 years and collect a
lump-sum payment when they leave. Both the employee and the city stop making contributions to the retirement plan during this time as responsibility shifts to the administrators of the semi-independent retirement fund. The pension administrators calculate the monthly retirement amount due to the employee and begin making payments as though the person had al- ready retired.
Those payments don’t go to the employee but rather into an interestbearing account. When the day of retirement arrives, the worker receives a lump-sum payment from the account, and the pension fund begins making regular monthly payments to the employee for the rest of their life. Under some circumstances, payments can continue to spouses or dependent children after their death.
Armstrong won’t be officially accepted into the DROP program until the Pension Board approves his request. A board meeting is scheduled for Thursday. Pension administrators wouldn’t immediately release information this week about Armstrong’s potential retirement payment.
But when the previous police director, Larry Godwin, left in 2011, he received a payment of $377,000 through the DROP program. That sum included a $93,500 per year deferred pension, plus interest and unused sick leave, vacation days and holidays. The payment came on top of the annual salary of about $120,000 that Godwin earned during the three-year period.
That year, Mayor A C Wharton’s Strategic Business Model Assessment Committee criticized DROP. “This program should be replaced with a more robust succession planning process or eliminate this program entirely,” the report said.
Armstrong will be 50 when he retires, and said that he feels “like it is a good time to retire.”
“In three years, I will have been the director for six years and with the Police Department for 28 years. That’s a very long time,” Armstrong said. “There was going to be a retirement at some point.”
Armstrong’s career with Memphis police includes work as an undercover operative in the Organized Crime Unit and as OCU supervisor. He also spent time working in and supervising the robbery and homicide bureaus.
Armstrong said that, even with the announcement, he is still on the job.
“I’m still focused on being police director. Three years is still a long time,” he said. “We’ve got quite a bit of time and a lot of work to do.”
What might happen after he leaves the department? Armstrong said he had no firm plans. But when asked if he might move to more closely follow his beloved Dallas Cowboys, the director had a quip ready.
“If (Cowboys owner) Jerry Jones calls,” he said, “I’ll move to Dallas.”