Retirement all the rage at Dulles building

Retirement parties have become a regular occurrence at the Dulles State Office Building.

The state's early retirement program, which went into effect Monday, is an attempt to achieve work-force savings and prevent layoffs. Dozens of state workers from the State Office Building have taken advantage of the program.

Valerie E. Rust's cubicle at the state Department of Transportation was busy with people stopping by for hugs and a final goodbye Monday afternoon. The administrative assistant is one of 10 people from DOT who are retiring. Mrs. Rust, 54, has 33 years of service with the department and said her retirement is bittersweet.

"I don't want to leave my co-workers and my friends here, but I guess I'm just taking the next step sooner than anticipated," she said.

Mrs. Rust said she had no intention of retiring until she used some spare time to see how she might benefit from the incentive.

"The online retirement system was very helpful," she said. "It had calculators and tools to help you understand what you would be signing up for."

The program allows workers 50 or older to retire early if they've been employed by the state for at least 10 years. The incentive is that they are given an extra month of retirement for every year they've worked, up to three years.

Jessica L. Bassett, spokeswoman for the state Division of the Budget, said the idea behind offering the incentives is to help save the state nearly $95 million in the current fiscal year and $225 million in 2011-12.

"It's a tool for active state savings," Ms. Bassett said. "We're aiming for $250 million in work-force savings and the incentives are a part of that."

Ms. Bassett said the Budget Division has approved 4,675 early retirements, but the final number of how many employees accepted is still being calculated.

DOT spokesman Michael R. Flick said 40 employees are leaving Region 7, bringing its roster from 650 employees to 610.

Mr. Flick said 10 of the 40 regional employees worked out of the State Office Building.

State Department of Environmental Conservation officials did not respond to phone calls, but local employees, recounting numerous goodbye luncheons and parties, pegged the number of early retirees at 19 between Dulles and the Brownville field office.

Spokesmen for the state Department of Health, Tug Hill Commission and Empire State Development said none of their employees at the State Office Building is retiring early.

Other state agencies will be told within a few weeks how many early-retirement applications were accepted.