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A Florida firm built to do fewer things, more carefully, and the founder who built it.
You shouldn’t have to translate your own pension just to get good advice.
Independent, fee-only, and built for Florida’s public employees.
Meet DerrickFRS Planning
Understand the decisions that shape your Florida Retirement System benefit.
Understanding DROP
Pension vs. Investment Plan · Guide. FRS Retirement Calculator · Tool.
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The pieces that sit alongside your FRS benefit, and the timing decisions that come with them.
Leaving DROP: the decisions with a deadline.
Your DROP exit is a one-time decision. Make it with a plan, not a guess.
Read the DROP guideWho We Serve
Built for the people who built Florida: teachers, first responders, officers, state and county staff, and the retirees who already served.
FRS membership has more nuance than most people realize.
A short conversation usually clarifies what applies to you.
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Estimate your FRS retirement income in three short steps.
Pension, DROP, the Health Insurance Subsidy, and Social Security. No Social Security number, no FRS login.
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Florida educators are Regular Class. Normal retirement is age 62 with six years or 30 years at any age if you enrolled before July 1, 2011, and age 65 with eight years or 33 years if you enrolled on or after.
Your benefit uses your highest 5 fiscal years of compensation if you enrolled before July 2011, your highest 8 if after. Supplements, coaching stipends, and summer assignments may or may not be included depending on what they are.
The back end of your career carries different weight depending on your enrollment date, and entering DROP fixes it wherever it stands that day.
DROP runs 96 months for everyone. K-12 instructional personnel may extend 24 more months, to 120 total.
That extension sunsets June 30, 2029.
If you are building a plan around ten years in DROP, that date belongs in it. Most material on the extension mentions the ten years and stops.
The extension is the part most material leaves out.
Many districts offer both. They are not interchangeable. Distributions from a governmental 457(b) are not subject to the 10% additional tax on early distributions; a 403(b) generally is, before 59½. For a teacher leaving before 55, that difference is the whole ballgame.
403(b) plans in Florida districts have historically been a crowded market with a wide range of costs. Knowing what you are paying inside the product is worth an afternoon.
This page is educational and is not individualized advice. Benowitz Wealth Management is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Florida Retirement System, the Florida Division of Retirement, or the State Board of Administration of Florida. Confirm the figures that apply to your own record at MyFRS.com or with the Division of Retirement.
If the extension is part of your plan, the date it ends belongs in the plan too.
Independent, fee-only retirement planning for Florida’s public employees, built around your FRS benefit and everything you’ve built on the side.
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