• If you complete 30 years of service before you reach age 57, you may defer DROP and elect to begin participation at anytime between completing 30 years and reaching age 57 (special risk members who complete 25 years of Special Risk Class service before age 52 may defer DROP to age 52).
  
  
• Elected officers may defer DROP until their next succeeding term of office after first reaching normal retirement and may participate for the lesser of 5 years or the length of that term.
  
  
• If you have covered employment in the Special Risk Class as well as other employment covered by a different FRS membership class or plan, you may elect to participate in DROP when you reach your normal retirement date for either class.
  
  
• If your employer considers you “instructional personnel” as defined in s. 228.041(9)(a)-(d), F.S., you may choose to participate in DROP at any time after reaching your normal retirement date and still be entitled to participate for a full 60 months.

When determining your normal retirement date for DROP eligibility or participation period, you may choose to include or exclude any optional service credit you have purchased (for example, any credit you may have purchased for refunded service). Regardless of your choice, such optional service credit will be applied in your benefit calculation.

Participation Limit – You may participate for a maximum of 60 months following the date on which you become eligible for DROP. If you initially elect to participate in DROP for fewer than the maximum 60 months, you may extend your DROP participation to the maximum 60 months, with the approval of your employer. Your 60 months of DROP eligibility begin the first month you reach your normal retirement date, or reach a deferred date as described in the preceding section. If you apply after your 60-month participation period has begun, your DROP participation period will be reduced for each month your application is delayed.

If you fail to terminate employment at the end of your DROP period, both your retirement and your DROP participation will be voided, and your employer (or employers if you are dually employed) must pay any additional contributions required for FRS service credit. However, a member of the Elected Officers' Class participating in DROP may continue to serve in office at the end of his 60 months (when DROP participation ceases) without voiding DROP or his/her retirement. Any such elected officer would be enrolled as a renewed member of the FRS.

DROP Benefits - DROP accounts earn interest compounded monthly at an effective annual rate of 6.5%. Your retirement benefits paid into the DROP are increased by the 3% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) each July 1. (If you have been in DROP for less than a full year on July 1, your first year’s COLA will be reduced accordingly.) When you terminate employment, the proceeds of your DROP account will be distributed to you in one of three ways:

1. By a lump sum payment;
   
   
2. By a direct rollover; or
   
   
3. By a combined partial lump sum payment and rollover.

Death and Disability Benefits - The participant’s FRS designated beneficiary is eligible to receive all accumulated DROP benefits and, depending on the benefit option selected, monthly FRS benefits. Because DROP participants are retired, they are not eligible for FRS disability benefits and their survivors are not eligible for FRS in-line-of-duty death benefits.

Reemployment, Renewed Membership and HIS - At the conclusion of DROP, participants will be eligible to begin receiving the Health Insurance Subsidy, and will be subject to the same reemployment limitations and renewed membership provisions that are applicable to other FRS retirees.