What Florida Public Employees Should Understand Before Submitting Their Paperwork
The central question: Which decisions become fixed when you enter DROP, and how should those decisions fit into the rest of your retirement strategy?
Prepared by Shalita Shantae
Certified Pension Planner | The Millionaire Portfolio Group
Updated August 27, 2026
If you are a Florida public employee approaching retirement, DROP may sound straightforward: retire on paper, keep working, and allow your pension payments to accumulate while you continue receiving a salary. But DROP is not merely a retirement date or an account balance. Entering DROP is a retirement event that fixes several important pension decisions.
That is why the right time to ask questions is before you submit the paperwork – not after the first pension benefit has been credited to DROP.