Twenty seven months.......................

[Trooper224]

DROP isn't worth it if you have firm employment opportunities after retirement. Whatever your lump sum payout will be, it will be more than made by a decent paying opportunity. That is of course, if you're planning on working after retirement. The only ones in my agency who've shown interest are the high ranking pencil pushers, as far as I know, no one on the road is interested. That lump sum won't do much for me stretched out over my remaining life and I'll be that much older trying to enter the civilian workforce. No thank you.

[Coyotesfan97]

That's the debate I guess. One of the guys I work with does personal training. He'll get out at 20 and do that full time and make bank. But he knows that and it's part of his financial plan. I'll have a mid six digit lump sum when I get out on top on my pension and deferred comp.

[nwhpfan]

I'm just a couple years into single digits - can't believe how time flies.

[HCM]

For those wondering what D.R.O.P. is : http://benefitsattorney.com/articles/ria/

[Surf]

Retired 10 months ago with 26 years at the age of 48. Most here used to go at 32+ years, max out is at 32 yrs. Now many are going right around the 25 yrs time frame and eager to retire.

I would not have traded my position for any other in the entire agency. Definitely not burned out but it was time to move in other directions professionally. On the plus side I stayed on as a Reserve still assigned to my same unit doing the same thing just for free, but I can come and go more freely.

Having said that, I am more than content with my time spent in civil service but the guys, the nature and excitement of the work our unit does makes it hard to go cold turkey for me so I guess I am weaning myself off the adrenaline drug. I know it will come to a close at some point and I am OK there.

Just remember to have a plan embrace and enjoy life after! The guys / gals that their entire identity revolves around their badge have the tougher time transitioning out of LE. Sounds like you're good!

[Rex G]

DROP isn't worth it if you have firm employment opportunities after retirement. Whatever your lump sum payout will be, it will be more than made by a decent paying opportunity. That is of course, if you're planning on working after retirement. The only ones in my agency who've shown interest are the high ranking pencil pushers, as far as I know, no one on the road is interested. That lump sum won't do much for me stretched out over my remaining life and I'll be that much older trying to enter the civilian workforce. No thank you.

DROP plans vary; some are sufficiently lucrative that it is better to stay, rather than seek a second career elsewhere. Many DROP plans have a finite term, with a mandated exit date, while others do not. Mine is apparently one of the better ones, from my financial standpoint, and with no mandated exit date, for now, though under increasing threat from politicians and "pension reformers," that are becoming envious of the money in the DROP accounts. The city is not matching or subsidizing my DROP account; it is my monthly pension benefit, that would have been sent to me had I left the PD, plus a percentage of my current paychecks, plus the earned tax-deferred interest, so it is vexing, to me, that anyone would want to take it. The money would not be there, had I left at twenty years' of service. (As a taxpayer, I can understand why pension reformers believe that I should not be receiving pension-benefit COLAs while in DROP, and am resigned to the probable reality that we will soon stop receiving COLAs while in DROP, and may even stop receiving COLAs after DROP, while fully retired.)

Before our DROP was created, it was the norm, if starting as a young adult, to retire promptly at twenty years of service, and apply at another PD or SO, or enter the private sector, then work until eligible for both pensions. The present norm, with DROP, for patrol officers, is to stay, and work thirty to about thirty-four years, with some healthier individuals staying longer. (Office-based folks may well work into their sixties, or even beyond.) I am in my thirty-third year, still on night shift patrol, in a big city. My temperament and skill set are not well-suited to office positions, and going to investigations would result in a loss of incentive pay. (Being a patrol photography unit has an investigatory component to it, anyway; I ride a regular "beat" patrol unit, but carry serious personally-owned photo gear, and have added training, so respond to scenes requiring photographic evidence, as an added responsibility.)

[HCM]

$1.6 Million Bill Tests Tiny Town and ‘Bulletproof’ Public Pensions

The showdown in Loyalton is raising the possibility that California’s pension promise is not absolute. There may be government backstops for bank failures, insurance collapses and pensions owed to workers by bankrupt airlines and steel mills — but not, apparently, for the retirees of a shrinking town.

“The State of California is not responsible for a public agency’s unfunded liabilities,” said Wayne Davis, Calpers’s chief of public affairs. Nor is Calpers willing to play Robin Hood, taking a little more from wealthy communities like Palo Alto or Malibu to help luckless Loyalton. And if it gave a break to one, other struggling communities would surely ask for the same thing, setting up a domino effect.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/10...mRWvN-NFA&_rdr

[Rex G]

I am now looking at a 20-year cap on my D.R.O.P., as part of a negotiated pension reform agreement, just approved by city council, which will be presented to the Texas legislature when it convenes in 2017. Officers with less time will limited to shorter terms in D.R.O.P. (The Texas Constitution has the legislature micro-managing many local things, which minimizes the knee-jerk damage local political entities can do, though the legislature is not perfect, either.)

My having to retire at age 62 does not seem so bad, as I doubt I will want to chase bad guys at that age, though I do know a few, such as a K9 sergeant, who are at least that old, quite fit, and still working hard. Actually, I could reset my D.R.O.P. start date, by acting before July 2017, which would enable me to work longer, but that would mean flushing a ton of money back into the pension's general fund, with no guarantee that an incident or accident might end my career before my account could rebuild itself.

So, realisitically, April 2024 is the farthest point of my exit window, but the increasing need to help my aging parents, and wanting to spend time with my grandson, due at the end of 2016, may well prompt me to retire as early as Spring 2017. (Spring starts in February, here on the upper Texas coastal prairie.) Plus, I have, now, reached age 55, which was my idea of the youngest age at which I would want to retire.