Broward Sheriff's Fire Rescue
How to retire from Broward Sheriff’s Fire Rescue
Not the strategy and not the math. This is the paperwork map. Two things here are unusual: a leave rule with a forfeiture clause inside it, and an insurance decision that cannot be reversed once the window closes.
I went through this myself after almost twenty years at Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. The hardest part was never the decision. It was finding out who to call and in what order, because no single office hands you the whole picture.
Start here
Four different organizations control your retirement
Almost every mistake I have seen comes from one wrong assumption, which is that somebody is handling it. Several somebodies are handling pieces of it. They do not talk to each other on your behalf, and none of them will tell you what the others need.
1. Florida Division of Retirement, Tallahassee
Owns your pension. Your retirement application, your option election, your DROP, your service credit and the state Health Insurance Subsidy all live here.
844-377-1888 MyFRS Financial Guidance Line 866-446-93772. BSO Retiree Benefits
Owns your retiree coverage election and the stipend. BSO Employee Benefits also oversees retirement processes on the employer side.
Retiree Benefits 954-831-8355 BSO_RetireeBenefits@sheriff.org BSO Human Resources 954-321-4400 2601 W Broward Blvd, Fort Lauderdale3. Aetna, which is not BSO
You pay your share of the premium directly to the carrier, and the carrier is the one that bills you, sends past due notices and cancels coverage. A billing problem is not an HR problem.
Ask BSO for the current retiree billing contact4. Local 4321 and your 457
The union administers the contract your leave payout comes from. BSO offers a 457(b), and the current provider list is not published publicly, so ask Employee Benefits for it by name.
IAFF Local 4321, 954-587-3333 bcfire.comWrite these four down before you do anything else. Every step below belongs to one of them.
The number that is actually yours
596 hours, and the forfeiture clause nobody mentions
Under Article 21 of the agreement between BSO and Local 4321, a member separating under normal retirement is eligible for a maximum payout of 596 hours of annual leave at separation. That is a real number and a good one. The mechanics around it are where people get hurt.
- Your standing cap is 360 hours. Unused annual leave carried from one calendar year into the next cannot exceed 360 hours, measured at December 31.
- Within one year of retirement or your DROP date you may carry above 360, up to 596, but you have to submit a written request when you decide. It is not automatic.
- If you do not actually go, you retroactively forfeit the excess. Bank hours toward 596, then push your date out a year, and you lose the hours above 360. That is the trap, and it is written into the contract.
- A DROP payout counts against the 596. At DROP election you can be paid up to 500 hours, and the 596 is a lifetime total inclusive of that payout, not 596 on top of it.
- Only 500 hours is pensionable. The state caps annual leave counting toward average final compensation at 500 hours. So the last 96 hours are cash with no pension value attached.
From the ratified agreement effective October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2027. Sick leave payout provisions sit later in the same article in a portion of the published file that is not machine readable, so get the sick leave language and your own balances from the union and from payroll rather than from any website, including this one.
The decision that does not come back
Coverage or stipend, and you only choose once
BSO offers retirees a choice. Stay on the BSO medical plan, or cancel it and take a monthly stipend instead. It is reasonable to want the cash. What you need to understand before you take it is that the door locks behind you.
Three rules that are permanent
A retiree who takes the stipend may not re enroll in BSO medical insurance at a future date. A retiree who declined insurance at the time of retirement is not eligible for the stipend either, so declining at the door forfeits both. And once you cancel coverage you have 30 days from the last day of coverage to rescind the cancellation. After that, it is closed.
To cancel, BSO requires written notice 30 days before the date you want coverage to end, coverage ends at month end, and the stipend begins the first of the following month.
How the stipend is calculated, and why it shrinks in real terms
It is not a flat dollar amount. It is 2 percent per year of BSO service, applied to the HMO premium rate at the coverage level you were carrying. BSO's own worked example is twenty years with family coverage producing 40 percent of the HMO family rate. Two features matter more than the formula:
- It is locked in at retirement and does not increase annually. Premiums rise every year. The stipend does not. A number that covers a decent share of your premium at 52 covers a thinner share every year after.
- It ends the last day of the month you become Medicare eligible or turn 65, and it does not continue for dependents or beneficiaries after your death.
One Fire Rescue specific point, and an honest caveat
BSO closed the stipend and the related medical discount to employees hired on or after October 1, 2007, except Fire Rescue. As written, Fire Rescue members hired after that date remained eligible where other units did not. That is a meaningful carve out in your favor.
The caveat is the document. BSO's published retiree insurance and stipend material carries revision dates of January 2015 and January 2018, which makes it eight to eleven years old, and the portal pages that would update it sit behind a member login. Confirm the carve out, the current formula and the current rates with BSO Retiree Benefits at 954-831-8355 before you decide anything on the strength of it.
A deadline nobody publishes
Ask for the election deadline in writing, because it is not posted
Florida Statute 112.0801 requires BSO to let retirees continue in the same coverage offered to active employees, at no more than the active premium cost. What the statute does not do is set a deadline for electing it. That comes from BSO and plan rules, and BSO does not publish the number of days anywhere public. The retiree portal pages that would carry it require a login.
So treat this as a question with your name on it. Call Retiree Benefits, ask how many days after your retirement date they must have your election, and ask them to put the answer in an email. Then do it early anyway. Every public employer in Florida I have looked at has a short window here, measured in weeks, and missing it is the kind of mistake that has no appeal.
How the premium actually gets paid
- BSO sends its employer share to the carrier. You pay your share directly to the carrier, and the carrier bills you and cancels you if you fall behind.
- Deduction from your FRS pension check is available through an insurance payroll deduction authorization form, with two traps. You must pay the first month manually, and your account must be at a zero balance by the 12th of the month for the automatic deduction to start the following month.
That zero balance rule is why people end up double paying or getting cancelled in their first two months. Get the form in before your last day and watch the first two statements.
2028
What the county transition actually promises, which is almost nothing
On September 22, 2026 the Broward County Commission voted unanimously not to renew the interlocal agreement under which BSO has run fire rescue since 2003, returning fire rescue to county control at the end of September 2028. Roughly 907 employees are affected. The quote that traveled was Commissioner Lamar Fisher's, that nobody loses their job.
Take that at face value. Then notice what has not been said. As of late October 2026, no public document from the County or BSO commits to carrying over accrued leave balances, service seniority, or the retiree stipend. The County has said staff will inventory contracts and coordinate with unions. That is a process commitment, not a benefits commitment.
The timing problem
Your contract expires September 30, 2027. The handover is September 30, 2028. That means the successor agreement, the one being negotiated in the next year, is the document that will actually carry your leave balances and your retiree benefits across the transition. Not this one.
Broward County is itself an FRS employer, so Special Risk membership would be expected to continue without a break, and your pension is the part of this least likely to be disturbed. Your 596 hours and your stipend eligibility are a different story. If you are within a few years of a decision, put those questions to your local in writing now, while they are still negotiable rather than announced.
The paperwork
Every state form, by number
You are in FRS Special Risk, so your pension paperwork is identical to every other FRS firefighter in Florida. These are the actual Division of Retirement form numbers. If somebody hands you a packet, check it against this list, because packets go out of date and the wrong version of a form comes back to you with weeks already gone.
| Form | What it does | Who files it |
|---|---|---|
| FR-11 | Application for Service Retirement. This is the form that starts everything. | You |
| FRS-11o | Option Selection. Option 1, 2, 3 or 4. This is the survivor decision. | You |
| SA-1 | Spousal Acknowledgment. Your spouse signs that they know which option you picked. | You and your spouse |
| FST-12 | Beneficiary designation for retired members and DROP participants. A different form from the one you filed as an active member. | You |
| FC-1 | Final Salary Certification covering your last four months of salary. Your benefit cannot be finalized without it. | Your employer, not you |
| DP-11 | Application for Service Retirement and DROP. Replaces the FR-11 if you are entering DROP. | You |
| DP-ELE | Notice of Election to Participate in DROP and Resignation of Employment. You are signing a resignation. | You |
| DP-TERM | Verifies that you actually terminated on the date you put on the DP-ELE. Miss this and the retirement can be cancelled. | You and your employer |
| HIS-1 | Health Insurance Subsidy certification. The subsidy is not automatic and is not paid until you apply. | You, after you separate |
| FRS-TAR | Termination and reemployment acknowledgment. Read it before you accept any job offer. | You |
The FC-1 is the one most people never hear about, because your employer files it and not you. It covers your last four months of salary, and your benefit cannot be finalized until the Division has it. Ask whether it has been filed, and keep the answer.
Timing
The windows that cost people money
You cannot apply more than six months ahead
The earliest you can apply is six months before you terminate, and the Division generally wants the application about three months out. There is no credit for being extremely early.
Retirement is always effective the first day of a month
Your last day on the job does not set your retirement date. The paperwork does. If the Division receives your application before you terminate, or within 30 days after, your effective date is the first day of the month after you terminate. If it arrives more than 30 days after you terminate, your effective date becomes the first day of the month after they received it. That is how a firefighter loses a month of pension to a slow envelope.
The eighth of the month
For your first month's benefit to be paid on time, the Division wants everything in hand by the eighth day of the month that contains your effective retirement date. Later than that and the first payment comes retroactively on a following payroll. You still get the money. You just do not get it when you were counting on it.
Benefits are paid on the last working day of each month
Not the first, and not on the pay cycle you have lived on for twenty years.
The option election becomes permanent fast
Your choice on the FRS-11o locks the moment you cash or deposit a benefit payment, including a direct deposit you never touched, or the moment DROP participation begins. That is the survivor decision, and it is the one your spouse lives on if you go first. Model it in dollars with them in the room before you sign it.
If you are entering DROP
What changed in 2023, and what the forms require
A lot of what circulates in the stations about DROP is the old version of the rules. Under the 2023 changes, DROP participation can run up to 96 months, and accounts accrue at an effective annual rate of 4 percent, compounded monthly, for DROP beginning on or after July 1, 2023. Normal retirement for Special Risk is being vested at age 55, or 25 years of Special Risk service.
If you are holding a DROP handout that says 60 months or 1.3 percent, you are holding a document written before July 2023. Check the date on anything somebody gives you.
- File the DP-11 and the DP-ELE together, through the department, and understand that the DP-ELE is a resignation with a date on it.
- Get them in by the last working day of the month you intend to enroll. You can submit up to six months before your DROP begin date.
- Settle the leave question before you sign. Entering DROP changes what your leave payout can be.
- File the DP-TERM at the end. If you do not verify termination on the date you put on the DP-ELE, the retirement can be cancelled and the DROP balance put at risk.
Rates, maximums and eligibility come from the statute and can change again. Confirm your own numbers with the Division before you commit.
Before you take the check
Part of that leave payout can go into your 457(b) instead
Your annual leave payout can run to 596 hours, and sick leave is paid on top of that. Put those together and the check can be very large, landing in the same tax year as a full year of salary and overtime. Some of it does not have to be taxed this year.
A leave payout is wages, not plan money, so it is not a rollover. It has to be deferred before it is paid, and for a 457(b) the election has to be in place before the first day of the month the money is paid. If your payout lands in an August check, the form is due by July 31. That one deadline is where this falls apart for most people.
It is also capped. For 2026 the limit is $24,500, plus $8,000 at age 50 or older, or up to $49,000 total if you qualify for the special catch-up in the three years before normal retirement age. And deferring saves federal income tax, not Social Security and Medicare.
Before you take another job
The six month rule ends more second careers than people expect
After you retire you must have no employment with any FRS participating employer for six calendar months. Not reduced employment. None. That includes unpaid work, OPS or temporary work, and work performed for an FRS employer through a third party or a contractor. If you are a DROP participant, the clock starts the calendar month after your DROP termination.
Violate it and your retirement can be voided, and you and the employer can be required to repay every benefit received, including a DROP payout. After six months there is no restriction on working for an FRS employer, though you cannot rejoin FRS or earn new FRS benefits. Work for a private employer or a non FRS public employer does not affect your pension at all.
Florida has a lot of FRS employers, and the one offering you a job may be one of them without either of you realizing it. Call the Division at 844-377-1888 and confirm before you sign, not after you start.
The order of operations
If you are going straight out
- Six to twelve months out. Request a formal benefit estimate from the Division for more than one separation date. Pull your leave balances from payroll in writing. Price your retiree coverage.
- Three to six months out. File the FR-11, the FRS-11o and the SA-1. Choose the option with your spouse, in dollars, before this step and not during it.
- Same window. File the FST-12 so your beneficiary designation as a retiree is current. The one you filed as an active member does not carry over the way people assume.
- Confirm your employer filed the FC-1, by email, and keep the reply.
- Decide coverage or stipend deliberately, not at the counter. Price both, remember the stipend never increases and ends at 65, and remember you cannot re enroll once you take it.
- Submit the insurance payroll deduction authorization, pay the first month manually, and confirm a zero balance by the 12th so the deduction starts.
- After you separate. File the HIS-1 for the Health Insurance Subsidy, which pays $7.50 per month for each year of service, with a minimum of $45 and a maximum of $225, and which is not paid until you apply and show proof of coverage.
- Then, and only then, deal with your 457. There is no deadline forcing you to move it, and a rushed decision here is expensive. Ask for the distribution options and the fees in writing.
If you are entering DROP
- Run the leave math and the DROP math together. They are one decision.
- File the DP-11, DP-ELE, FRS-11o and SA-1 by the last working day of the month you intend to enroll.
- Understand that your option election locks when DROP begins. Not at the end of DROP. At the beginning.
- At the end of DROP, file the DP-TERM and terminate on the date you specified. Then work the insurance and subsidy steps above.
Take this with you
The things only your employer can tell you
- How many days after my retirement date must you have my retiree coverage election, and what happens if it is late? From Retiree Benefits, by email.
- What is my stipend worth per month under the current formula, at my service and my coverage level? And confirm the Fire Rescue carve out still applies to my hire date.
- What are my annual and sick leave balances, what is the current sick leave payout provision, and what is each worth in dollars? From payroll and from Local 4321.
- What is the current approved 457(b) provider list? From Employee Benefits. It is not published publicly.
Ask by email, so the answer exists in writing rather than in your memory of a phone call. If an office will not put an answer in writing, that is worth knowing too.
Sources for this page
- Florida Division of Retirement, Employer Handbook Chapter 9, Pension Plan Service Retirement, and Chapter 15, Glossary of Terms
- Division of Retirement Information Release 2023-230, implementing Chapter 2023-193, Laws of Florida
- MyFRS, Understanding Your Benefits Under the Pension Plan, the forms library and the Health Insurance Subsidy page
- MyFRS, Working After Retirement, FRS Pension Plan, July 2025
- Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Broward Sheriff's Office and IAFF Local 4321, effective October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2027, Article 21
- Broward Sheriff's Office, Retiree Group Health Insurance Benefit and Stipend overview, revised January 2015 and January 2018
- Florida Statute 112.0801
- Broward Sheriff's Office Human Resources and retiree benefits pages
- Broward County Commission vote of September 22, 2026 and County administration briefing of September 29, 2026, as reported by WSVN, Local 10, NBC Miami, CBS Miami and Axios
Plan rules, contract terms, deadlines and dollar amounts change. Where a source could not be verified, this page says so rather than filling the gap. Confirm everything with the office that controls it before you act on it.
Related
The rest of it
Questions about your own numbers
I went through this process myself
I am Mark Buckley, retired Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. I wrote Beyond The Firehouse because these questions kept coming up in station kitchens and union halls and there was no plain language book that answered them for the fire service. If something on this page raised a question about your own situation, reach out. No cost, no pitch.
mark.buckley@prudential.com
305-608-2690