How to retire from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue

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Four different organizations control your retirement

Almost every mistake I have seen comes from one wrong assumption, which is that the County is handling it. The County handles part of it. The state handles the part with your pension in it. They do not talk to each other on your behalf, and neither one will tell you what the other one needs.

Write these four down before you do anything else. Every step below belongs to one of them.

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. Earlier than six months is not allowed, so 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 piece of mail.

The eighth of the month

For your first month's benefit to actually 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 is made retroactively on a following payroll. You still get the money. You just do not get it when you were expecting it.

Benefits are paid on the last working day of each month

Not the first. Not on the County pay cycle you have lived on for twenty years. Plan your first few months around that one fact.

The union contract

Your leave is worth more than you think, and less of it is pensionable

This is the Miami-Dade specific piece, and it is where real money hides. Under the agreement between the County and IAFF Local 1403:

• Annual leave accrues to 750 hours and is paid at separation.
• Entering DROP caps the annual leave payout at 500 hours.
• Only 500 hours is reported to FRS as covered wages, which matches the state cap on how much annual leave can count toward average final compensation.
• Sick leave is paid on a service schedule for Special Risk firefighting personnel, rising with years of service, and members retiring after 25 years of full time County employment are eligible for the full balance.
• Sick leave payouts are never FRS compensation. Not one hour of it raises your pension. It is cash, and it is taxed in the year you get it.

The most recent published agreement ran from October 1, 2023 through September 30, 2026. Contract language changes between agreements. Confirm the provisions in the agreement in force on your separation date with the union office and with Fire Rescue Administrative Services, and get the hours and the dollar figures in writing from payroll.

Before you take the check

Part of that leave payout can go into your 457(b) instead

Your annual leave payout can run to 750 hours, and a Special Risk member retiring after 25 years of full time County service is eligible for the full sick leave balance. Put those two 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.

The full rules, the limits and the deadlines ›

The order of operations

If you are going straight out

1. 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 retiree coverage with the Benefits Division.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Confirm the County filed the FC-1. Ask Administrative Services, by email, and keep the reply.
5. Within 30 days of your retirement date, and ideally ten days before it. Submit your retiree insurance election and first premium to the Benefits Division.
6. 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.
7. Then, and only then, deal with your 457. There is no deadline forcing you to move it, and a rushed decision here is expensive. Call your provider and ask for the distribution options and the fees in writing.

If you are entering DROP

1. Run the leave math and the DROP math together, since entering DROP caps the annual leave payout.
2. File the DP-11, DP-ELE, FRS-11o and SA-1 by the last working day of the month you intend to enroll.
3. Understand that your option election locks when DROP begins. Not at the end of DROP. At the beginning.
4. At the end of DROP, file the DP-TERM and terminate on the date you specified. Then follow steps 5 through 7 above.

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