A cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is an annual adjustment applied to your retirement income to reflect changes in the economy (inflation). Most DRS retirement plans offer a COLA, but Plan 1 members in PERS and TRS only have a COLA if they selected it during retirement. View the 2025 COLA percentages by retirement date and plan.…
Category Archives: Member
Stay on track with an online retirement check up
Can you live comfortably in retirement? If you don’t know the answer, there’s an easy way to check. From this website you can log in to your online account and use the retirement benefit estimator tool. While you’re employed, you can use your online account to take the following actions: Don’t forget to check your…
School employees: how to time your retirement
Is it better to retire at the beginning of summer or at the end? When it comes to retirement for teachers and school employees, a few months can have a big impact. Before deciding on the month you want to retire, you need to understand how Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLA) and the Public Employees Benefits Board…
Retirees returning to work must wait 30 days
For a lot of people, retirement is a time to sit back and relax, or time to do some traveling. But some retirees like to stay busy by volunteering. They may even decide they want to go back to work after they retire. As a retiree, you can go back to work for a Department…
Accessing your 2024 1099-R form
Looking for your 1099-R form for tax purposes? You can access it by signing in to your retirement account and then selecting the 1099-R link from the main menu. From there you can view or print a copy. Hard copies of the form will be mailed by the end of January. For Plan 3 and DCP members,…
Use your mobile number for account verification
Did you know? Using your mobile number is a more secure option for multifactor authentication (MFA). Close to 60% of DRS customers have not yet added a mobile number for login verification. Access your online account to see whether you’ve added your MFA phone number. Note: Even if the primary phone number on your account…
She’s 14 and already saving for retirement
Violet Ferrier is 14 years old and she’s a Deferred Compensation Program (DCP) customer. You might want to read that again; it’s not a typo. This teenager is serious about her retirement savings. When Violet sent her paperwork to DRS, the office assistant was stymied. She thought there must be a mistake. Surely, there are…
Public Records Request Notification
The Department of Retirement Systems (DRS) has received a public records request from the Seattle Times for information about members of the state’s retirement systems, including retirees and non-retirees, for a one-year period. The Seattle Times has been making this request annually for the past several years, and DRS provides this information to them as…
Sign up for pension-related legislative alerts
If you’re interested in pension-related legislation, sign up below to receive an email alert when we update our Pension-Related Legislation page. We expect to send updates weekly, but we may send more or less frequently depending on how bills move through the legislative process. As part of this list, you might also receive a few…
Plan 3 transfer window open in Jan.
Each January, active members who joined Plan 2 before a certain date have the option to transfer to Plan 3. Plan 3 has two parts: a pension account and an investment account. Your employer pays into your pension fund, while your contributions go into an investment account that you control. Plan 3 rules allow you…
