Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: New Jersey Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund (TPAF): the COLA is suspended by statute and has been since 2011, service credit can be purchased, and no DROP was found. Vesting takes 10 years of service credit.
Provisional. This page is published at medium confidence. The specific points that could not be confirmed are listed under What could not be verified below, and are named rather than smoothed over.
The verdicts
| Is the COLA granted? | Suspended since 2011 |
|---|---|
| Is the COLA compounded? | Not applicable (suspended) |
| Vesting | 10 years of service credit |
| Buy service credit? | Yes |
| DROP? | None found |
| State | New Jersey |
Those first two rows are separate questions and are routinely confused. Whether you get an increase at all is one thing; whether it compounds is another. A system can grant an increase automatically every year and still compute it against your original benefit forever, which is a materially worse deal than it sounds.
The COLA
Identical mechanism and statute to PERS: N.J.S.A. 43:3B-2, the Pension and Health Benefit Reform Law, suspended Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLA) for retirees of all retirement systems, with no reduction to any COLA increases already added to retiree benefits before June 28, 2011, the law’s effective date. Reinstatement is gated on the same Pension Committee / 75%-to-80% funded-ratio test.
Buying service credit
TPAF members can purchase temporary/substitute service, leaves of absence, former membership service, up to 10 years of out-of-state or U.S. government service, military service before enrollment (a qualifying military veteran may purchase up to an additional five years of military service rendered during periods of war, for an aggregate of 15 years of service outside New Jersey across Out-of-State, Military, and U.S. Government Service), USERRA service, and local NJ retirement system service. The NJDPB bases the cost of a purchase on the member’s nearest age when the application is received, the higher of current annual salary or highest fiscal year salary posted to the account, the amount of service being purchased, and whether the purchase is a shared-cost or full-cost purchase. Military-before-enrollment, U.S. government, and local-system service are the three categories statute exempts employers from co-funding.
Run your own numbers before deciding: some purchases never recover their cost, and the calculator shows which.
Coordinate this with your overall retirement plan
An adviser can help weigh a COLA that may not compound, a service-credit purchase that may never pay for itself, or a DROP election against the rest of your retirement plan, but that does not replace the numbers in your own member statement.
Before you start, what actually happens. The form is run by Kapitalwise, our advisor-matching partner. Kapitalwise sends your details to advisers who pay for the introduction, so expect calls and texts. Clear Money Guide is paid when you submit the form, whether or not you hire anyone. The matching service is free to you and there is no obligation to hire anyone.
The Kapitalwise form opens here. You stay on this page.
What happens when you press the button
It requests contact details and phone verification by text. Nothing loads and nothing reaches Kapitalwise until you press the button. Submitting the form does not guarantee an adviser or a match. This matching form is not tax or legal advice.
Vesting
“You are vested in the TPAF after you have attained 10 years of service credit. Being vested in the TPAF means that you are guaranteed the right to receive a retirement when you reach normal retirement age.” Normal retirement age runs 60 to 65 by the same five-tier enrollment-date schedule as PERS.
DROP
No DROP program appears in the TPAF member guidebook or active-member pages reviewed this session. This is an absence-of-evidence finding, not a TPAF statement denying a DROP.
DROP is rarer than it appears across the systems on this site: most have none.
What could not be verified
REFUND TERMS: this page does not state what happens to your contributions if you take a refund instead of leaving your account with the system: that comparison was not independently researched for this system this session, and is left as an open gap rather than guessed from another system’s rule. Consult your own plan’s refund/forfeiture terms before deciding. Any additional field marked “not stated” in the verdicts table above was genuinely absent from the official materials read, not omitted for space.
Sources
- NJ TPAF Member Guidebook
- NJ Pension and Health Benefit Reform, 2011
- NJ Division of Pensions Fact Sheet #1
Read September 3, 2026.
Related public pension systems: North Carolina TSERS · Virginia VRS.
General information drawn from each system’s own official published materials, not legal, tax or financial advice. Vesting, COLA and buyback rules are set by state statute and plan tier, differ materially by hire date, and can change by future legislation. This page cannot see your own member statement, which governs. We are not a law firm, a tax adviser, or a fiduciary, and this is not personalized advice.