Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: Public School Retirement System of Missouri (PSRS): the COLA is discretionary (the Board of Trustees votes on it each year), and it compounds, service credit can be purchased, and no DROP was found. Vesting takes five years of service.
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? | Discretionary (Board votes annually) |
|---|---|
| Is the COLA compounded? | Compounded |
| Vesting | 5 years of service |
| Buy service credit? | Yes |
| DROP? | None found |
| State | Missouri |
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
“Each year, the PSRS/PEERS Board of Trustees votes on the setting of a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) effective the following January.” It compounds: “Subsequent cost-of-living increases are calculated by multiplying your current monthly benefit amount (at the time of the COLA) by the percentage of COLA increase.” A hard ceiling caps the lifetime total: “COLAs cannot exceed 5% per year and the dollar amount of the COLAs in your lifetime cannot exceed 80% of your original monthly retirement benefit.” A 2% COLA took effect January 1, 2026, the sixth consecutive annual COLA.
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.
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Buying service credit
PSRS purchasable service spans military leave, maternity/paternity leave, non-federal public service, not-for-profit educational service while on leave, part-time certificated service, PEERS-covered forfeited service, private-school employment, Social Security-covered employment (capped at 5 years lifetime if non-qualified), supplemental service and reinstatement of refunded service. For reinstatement, a member who forfeited service by taking a refund can buy back, or reinstate, all or any portion of that service; PSRS provides an individualized cost estimate when membership is established or reinstatement is requested, and the materials reviewed for this system do not state a specific interest rate or repayment formula for that cost. Most other purchases are “formula-based purchases,” with the cost calculated using a formula set by Missouri law; the materials reviewed do not disclose that formula’s specific inputs, and members are directed to the online Service Purchase Calculator for an estimate.
Run your own numbers before deciding: some purchases never recover their cost, and the calculator shows which.
Vesting
“Once you have earned five years of service with PSRS, you are vested and can receive lifetime retirement benefits when eligible.” A vested member who leaves can leave contributions on account instead of taking a refund: “they will continue to accrue interest.”
DROP
No DROP program appears in PSRS’s FAQ, COLA or purchase pages reviewed this session.
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
Read September 3, 2026.
Related public pension systems: Missouri MOSERS · Maryland MSRPS.
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.