Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana (TRSL): the COLA (called a “Permanent Benefit Increase”) is discretionary, tiered by funding level and gated on board recommendation plus legislative approval, service credit can be purchased, and TRSL runs an open DROP program, up to three years. Vesting takes five years of service credit.
Louisiana’s school employees’ system runs on separate rules: Louisiana LSERS retirement decisions.
Other Louisiana systems run on their own rules: Louisiana LASERS retirement decisions, Louisiana Sheriffs’ Pension retirement decisions and Louisiana Parochial Employees’ Retirement decisions.
Louisiana firefighters belong to a separate statewide system with its own rules: Louisiana Firefighters Retirement System decisions.
Louisiana municipal police officers belong to a separate system with its own rules: Louisiana MPERS retirement decisions.
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 (Permanent Benefit Increase, board- and legislature-gated) |
|---|---|
| Is the COLA compounded? | Not stated |
| Vesting | 5 years of TRSL service credit |
| Buy service credit? | Yes |
| DROP? | Yes, open, up to 3 years |
| State | Louisiana |
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
“A PBI is a permanent benefit increase, commonly referred to as a cost-of-living adjustment or COLA.” It is payable to eligible retirees and beneficiaries on July 1, subject to TRSL Board recommendation and legislative approval, provided there are sufficient funds in the TRSL Experience Account, which holds funds dedicated to PBIs. It applies only to a capped slice of the benefit: “PBIs are calculated only on the first $60,000 of the retiree’s annual retirement benefit.” This limit itself rises each year by the increase in the CPI-U for the preceding year, if any. The percentage granted is tiered by TRSL’s funded ratio and investment return, from none below 55% funded up to the lesser of 3% or CPI-U at 85%+ funded with an 8.25%+ return year; no PBI was granted in 2023, 2024, or 2025. A separate, member-elected option exists outside the ad hoc PBI: the Annual COLA Option lets a retiring member accept an actuarially reduced benefit in exchange for “a self-funded, guaranteed annual 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment.”
Buying service credit
TRSL purchasable service includes refunded service credit, sick and annual leave, legal and sabbatical leave, substitute teaching, involuntary furlough or strike, local/state public employment, non-TRSL charter school service, in-state private school and out-of-state public school teaching, and military/USERRA service. Most purchases require a nonrefundable actuarial calculation fee (“$200” as of January 2024, “$50” for each additional calculation) and payment by lump sum or rollover, except military and USERRA purchases, which allow installments over up to 36 months.
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.
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Vesting
“With five years of TRSL service credit, you are vested and may be eligible for the following valuable TRSL benefits:” survivor benefits for your family, a deferred retirement option that lets you leave your contributions with TRSL and apply once you reach eligibility age, and disability retirement for members who become permanently disabled while actively employed and meet eligibility requirements. A separate 10-year threshold applies only to disability-retirement eligibility for members who joined any Louisiana public system after January 1, 2011, not to standard vesting.
DROP
TRSL’s DROP is real and currently open, not closed: “DROP is an optional program that allows you to freeze your regular monthly retirement benefit and have it deposited into a separate account, while still working and drawing a salary from a TRSL-reporting agency or school… You can participate in DROP for up to three years, starting on the date you first become eligible to enter the program.” A separate, mutually exclusive option, the Initial Lump-Sum Benefit, is available only to members who have not used DROP.
DROP is rarer than it appears across the systems on this site: most have none.
Benefit options and the beneficiary election
TRSL lets a retiring member pick how the monthly benefit is split between the member and a beneficiary. TRSL puts it this way: “You can choose from eight benefit options when you retire.” The page adds that “The option you select will determine how your retirement benefit will be distributed to you and your beneficiaries”. The choice has a firm end point: “The retirement option cannot be changed once the Affidavit of Retirement Option Election has been processed” or the effective date of retirement or DROP participation has passed, whichever is later. TRSL also states “Only Option 1 allows beneficiary changes.”
The Maximum Option pays “Member receives largest possible monthly benefit”. The trade is stated in the same row: “There is no beneficiary benefit”, and “All benefits cease at death.” Only the member contributions not yet paid out in monthly benefit or in DROP deposits and interest are due the member’s estate. Option 1 pays the member “a monthly benefit slightly less than Maximum Option”, and the beneficiary receives a lump-sum payment “reduced by the amount of benefits the member received before death”. TRSL notes that Option 1 may not be selected if the member takes the Initial Lump-Sum Benefit, and that more than one beneficiary may be named.
The remaining options are the lifetime options. For these, TRSL says “only one beneficiary can be named, and that beneficiary may not be changed”. The benefits “are actuarially reduced from the Maximum Option benefit based on reduction factors determined by your age and the age of your beneficiary”. Option 2 pays the beneficiary “same lifetime benefit member received”. Option 3 pays the beneficiary “lifetime benefit equal to one half of benefit amount member received”, and TRSL describes the Option 3 member benefit as “greater than Option 2 or 2A benefit”. Option 4 lets the member designate the beneficiary’s lifetime amount, “not to exceed Option 2 benefit amount”, with the member benefit set by “the cost of the amount member designates for beneficiary”.
Options 2A, 3A and 4A are the pop up versions. In each, if the beneficiary dies before the member, the reduced benefit pops up to the Maximum Option. TRSL describes the Option 3A member benefit as “greater than Option 2 or 2A benefit but less than Option 3 benefit”. For the general trade-off between a single life and a survivor annuity, see single life versus joint and survivor pension.
A computed example from an assumed $2,000 monthly benefit received by the member under Option 3, not a TRSL figure, shows the half rule. The beneficiary lifetime benefit is a computed $2,000 divided by 2, which is a computed $1,000 a month. TRSL gives no reduction factors on the page read, so the example cannot show what the member gives up to get Option 3.
| Item | Figure | Where TRSL states it |
|---|---|---|
| Number of benefit options | eight | TRSL benefit options page |
| Beneficiary share, Option 3 and 3A | one half of the member benefit | TRSL benefit options page |
| Beneficiary share, Option 2 and 2A | same as the member benefit | TRSL benefit options page |
| Beneficiaries who can be changed | Option 1 only | TRSL benefit options page |
What the pages read do not state: the actual reduction factors for any option, the dollar cost of the Option 4 designation, or how Option 1 lump sum is calculated beyond “several factors”. TRSL says the Affidavit of Retirement Option Election and its checklist govern the election.
Sources for this section:
- Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, www.trsl.org benefit-options: https://www.trsl.org/members/your-retirement/benefit-options
- Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, www.trsl.org how-do-i-get-a-refund: https://www.trsl.org/members/your-retirement/how-do-i-get-a-refund
Taking a refund of contributions
Louisiana teachers who leave service can take their own contributions back instead of leaving them with the system. TRSL says “Upon permanent termination of employment in any eligible position covered by TRSL, a member may request a refund of the retirement contributions he or she made to TRSL.” What a refund does and does not return is stated in plain terms: “Refunds include only member contributions, not employer contributions or interest.”
The refund is all or nothing. TRSL says “Refunds must be for the total amount of member contributions.” It adds “Partial withdrawals are not allowed, and a refund cannot be borrowed or pledged against debt.” The cost to the member is the end of the membership: “Once a refund is made, membership in TRSL is terminated and service credit is canceled.” For the broader refund versus leaving-it question, see pension refund versus leaving it. Tax treatment is flagged by TRSL: “Refunds of member contributions are subject to applicable IRS rules and regulations.” The page points to a Special Tax Notice Regarding TRSL Payments.
Timing and paperwork differ by length of service. For members with under five years of service credit, the member completes Application for Refund (Form 7) and submits it to the former employer, and TRSL says “By law, the former employer cannot certify the refund application until 90 days after the date of resignation or termination.” For members with five or more years, the same Form 7 route applies, and TRSL will mail a Request for Refund Rather than Retirement Benefit (Form 7E). TRSL says that form “will include an estimate of the lifetime benefit you would be eligible to receive if you do not refund your member contributions”. Once paperwork is in, TRSL says it “is typically processed within two weeks” and “Refunds are issued twice a month on the 5th and the 20th.”
The five year point matters for a second reason. TRSL states that members with at least five years of service credit can leave their contributions with TRSL and be eligible to apply for a retirement benefit on the first of the month after their 60th birthday, or the 62nd birthday for those with membership on or after July 1, 2015. For a retiree who returns to work, a separate Retiree Refund Application (Form 7A) is described, with no required 90 day wait, but the refund is made only after re-employment ends and all employer contribution reports have been received.
| Item | Figure | Where TRSL states it |
|---|---|---|
| Service credit threshold for the leave-it option | 5 years | TRSL refund page |
| Waiting period before employer can certify | 90 days | TRSL refund page |
| Typical processing after paperwork | two weeks | TRSL refund page |
| Refund issue dates | 5th and 20th of the month | TRSL refund page |
| Earliest benefit age, membership before July 1, 2015 | 60 | TRSL refund page |
| Earliest benefit age, membership on or after July 1, 2015 | 62 | TRSL refund page |
What the pages read do not state: a dollar figure or formula for the benefit estimate on Form 7E, the tax withheld on a refund, or the rollover rules for a refund. No computed example is shown because TRSL gives no formula for the refund amount beyond the member’s contributions.
Sources for this section:
- Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, www.trsl.org benefit-options: https://www.trsl.org/members/your-retirement/benefit-options
- Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, www.trsl.org how-do-i-get-a-refund: https://www.trsl.org/members/your-retirement/how-do-i-get-a-refund
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
- TRSL purchase service
- TRSL DROP program
- TRSL Permanent Benefit Increase
- TRSL Member Handbook, Regular Plan and Plan B
Read September 3, 2026.
Related public pension systems: Oregon PERS · Connecticut SERS.
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.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Alabama RSA: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Colorado PERA: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Connecticut TRB: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Iowa IPERS: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Kentucky KERS: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Kentucky KTRS: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Maryland MSRPS: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Minnesota PERA: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Missouri MOSERS: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.
Comparing plans across states or systems? Missouri PSRS: COLA, Vesting, Buyback and DROP answers the same COLA, vesting and buyback questions for that pension.