Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS): there is no general COLA for most current retirees: only pre-1990 retirees get a guaranteed “November Dividend” base, and only Sheriffs (from 2024) and Protection Occupations members (from 2026) get an automatic 1.5% compounding increase. Service credit can be purchased, and no DROP was found. Regular Members hired on or after July 1, 2012 vest after seven years (28 quarters) of service, or at age 65 while still working in covered employment.
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? | Narrow: not a general benefit for most current retirees |
|---|---|
| Is the COLA compounded? | Compounding for the two newest 1.5% cohorts only |
| Vesting | 7 years (28 quarters), or age 65 while covered |
| Buy service credit? | Yes |
| DROP? | None found |
| State | Iowa |
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
IPERS is unusual among the systems on this page: most current retirees get no general COLA at all. Pre-July 1, 1990 retirees get a guaranteed “November Dividend” (13th check) base under Iowa Code section 97B.49F(1), with an optional multiplier “applied only if IPERS’ actuary certifies that the increase can be supported by current contribution rates.” Post-1990 general Regular Member retirees instead depended on a separate Favorable Experience Dividend: “The final FED payments were made in January 2014, exhausting the FED account.” It has not resumed since. Two narrow new cohorts do get an automatic COLA: Sheriffs/Deputy Sheriffs retiring on or after July 1, 2024, and Protection Occupations members retiring on or after July 1, 2026, both get “a 1.5% annual compounding cost-of-living adjustment.”
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
IPERS lets members purchase active-duty U.S. military service (if not receiving military disability benefits instead), non-regular military service with retirement pay, and (if the member returns to covered employment within one year of discharge) free military service credit. A refunded-service buy-back is also available, with “a credit against the actuarial cost” for qualifying pre-1998 refunds from a member who was vested at the time and returned to covered employment before July 1, 1998.
Run your own numbers before deciding: some purchases never recover their cost, and the calculator shows which.
Vesting
“As of July 1, 2012, regular members become vested after accruing seven years (28 quarters) of service, or are at least 65-years-old while working in IPERS-covered-employment, whichever occurs first.” “Prior to July 2012, members vested with four years (16 quarters) of service or when they were at least age 55 working in IPERS-covered employment, whichever happened first.”
DROP
No DROP program appears in the IPERS vesting, dividend, or COLA 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: Wisconsin WRS · New Mexico PERA.
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.