The first question is how much is your income (either salary or the 90% pension)? If that alone gets you to an EFC oer $20k, it really doesn’t make a lot of difference if your EFC goes up to $30k for that first year. If you aren’t going to get any need based aid based on your salary/pension alone, it doesn’t matter that much if you have a lot of liquid assets.
If your EFC with your 90% pension (using your 2018 taxes, for example) is under $6k, and you don’t use any of the 401k which would increase your income, then yes, you’d want to reduce your liquid assets, probably by paying the $150k sitting in an account toward the mortgage. Your income is considered from the prior tax year (use 2017 for the FAFSA you’d file in October 2018), but the assets are considered as of the date of filing.
If she’s picking schools that require CSS, your planning might be different.
I don’t see how a financial planner could help with FAFSA planning. They usually don’t know more than CC posters.