By Tristan Hallman, includes “… Previously, DROP allowed veteran police and firefighters to retire on paper while they stayed on the job. The pension checks they would have received were then credited to an individual account, allowing those in DROP to build up a lump sum to supplement their monthly pension checks when they actually did call it quits. Hundreds of police and firefighters became millionaires from DROP because it also guaranteed compound interest rates of at least 8 percent for years. Such benefits, combined with heavy investments in risky and overvalued real estate, put the fund on a fast track to insolvency.”