Act now to save your retirement contributions

Dear active employees of the defined benefit retirement plan: If you are like my wife and myself, you pay a good portion of our paycheck every two weeks to the Fund. According to the experts, the Fund has about 3-4 years left until bankruptcy.

What this means: Unless you are on the verge of retirement, you are about to lose your money.

If you are under 15 years in the system, you can get it. To withdraw your money, the Retirement Fund regulations currently state that you must quit for six months in order to be hired again.

Why six months? It is our money, so why do we have to lose our jobs in order to get it?

Maybe they haven’t thought this thing out. You see, it is better for the current retirees to let us take our money out—if they allow us to take it out, they don’t have to budget for our retirement later. Plus, if you are like me, this money is our only retirement savings. That’s right—we have no social security like others in the States.

One hope: Congressman Eli Cabrera introduced a bill in the House to allow us to take our money without having to quit our jobs. He saw the math that the auditors did on reducing liability, he knew it was a good idea: strengthen the current lifespan of the Fund for those currently retired by allowing active employees to leave the system.

The House passed the bill and then it went to the Senate. The Senate made several revisions to the bill. It went back to the House, where the bill was killed.

Things are now moving very slowly. The clerk at the House told me that now each house appoints a “conference committee” of four persons to meet and work out a compromise. Any time limit? No. To date, nearly two months after the bill was introduced, no sign of the first conference meeting.

I don’t know about you, but I am getting the feeling that for some people, it is easier not to act than to do something. Not acting is a double insult to the active employees and the retirees.

Act now to save your money. Just a couple emails or phone calls urging your representatives to roll over your money before they meet to decide. See sidebar.

You can email conference committee members below. Even easier, go to their website, click on House and Senate then Members and click their names to send an email at: http://www.cnmileg.gov.mp/.