Legislature warned vs passing ‘anti-Fund bills’

The incoming Legislature is warned from passing bills that would be “counterproductive” to the government’s retirement system.

“The Fund is trying to do the best it can to make the retirement system fiscally strong, but [pieces of] legislation that are sometimes not thoroughly reviewed are hurting the agency,” said NMI Fund board chair Joseph Reyes. “We hope that the Legislature would be more mindful and fully understand pension obligations, retirement benefits system.”

He cited the recent passage of a law that exempts the Public School System from paying the increased retirement contribution for five years as a classic example.

“I really don’t know how the legislators justify that, and it would be interesting to find out how they did come up with it,” said the chairman.

As for the 30 percent early retirement bonus, he said that, although there is a law that provides for it, “there is no law that says you have to pay 30 percent now or in 10 days.”

About 200 government employees have retired from service this year to avail themselves of the early retirement bonus, which lasts only up to the end of this month.

More importantly, though, Reyes said the immediate challenge facing the Fund is the government’s payment of pension to retirees this week.

As of Friday last week, there was a $1.4 million shortage for pension checks that are for release on Dec. 30.

“If we don’t have it, we’re screwing up people’s lives as they need it to put food on the table, pay mortgages, tuition, loan, death expenses, you name it. I want these elected officials to know that and really just understand pension plan. Given where we are now, we are putting the Fund in jeopardy, not only on the financial side but also its status as a pension plan before the federal government and the Internal Revenue Services,” said Reyes.

He said the NMI Fund is quite different from other government agencies.

“We are very, very different from any government agency when it comes to pension plan. If you screw it up, you’re screwing up people’s lives and jeopardizing your standing before the federal government,” he said.

Meantime, the Fund said that since 1998, it stopped receiving cost of living allowance remittances from the $2 million appropriation through Public Law 8-31.

P. L. 8-31, which was enacted in 1994, mandates the release of $2 million a year for three items: retirees’ COLA, special annuity for the past governors and lieutenant governors, and life and health insurance programs.

In the absence of such appropriation, the Fund said that it is using the active members’ contribution to pay off the retirees’ pension.