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Fund says OPA owes $150K in unpaid contribution
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Posted on Dec 24 2011
By Moneth Deposa
Reporter
Reporter
The NMI Retirement Fund disclosed that the Office of Public Auditor owes the pension agency a total of $150,156 in unpaid employer contributions, an amount the former board of trustees has tried to negotiate by offsetting its law-mandated remittance of 1 percent to OPA.
Fund internal auditor Lilian Pangelinan reported to the board that since 2006, the Fund also failed to remit the 1 percent OPA fee as a result of unclear negotiations with the agency. Its total unpaid obligation now amounts to $46,237 representing fiscal year 2011.
According to Fund officials, the former board of trustees has been negotiating with OPA the possibility of “off-setting” each other’s obligations, but this was never realized for unclear reasons.
Fund trustees believe that the idea of a trade off or “offsetting” is not a good deal for the pension agency because the “employer contribution is not part of operation.”
Board counsels confirmed that the trade off negotiation never happened at all between the two agencies. As a result, board chair Sixto Igisomar instructed Fund administrator Richard Villagomez to come up with its plan, subject to board action in the January meeting. Igisomar also recommended writing to OPA to memorialize “who owes and what.”
Besides OPA, the Fund is also owed employer contribution totaling $38,094,133 from other agencies and departments as of November. Majority of these unpaid contributions was a result of the implementation of several laws that changed the employer contribution rate of some agencies-from zero to 11 percent, to 24 percent, and 37 percent.
