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Dec. 30 pension funds still inadequate
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Posted on Dec 27 2005
The NMI Retirement Fund remains short of funds to pay off retirees’ pension this week.
Fund administrator Karl T. Reyes said they still need $1.4 million to fully pay the Dec. 30 pension obligations.
“We have not gotten the money. We need to have it by tomorrow [Wednesday] to transfer electronically. It should be in two days before Dec. 30 to ensure they [pensioners] get it on time,” said Reyes.
He said the Fund needs a total of $2.3 million for the last pension payment of the year.
The Fund has some 2,000 member retirees. Retirees receive a minimum of $6,000 a year or $500 every month.
The CNMI government does not provide any maximum limit to the pension payment. Right now, the Fund said that the highest paid retiree gets $162,000 a year. This was recently increased to about $168,000 due to the 2 percent hike in the cost of living allowance this year.
In 2006, when the COLA rate is raised to 4 percent, the retiree would be getting some $171,000 a year in pension payments or over $3,200 every 10 days.
The Fund declined to reveal the identity of the retiree. Sources said, though, that the retiree comes from the Judicial Branch of government.
Mostly people in the medical and legal profession receive over $100,000 in annual compensation.
Meantime, Reyes said that the highest pension claim would continue to rise unless the government sets a limit to it.
“We asked the Legislature to set a maximum limit in the law [Public Law 13-60] but they didn’t approve it,” he said.
Reyes said the Fund asked that the maximum pension be set at $85,000 a year.
The Fund earlier said that, besides one retiree who is getting nearly $200,000, a couple of people are getting over $100,000 and some are getting close to $100,000.
