Igisomar wants two programs transferred from Fund

NMI Retirement Fund wants to focus its attention in running the Defined Benefit plan, but it could only do so if the pension program is no longer responsible for the Workers Compensation Commission and the Group Health Life Insurance Program.

Fund board chair Sixto K. Igisomar described the WCC and GHLIP as non-DB matters that should be transferred to other agencies like the Department of Commerce and Office of Management and Budget. Igisomar is the acting commerce secretary.

Igisomar said the plan to transfer the two programs has been on the table since the administration of former Fund chair Juan T. Guerrero.

He added the plan to transfer the programs is in no way in anticipation of the pension plan’s collapse.

The Fund’s former actuarial consultant, Buck Consultants, earlier predicted that the pension program may only last up to three years if no new money comes into the investment fund, which currently has only $261 million.

“Since the time of former chairman [Juan T. Guerrero], we’ve been pushing to have all these ancillary services assigned to the Fund to be removed from us so the Fund can focus only on the DB plan and there were pending bills on those. With the creation of the Senate task force, to be chaired by Sen. Jovita Taimanao (Ind-Rota), we will continue to push for the removal of these non-DB matters,” Igisomar told Saipan Tribune.

Saipan Tribune learned that the Fund wants the GHLIP transferred to either the Department of Finance or the Office of Personnel Management while it recommended the transfer of WCC to the Department of Commerce.

For the Fund, Commerce is the appropriate government entity to administer the functions of the Workers Compensation due to its status as a permitting and enforcement agency to ensure compliance with the Workers Compensation Law, and to facilitate the implementation of “one-stop business processing” procedures.

According to Igisomar, because these two programs were assigned to the Fund, these also impact the operational budget of the agency because of the added services and task. In previous meetings of the Fund, trustees expressed frustration on the “problems and blames” they received for GHLI program, which ultimately is not the Fund’s responsibility.