WASHINGTON (Interior Department) — The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs announces $739,500 in fiscal year 2021 funding for the Prior Service Trust Fund Administration, which distributes benefits to approximately 700 former employees of the post-World War II, U.S.-administered, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in the Western Pacific.
“We are pleased to be able to provide these funds in support of the many elderly in the islands who still rely on these retirement funds for basic needs,” said OIA Director and Acting Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Nik Pula. The Prior Service Trust Fund administers these funds in support of the United States’ ongoing commitment.”
Employee benefits provided through the Prior Service Trust Fund represent a responsibility assumed by the federal government following the dissolution of the TTPI in 1986.
The program serves beneficiaries with five years or more of prior service.
The four jurisdictions to emerge from the TTPI were the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau.
The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is a U.S. territory. The latter three entities are independent sovereign Pacific Island nations who each share a unique relationship with the United States under a Compact of Free Association agreement.
