This was the instruction yesterday of the Fund’s board to the agency’s administrator, Mark Aguon.
Aguon said the board is also asking legislators to take action on Senate Bill 16-36 which will amend Public Law 15-61.
The amendment will allow the Retirement Fund to pay pensions proportionate to the employer’s contributions, he said.
The Senate passed the bill on June 27, and was transmitted to the House on Wednesday, according to House Floor Leader Joseph N. Camacho, R-Saipan.
Aguon said the bill will help address the financial problems of the Retirement Fund and give “relief to potential retirees.”
The bill will allow the Retirement Fund to promulgate a formula, in consultation with its actuarial consultants, to determine the proportionate retirement benefits of members.
Provided, however, that the Retirement Fund receives contributions from an employer that are sufficient to pay the full retirement pension of the retiring employee.
The Retirement Fund will then process the full retirement pensions beginning with retirees who are receiving partial retirement benefits, and new applicants for retirement, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Taotao Tano president Greg Cruz criticized the government’s “irresponsibility and failure to remit its contributions” to the Retirement Fund.
“It is not right that class 2 qualified retires have to bear someone else’s mistakes and failures,” he said.
“What we are dealing here is the people’s livelihood,” he added. “It is highly discriminatory and unjust and it’s a shame that our legislative branch has not acted or prioritized this critical issue. These are human beings not machines and machines do give out when they are overworked.”
From March 2006 through the end of 2007, the government did not pay its employer’s contributions to the Retirement Fund.
The government started paying again during the first quarter of this year, Aguon said.
On Nov. 20, 2007, the Fund’s board stopped processing members’ benefits due to the government’s failure to remit its contributions.
According to the resolution adopted by the board, “the Retirement Fund board of trustees, in upholding their fiduciary duty of protecting the Retirement Fund’s assets for the members’ benefits, intends to direct the Retirement Fund to immediately suspend processing all applications for retirement or any other benefits of any Retirement Fund member with deficient employer contribution.”
