“I asked them to join me in my efforts to ask the Social Security to perform a review and analysis on what it would take for us to, and how much it would cost us, to get back the government employees into the Social Security system,” said Sablan who met with Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, Speaker Arnold I. Palacios and Senate President Pete P. Reyes yesterday morning.
Since 1986, all local government employees have joined the Retirement Fund’s pension program known as the Defined Benefit or the DB plan.
In 2007, the Fitial administration signed the measure creating the Defined Contribution or DC plan which reduced the employer’s contribution of the cash-strapped government.
In his letter to the governor, Sablan said he wants to “suggest what may be at least a partial remedy for some of those who are members of the” Retirement Fund.
“The first are those already receiving retirement benefits. The second are those still working in government, many of whom have years ahead of them before they would be eligible to retire. It is an improvement in the situation of this second class I want to address. Financial planners often describe a secure retirement as a three-legged stool, dependent on income from personal savings, from an employer pension, and from the United States Social Security program.”
He added, “Early on, the commonwealth opted to remove its employees from Social Security, leaving their financial security perched on two legs. I would like to suggest that it may be time to reconsider that decision, which has left Commonwealth government employees without the protection of Social Security.”
Sablan said he has already met with Social Security officials “to discuss the feasibility of reinstating Social Security coverage to those working for the commonwealth.”
He said he was assured that “this is something that has been done in other situations and could be done for the employees of the commonwealth.”
Sablan admitted, however, that “there is much work to do to examine what would be required of the commonwealth government and of its employees in order to give them the benefit of being part of the Social Security system.”
