DeLeon Guerrero bill seeks to allow the NMI Settlement Fund to adjust benefit payments
Senate President Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) has introduced a bill that will allow the NMI Settlement Fund to adjust benefit payments to reflect the correct calculation going forward and to authorize waivers of overpayments of retirement benefits.
This is separate but related to DeLeon Guerrero’s recent filing of a Senate resolution requesting the NMI Settlement Fund to waive the recovery of overpayment of benefits based on “fairness, equity, and good conscience.”
DeLeon Guerrero stated in her proposed legislation, Senate Bill 23-61, that the NMI Settlement Fund has served hundreds of retirees with notices of overpayments and adjustments of retirement benefits after conducting a benefits audit.
She said most, if not all, of the overpayment calculations were made by the former NMI Retirement Fund and through no fault of retirees.
DeLeon Guerrero said the Settlement Fund’s determination to recover overpayments of benefits has adversely shaken the lives of the affected retirees.
The Senate president said the laws of the U.S. government, as well most of the states and territories, provide for waivers of overpayments of various benefits, including social security benefits, state retirement benefits, unemployment benefits, veteran’s benefits, family and medical leave benefits.
DeLeon Guerrero said the general standard for a waiver of recovery of overpayment of benefits is that the individual is not at fault and recovery or repayment is against equity and good conscience.
Senate Bill 23-61 proposes to amend 1 CMC Section 8390 that refers to overpayment or underpayment of benefits to read that “whenever the administrator finds that more or less than the correct amount of benefits have been paid with respect to any individual, proper adjustment shall be made by appropriate adjustments to future payments to the member or any survivors, or from the estate of any recipient of benefits.”
Under the bill, “unless fraud, misrepresentations or concealment of material information was involved in connection with an overpayment, there shall be no recovery of overpayments by the NMI Settlement Fund from any member, any survivors, or from the estate or any recipient of benefits who is without fault and if such recovery would be against equity and good conscience.”
Upon appeal to the NMI Settlement Fund by an affected member of beneficiary, “the Settlement Fund may waive an overpayment if, in the opinion of the Settlement Fund, the individual is without fault and recovery of an overpayment is against equity and good conscience.”
Edith D. DeLeon Guerrero(24).jpg
