Retirees want Tang replaced as trustee

The newly established NMI Retirees’ Association says it intends to write a letter to the U.S. District Court for the NMI asking if it’s possible to replace current Settlement Fund trustee ad litem Joyce C.H. Tang for someone who is from the Commonwealth

In a statement to the media last week, NMI Retirees’ Association secretary Mariano Taitano expressed his intent to draft a letter to U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge Frances M. Tydingco-Gatewood to replace Tang as the Settlement Fund’s trustee as it would ultimately be more cost efficient to have someone from the CNMI serve as trustee.

“I’m going to recommend to the association that we draft a letter to judge Tydingco-Gatewood and to let her know about this situation. We need to bring to light what’s happening, not only regarding the overtime hours, but also we want to ask the possibility of a replacement for our trustee ad litem. We want to ask if she can appoint someone from here because it costs money [for Tang] to travel here to be with program administrator Lilian Pangelinan if she… needs to be here personally. So, it costs money out of our contributions for her to come here, stay at a hotel, rent a car, on top of that her fee. It would be nice to have someone from here,” he said.

Taitano expressed that there are many qualified individuals on island who can take on this task.

“We have qualified people. There are a lot of issues that we need to address,” he said.

Taitano said it’s important to have a trustee who is on island and available to meet with retirees as there are many important issues that they want addressed.

“For instance, we need to know the situation of the investment portfolio, how the investment is coming along, whether we’re making good progress. If we are making money and the CNMI government is not making any money, then perhaps a compromise can be made that the CNMI government pays 12.5% and the Settlement Fund pays the other half which is about 12.5% which totals to 25% to add to the total 75% the settlement fund is paying out. We want to find out because when this takeover happened years ago, the total invested assets was over $80 million and several years later, I found out it increased to over $100 million. That was many years ago. We want to know the financial situation of the plan because a lot of members have passed on. We need to have a report on the actual standing of the program. Whether or not its obligation is reducing. The doors closed already, there’s no more new members. It is currently set up as ‘pay as you go.’ If we die and there’s no more retirees to pay out, and if there’s still money, what happens to the money?” he expressed.

In addition, the retirees want a trustee who is physically available to address the concerns regarding overpayments that is currently being collected by the settlement fund.

According to a previous article on the Saipan Tribune, the former Retirement Fund, now Settlement Fund, has written letters to a number of retirees who have overtime hours factored into their retirement benefits.

In an interview with retirees last week, they said they are required by the Settlement Fund to pay back anywhere from a few thousand dollars to as high as over $120,000.

Retirees affected told media that many have already been seeing deductions to their pensions and have even had to stop insurance payments just to make ends meet on their current retirement benefits.

Mariano Taitano