The Fitial administration, lawmakers, and retirees strongly oppose \u201cspending hundreds of thousands of dollars more\u201d on legal fees just to appeal the U.S. District Court\u2019s ruling yesterday dismissing the NMI Retirement Fund\u2019s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, even as the administration prepares a state of emergency declaration for the Fund.<\/p>\n
Some lawmakers believe that without such an immediate emergency declaration, the Fund will pursue an appeal and spend more on attorneys\u2019 fees rather than work with the Executive Branch and the Legislature to prolong the pension agency\u2019s lifespan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be wasting more money than what we\u2019re already wasting, paying all these costly attorneys, only for a district court judge to say that the Fund is a government entity,\u201d said Rep. Frank Dela Cruz (R-Saipan).<\/p>\n
Press secretary Angel Demapan said the Fitial administration \u201cwould rather move forward with its plans for the Fund than to see much of the Fund\u2019s assets be drastically reduced because of exorbitant attorneys\u2019 fees.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the administration is \u201cabsolutely not\u201d supporting the Fund\u2019s filing of an appeal, if any.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) said the Fund \u201cshould be immediately placed under emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Fund should not be allowed to appeal. It\u2019s costly, and it\u2019s the retirees and active members\u2019 money that are being used to pay the legal costs. It will deplete faster the Fund\u2019s money. The only people making money here are the attorneys,\u201d Cabrera said.<\/p>\n
He said if and when the Fund is transferred under the Department of Finance or another government entity, the administrative costs and legal fees will be lower.<\/p>\n
While there\u2019s no telling what the governor\u2019s emergency declaration will contain, Dela Cruz hopes it will block the Fund from filing an appeal, and would explain clearly the administration\u2019s plan related to a five-year buyback into the U.S. Social Security system for existing active Fund members and future members, as well as plans for the current retirees, among other things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that EO also contains the latest developments in the ongoing discussions between the administration and the U.S. Social Security, so that everyone would understand and decide whether to fully support the plan or not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos reiterated that the administration plans to declare a state of emergency for the Fund when a final court decision on bankruptcy filing has been rendered.<\/p>\n
Among the administration\u2019s plans beside a buyback into the Social Security is to place the Fund under the Department of Finance, which will continue to disburse retirement pension to retirees, reducing administrative costs. He said the Fund could then also do away with lots of attorneys.<\/p>\n
As of early last night, the administration has yet to issue an emergency declaration for the Fund.<\/p>\n
Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) said it\u2019s \u201cvery unfortunate that we\u2019re sidetracked by the filing of the bankruptcy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow the governor has to take a hand-on approach to the Retirement Fund issue. More than a month later, $475 an hour in attorney\u2019s fees later and hundreds of thousands of dollars in all other legal fees later, we\u2019re still in the same place we were before the filing of the bankruptcy filing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Senate president reiterated that one of the priorities now should be to meet Judge Kenneth Govendo\u2019s June 15 deadline for all parties involved to come up with a solution and legislative initiatives to prolong the Fund\u2019s lifespan.<\/p>\n
Manglona said the administration\u2019s plan to buyback into the Social Security should be continuously explored.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something we support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Manglona said this is just one of the many aspects that need to be addressed, mainly to take care of many active employees and future employees. <\/p>\n
He said another aspect is to prolong the Fund\u2019s lifespan for the retirees. He reiterated his request for the House to pass Senate initiatives and bills that seek to help the Fund, including one that gives 25 percent of government revenues to the Fund, tax rebate cuts, and transferring government assets to the Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not aware of what the governor intends to do with his Fund emergency declaration. I hope that will help reduce the $50 million or so that the Fund withdraws from its investments just to pay pensions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Commonwealth Retirees Association director Diego Benavente, a former lieutenant governor, and speaker, said he\u2019s \u201cmad\u201d and \u201cdisappointed that we wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars\u201d for that bankruptcy filing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes you question the fiduciary responsibility of the Fund board of trustees. I truly believe we wasted a lot of very important funds. I am hoping that the administration\u2014and I believe Lt. Gov. Eloy Inos is in charge of Fund issues\u2014will be able to convince Fund administrator Richard Villagomez and the board members not to appeal the judge ruling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the Fund should instead continue working with the administration and the Legislature.<\/p>\n
Sen. Frank Cruz (R-Tinian), who has been critical of the Fund\u2019s spending on professional service fees, said he does not agree with placing the Fund under a state of emergency but if it is the only way to stop the Fund from appealing the federal court\u2019s ruling, then he will not object.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo more appeal. We should all work together instead of letting lawyers do it for us,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Fitial administration, lawmakers, and retirees strongly oppose \u201cspending hundreds of thousands of dollars more\u201d on legal fees just to appeal the U.S. District Court\u2019s ruling yesterday dismissing the NMI Retirement Fund\u2019s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, even as the administration prepares a state of emergency declaration for the Fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}