Rep. Angel A. Demapan (R-Saipan) has introduced legislation aimed at protecting retirees\u2019 pensions pursuant to the Settlement Agreement approved by the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. House Bill 19-178 seeks to establish the Settlement Fund Revolving Fund Account to ensure and protect future payments to the CNMI Retirees by reserving a specified amount from Business Gross Revenue Tax collections.<\/p>\n
\u201cFunds deposited into this special account shall be exclusively used to pay the minimum annual payment pursuant to the Final Amended Stipulation and Settlement Agreement in the NMI District Court Case 1:09-cv-00023,\u201d said Demapan.<\/p>\n
Demapan pointed out that the Settlement Agreement in the NMI District Court Case 1:09-cv-00023 details that after fiscal year 2015, the CNMI has agreed to make minimum annual payments to the Settlement Fund sufficient to enable the Settlement Fund to pay 75 percent of Class Members\u2019 Full Benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the CNMI fails to make its annual payments, the Court may enforce a Consent Judgment for the full amount of money the CNMI owes the Class Members,\u201d added Demapan. \u201cThis legislation will provide the safeguard to ensure that funds are secured and paid to the Settlement Fund before general appropriations are enacted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demapan also noted that the Legislature, this past February, passed legislation to protect the payment of the 25 percent portion of retirees\u2019 pensions, but it did not address retirees\u2019 concerns about ensuring that funds are committed annually for the 75 percent portion of their pensions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf enacted, House Bill 19-178 will alleviate the concerns of our retirees and the Settlement Fund as it will provide for the earmark and essentially guarantee that the government will meet its annual payment obligations under the Settlement Agreement,\u201d said Demapan. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rep. Angel A. Demapan (R-Saipan) has introduced legislation aimed at protecting retirees\u2019 pensions pursuant to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,12477,194,9044],"class_list":["post-232134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-consent-judgment","tag-house-bill","tag-settlement-agreement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232134","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}