A press release from Government House announced Thursday that the V.I. Department of Finance has made payment of all outstanding contributions to the Government Employees Retirement System.
The payment of approximately $38 million, including interest and fees, to GERS is in accordance with a proposal submitted in March to the pension system and V.I. District Court, the release states.
At the time of a May 5 budget hearing, outstanding payments totaling about $15 million were owed from November 2017 onward.
The latest payment brings the V.I. Government up to date on its obligations to GERS, but on its own does not extend the life of the failing pension system past some time around 2024, when it is scheduled to reach insolvency.
According to the release, the repayment of the outstanding contributions is unrelated to the issue of the Actuarially Determined Employer Contribution (ADEC), which has not been appropriated in any V.I. Government budget for over 20 years.
The V.I. Government and GERS are disputing whether the ADEC was part of the 1984 consent judgment that required the payment of employee and employer contributions. Although the issue is currently pending in District Court, the parties will submit legal briefs on the issue by Friday, July 13 in preparation for a court hearing scheduled for Aug. 24.
In June, Gov. Kenneth Mapp submitted a bill to the Senate to increase the government’s contribution to GERS over the next three years and increase the contribution of its members whose salaries are higher than $65,000. If enacted, the administration projects these measures will extend the life of the pension system by about a year.
