The Long Pension Process for Retired Teachers
--
“The Government is eager to collect from you, but the Government will not be eager to pay you when they owe you,” said retired teacher, Linston Colley, who for the past three years has been trying to get his pension.
Although Colley started the pension process in 2019, the first real sign of development came in October 2020 after he wrote a letter to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education. He was called to the Education Ministry on October 27 and was told that they would try to locate his file.
On the 30th of the same month, Colley’s file was found and on November 8, all his relevant documentation was completed to be sent over to the Ministry of Finance for payment. Colley visited the Finance Ministry on February 3, 2021, after not receiving any updates about his case and was told the Ministry received his file from December 20, 2020.
“The file that they claimed they submitted on the 30th of December, I [had] signed off on [on] the 8th of November. So, it took them 52 days from the Ministry of Education to take my file over to the Ministry of Finance although, they said they were working to help me out,” a frustrated Colley said.
On that same visit to the Finance Ministry, Colley said he was told he could expect his pension by the end of April 2021. However, on May 19, 2021, approximately a month after he was supposed to start getting his pension, the Ministry of Education mailed his file back to him and on the 26th he received a letter stating his ineligibility for pension with an apology. Colley was not informed about the grounds of his ineligibility for pension.
According to the information provided to Colley by the Ministry of Education, he taught for 15 years, three months and 21 days.
According to part II section IV sub-section I of The Pensions (Teachers) Act, for a teacher to be eligible for pension, he or she must be employed for at least 10 years since the start of or at a later period in teaching service. Then, for those 10 or more years, for at least half of the period between the start of teaching service and the date of retirement, a pension 1/540 of each salary for each complete month of pensionable service will be granted to that teacher. Pensionable service for teachers is between age 18 and 65 years.
DigiTimes spoke with a representative from the Pensions Unit within the Finance Ministry. The representative said according to the old Pensions (Teachers) Act, if the years of a teacher’s service have been broken or if the teacher has not taught for consecutive years, teaching for 18 or more years would be the requirement for pension.
The new Act which came in effect in 2018 considers a teacher eligible for pension once that teacher has 10 years of service, broken or unbroken. Section III subsection IV states that any pension or gratuity granted under the Act shall be calculated in accordance with the provisions in force at the actual date of a teacher’s retirement. The old Act would apply to Colley since the Act was in effect at his retirement.
Based on the provisions of the Act, Colley struggles to understand why he was found eligible for pension by the Ministry of Education and then ineligible by the Ministry of Finance. He is disgruntled about the turn of the events which, after two years since his application, did not turn out in his favour despite being given the impression that it would.
Daisy Smith* retired in January 2020. Despite waiting over a year to get her pension, she said her monthly pension benefits are incorrect.
“I would encourage anybody who’s going into teaching, don’t go…”
“They’re short paying me like $30, 000 for the month and that’s a lot,” said Smith.
Karl Brown*, another pensioner shared a similar concern.
“The things that are on the letters that they give me don’t correspond with the money that I’m getting,” Brown said.
Part IV section 16 of the Pensions (Teachers) Act says a retiree’s pension is calculated using his or her highest pensionable salaries during teaching service.
When the Ministry of Education was contacted about the issue, DigiTimes was directed to the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance was then contacted and DigiTimes was directed back to the Education Ministry. Both Ministries, however, are responsible for calculating and verifying that the monthly pensions that will be sent out are correct unlike the Accountant General’s Department (AGD) that is solely responsible for pension pay-outs.
Brown also had an issue with how long it took for him to start getting his pension. He retired in February 2020 after 37 years of teaching and started receiving his pension benefits close to eight months after his retirement.
“It was so long,” he said about the waiting period.
“I would encourage anybody who’s going into teaching, don’t go because I sit down a little less than a year before they started to make payment.”
Diane Sawyer* officially retired on May 1, 2019, but started getting her pension in October 2021, over two years from the date of her retirement. No specific timeline is outlined in The Pensions (Teachers) Act for how long it will take for teachers to receive their pension. Between the time Sawyer retired and when she started getting her pension, she had health issues and said it was hard to pay for her treatments.
“People would’ve served their country in excess of 20 to 45 years and when it was time for their country to show their appreciation by ensuring that they would be in receipt of their pensions, they had to be waiting three and four years to get this.”
“While you’re a teacher, you’re covered under Sagicor [insurance provider] and you cannot be covered under Sagicor unless you have a number as a pensioner,” she explained.
DigiTimes spoke with a representative from the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) who is privy to the issues retirees are facing.
“Nuh care how you save, you cyah be out of salary for three years. So, imagine a pensioner not in receipt of their monthly pension and they have to use their savings to buy food. These people are old people. So, you know seh dem come with a medical challenge-most of them- and this is another expense and utilities, etc.,” the JTA representative said.
He added, “People would’ve served their country in excess of 20 to 45 years and when it was time for their country to show their appreciation by ensuring that they would be in receipt of their pensions, they had to be waiting three and four years to get this.”
He argued that the months leading up to a teacher’s retirement should be enough time for the Ministries to have pensions ready for when a teacher actually retires.
When Sawyer was asked why it took so long to receive her pension, she said, “Based on what was happening, they were saying my file was moving back and forward from the [Ministry of Education’s] Regional Office to Kingston because whatever they submitted from [the] Regional Office had error[s] when it reached to [the] Head Office. So, they sent it back to them to correct it and [it seemed as though] when they sent it back to correct it, it went to ‘file 13’.”
The error was found in the relevant information needed to calculate her pension and was made by the Ministry, Sawyer said.
“So, when it [the document] went to the person in Kingston who is in charge of the pension department and they checked it, they saw the error and they sent it back down to Region six. It could be a case-because I know that that was happening- [where] when it went back to Region six, it is likely that the person who had done up the document was no longer working there or maybe moved from that section to somewhere else,” she further explained.
Sawyer complained that the lack of a sole employee processing her documents delayed her case.
The JTA representative also expressed his disapproval with how files are dealt with within the Ministries.
“Sometimes these files are incomplete,” he said.
“A member would reach out to us who has retired. I will go to the respective region, and they will say they can’t find the file and because you’re vigilant, they will find the file. I look at the file and I see that there is a note saying the salary breakdown for the three years that the teacher worked at a different school was not done. And can you imagine, these files- if the union was not engaged- would’ve been there languishing and a teacher would be waiting for the pension.”
Another problem that Sawyer raised was that since she started receiving her pension, she has never been sent the accompanying pay slips or pay advices.
DigiTimes spoke with Matthew Rickman, a Client Service Representative in the AGD to find out why Sawyer is having this problem. Rickman said the AGD is responsible for creating pay advices for pensioners. A pay advice is created when a deposit is made to a pensioner’s bank account and is mailed out a week after the deposit is made. Rickman explained that the Central Sorting Office is responsible for distributing pay advices, but with doing so, problems have arisen.
“And it’s a case where we’re unable to find out where exactly the problem lies because there are instances where mails have been either misplaced or just arrive very very late which is all up to the post office,” he said.
Rickman further added that even people who are living in the same area will receive their pay advices at different times.
He also said pensioners will want their pay slips to use as reference for their received payments.
DigiTimes contacted the Central Sorting Office and was told that the issue would have to be addressed and escalated through their Human Resource Department.
At one point, Brown did not receive his pension benefits for three months due to issues he had with submitting his life certificate to the AGD. A life certificate is a form that is mailed out once every three months to every pensioner and is attached to the pay slip for that period. It must be certified by a Justice of the Peace or Pastor and returned to the AGD by post or hand delivery. The life certificate proves to the Department that the pensioner is alive, so that payment can continue.
Rickman explained that the cut-off time for life certificates to be submitted to the AGD is generally from the 4th to the 7th of each month depending on the volume of certificates that come arrive. If a pensioner’s life certificate is not submitted during that general time frame, it is likely that the he or she will not receive any payment for that month and it will then roll over into the next month.
The same JTA representative commented (TRY NOT TO USE CLICHES) on the matter.
“The pandemic has been challenging for our retirees, especially those who don’t have the support financially and otherwise. So, when their life certificates are late and they don’t receive their pension, it is difficult and traumatic,” he said.
The AGD has set up an alternative emailing system so that pensioners can receive their life certificates and pay slips via email.
“Whenever those are mailed out, if they do not receive them in the post, they have the option of getting in touch with us and request for it to be sent to an email address,” Rickman said.
However, no alternative provisions for the submission of life certificates have been made by the AGD. It only recommends that pensioners alert the office in case they are going to have any difficulties submitting their certificates.
In terms of the lengthy wait for some teachers to get their pension, the JTA representative noted that there has been some improvement.
“The Government is moving in the right direction where they have something called ‘MyHR+’ which is trying to work these things [calculations] out in terms of not using manual calculations which is very long.”
Calculating how much each retiree is supposed to get for his or her pension is one of the time-consuming tasks in the process.
*Names changed upon requests for anonymity
