ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601070007
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
THE FEDERAL SHUTDOWN has reduced Thomas C. Fuller's $1,000 monthly pension so that the retiree wonders if he'll be able to stay out of a nursing home.
Thomas C. Fuller of Southeast Roanoke worked for the Norfolk and Western Railway - now Norfolk Southern - for half a century, most of that time as a crane operator at the railroad's East End Shops. He retired in 1964.
Fuller, 99, draws roughly $1,000 a month in railroad retirement benefits. But because the budget dispute between Congress and President Clinton has frozen some federal spending, the government cut his Jan. 2 check by $140.
Now Fuller, who pays for an aide to take care of him in his home, is afraid he's going to be forced into a nursing home, his son Ralph said.
Ralph Fuller of Roanoke, also retired from Norfolk Southern, had his own, much larger, retirement benefit cut by about $100. Fuller said he tried to assure his father that the cut is only temporary and that he's in no danger of going to a nursing home.
"He's real upset about it," Ralph Fuller said.
Thomas and Ralph Fuller are among 160,000 railroad retirees or dependents nationwide, 4,500 in Virginia and 1,000 in the Roanoke Valley who received smaller retirement checks this month as a result of the federal budget impasse.
Fred Way, manager of the Railroad Retirement Board's Virginia district office in Roanoke, said his office and satellite offices in Richmond and Norfolk have received hundreds of calls from retirees concerned about the benefit cuts.
His office had been operating short-staffed for a while because of the budget deadlock, Way said, but all employees have been ordered back to work to deal with the calls. They are working without pay until the budget problem is resolved, he said.
Norfolk Southern's payroll department has gotten about 20 calls from retirees and one visit concerning the cuts but has, for the most part, referred them to the government, NS spokesman Bob Auman said.
Nationally, the affected beneficiaries represent 20 percent of the 800,000 retirees and dependents covered by the Federal Railroad Retirement and Unemployment Acts. The federal railroad retirement system is separate from Social Security, which covers most of the rest of the U.S. work force.
Prior to 1974, railroad workers who also had worked at jobs covered by Social Security were eligible to collect both Social Security and railroad retirement benefits. That year, however, Congress passed a law that reduced retirees' railroad benefits by the amount of Social Security benefits to which they were entitled, explained Jim Metlicka, a Railroad Retirement Board spokesman.
To help offset the loss for those who already were due benefits from both retirement plans, Congress created a supplemental benefit. That benefit is paid to eligible retirees out of the federal government's general funds. The main railroad retirement benefits are paid by contributions from companies and retirees in the same manner that Social Security benefits are financed.
Because the supplemental benefit comes from general funds, it was caught up in the federal budget deadlock. Of the average $130 supplemental benefit paid monthly to eligible retirees, roughly two-thirds - $83 - has been cut this month. The retirees, whose average age is 76, normally draw an average of $1,150 a month in all retirement benefits, Metlicka said.
It's not clear yet, Metlicka said, whether Congress will make up the money that has been lost when it finally agrees with Clinton on a budget. This is not the first time the benefits have been jeopardized, he said. In some years, Congress has appropriated less money for the benefit than was needed to pay it, he said.
Tim Phillips, a spokesman for Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, said Goodlatte's office has received several calls from railroad retirees concerned about the benefit cut as well as calls from others with various views on the budget talks.
"We're telling them we're doing our best to get this [government] shutdown ended," Phillips said.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff Thomas C. Fuller, left, and his sonby CNBRalph draw pensions from Norfolk Southern that have been cut by the
budget stalemate.