THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601060230
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
After a thorough housecleaning, city officials found a missing box of pension checks, the disappearance of which had left hundreds of retirees without their usual monthly income.
The checks were found late Thursday in a cupboard behind boxes of tax forms that were similar in appearance. The boxes had arrived recently and filled much of the office's storage space.
Finding the checks meant the city did not have to reprogram computers to reprint them. The box contained 368 checks, more than the original estimate of 255, which was based on how many people had called the office in the past week to complain.
The city distributed the checks by hand Friday to approximately 100 people who called and then came in person to pick them up. The rest were being mailed out Friday afternoon, said Ted Wilder, executive secretary of the office.
``The retirees have been really nice,'' Wilder said. ``Those who came in today said `no problem.' We gave them a letter if they needed one for their creditors.''
Wilder emphasized that the U.S. Postal Service was not to blame for the error.
The city's retirement system office distributes about 2,000 pension checks a month. by CNB