Letter to Deborah Stover-Springer, Acting Inspector General of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation - Delphi Retirement Program for Salaried Employees

Letter

Ms. Deborah Stover-Springer
Acting Inspector General
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
1200 K Street NW, Suite 480 Washington, D.C. 20005

Dear Acting Inspector General Stover-Springer:

We are writing to express our concern regarding the Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation's (PBGC) extreme delay in processing the final benefit
determinations for plan participants in the Delphi Retirement Program for
Salaried Employees (the Salaried Plan), and ask the Office of Inspector General
to conduct an inquiry into the matter.

As you may know, the more than 20,000 Salaried Plan participants are Salaried
Retirees of the Delphi Corporation, whose pensions were unjustly terminated in
2009 in the wake of the federal government's bailout of General Motors.
Years later, having suffered drastic reductions on their hard-earned pension
benefits, these retirees continue to wait on final benefit determinations from
the PBGC. Until those determinations are completed, the retirees have no
way of confirming or challenging the PBGC's interim reductions to their
pensions.

The PBGC has a stated policy of trying to complete final benefit determinations for
plan participants within three years of a plan's termination and
trusteeship. It has now been almost five years to the day since the
Delphi Salaried Plan was terminated; however, not only have benefit
determinations not been completed, but it has also come to our attention that
the PBGC has also not completed the basic documentation of plan assets and
liabilities necessary to begin the benefit determination process.

Specifically, our concerns stem from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests dated January 7, 2013 and April 9, 2014, each requesting that the PBGC provide the requesting individual with the following documents relating to the Salaried Plan: (1)
Actuarial Case Memo, (2) Actuarial Case Report, (3) Participant Data Report,
(4) Recovery Valuation and Allocation Memo, and (5) Plan Asset Audit. In
its response to the January 7, 2013 FOIA request, the PBGC responded on
February 4, 2013, stating that "none of the items you requested have been
completed." In its response, the PBGC also estimated that the Participant
Data Review would be completed "in the late Spring/early Summer of this year
[2013], while all other reports are at least a year away from completion."

Similarly, in response to the April 9, 2014 FOIA request, the PBGC responded on May 28, 2014, stating "…we conducted a search of agency records and failed to locate
responsive records." PBGC went on to provide yet another estimate of when
the documents would be completed. In its response, the PBGC provided the
following estimated completion dates: Actuarial Case Memo -- March 31, 2015;
Plan Asset Evaluation -- September 30, 2015; and Participant Data Report and
Recovery Valuation and Allocation Memo -- three to four months from the date of
the PBGC response letter. Neither FOIA response contained any explanation
or justification for the continued delays.

We are extremely concerned that the PBGC's delays will continue to impose
unnecessary hardship on these retirees, with the PBGC having failed to meet its
own estimated dates of completion, and having issued new estimates that extend
six years after the date the PBGC terminated the Salaried Plan just to complete
the basic documentation (with the final benefit determinations to presumably be
issued years later). Clearly, the Administration has the ability to
influence the pace at which agencies operate, having orchestrated one of the
most expedited bankruptcies in American history. Unfortunately, it
appears that it does not share that same sense of urgency in performing the
work and providing these documents to the Salaried Retirees in a timely manner.

Given these troubling facts, we respectfully request that the Office of Inspector
General review PBGC's undue delay in this matter. Specifically, we are
requesting the inquiry:

Identify the reasons for lengthy delays in the process of calculating final benefits
determinations for participants in the Delphi Retirement Program for Salaried
Employees.

Determine the status of any preliminary work done by the PBGC to complete the five
documents requested in the January 7, 2013 and April 9, 2014 FOIA requests.

Thank you for your consideration of our request, and please do not hesitate to
contact us if we may be of any assistance.