Retired police seek access to fiscal board documents on pension negotiations

The Financial Oversight and Management Board argued in a motion last week that retired police officers do not have the right to seek documents in a case in which the oversight board and the island government negotiated changes in police’s early retirement pension benefits.

By The Star Staff

The Financial Oversight and Management Board and retired police officers are involved in a dispute over whether a commonwealth court or the federal court overseeing the U.S. territory’s bankruptcy should decide what documents are public.

The latest move relates to a lawsuit filed in 2021 by the oversight board because the government enacted laws, and demanded their implementation, which illegally created new pension debt obligations without board approval.

A group of retired police officers has asked the federal Title III bankruptcy court to refrain from ruling on their request to obtain documents related to negotiating changes to the benefits. Instead, they are asking that a commonwealth court in a related case be allowed to decide which documents Puerto Rico law requires the government to disclose.

The oversight board argued in an April 23 motion that retired police officers do not have the right to seek documents in the case, in which the board and the central government negotiated changes in police’s early retirement pension benefits.

The oversight board also asked that the Title III court change its final order to allow the board to keep all documents used in the negotiation confidential.

“Movants’ makeweight procedural niggling should be rejected, and the court should modify the final stipulation to protect from disclosure ‘interim versions of all documentation used in reaching final agreement on the interim stipulation and this final stipulation and related communications,’” the oversight board’s reply said.