More Drama Surrounding S.R.H.S. Pension Plans

Notification sent from Singing River Health System (S.R.H.S.) to employees last week that its troubled pension plan had been frozen and would later be liquidated has been challenged.

It turns out the organization had actually terminated the pension plan altogether, and Jackson County Board of Supervisors knew of the termination ten days after it happened. The news was revealed in a George County courtroom Monday when a Singing River retiree asked the judge to put a permanent restraining order on the liquidation process. The former employee’s attorney says health system lawyers admitted the pension plan had already been terminated, making a restraining order useless.

Harvey Barton, the lawyer of the former S.R.H.S. employee, says, “Not once have I seen or heard the hospital use the word ‘terminate.’ Rather, they have talked in terms, ‘We’ve frozen the plan. We are going to liquidate the plan.’ Those are all separate events. Termination is a specific legal event that has to take place. So we have never heard that until today in court when their attorney, Roy Williams, said, ‘Yes,’ they had voted to terminate two weeks ago.”

Another court hearing on the restraining order against S.R.H.S. will be held Friday in Pascagoula.