dojN002097.xml

dojN002097.xml

born-digital

email

yes

no

2002-01-20

Sunday, January 20, 2002 1:37 AM
Comments on Interim Rules

Attachment 1:

I am writing to provide my dissatisfaction and dismay at the regulations, which are presently outlined in the Interim Rules of the Victims Compensation Fund.

I lost my husband in the World Trade Center less than 4 months ago. I am still in mourning - as are my 2 college age sons.

Right now I should be devoting my time and energy trying to bring my life, and that of my two sons, back to whatever normalcy September 11 can allow us. Instead, I am forced to devote all my spare time to the meetings, research and review of the regulations imposed upon us - by yourself, the Department of Justice and Washington, so as to provide comments according to your time schedule..

In point of fact, none of us will ever experience normalcy. Our lives are changed forever. I am well aware that, on any given day, a part of my husband may be found, which would bring me back to the mourning and horror of September 11.

My childrens lives will be haunted forever by watching the towers burn on the morning of September 11 knowing it was their father who was dying on that TV, and then watching the TV replay it over and over again.

I will always relive the horror of that day, while I stood at a window which faced the tower and watched as the second plane hit the tower, then spoke to my husband, and then just stood there in horror and watched as the towers fell.

My children will graduate from college shortly, and their father will not be there, with tears of pride in his eyes. Their father will not walk them down the aisle when they eventually marry. Their yet unborn children will never know their grandfather, but will, instead, study how he died in history class. The amount of 50,000 does not even come close to compensating them. Their lives, emotions and futures are changed forever.

My husband taught his children to work hard, study hard and you will be successful. Yet it was because of those values and my husbands love and devotion to , and his desire to always put in extra hours, and come in early and work late that my husband, and all of his friends who shared the same values were targeted and died.

Your charts do not reflect those work ethics at all. They do not reflect the workers in the computer and financial industries, whose careers were their lifeblood. Knowing my husband, the only way hed retire was if someone was to suddenly change the locks on the doors. He worked for for 18 years, and would never have retired at your average age of 62.

His job and his children were his passion. Now my children are left wondering whether this work ethic is one they wish to follow.

Then they read the regulations, and they question it even further. They see the charts and wonder why their father earns less because they, the children, are older. This I cannot answer. They read the section on collateral offsets, and question as to why the regulations view financial planning as a detriment. This I cannot answer. Maybe you can.

These are the lessons my children are learning from September 11 and the compensation fund

You are correct in saying that you cannot place a price on the pain and suffering which we will all experience, but you did and that value was a disgrace. If my husband fell down a few stairs and lived, he would get more than $250,000 and our family life would be whole.

Speaking for myself, I find it a disservice to the families that your office has informed the general public that the average victims family will receive 1.6 million dollars. This announcement, instead of helping the families has hurt us.

How can anyone know the average when nobody knows the final number of victims, or their age, their salaries, and especially their collateral offsets.

Yet, you would like us to believe that number, so we could sign away whatever rights we have, blindly.

In point of fact, the current regulations would leave most of us with nothing, including me and my children, and yet the airline industry would be protected.

I do not believe that this is what the Congress and Senate intended, when they drafted this fund.

The economic charts should be changed to accurately reflect the work life and habits of the New York private sector and they should be based upon current data.

The retirement age should accurately reflect the retirement age. At the minimum, it should match the retirement age, which is supported by Social Security.

The salary used for computation should not necessarily be an average of 1998-2000. It should depend upon the individual case. Since my husband worked 18 years for the same company the average does nothing but ignore his current salary.

The offsetting of the settlement by the consumption factor, which results in families where the children are older, getting less makes absolutely no sense. If anything, we would be saving our money, not consuming more. Just because the children are older does not mean that we suddenly change our lifestyles, we still are working the same jobs, and paying the same bills.

The collateral offsets, although I am aware that this was imposed by the Senate and the Congress, are wrong.

However, nowhere, in any of the regulations did it ever state that Workmans Compensation and Social Security should be treated as collateral offset. Instead Workmans Compensation, matched 401K funds, pension funds and company-sponsored group insurance policies should be treated as part of the companys contributions to your earnings. They are the hidden expenses, which a company spends per employee. Some of them are mandated by government regulations, and some are part of the overall package, which a company provides to the employees for their compensation.

They should not be treated as collateral offset.

In the case of Social Security, since my husband paid Social Security taxes for thirty years, why would the benefits of those taxes be deducted without offsetting them by the payments, which he made?

Similarly, insurance premiums should be allowed to offset any insurance policies, which are being subtracted out.

401K funds, which were retirement saving vehicles should not be subtracted. That was our money, and does not belong to the government, similar to any other savings account.

The fund should be consistent. It should not cap anyones earnings, and similarly, it should not allow anyone to receive nothing. Instead there must be a minimum, and the minimum should be announced before anyone enters into the fund.

Non-Economic loss amounts do not come close to compensating us for either the horror of losing our loved one, nor do they compensate us for taking away our rights to sue. My husband, as well as many of the others in his company, was in the building for the first bombing. The terror that they must have undergone on September 11, when they realized the roof door was locked, which was their way out last time, we cannot comprehend. Then to have a full hour and a half, knowing that they were going to die, (as they told many of us on the phone), while watching building 2 collapse in front of them, that is a terror that neither you nor I can imagine, but it is a terror which we, as the families, relive over and over again.

The rules should be clearly stated, and the amounts for each familys situations must be clearly known before we give up our rights. Currently the regulations and the tables are not clear, and the tables are not specific to each familys structures.

I thank you for the opportunity to express my opinions.

Individual Comment

Edison New Jersey

2002-01-20