NATCHEZ — Approximately a half-million dollars are needed in order for employees of the former Natchez Regional Medical Center to receive time lost from their retirement because the public hospital didn’t pay its portion of the benefits.

Adams County Board of Supervisors Board Attorney Scott Slover said a status conference with the bankruptcy court that will include a discussion with representatives of the Public Employee Retirement Systems has been scheduled.

“We are going to be discussing with PERS and the bankruptcy trustee a mechanism to get the PERS system paid up,” Slover said.

Slover said a little less than approximately $500,000 is owed to resolve the PERS issue, including penalties and interest. Without penalties, the total is approximately $445,000.

“PERS would be fully satisfied if that amount is paid, and obviously we are working with a solution that is beneficial to the county but also maintains the financial stability of PERS, too,” he said.

From November 2013 until the county-owned hospital filed for bankruptcy in late March 2014, the hospital did not remit the employer portion of retirement payments even while employee payments were collected and sent. Under the PERS system, employers make a 15 percent match to employee contributions.

PERS has maintained that employee payments cannot  be posted without the employer match, meaning those months have not yet been counted toward the employees’ total retirement.

The non-payments of  PERS benefits continued after the bankruptcy filing, but the post-petition claims were paid when the bankruptcy court approved a plan that included selling the hospital to Community Health Systems.

PERS Executive Director Pat Robertson said PERS has communicated all of the information requested.

“Our understanding is that the county is working to find a solution so that all required contributions are paid, which would mean that retirement benefits could then be paid to those eligible,” Robertson said. “However, to date, we have not received word on the outstanding contributions.”

While Natchez Regional Medical Center was county-owned prior to its sale and subsequent rebranding as Merit Health Natchez, it operated independently of the county government. Since its bankruptcy and subsequent sale, however, the county supervisors have expressed a desire to make right on the lost retirement for employees.

The employee payments have been held in escrow while the issue has been unresolved.