So unfair! Justo and colleagues won’t be getting fancy lawmaker pensions

The Board of Directors of the National Teachers’ Pension Fund (JUPEMA) on Friday rejected a request by four ex-lawmakers and former teachers to have their pensions boosted to that of a legislator, instead of much lower pensions as educators.

Justo Orozco, Adonay Enríquez, Ernesto Chavarría and Marta Julia Fonseca, all former teachers-turned-legislators, filed applications to increase their pensions by basing calculations on their salaries as ex-lawmakers, rather than as teachers.

The ruling was in line with previous JUPEMA cases, in which board members said regulations prohibit the inclusion of income earned outside of teaching in the calculation of teachers’ pensions.

The most recent request was filed on Feb. 27 and was widely criticized by leaders of Costa Rica’s High School Teachers’ Association.

This isn’t the first time Orozco, of the Costa Rican Renovation Party, Marta Julia Fonseca, of the National Liberation Party, and Ernesto Chavarría and Adonay Enríquez, of the Libertarian Movement Party, asked for more pay. All had made similar requests in the past, but they were denied, JUPEMA spokesman Ramón Alfonso Soto told The Tico Times.

If approved, the pensions would have increased from ₡800,000 ($1,500) per month to ₡4 million ($7,500).

The same four lawmakers in 2011 also were denied a petition to continue collecting teachers’ pensions along with monthly lawmaker salaries.