R002755
Wednesday, March 27, 2002 11:13 AM
USDOJ Comments
Via Email
March 27, 2002
The Honorable John Ashcroft
Attorney General of the United States
The Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
Re: The September 11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001
Dear Mr. Ashcroft:
I am executor of the estate of one of the victims of the terrorist
attack in New York City on September 11, 2001, and I am writing you
following my reading of the document you publicly released on March 7
describing the final rules governing the administration of the Victim
Compensation Fund. The purpose of my letter is to bring to the
attention of your office and that of the Special Master what I believe
to be an error in the numbered section 3 entitled Computation of
Collateral Source Offset. This is the section that deals with
collateral sources received over a period of time. The described manner
of dealing with Social Security children's benefits is unlikely to be
consistent with the intention of Special Master. Multiplying the number
of months of benefit by the benefit amount does not produce a figure
that is relevant to the "present value" concept. The proper calculation
is far more complex in that each successive future payment from the
Social Security Administration would need to be discounted to present
value over an additional period of time. Those amounts would then be
summed to equal the present value of the entire future stream of
payments from Social Security. The concept is that of calculating the
present value of an annuity. I hope this is a useful observation.
Respectfully submitted,
Individual Comment
Cc: Ken Feinberg
Special Master