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Retired teacher
wins her pension battle

She was teaching at Lunalilo
Elementary when Pearl Harbor
was bombed, and now will
get credit for that time

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By Treena Shapiro
Star-Bulletin

It took a quarter of a century, but Marion Kim is about to get the credit she deserves.

The former math teacher, who retired from Waipahu High School in 1975, has never received pension benefits reflecting seven months of service she performed during World War II.

But after nine years of lobbying the Employees' Retirement System, the state Legislature and even Gov. Cayetano, her check could be in the mail next month.

The 86-year-old was unable to comment on her accomplishment, however, because two mild strokes she suffered last week have affected her speech.

When she was interviewed by the Star-Bulletin in February 1998 and October 2000, Kim said she wasn't fighting because she wanted the money -- she was fighting because she wanted justice.

Kim's son, Rod, a teacher at Likelike School, said his mother received a letter from the retirement system last month informing her that she could buy the additional service credits. After paying $618 for seven months of credits, Kim was told she could expect a check in late December. "As of then, she hasn't gotten paid," he said.

Wesley Machida, assistant administrator of the Employees' Retirement System, said the payment is targeted for sometime in February.

Kim had been a probationary third-grade teacher at Lunalilo Elementary School when it was destroyed during the Pearl Harbor bombing. The war closed the schools, so Kim and 11 other probationary teachers spent seven months processing fingerprints.

While the other teachers she worked with were informed that they could buy back their credits, Kim, the only one who didn't teach elementary school, learned about the option four years after she retired and the law had already expired. Preoccupied with her husband's 10-year battle with Parkinson's disease, she didn't start the fight for her benefits until 1992 and initially accepted the Employees' Retirement System's decision that she was no longer eligible.

But after talking with her state legislators, Kim took her case to the Capitol and spent several sessions getting a bill passed that would allow her to purchase the service credits. It finally passed last year, only to be vetoed by the governor because the law would benefit only one person.

Having already celebrated her victory by taking all the legislators who had helped her to lunch, Kim was crushed. Last Aug. 25, she took her case straight to the governor, who made sure the Employees' Retirement System looked carefully into her claim. It took a few months of research, but the department finally located the paperwork to back up Kim's story. The board of trustees voted to allow her to buy back her credits on Dec. 11.

Machida said the payment would include all the back payments dating to her retirement. Although Kim hasn't been told how much it will be, as of October, she was planning to help pay for her grandchildren's private school education and to donate money to her church.