NATCHEZ — Adams County supervisors say they hope former Natchez Regional Medical Center employees will be able to access their full retirement benefits next month.

At that time, unsecured creditors including the county expect to receive a payment from an escrow account created two years ago during the bankruptcy settlement, said County Attorney Scott Slover.

Slover said the county would also have approximately $500,000 in October to make sure the Mississippi Public Employee Retirement System is paid so retirees can start receiving full PERS retirement.

“There are people out there not getting full credit for money they put into the system,” Slover said. “That is why the board wants to pay the PERS claim because people put in 11 months of payments and through no fault of their own are not getting credit.

“The county is under no obligation to pay it, but the board didn’t feel that was the right thing to do.”

The former county-owned hospital filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2014, after squandering millions of dollars. The bankruptcy ended in October 2014 when the hospital was sold to Community Health Systems for $10 million.

During the sales process, an escrow account of $4 million was created to pay any remaining clawbacks from Medicaid and Medicare. Administrative claims, secured creditors and unsecured creditors will also have access to the account.

Slover said the county expects to receive $1 million from the escrow account. Slover said the county received the $1 million as part of the negotiations when the county took out a $3 million loan to keep the hospital open during the bankruptcy process.

Slover said approximately $690,000 from the escrow account was paid the county last year and those funds were applied to the repayment of the $3 million loan.

The county will receive the remaining approximately $310,000 in October. Slover said the board is also saving approximately $200,000 after refinancing the $3 million loan.

The approximately $500,000 available will be set aside to pay PERS whatever the system is not able to obtain as an unsecured from the escrow account.

This discussion Tuesday at the supervisors meeting followed Charles Harrigill asking the board about the situation as a concerned citizen. Harrigill said his wife has not been able to access the full amount of her retirement funds and it has put the couple in a financial bind.

“I wanted to know in case something didn’t happen what our next step would be,” he said. “As long as there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not a train, I’m OK.”

While employees continued to make contributions toward PERS, from November 2013 until the bankruptcy filing the hospital did not pay the employer portion of the payments. Under PERS, employers make a 15.75-percent match to employee contributions.

In May, Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill into law to allow Adams County to buy out the PERS claim from the bankruptcy.

The bill will allow the county to pay up to the $418,160.48 owed, and once paid, board President Mike Lazarus said the former employees should be able to access their full retirement.

PERS has not allowed people to accept a partial payment on outstanding funds during this time period even though employees paid their portion of the benefits.

Lazarus said he hopes PERS will be able to take care of its claims when the escrow account opens from the approximately $1 million in funds provided to several creditors.

“We could have handled this months ago, but I didn’t want to put the county on the hook for borrowing more money when we didn’t have to, not when we were so close to this escrow opening,” Lazarus said. “I was against borrowing more money right now.”