OTHER NEWS
Compact grants upset officials
By Frank Oliveri
Advertiser Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — A ceremony planned for Monday in Honolulu was canceled after a dispute between Hawai'i lawmakers and the Interior Department blossomed yesterday over the amount of money the state would receive to offset the cost of regional immigrants.
The Department of the Interior said yesterday Hawai'i would receive $10.6 million to offset the costs of Micronesian and Marshall Islanders who in 1986 were granted the right to migrate to the United States and its territories.
But the grant was only about a third of the estimated costs associate with providing social services to the immigrants last year alone, Hawai'i officials said.
"Our state's deficit in this area is still many times that amount," said Sen. Daniel Akaka.
The Hawai'i delegation learned late Thursday that Interior Secretary Gale Norton planned a ceremony to announce the grant in Honolulu Monday, blindsiding lawmakers. The delegation demanded and received a hasty briefing yesterday afternoon, where they voiced their concerns about the allocations.
"Interior had to know we would be disappointed with this result," said Rep. Ed Case. "We should have been involved in the development of those figures."
Guam, Hawai'i and the Northern Mariana Islands were to share roughly $30 million set aside in the Compact of Free Association Amendments Act of 2003, signed into law Dec. 17.
Keith Parsky, spokesman for the Office of Insular Affairs, a policy arm of the Interior Department said the money was divided based on census numbers of immigrants in each region from the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Marshall Islands.
"I'm mystified by all this," Parsky said.
Guam, which has 9,831 immigrants, would receive $14.2 million. Hawai'i, which has 7,297 immigrants, would receive $10.6 million — significantly more than the $2.9 million last year. The Mariana Islands received $5.1 million Thursday for its 3,570 immigrants.
Two staffers from the Office of Insular Affairs informed the delegation yesterday that they stood by the census numbers and the methodology used.
But provisions in the Compact-Impact legislation called for other tools — in addition to census — to be used when making calculations, lawmakers said.
Specifically, the law states that reports from each governor's office estimating the impact of immigrants on their budgets could be used in the calculation. Gov. Linda Lingle, for example, estimated the effect on Hawai'i was $32 million last year.
Also, Interior could look to reimburse hospitals for services rendered to immigrants.
A comparative analysis could also have been done of all the assistance provided to the three jurisdictions. Guam, for example, received $157 million in debt forgiveness in the Compact-Impact law for services provided to immigrants over the past 17 years. Case said that, too, should have affected how the grants were dispersed.
"It was a good deal all around for Guam," he said.
But Parsky defended the grants.
"The methodology was the same as we have used before," he said. "The group that did the census was topnotch and they are ready to defend their numbers. I'm at a loss to understand their concerns."
