However, the commonwealth received just $33,000,000 of “Compact-Impact” funds from the Department of the Interior.
Reason for report
The federal government “pays” the CNMI, Hawaii and Guam for the cost of “hosting” Freely Associated State migrants; however, the amount of payments is the on-going dispute.
In 2010, Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan and seven other members requested the Government Accounting Office to conduct a review of the payback process with the objective of attaining data to support their claim that the U.S. owed the affected areas substantially higher dollar amounts.
The congressional request resulted in the 148-page GAO report, “Compacts of Free Association: Improvements Needed to Assess and Address Growing Migration” released on Nov. 14.
Bureaucratic language
“Methods used by affected jurisdictions to collect and report on compact impact have weaknesses that reduce their accuracy…some jurisdictions did not accurately define compact migrants, account for federal funding that supplemented local expenditures, or include revenue received from compact migrants.”
Bottom line
One government oversight bureaucracy, the GAO, concluded the locally affected bureaucracies failed to support their reimbursement requests with accurate data to the DOI because Interior bureaucrats failed to provide adequate guidelines.
The report recommended the DOI secretary provide better reporting guidance to the local governments so they can improve the FAS migrant count, account for federal funding spent and revenue generated from compact residents.
The report’s split-decision on which bureaucracy bears responsibility for the payment dispute (DOI or local areas) sends all parties back to the beginning to improve their bureaucratic processes.
The report is available for review at http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-64.
