March 3, 2008

Weitzman stands with Senator Schumer & Suffolk County Exec Levy in calling for increase in reimbursements for incarceration of undocumented criminal aliens

‘Nassau taxpayers were on the hook for $6 million in 2006;
They should not be footing the bill for criminals in the country illegally.’

Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman today joined with U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy in calling on the federal government to increase funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), a program that reimburses states and localities for a portion of the cost of incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens. Senator Schumer also unveiled a package of bi-partisan legislation to expand the parameters of the program and increase and speed-up payments to help Nassau and Suffolk counties.

“In 2006 Nassau taxpayers had to foot the bill to incarcerate 660 undocumented aliens who committed crimes here, at an estimated cost of almost $8.5 million,” Weitzman said. “The federal government paid only $2.6 million, leaving nearly $6 million on the shoulders of our hard-pressed taxpayers. Senator Schumer’s proposed changes to the SCAAP program will mean that localities like Nassau will see an increase in federal funding, relieving the pressure on our local property taxpayers”

The Comptroller’s comments were in connection with his release today of an audit of the Nassau County Correctional Center’s administration of the SCAAP program. The Nassau County Correctional Center receives money from the program each year for housing undocumented aliens who commit crimes in the United States.

“The federal government is pulling the rug out from communities like Nassau and Suffolk at exactly the wrong time,” Senator Schumer added. “We need comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders and provides a legal way for future immigrants to come to America. But, until that happens, the bottom line is that we need to be doing a whole lot more to help local governments defray the costs they should never have had to incur.”

Funding for the SCAAP program is based upon the President’s budget and Congress’ appropriations. The program is administered by the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, in conjunction with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security.  Last year New York received the largest decrease in funding of all the states, about $8 million; while California received an $8 million increase.

U.S. Representative Carolyn McCarthy stated:  "The federal government has ignored the problem of illegal immigration for a long time, but now the Bush Administration seeks to eliminate funding for the one program that helps local governments pick up the tab for incarcerating illegal immigrants who commit crimes. This budget represents an unfunded mandate sent down by the Bush Administration and is extremely unfair to Nassau County taxpayers."

Comptroller Weitzman’s audit of the SCAAP program at the Nassau County Correctional Center found that improvements needed to be made in the following areas:

• Computation of eligible salaries. At our auditors’ recommendation, the computation was changed, resulting in a 15.7% increase (from $73.1 million to $84.6 million) in eligible salaries submitted and a likely increase in revenue to the County.
  
  
• Identifying potentially-eligible inmates. Omissions might have resulted in less revenue for the County.
  
  
• Inputting inmate records. Manually inputting the annual SCAAP application took up to 30 hours, when the data could have been up-loaded from the County’s Information Technology department electronically.
  
  
• Creating a policies and procedures manual and requiring supervisory review.

Auditors also found that the Correctional Center had instructed the Bureau of Justice Assistance to deposit the County’s annual SCAAP award into a bank account managed by the Correctional Center, rather than into an account managed by the County Treasurer and recorded in the Nassau Integrated Financial Systems. This procedure will be changed for future awards, if SCAAP continues.

The two new bi-partisan pieces of legislation which were announced by Senator Schumer at today’s press event were authored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and would require SCAAP payments to be made promptly and to make sure that counties can be reimbursed for the costs of holding accused criminals awaiting trial as well as those already convicted.

• Faster Reimbursements – The Ensure Timely SCAAP Reimbursement Act (S.2588) would require reimbursement within four months of when localities apply for funds, and will protect communities from having to wait years to be reimbursed.

Expand Eligibility to Increase Reimbursements – SCAAP was originally enacted to reimburse states and localities for the costs of incarcerating undocumented immigrants. Due to a Justice Department reinterpretation of the statute, however, DOJ now only reimburses states and counties for the costs of housing convicted criminal aliens and does not reimburse states for housing undocumented aliens who have been charged with a crime. The SCAAP Reimbursement Protection Act of 2008 (S.2587) would restore SCAAP to Congress’s original intent to ensure that states and localities can be reimbursed for the costs of incarcerating aliens who are either charged with or convicted of a felony or two misdemeanors.

SCAAP Review (.pdf)

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