A frustrated Governor Napolitano has sent invoices totaling $217 million to the federal government for the unreimbursed costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants who committed crimes in Arizona, but she’s expressing confidence that Washington will cover the state’s expenses for responding to Hurricane Katrina.

The state’s involvement in the hurricane response ranges from providing social services to hundreds of evacuees who have arrived in Arizona to sending National Guard troops, emergency personnel and others to the Gulf Coast to help recovery efforts.

“We are being told we are being reimbursed for everything,” Ms. Napolitano said Sept. 8.

In Arizona, numerous state agencies are involved, many with personnel stationed at evacuation shelters in Phoenix and Tucson.

For example, Department of Public Safety officers are providing security both inside and around the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where evacuees are being housed in Phoenix. While the shelter itself is run by the American Red Cross, state employees help evacuees look for jobs and housing and sign up for food stamps, unemployment insurance and other benefits.

Agencies helping to provide services for the evacuees include the departments of Commerce, Economic Security, Health Services, Housing and Transportation, while Ms. Napolitano’s office and the state Division of Emergency Management are overseeing and coordinating the activities.

Meanwhile, personnel from local governments are performing duties such as enrolling evacuated children in schools and greeting evacuation flights.

Office Tracking Costs

George Cunningham, Ms. Napolitano’s deputy chief of staff for finance and budget, said he’s assembling a spreadsheet to track the costs incurred by agencies so the state can document them when it submits a bill to Washington.

Through Sept. 7, more than 600 people had arrived in Arizona on evacuation flights and probably at least that many people who used their own means of travel, most of the latter finding shelter with friends and families.

The state was told initially to ramp up for thousands of evacuees.

“We did and we did on an immediate basis,” Ms. Napolitano said.

Days later, the Phoenix and Tucson shelters are operating well below capacity.

It was evident from a conference call Sept. 7 between governors and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and [now former] FEMA Director Mike Brown that there’s no way to project how many additional refugees will arrive in Arizona, Ms. Napolitano said. [Mr. Brown resigned earlier this week.]

“We remain rigidly flexible because FEMA as yet does not have a national control design about how many evacuees are going to which states,” Mr. Cunningham said.

Mr. Cunningham said that makes it impossible to project the costs involved.

However, because the federal disaster declaration for Katrina includes Arizona, “ostensibly all of it is reimbursable to the state,” he said.

Mr. Cunningham acknowledged that Ms. Napolitano has complained about the federal government failing to fully reimburse the state for immigration-related costs.

“If we’re only looking at the federal government’s record of payment for costs (of incarcerating illegal immigrants who commit crimes in Arizona), that’d be one thing,” Mr. Cunningham said.

Reinforcing the sense that Washington will deliver this time is an awareness that Congress is paying attention to the delivery of housing, health care and other services to evacuees, Mr. Cunningham said.

“Because of all that kind of attention it is our view that we will have our costs recovered,” he said.

Michael Leavitt, federal Health and Human Services secretary, assured governors during a conference call Sept. 7 that the federal government intends to pay all the costs of Medicaid and other state-administered federal social programs so that states don’t suffer financially, Ms. Napolitano said. —

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