Tucson, Arizona Thursday, 4 October 2001
Who gets what?
As a mother lode of money pours in from around the world for the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, troubling questions have also arisen about who, precisely, will benefit, and by how much. There are mounting concerns that while some victims may end up as millionaires, others could get relatively little in the way of financial help.
In the interest of fairness to thousands of stricken survivors and the legions of donors who have opened their hearts and wallets for this cause, this cannot be allowed to happen. Government and charity groups must ensure that it doesn't. They must work together in a spirit of cooperation that has not yet materialized in the initial chaos of collecting donations.
There's no question that doling out this much money is a massive undertaking, unrivaled in the experience of any of the parties involved. An estimated $675 million has been raised so far from more than 100 different fundraising efforts, and more cash is still coming in, from rolls of pennies raised by school children to million-dollar contributions from banks, corporations and movie stars. Given the scale of the aid effort, it seems only sensible to set up some sort of central registry to ensure help gets to those in need without overlapping payments being made to the same parties.
But so far, it appears that political turf wars are brewing over who will oversee the handouts and how much information charities are willing to share among themselves. The New York Times reports that New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer held a meeting of representatives from various fundraising drives on Sept. 26 and later announced that his office, which regulates charities in the state, would coordinate aid distribution. He planned to create two databases: one to track the payouts made from each charity fund, and another showing how much donated money each family had received. Yet on Monday, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani announced that he would be coordinating the effort. A spokesperson for the mayor said that some charities privately approached Giuliani because they weren't comfortable working with the state bureaucracy that serves as their legal regulator. There are also reports that the American Red Cross, one of the largest fund raisers in the aftermath of Sept. 11, is reluctant to participate in a central registry due to concerns it could violate the privacy of aid recipients.
As it stands now, no one is sure who is in the driver's seat. The lack of coordination is a critical problem because, without coordination, it is difficult to assess the varying levels of neediness among victims. There are vast differences in the amount of existing resources, such as life insurance and government payments, that are already available to meet some of these needs.
The families of fallen firefighters and police officers, for example, are ordinarily looked after fairly well, which is only right when an emergency worker is killed on the job. Their families are automatically entitled to about $150,000 each from the federal government and another $25,000 from New York City coffers, plus free medical insurance. On top of that, surviving spouses get full-salary pensions for life, and children also get pension benefits until adulthood. By comparison, families of 47 restaurant and cafeteria workers who died in the World Trade Center will get $15,000 each in life insurance payments, along with health benefits until the end of November.
In addition, as part of its bailout for the airline industry, Congress recently approved a multi-billion-dollar compensation package for families of those killed or injured who waive their rights to sue for damages. While there is no firm price tag on the federal plan, some of its architects envision payouts of $1 million or more per family, minus any life insurance or death benefits owing. These same victims will also receive a huge share of the charity donations collected so far, despite mounting concerns that other legitimate needs will not be filled.
Relatively little government or charity aid is slated to go to secondary victims who, though not physically hurt, still endured great emotional and financial suffering, such as the loss of their homes, jobs or businesses. We suspect that many donors, who gave from the heart during these extremely emotional times, never envisioned a situation in which some victims would end up with huge financial windfalls while others had needs which went unmet.
A coordinating body will be in the best position to identify these myriad issues and bring them to the proper forum for solutions. Such concerns cannot be left to linger out of fairness to the victims and also because it could tarnish the future efforts of those who raise money for disaster relief. |
