Report on Sept. 11 Fund Is Released

[Rose Siding]

Program a Success, but Equal Payouts to Victims Would Have Been Better, Master Says

The federal compensation for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could have been distributed more fairly and efficiently if equal payouts had been given to all families instead of basing awards on factors such as the victim's age and potential lost income, according to the fund's administrator.

Kenneth R. Feinberg, special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, said that the varying sizes of individual awards, required by Congress, led to "finger-pointing" among victims and a sense that officials were placing a higher value on some lives than on others. It also greatly complicated the task of calculating compensation for those who suffered losses after terrorists slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in rural Pennsylvania, he said.

"I had the firefighter's widow saying to me, 'Mr. Feinberg, why am I getting a million dollars less than the stockbroker's husband, who was pushing a pencil on the 103rd floor and my husband died a hero? I must be missing something,' " Feinberg said in an interview Tuesday. "And it fueled the divisiveness which was inevitable when the statute required different amounts for everybody."

Feinberg, who released his final report yesterday, stressed that he believes the overall program was a great success. His sentiments about uniform awards are personal observations, he said, not official conclusions...........

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57209-2004Nov17.html