Sean Patrick Maloney: “while I rise in support of this conference report, I would like to go on record with a concern that the New York City…”

“while I rise in support of this conference report, I would like to go on record with a concern that the New York City Mayor's office has brought to my attention. Mr. Speaker it is my hope that we can work to make sure that New York City's concerns are addressed as we implement this legislation. New York City had attempted to address concerns regarding vital statistics earlier this year in this bill but it appears that in conference some matters of importance to New York City have been dropped. First of all, New York City maintains vital statistical data on its own much like Washington, DC and therefore there is a need to treat New York City and Washington, DC as States relative to minimum standards for birth certificates. While the bill calls for there being grants to States, for assistance in meeting federal standard allocation of grants, this program is estimated to cost in excess of $400 million nationwide, of which New York City needs--which would be dependent on many factors, including the costs of modifying legacy computer systems, converting birth and death records that may be decades old, and the number of records--will be more than $7 million. This funding need is not reflected in the bill which calls for these grants to be based on a proportion of the birth and death records created by the State. These number of records are only a small factor in the formula that needs to be developed and should not be the sole factor in funding allotments.”