Opinion ID: 779976
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ongoing Contract CSCs

Text: 41 Plaintiffs make a series of arguments about why, notwithstanding the availability clause, they were entitled to full funding of CSCs for ongoing programs. First, they argue that the appropriations for ongoing CSCs at issue here were legally available because they were part of a lump-sum unrestricted appropriation for IHS, and the fact that the appropriations committee reports recommended that CSCs for ongoing contracts be limited to $153 million in 1976 and $160 million in 1997 is irrelevant in the face of the silence of the Appropriation Acts on the issue. They also argue that CSC payments cannot take a back-seat to IHS's discretionary decisions about how best to spend its lump-sum appropriations without violating both the spirit of the ISDA as a whole and the legislative history of the 1988 amendments to the ISDA. Appellants' Op. Br. at 28. Those amendments include § 450j-1(b), which itself reflected a studied congressional intent to deny the Secretary all discretion over contract funding decisions. Id. Finally, they argue the district court erred in relying on the recommendations of the appropriations committees as providing an earmark capping the amount available for ongoing CSCs. 42 Based on the materials before it at the summary judgment stage, the district court found that [m]ost of IHS' annual appropriations are distributed to area offices for the payment of recurring costs... [which are costs that] occur automatically from year to year and must be funded without reduction. Cherokee Nation, 190 F.Supp.2d at 1250 (citing the Declaration of Carl Fitzpatrick, the Director of the Division of Financial Management for the IHS). Thus, [i]n fiscal year 1997, IHS allocated to the Area Offices approximately $1,368,893,059 of the total approximately $1.8 billion annual appropriation on a recurring basis.... Fitzpatrick Decl. at ¶ 10, Appellants' App. at 530-31. For fiscal year 1996, the IHS allocated approximately $1,313,990,083 on a recurring basis. Id., Appellants' App. at 531. 43 Further, in accordance with the appropriation committee report recommendations, the IHS allocated to area offices for tribal contract CSCs $153,040,000 in 1996 and $160,660,000 in 1997. Id. at ¶ 17, Appellants' App. at 534. Fitzpatrick further declared that reprogramming additional funds for contract support costs would have required IHS to use money otherwise dedicated to other purposes supporting health services delivery to tribes. Id. at ¶ 17, Appellant's App. at 534. Finally, Fitzpatrick stated that all of the money appropriated for fiscal years 1996 and 1997 was in fact spent, leaving a zero balance at the end of the year. 5 44 While plaintiffs argue that the district court's conclusions on these points are unsupported or somehow erroneous, they do not directly challenge the validity or accuracy of the Fitzpatrick Declaration, nor explain why the district court was not entitled to rely on it in ruling on the motions for summary judgment. The Fitzpatrick Declaration demonstrated that providing to the plaintiff Tribes their entire CSCs for ongoing contracts would have necessitated a reduction in funding for other tribal programs, or a reprogramming of such funds. 6 45 Plaintiffs argue that the government is simply making an after-the-fact justification for its failure to fully pay CSCs, once it decided to spend all the money appropriated to it on other items. They argue that their contractual and statutory entitlement to such full funding vested immediately, at the beginning of each fiscal year, and, presumably, ahead of other IHS obligations. But, as the government points out, plaintiffs provide no support for that assertion, nor would that make sense, given the structure of the compacts plaintiffs have with the government, as well as the IHS' numerous other mandatory financial obligations. 7 46 Moreover, while the Tribes correctly argue that the earmark recommendations of a committee are not typically legally binding, 8 the IHS is likewise not obligated to completely ignore them. Nothing suggests that the IHS awarded the amount it did for ongoing program CSCs because it felt legally obligated to do so because of the committee report recommendations, as opposed to making that allocation as an exercise of the limited discretion inevitably vested in it. See Ramah Navajo Chap., 112 F.3d at 1463 (noting that 1988 amendments retain for government some discretion in awarding CSCs); Ramah Navajo Sch. Bd., Inc., 87 F.3d at 1346 n. 11 (noting the very limited discretion the Secretary has to award insufficient CSC funds under the ISDA). 9 In sum, we agree with the district court that funding for the Tribes' ongoing CSCs was subject to the availability of appropriations from Congress, and there were insufficient appropriations to fully pay those CSCs.