Santa Maria Times from Santa Maria, California • 1

SATURDAY KORKIKG SPORTS Li Liiiti nns anta Maria St. Joseph beats Atascadero. 2 VemmMe tUcliter scale sSialien from lot parch 1 ST rxX j. page A-7 25 Cents Saturday, April 30, 1994 Our 113th year No. 9 WASHINGTON Social Security Administration spends $32 million on bonuses By Jennifer Dixon Associated Press Writer ate their cases.

Applicants have waited a year or more to learn if they will receive disability payments. Callers complain that they cannot get through on the agency's toll-free hot line or that telephones ring unanswered. Federal investigators have uncovered abuse and fraud by immigrants, drug addicts and alcoholics who receive Social Security disability payments. And the agency has virtually abandoned all reviews of disability recipients to determine whether they have recovered and should be removed from the rolls. flompson served as the agency's acting commissioner from the date of his See BONUSES, back page injured workers have died, lost their homes, or turned to welfare while they waited for their first Social Security check.

Rep. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on a separate Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees a part of Social Security, said an agency that admits to serious problems in its disability programs should not be rewarding "the people in the system." "The money we gave them to clean it up shouldn't be going to bonuses," he said. Congress gave the agency an extra $200 million to speed up those decisions, and Rep. Jim Bunning, questions whether Social Security would have been able to finance its bonuses without that money. Bunning, the senior Republican on the House Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee, called the bonuses outra- i geous and criticized the agency for giving Thompson such a large sum after such a short time on the job.

"To get $9,256 for 212 months of service in the Social Security Administration, that is an outrage that we all ought to be made aware of," Bunning said this week. Disclosure of the awards comes at a time of growing problems for the agency. A record number of people are applying for disability benefits, severely straining the agency's ability to quickly evalu award went to Lawrence Thompson, who was named the agency's second-ranking executive by Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala on July 19. His bonus, recommended by Social Security Commissioner Shirley Chater and approved by Shalala, was for the fiscal year that ended 73 days later, on Sept. 30, Gambino said.

Thompson's annual salary is $120,594. Social Security is not unique among federal agencies in awarding employee bonuses. But the agency's decision to spend $32 million is striking because Social Security lobbied Congress last year for additional money to process a growing backlog of disability claims. Some ill and WASHINGTON The Social Security Administration spent $32 million on employee bonuses last year at a time it was pressing Congress for millions more to deal with serious problems in its disability programs. The largest single award $9,256 went to an executive who had been on the job for less than three months.

Two-thirds of the agency's 65,000 employees got a cash bonus in 1993, according to Social Security spokesman Phil Cambino. Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the biggest AFRICA Lofty perch mmmm mmm i Hundreds of thousands pour over borders of Kenya, Tanzania to escape massacre UN chief asks By Reld G. Miller Associated Press Writer security council to 'X. reconsider pullout UNITED NATIONS (AP; A The secretary-general urged the Security Council on Friday to reconsider its decision td withdraw most of its soldiers from Rwanda and requeste that peacekeepers be allowe Jaftrty MayTimes to use force to prevent furthen Julia Fitzmaurlce climbs a chain-link fence to get a better located off Hwy. 154 east of Santa Maria, are starting to view of fishermen on Lake Cachuma Thursday.

Santa climb above prs-drought levels. Trie lake Is at 95 percent of Barbara County parks officials say tourist levels at the lake, capacity, holding some 180,972 acre feet of water. massacres. Boutros Boutros-Ghali': request was contained in a let NAIROBI, Kenya Hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the terror of ethnic massacres in Rwanda have poured into Tanzania within a 24-hour period, the biggest and fastest exodus U.N. officials said they had ever seen.

The United Nations estimated that more than 250,000 people had sought refuge in Tanzania between sundown Thursday and late Friday, when lines at the border stretched for five miles. At the United Nations, meanwhile, U.N. chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali asked the Security Council to reconsider its decision to largely withdraw its 1,700 soldiers from Rwanda, saying the 270 peacekeepers remaining reported a "deterioration in the situation." His letter to the Security Council on Friday was leaked to The Associated Press. The ethnic slaughter in Rwanda has grown out of the decades-long See RWANDA, back page ter to the Security Council thai was leaked to The Associate Press. The council as expect ed to meet ithin days to con siJer it.

The letter, addressed td Security Council presiden WASHINGTON 'Welcome to the White welcome home Clinton tells Native American tribal leaders Colin R. Keating, did not spec ify how many peacekeeper were needed or exactly whal their power should be. In the last few weeks, mord than 100,000 people are esti See UN, back page I i 'i Sign of the Times INSIDE VHATS ON: Our pfcia for prim time lovi: "Tony rd Nancy. Th Irak Story, 8 p.m, NSC, cftarv rn MovW TN JrV pm ABC, cfunnn 17. ered with hawk feathers.

Nearby, another Indian leader wore a large headdress of eagle feathers ith their tips dyed green. He also wore a light tweed sport coat. Duncan said he wore his outfit to point up the effort to preserve ancient Indian ways. Although he lives in Oakland, and works at an oil refinery. Duncan said he and his five children wear costumes like the one he had on to perform the "shakehead dance." a performance meant to mimic the sharp, jolting movements of a ary bird.

Clinton sat, his brow knitted in concern, as eight tribal leaders alternately pleaded with the administration for more resources for Native Americans and scolded it for not doing enough in the past. They asked for a decrease ia the maze of regulations that govern Indian businesses and development, further protection of natural resources, a welfare-reform pro See INDIAN, back By Martin Van Der Wert Arizona Republic WASHINGTON Doug Duncan stood shirtless and barefoot on the South Lawn of tbe White House, shaking an elderberry "singing stick" that clattered like a woodpecker every time he heard something "he liked. Friday, there was a lot to like. "Welcome to the White House. Welcome home," President Clinton told Duncan and more than 200 other tribal leaders sitting under a huge canopy as the sky threatened rain.

They were words Native Americans have been waiting to bear for more than 200 years, and there was thunderous applause. "When did we have a president wi'Ji his vice president and his cabinet listen for two hours to the Urge concerns of the Indian said Navajo Presidrnt Peterson 2-ah. "Not in my liftlLTie, ceruinly." Indeed, the National Conference cf American ladiacs adver-1 CLASSIFIED C-7 2 CROSSWORD C-12 DR GOTT 8-6 OBiTUARJES A7 AP Santa Fe, N.U. artist Hauser speaks to the crowd Friday as President Clinton holds a reproduction of one of his sculptures, "Offering of the Sacred Pipe." SUNNY k9W'i WHAT WE 'EAR lows in 40a. tised this summit as the Erst meet-irg ever here the leaders of all of the nation's 545 Indian tribes were invited to talk with a siaing president.

From the very begir.nirg. it as ckir this as not a normal day at tt Wlite House. Duncan, leader of the Pomo-Fatwia band cf Indians, a small tribe in northern Caliomia, wort a strip of woodpecker feathers across his forehead, the orange quills hiding his eyes. He wore a bell of seashells seed to leather ini the bck of his skirt was cov. Ttb La CvbTbs saner Me frxf tens dung rer 4 fe Mussel Sena Carter he es sertrg x.

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