GovGuam could be on the hook for millions of dollars in compact impact over-payments, all because the federal census bureau made significant mistakes in its count of compact citizens in Hawaii.

Hawaii's congressional delegation, along with congressman Michael San Nicolas and CNMI Del. Gregorio Kilili Sablan, sent a letter to the Census Bureau and the Interior Department, which points out what they say is a mistake in the way the Compact of Free Association citizens were counted in the state. A technical error they believe resulted in a 6,000 person undercount in 2013, and more than 7,000 last year. They say that means Hawaii was shortchanged by nearly $17 million. But because the annual $30 million compact impact reimbursement pie is divided up based on a percentage of COFA migrants hosted, that means that while Hawaii should have gotten more, places like Guam should have gotten less.

"Of course I was very disappointed and upset about it," Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero said. "It's a mistake that was not the mistake by Guam or the other COFA recipient territories and states. "When I spoke to Doug Domenech here who is of course our point of contact, he is the assistant secretary of interior, he was here a couple of days, I gave him my letter, and we talked about it. And he is also feeling that it's a mistake that census did and he's discussing with them, he's working with them to see how we could not be impacted."

The governor had been advised by the Interior Department, which disburses the compact impact funds, of a possible impact of $4 million a year over the next three years. Leon Guerrero said not only is it not fair to penalize Guam for the census bureau's mistake, she says we've been shortchanged by hundreds of millions in compact reimbursement since the U.S. allowed migration began.

"We feel very strongly that the COFA residents have been coming for many, many years. we've been providing public services to them, and we've been providing it under an underestimation, under calculations of what we need to do," she said. "So we're using a lot of our own local monies to provide them those services."

KUAM News files show Guam has spent over a billion dollars on COFA costs, but the feds have only reimbursed us $143 million.

Similar percentage reductions are being proposed for the other COFA impacted territories.