Left unsettled was whether the victims should receive cash reparations and if so, how much.

"There's no price tag for the damage that was done," said Stan Slawinski of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. "How does one set parameters around that?"

Ultimately, the question of giving cash awards to people forcibly sterilized by the state from 1929 to 1974 could rest with the General Assembly, said members of the Eugenics Study Committee.

Gov. Mike Easley appointed the group to review the work of the state eugenics board and recommend possible ways to compensate the victims.

The committee plans to develop its final recommendations next month.

More than 7,600 people were sterilized by order of the state's eugenics board.

Nationwide, the eugenics movement sought to root out mental disabilities, mental illness and other problems by barring some people from having babies. Some patients requested sterilizations, but others were performed against the wishes of the victims and their families. Some children as young as 10 underwent the irreversible operations.

Easley apologized for the state program in December and later made North Carolina the first in the country to convene a study committee.

Members noted the precedent as they wrestled with the complicated question of reparations.

"The difficulty is we have nothing to measure against because no other state has done this," Slawinski said.

Complicating the question further is a tight state budget that leaves little room for new programs and the impossibility of judging beforehand just how many people were involuntarily sterilized.

It could cost the state $50 million if only 100 people were eligible for reparations and the committee recommended as suggested at the meeting that victims receive up to $500,000 each, said Jeff Crow, the deputy secretary of the State Archives and History.

"And that's maybe hundreds (of eligible people) too little," Crow said. "I'm not sure the General Assembly's going to be willing to do that.... If we recommend something we know is not possible politically, the state of North Carolina is going to look like we ducked the issue."

Carmen Hooker Odom, the state's secretary of health and human services and the head of the committee, suggested that a potential legislative research commission - proposed Wednesday by Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth - could settle the reparations issue.

According to a framework developed yesterday, the process to track down people who could be compensated could start with a publicity blitz. The state cannot initiate the search itself because the victims' medical records are considered private.

People who think that they were involuntarily sterilized could then request their records from the state archives and ask to appear before a special panel.

The panel could be composed of three members and include a prominent lawyer or retired judge, a doctor and another professional.

If the panel finds the person was involuntarily sterilized, he or she could receive some type of compensation.

It's not clear whether Easley could appoint a special review panel himself or request that the General Assembly create it.

Odom asked the lawyer for the committee to investigate whether other countries have made cash reparations to eugenics victims and what the typical award is for patients inadvertently sterilized because of medical error.

The committee is scheduled to meet again May 30.

• Dana Damico can be reached in Raleigh at (919) 833-9916 or at ddamico@wsjournal.com

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