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CouncilCORNER>
HutchinsonUpdate
By Margie Hutchinson
Dear Tribal Members:
We have all been very busy, trying to ensure we have input
into the various issues facing Indian country. Just recently,
we attended the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians’
meetings in Tacoma. The trust reform meeting was particularly
interesting to us, because much of the dialogue was on the
Northwest‘s proposal to trust reform. Our specific concerns
are elevating the assistant secretary to a higher-level Deputy
position, Codifying Secretary Babbit’s trust duties, settle
the Cobell lawsuit through a mediator, and establishing an
independent legal authority to represent trust interests on
behalf of the US government without compromise. In addition,
with adequate BIA funding tribes could manage their resources
through direct service, self-governance, or
self-determination, so we would not need the Office of the
Special Trustee.
Then the Intertribal Transportation Association, held their
mid-year conference in Spokane, the first week in June.
Transportation is like ethics it is not well attended, however
extremely important. I find the transportation issues
exciting, and hopeful because of the changes coming down the
pipe. Mr. Douglas MacDonald, the secretary of Transportation,
Wash, has elevated Colleen Jollie’s part time position to a
high level position in the secretary’s office in Olympia.
There are several recently created, Department of
Transportation, (DOT) tribal liaison positions in eight
states. Just by the mere creation of these positions, a
positive change will begin in the way we deal with the policy
and procedures of the States. Tribal reservation roads
compared to state and county roads are a disgrace, we have
dirt roads, deteriorated paved roads, and the safety is pretty
much non-existent. Indian reservation roads receive half the
federal funds for road construction that states receive per
road mile. Maintenance is even worse; we receive about 1/10th
of what the states receive. So now, we can appreciate the new
Indian liaison positions, ensuring we receive our fair share
of funding due to tribes. The Prairie Band Potowatomi nation’s
motor fuel tax is being challenged by the state of Kansas. The
state of Kansas does not believe tribes have the right to
collect taxes on our fuel, for transportation programs.
The Wells Dam Settlement papers signed on February 9, allowed
the Douglas County PUD six months to budget for the first lump
sum payment. It appears that they will fully utilize this
six-month deadline. So now, what that means is the payment
will be distributed around October 1 or thereabouts. We have
received many questions with regard to this payment;
specifically will it replace the August payment. We will
receive the August payment and the Wells Dam payment.
Thank you for taking the time to read my report. Enjoy your
summer.
Margie Hutchinson
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Indian COUNTRY
By
Michael E. Marchand
PSIS
Opens:
After decades of work, the old Paschal Sherman Indian School
has finally been replaced by a new school. I know for all of
my life I have heard of the tribe trying to get a new school.
Sometimes the tribe came close, we made it onto construction
lists for congressional appropriation and then we fell of the
lists. I got on Council nine years ago and at that time, we
were off the list again and, to make matters worse, Congress
declared a moratorium on new construction and was not taking
in new projects. Even though we were on the list before, we
were once again considered a new project. Getting federal
projects like this are extremely political. If you sit back
and hope that someone else is taking care of you, rest assured
that some other tribe or other group is working hard with
their congressional delegations to take whatever you thought
you had and bring it to their tribe, and this is what happens
if the tribe does not keep a strong presence in place with the
Congress and the federal agencies. If we are not in their
face, someone else will be. This is a big process and starts
clear back with the national elections. Senators and
Congressmen want to serve their districts and this means the
parts of their districts that vote and support them in the
political process. This is a process that never ends. I always
hear a lot of criticism about how we need to stay home all of
the time, but on the other hand, there are many people in the
federal government that would like nothing better then for
tribal rights to disappear and for tribes to be terminated
piece by piece and for sure you can be assured that no one
would have given us an $18million school if everyone stayed at
home and minded their own business. This tribe depends on the
millions of dollars that we get each year from federal
appropriations. It amounts to hundred of jobs and pays for
everything from programs to roads to fish recovery and
everything else that the tribe is involved with. Personally I
like to hunt and fish and see my friends and am always happy
to be home, but I think we have a duty to go wherever we need
to go to protect the tribe’s interests and our rights and the
rights of our future generations. This new school which is the
most beautiful school that I have ever seen in my life is
something that I have always wanted to see our children have
and I am very thankful to everyone involved with getting the
funding and getting it built. Van Peters, Mary Hall, and
Dorothy Marchand were superintendents that did much of the
work to document the needs and lobby for the new school.
Willie Womer, who heads the engineering company of Womer and
Assoc. did some of the important engineering assessments
documenting the problems with old facilities and this was
important work. We had lobbyists in DC who did important work.
Support from our congressional delegations were very
important. We also had a lot of school board help from people
like Arkie Andrew, Wendell George and many others over the
years. Many tribal staff worked hard and I hate to name names
because there are so many that some will be left off, but I
know that Smoker Marchand did a tremendous amount of work in
seeing that it got built. Over the years we have had many
Council work towards the new school and some of them are no
longer alive but it was a big effort. This is not done either,
because now we need a high school and eventually we need our
own college. But this is a good start.
ATNI and NCAI and CERT:
This has been a busy month for me, as I serve on the boards of
directors for ATNI, NCAI, and CERT organizations and these are
all important organizations that will heavily influence the
future for our tribe and for other tribes and this is where I
spend most of my time when I am not home, with exception of
trust reform which is in addition. ATNI (Affiliated Tribes of
NW Indian) and NCAI (National Congress of American Indians)
deal with general regional and national Indian issues. CERT
stands for the Council of Energy Resource Tribes and deals
mainly with natural resource issues. Affiliated Tribes of NW
Indians met in Tacoma last month and we had a big agenda.
Board meetings start on the weekend before the meetings and
the regular attendees come into town. We go over whatever
issues the organizations have, usually over funding and work
plans, and national policy issues, and then we go over the
conference details and go over how we want to deal with the
many important people that will be coming to see us and talk
over tribal issues. Usually there are legal matters with cases
and legislation and we have to help set the course for the
tribes so that we have regional and national strategies. If
national policymakers show up and ask us what it is we want,
we want to make sure that we have an answer. Once the
conference starts it is always like a madhouse and we depend a
lot on staff and on our volunteer helpers. Usually the first
parts of the conference days are for formal speakers. We get
people like national leaders or heads of national and regional
agencies who deal with tribes on our issues, this might
include sovereignty issues, funding for social and economic
and resource issues. Usually most of these people are on tight
schedules, they talk to several groups a day and are always on
the move to somewhere. Everyone in the country is trying to
get their ear. We have to catch them in between everything and
make sure they hear our concerns and hear what we want them to
do for the tribes. In the afternoons and usually into the
nights, the various committees meet and this is where the bulk
of the actual work takes place on a wide range of issues from
the environment to economics, to sovereignty, to social
issues, and the list goes on and on. At a typical conference,
I come into town on the week end, we start the week days at
about 7:30 with breakfast meetings with people, then we go
into the speakers sessions, which I sometimes have to chair in
front of the general assembly of hundreds of people and then
we go into the afternoon and evening committees which
sometimes last until midnight. Usually committees are done by
5 or 6 0' clock though. Then on the last day of the conference
for ATNI and for NCAI we have resolution days, these are kind
of like the council meeting days here in Nespelem in terms of
procedures. Sometimes it is almost identical to the way we do
business here at Colville, committee chairman make the motions
to the floor, a delegate seconds and then the assembly votes
yes or no. Committee chairman have a great deal of influence
over what happens, they basically are in the trenches setting
the direction for everything. Right now I serve as chairman of
the A TN! Economic Development Committee and also work with
some of the special task forces under the NCAI umbrella.
Whenever there are big issues that affect tribes, it is not
uncommon for a special task force to be created to put the
best people on the problem to see that it gets fixed. But
sometimes, the NCAI conference meetings are special executive
sessions, this is how NCAI operates sometimes, and in these
meetings the assembly is all gathered and we get the committee
reports, but then only the Executive Committee votes, this
consists of the President, Vice-President, Secretary, and the
Regional Vice-Presidents. Sometimes I serve as the NW Area
Vice-President at these meetings and am an officer for NCAI.
Then these decisions have to get implemented and this depends
on the resolution. Sometimes they go back to organizations who
carry the resolutions on and lobby for them with congress,
sometimes we have to do this ourselves. A single idea for
something might take several years to go through the whole
process from beginning to end. If we want to change a law for’
example, this might have to go through the process several
times and Congress might deliberate through several years
before it gets passed. The Paschal Sherman School was an
example that took a long time to get through Congress. It is
very important for the Colvilles to always have a strong
presence at these regional and national meetings. These
meetings set the course for Indian policy, which eventually
directly impacts the lives of our members through services,
how we manage resources and businesses, and our incomes and
revenues and per capitas, even, are eventually all impacted.
Tribal sovereignty is probably even more critical, we have
many enemies in this country and anytime an Indian has
anything, the majority population wants to take it from us. If
we sit back and do nothing, everything will gradually be lost.
I apologize for spending so much time on this subject, but a
lot of people ask me what it is we do on these “big vacations”
because unless you have been there it is kind of hard to
imagine what is going on. One thing that makes me very proud
as a Colville tribal member is that most of these national
organizations fighting for tribes were actually founded by our
own Colville leaders. They understood better then everyone
else, the importance of getting all tribes united because this
is where our power really lies. People like Frank George and
Paschal Sherman and others were around during the founding of
these groups and it has continued on with leaders like Lucy
Covington who many tribes still look up to even after these
many years. They spent their lives building these
organizations up into becoming powerful and strong and we need
to continue this today to leave our children a better place.
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DeLaCruzREPORT
By Gail M. DeLaCruz
My apologies
for not reporting sooner. I can’t believe it’s been a year,
time flies.
As a past employee of the Tribal organization I knew the
operations wasn’t good, but I didn’t realize how bad until I
was elected to Council. These last three years or so the Tribe
has become dysfunctional in professional operations. In my
opinion, hiring individuals with no knowledge or experience in
governmental operations and finances in upper administrative
positions has really done damage.
And the overturn of Executive Directors has not helped. The
present Executive Director came onboard with much to deal with
and though patience among the Council is limited, we have to
realize he has three years of a mess to clean up that should
have been realized and dealt with long ago.
I have been focused on the financial situation of the Tribe
and working to implement a more structured budget system, one
that programs have to justify for their funding requests and
be held accountable. These last three years programs have
submitted budgets at zero growth, which has lead to numerous
budget modifications throughout each fiscal year. For fiscal
year 2006, I have requested that additional information be
provided justifying for certain expenditures, such as
consultant, professional, travel, training, etc. I have
requested information on cell phone usage.
And as last reported, we are looking at a 6.8 million
shortfall on revenues for FY06 and the Federal Government is
proposing cuts to our 638 funding.
Council will have some tough decisions to make, and I for one,
want to see every program thoroughly analyzed for actual needs
and cut wasted costs or programs that are not providing
services to the people. I have obtained some historical
financial information for revenues and expenditures, to
compare past to present and see where some programs once
funded by other sources and now funded by the Tribe, and
increases to budgets and what they are, for example, increase
in staff, wages, etc., and justify if increase in staff is due
to increase in clientele, what caused the increase and is it
needed.
Historical information of the operations and finances of the
Tribe is valuable to making important and appropriate
decisions for the financial situation of the Tribe.
Recently, I became involved with the Inter-Tribal Monitoring
Association and the Anderson Report project. The Anderson
Report was supposed to be an audit of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs during the periods 1972 to 1992, but because the BIA
was un-auditable, there was so called agreed upon procedures
by the Federal Government which basically lead to looking at
sample transactions and back-up documents (some not located)
for non-invested accounts. They did not look at the investment
accounts, IIM accounts, deposit transactions, stumpage, land
activities, and other natural resource accounts. This project
will be reviewing all these other accounts and coming up with
a methodology leading towards negotiations for possible
mis-appropriated funds due to Tribes. Council recently
delegated one of the Tribal accountants and myself to this
project.
Other areas of my involvement are the Direct Contract Support
Cost project for 638 funding and Indirect Costs. Also,
attended a workshop on the BIA Fiscal Year 2006 Budget request
and the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), a reporting
requirement that justifies to the Federal Government the need
for funding. PART has slowly been implemented at the direction
of the BIA and if not complied with results in loss of
funding.
Sovereignty for Indian Country is being threatened. Cuts in
Federal, BIA, and IHS funding are a big issue and it is
important that Tribal leaders of all Tribes work together
fighting this. Some of the Council has been involved with
this, as has been reported by them in their Tribal Tribune
reports. Also, it is important that Council keep continued
contact with Federal elected officials and continue to lobby
for funding and to stop proposed cuts. Please contact me if
you have any issues or concerns.
Gail M. DeLaCruz
Inchelium District
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