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CouncilCORNER>
MosesUpdate
By Harvey Moses, Jr.
Greetings:
Well, the Stampede has come and gone and we are all okay. We had
some interesting meetings with the Jockeys & Owner’s
Association, the City of Omak and the Stampede Board right up to
the Stampede itself on a number of different issues. There were
threats from animal rights group to disrupt the Suicide Race
with physical harm to the riders and court actions. Nothing
actually happened, thank the Creator for that. I attended the
Sunday Rodeo performance for the purposes of presenting the
overall winner with a saddle. I know now why I’m not a cowboy.
Watching these guys get ready for their ride is quite an
experience from slapping themselves, getting on and off their
mounts and pacing. In addition, a good percentage of these
individuals have casts or bandages from injuries apparently
received from other rodeos!
The Wells’ Dam money is a topic on everyone’s mind. I’ll start
off with these disclaimers: 1) the Council is not using this
money to cover our travel costs. 2) The Council is not using
this money to give ourselves raises. 3) The Council is not going
to use this money to cover budget shortfalls. The money ($13.5
million) will be distributed in a payment to all eligible
enrolled members (approximately 9,146). The problem at this
point in time is that the payment could not be deposited into
our treasury account. In the eyes of the federal government this
payment is taxable. Approximately a month ago, a majority of the
Council and our attorneys met with Ross Swimmer, Secretary of
Office of Special Trust, who will make the decision on the tax
issue? It appeared to all present that the meeting was
successful in changing Mr. Swimmer’s mind, but we have to await
his final decision, which will be made the first or second week
of September 05. The payment that was initially to be paid out
the first week of October, this time frame will have to be
adjusted to sometime in October 05.
The Nespelem District had a very good District meeting on
9/7/05. The agenda was open, the topics were: CTEC, CBC travel,
Wells Dam money, IHS problems, Housing problems, Drug & Alcohol
problems, Drug testing, Mining and Enrollment. The CTEC issues
ranged from how long are we going to continue to lose money at
CIPV and gaming, to how long are we going to allow CTEC to lose
our money? CBC travel: it’s believed that if the CBC stayed home
we’d have a balanced budget with cash to spare. This item will
be discussed at another time. What’s happening with the Wells
Dam money: this subject was discussed above. IHS problems: no
service to the membership, issued PO’s but no payment of same
users to be sent to collections, inability to get appointments,
call backs from IHS staff non-existent. Housing issues: not
enough affordable housing, housing regulations not being
consistent, drug and alcohol abuse in units. Substance abuse is
rampant on the reservation, what are we (CBC) doing about it? No
tolerance in Office of Reservation Attorney for review; CBC
looking at banishment of abusers? Drug testing: CBC needs to
take the lead, all tribal staff needs to be tested, and we need
to build treatment centers on the reservation, after care
centers on the reservation. Mining is not for the reservation
and people; need to redo the EIS on Tolman. Enrollment: we need
to look at only enrolling minors, not more adoptions of adults.
A lot of blame was passed around at the meeting. I think our
problems are all of our faults. I stated at the meeting that the
“vote” is what gets the attention of our federal and state
legislatures. We as a people need to VOTE to get things turned
around; if we all voted, we would not be paying over $3 for a
gallon of gas. If we voted we would not be sending our youth to
a foreign land to be in harm’s way; if we voted we could control
Okanogan and Ferry County’s easily; if we voted we could get
control of the local REA/NVEC power rates. I believe we could
even get some tribal members into the state legislature; now
that would be a real asset to our situation. And think about it
– to vote, we only have to pay the price of a stamp.
Harvey Moses, Jr.
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FinleyREPORT
By Terry Finley
I apologize for not thanking each and
everyone for their support in the last election. I hope you
can forgive me and I am sure it makes my job that much easier
when I have to make some tough decisions. And I am sure there
will be plenty more in the near future with the budget
shortfalls and per-capita distribution’s.
As I have stated in my campaign letters we are going to have
to diversify and go into new projects, which will probably,
include mining. Which is a good thing but also bad. It could
mean the survival of the reservation and the hopes and dreams
of our children and their children.
Hope this short note finds you all well and in good health. If
you need to contact me my numbers are: Home - 509-722-5404,
Wrk - 509-634-2205, Cell - 509-631-0483.
Thank you,
Terrence L. Finley
Inchelium Councilman
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HutchinsonUpdate
By Margie Hutchinson
Dear Tribal Members:
Boy do we ever miss the snow packs, all the creeks are drying
up, and the fish in the Omak Creek are struggling. The Fish
and Wildlife department is monitoring the ponds to be sure the
fish are being moved upstream.
Sorry I missed last month’s article, so I’ll have to give a
double report.
Senator John McCain introduced Bill S-1439, in July, to settle
the Cobell litigation, and Trust Reform. “To provide for
Indian trust asset management reform and resolution of
historical accounting claims, and for other purposes”.
We met and discussed what approach we would take on this new
legislation. Unfortunately under this administration they have
offered to appoint a special master to apply a formula to
distribute funding to some of those in the Cobell class action
suit. And they are allowed to use 11% of that funding for the
distribution to those individuals whose funds were mismanaged.
Secondly, create a Deputy assistant secretary, and eliminate
the Office of Special Trustee in 2008, which is the end of
President Bush’s term. The Bill also establishes a
demonstration Project for Tribes. This project would allow
tribes to enter into agreements with the department of
Interior to manage their own resources. NCAI, ITMA, and Cobell,
all felt the bill didn’t address their main issue of
historically accounting for the mismanagement of resources.
The bill removes the court and allows the current OST people
to continue to march forward with their reorganization
efforts.
Fast-forward, we had hearings in Washington D.C, and Ernie
Stensgar, gave testimony on behalf of the 54 affiliated tribes
of the northwest, and it was well received. In our most recent
meetings, we have decided that the Affiliated Tribes of
Northwest Indians need to continue to take the lead with this
legislation. We have formed groups to address and tweak the
bill and have our comments ready for the Senators who
introduced the bill. The Senators sense that the NW Tribes are
serious about their bill.
Then, United States’ Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day
O’Connor, announced her retirement after 24 years on the
federal bench. Justices O’Connor, and Bryer attended a
National Indian court Justices meeting in Spokane, and were
quite impressed with the Colville and Spokane tribal court
proceedings. I hope the next Supreme Court appointee will be
fair and respectful to Indian law. O’Connor’s track record on
Indian Issues was superb, and one we can be extremely grateful
for.
The Colville Business Council met with the State on an
addendum to the agreement we have on the Lake Roosevelt
component of the Columbia River Initiative. “The State
developed the Columbia river initiative to increase the water
supply in the mainstream Columbia River to improve stream
flows for out migrating juvenile anadromous fish and to
improve water for new consumptive uses”. Then at a follow up
meeting in Richland, I gave testimony on behalf of the tribe
to the House and Senate committee members on how to balance
fish needs and management of Lake Roosevelt. We were quite
fortunate to get this agreement in place, prior to Governor
Lock’s last term. Now governor Gregoire, would like to
reaffirm this agreement with the Tribe.
The Planning Department, scheduled a meeting in Nespelem, with
the Washington State Department of Transportation, The
Washington State Patrol, and several key staff from the
Olympia office. The statistical data reported for the Colville
Confederated Tribes, was 2.5% higher than neighboring
communities, and this is only with partial information. The
intent of the meeting was to work more closely with the
various agencies to identify why we have more accidents and
deaths, than the surrounding communities. Some of the issues
identified were unsafe roads, driver behavior, Speeding,
seatbelts. The WSP would like to work more closely with our
programs to conduct safety checks before the vehicles (trucks)
enter the roads. A strong statement made by the WSP to the
group, was that if we wanted immediate results, we should
“buckle up”.
We met at the Twin Lakes youth camp to work on the 2006
budgets. The financial picture is a bleak one, with the
revenues down at CTEC; we are unable to receive funding from
the enterprises to run some of the programs. There will be
some major cuts in some of the programs, and I believe the
administration is addressing these shortfalls in a positive
manner.
Thank you,
Margie Hutchinson
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Indian COUNTRY
By
Michael E. Marchand
September 15, 2005
Trust Reform: Next week we will be meeting with the
major groups dealing with trust reform and the parties to the
Cobell case at the ATNI conference in Coeur d’Alene. At our
urging, Senator McCain has introduced legislation to deal with
the problems of BIA trust management systems and also with the
ongoing litigation with Cobell. We have been working hard to
get the attention of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
and work closely with key staff. We received a lot of
complements from them, they said that the NW leaders have
consistently had the most useful comments and analysis
compared to the rest of the nation. We will be asking Congress
to pay dollars out so that tribes can buy out undivided
interests in land. We will also be asking that Congress
intervene and settle the Cobell case, which is swallowing up
the resources of the BIA. The government has made admissions
that it is incompetent, that it has mismanaged funds, and that
the system it has created is dysfunctional. Thousands of
account holders have been hostage to the US mismanagement of
its trust resources. It is time for the US to settle, pay what
is due, and move on with the business of government. Millions
of dollars are cut out of BIA services in order to reorganize
the Office of Special Trustee, which handles BIA accounts, and
to fight the Cobell case and protect the government’s
mismanagement. New school construction dollars were cut by
two-thirds. The tribe’s total operating budgets for the
government and enterprises amount to $100 million annually.
Small percentages one way or the other in how the federal
government budgets translate into a lot of dollars down to our
agency. Virtually everything that I report on in my articles
concern key issues that affect the tribe and almost all of
these take place off the reservation. Someone asked me where I
go on Council travel, so I said that I report on it every
month; this person was surprised and said that she never did
see a travel report. Trust reform meetings take place all over
the country from Washington DC and through most of the states
that have Indians. If you want to take part in the decision
making, you have to go where the decisions are being made.
Sticking your head in the sand will result in the loss of
tribal sovereignty and tribal budget dollars.
BIA Roads: One of the bigger agency budgets is the
roads budget from the BIA. This is used for transportation
programs and the bulk of these dollars also goes into CTEC
construction income. For the last few years, I have been
working on getting this budget through the Congress. In a time
when budgets are getting slashed everywhere, we have been
successful in getting increases. Congress has finally approved
the new bill and the President has grudgingly signed off. This
will benefit our tribe with millions in new road dollars in
the coming decade. These dollars come down to our tribe
through a formula, based on our inventories and costs, and
population. Even determining the formula methodologies are a
big battle, because shifts in how formulas get developed can
mean losing a lot of money. It is important to have Council
representation on these national policy programs. After years
of work, I was honored to be selected on the national roads
coordinating committee; this is the highest Indian roads
policy group in the country.
The tribe’s budgets are complicated and are affected by many
different factors, ranging from national federal budget
policies, the state, and regional economic conditions. Tribal
budgets include dollars from many different sources ranging
from government and private grants, contracts, and dollars
from business and resources. Every source of non-tribal money
has different strings attached. When the tribe takes on a
federal or state program to administer, the tribe negotiates
for dollars to deliver the services that the program is
supposed to accomplish. Then providing this service also has
an associated overhead cost that costs the tribe to
administer. This is usually called indirect costs and this is
negotiated also. Generally speaking, if we can get a higher
indirect cost rate this results in the tribe being able to get
more dollars for its programs. However, things are never
simple and like always there are exceptions and sometimes
these costs are not recoverable. The tribe tries to leverage
its dollars as much as possible. This stretches dollars out,
which is good, but when budgets have to be cut, say there is a
reduction in revenues, then it makes cutting back more
complicated, because we do not want to unnecessarily cut back
our indirect cost rates.
Back in the mid-1980’s, the tribe did an across the board
cutback, programs went to four day workweeks. This had
tremendously bad impacts on the indirect cost rates. It took
the tribe years to overcome the cutbacks due to the decrease
in indirect cost rates. So actually, the four day work week
cost the tribe more dollars in the long run then it saved in
the short run. For example, certain functions in the tribe’s
administration increase the indirect cost rate and actually
generate dollars for the tribe. An example is Council
expenses, which generate indirect revenues. So if there is a
need to cut back, there are many things to consider, like how
important is the program to the tribe and also what is the
impact on indirect cost rate formulas and how does this impact
the tribe’s ability to get maximum leverage out of its
dollars. This is big business, because the tribe’s agency
programs and the business enterprises budgets, (now this is
not profit), are in the hundred million dollar range.
Decisions made by the tribe have far reaching impacts and also
affect future years. One of the big impacts is performance by
the tribal businesses. In 1997, the tribe had maximum CTEC
revenues. Markets were strong and things were going good, CTEC
generated over $20 million to the tribe. Since 1997, this has
been in decline and we are at the point now where CTEC is
anticipating a drop down to $2.5 million. There are many
reasons for this and I won’t go into all of them at this time,
but suffice it to say that this decline in CTEC revenues is
the biggest single factor in the health of the tribe’s budget.
CTEC has supplied millions of dollars to the tribe over the
years, there is no question that is has been a valuable asset
over time. But in recent years, the enterprises have been
having a struggle. To make matters worse, the low interest
rates and building boom have been helping a lot, but how long
can this be sustained is the question. We have a revenue drop
in the optimum markets, so what will happen when the market
declines. This summer has seen some of the declines already,
hopefully the bottom will not last too long and things will
get better again. There has been a big turnover in CTEC
management. The tribe is currently advertising for a new Board
of Directors. The big factors in CTEC are the energy markets,
the timber markets, and statewide gaming competition. These
all have big impacts on us, they need to be overcome if we are
to grow as a tribe. Obviously, we need to diversify business.
In order to diversify, the tribe needs to find a way to save
and invest. This is straight forward economics and common
sense. If we never invest in business, they will never grow
and the decline will continue.
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