<DOC>
[109 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:30040.wais]
TRIBAL SELF-GOVERNANCE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON TRIBAL SELF-GOVERNANCE: OBSTACLES AND IMPEDIMENTS
TO EXPANSION OF SELF-GOVERNANCE
__________
SEPTEMBER 20, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
30-040 PDF WASHINGTON : 2006
------------------------------------------------------------------
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota, Vice Chairman
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming KENT CONRAD, North Dakota
GORDON SMITH, Oregon DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma
John Tahsuda, III, Majority Staff Director
Sara G. Garland, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements:
Allen, W. Ron, chairman, Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe........... 15
Benjamin, Melanie, chairwoman, Mille Lac Band Assembly....... 14
Carlyle, Delia M., chairwoman, AK Chin Indian Community
Council.................................................... 9
Jourdain, Louis, chairman, Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians
of Minnesota............................................... 11
McCain, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Arizona, chairman,
Committee on Indian Affairs................................ 1
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, U.S. Senator from Alaska............... 2
Reinfeld, Ken, acting director, Office of Self-Governance,
Department of the Interior................................. 3
Skibine, George, acting deputy assistant secretary, Policy
and Economic Development for Indian Affairs, Department of
the Interior............................................... 3
Appendix
Prepared statements:
Allen, W. Ron (with attachment).............................. 26
Association of Alaska Housing Authorities.................... 23
Benjamin, Melanie (with attachment).......................... 73
Carlyle, Delia M. (with attachment).......................... 81
Jourdain, Louis (with attachment)............................ 88
Skibine, George.............................................. 123
TRIBAL SELF-GOVERNANCE
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:38 a.m. in room
485, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John McCain (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators McCain, Dorgan, and Murkowski.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN McCAIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA,
CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
The Chairman. Good morning. This morning the committee will
receive testimony on the Department of the Interior's
management of the Tribal Self-Governance Program. For many, it
is hard to imagine that just a little over 30 years ago, the
Federal Government was the sole provider of all or nearly all
essential governmental services to Indian tribes and their
members, including police, fire, education, and health care
services in Indian country.
In 1975, Congress enacted the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act, Public Law 93-638. Since then,
Congress has increasingly authorized Indian tribes to manage
Federal programs and assume control over their own affairs.
Tribal self-governance aims to foster strong tribal governments
and healthy reservation economies as mechanisms to further
tribal government.
Encouraged by the opportunities available under the act to
operate and shape BIA programs to be more responsive to their
community needs, Indian tribes across the country actively
sought to contract and compact with the BIA. As more tribes
assumed control over their own affairs, there has been a
corresponding reduction in the Federal bureaucracy and an
improvement in the quality of services delivered to tribal
members.
Recently, however, many tribes have been reluctant to enter
into new contracts or to expand their current contracts and
compacts. Some tribes have even begun to retrocede contracts as
authorized under the act. This hearing will provide an
opportunity for the department and invited tribal witnesses to
offer their views and comments on these trends, and possible
suggestions for resolving these challenges.
The Chairman. Vice Chairman Dorgan is at a leadership
meeting. He will be a few minutes late. In the meantime,
Senator Murkowski?
STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good
morning.
There is little dispute within Indian country that the
policy of self-determination first enunciated by President
Nixon is probably one of the best, if not the single best thing
that this Federal Government has ever done to help our Native
people. Alaska tribes are 100 percent self-governance for
Indian Health Services program and they compact BIA program.
Although none of the witnesses today are from Alaska, so many
of the concerns they are going to discuss are shared by Alaska
self-governance tribes.
The premise of self-determination is that Native people are
stronger when they deliver Federal programs and services to
their people, rather than rely on the Federal Government for
service delivery. The quality of service delivery is higher
when the people who deliver those services are directly
accountable to tribal members. The opportunities for Native
employment are greater.
Before self-governance came to Alaska, there were very few
opportunities for our Native institutions to employ returning
graduates from college and post-graduate programs. The self-
governance institutions in Alaska have emerged as employers of
choice for our Native young people.
This committee wonders with good reason why self-governance
is not more popular around the country, and we need look no
further than the tribes which have enthusiastically taken on
Federal responsibilities under their self-governance compacts,
but have then discovered that the Federal Government is
unwilling to live up to its responsibilities under those
compacts.
The lack of funding for contract support costs, which have
been promised under the Indian Self-Determination Act and self-
governance compacts leads the list of concerns that I
frequently hear from Alaska tribes. I would hope this morning
each of the witnesses will address themselves to the question
of whether inadequate contract support costs deterred tribes
from entering into self-governance compacts.
Now, we hear that BIA is giving their employees cost of
living increases, but will not fund cost of living increases
for tribal employees who perform the same functions under the
self-governance compacts. While it is true that tribes can ask
the Federal Government to take back the responsibility for
delivering programs and services, self-governance is truly a
matter of pride. Self-governance tribes will squeeze as much as
they can out of a dollar, but more and more I am hearing that
there is less and less to squeeze.
I am pleased that the committee is turning its attention to
the issues of self-governance tribes today. I am hopeful that
this hearing will lay the groundwork for continued dialog, the
110th Congress and I appreciate your initiative on this, Mr.
Chairman.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Skibine, please come sit down, the Acting Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Policy and Economic Development for
Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior, and old
friend of the committee. He is accompanied by?
Mr. Skibine. I am accompanied by Ken Reinfeld, who is the
Acting Director of the Office of Self-Governance.
The Chairman. Good, thank you. Welcome. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE SKIBINE, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
POLICY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT
OF THE INTERIOR, ACCOMPANIED BY KEN REINFELD, ACTING DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF SELF-GOVERNANCE
Mr. Skibine. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Murkowski. I am pleased to be here today to present testimony
on the oversight hearing on tribal self-governance.
Essentially, I think my comments have been furnished to the
committee and my statement will be made part of the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Skibine. Okay, thank you.
The self-governance program started in 1991 with seven
tribes for about approximately $27 million. In 2006, there were
91 funding agreements providing services to 231 tribes for $300
million. So the program has been extremely successful since its
inception and the department strongly supports self-governance
as an exercise of tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
Its framework is one of administrative flexibility, which
allows tribes to determine for themselves what are their
program priorities. We have been essentially one of the success
stories, I think, for the Administration since its inception.
Indian tribes, of course, may negotiate a non-BIA funding
agreements for programs which are of special geographical,
cultural and historical significance to the tribe, and they are
first negotiating funding agreements with the BIA or other
Interior agencies for programs which are available to Indians
because of their status as Indians. Each year, the department
publishes a list of available programs for inclusion in funding
agreements to be negotiated by Interior bureaus other than the
BIA. Currently, there are funding agreements with the Bureau of
Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park
Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Office of
Special Trustee. Overall, approximately 14 agreements.
In addition, one of the policies of the Assistant Secretary
for Indian Affairs is to hold quarterly meetings with the Self-
Governance Advisory Committee to discuss and resolve issues of
mutual interest. We participate in yearly self-governance
conferences at the tribes' invitation. So we are essentially
involved with self-governance tribes on a consultation basis
pretty much year-round, so that we are well aware to feel the
pulse of the tribes when it comes to issues facing those tribes
in the self-governance program.
Finally, we are currently working with the title IV tribal
self-governance task force to explore the need for amendments
to title IV. The Secretary's office asked me this year to lead
the department's team in this effort because there was some
frustration on the parts of tribes and within our
Administration over the length of time it was taking the
department to move forward on the negotiations. So at this
point, I hope that progress can be made in reaching mutually
acceptable solutions to the issues raised by the proposed
amendments. I am sure some of the tribal witnesses will testify
on that issue.
We did submit a list of issues we have with the proposed
amendments. The tribes have responded and we are now looking
forward to starting a negotiation meeting with the Tribal
Advisory Committee and hopefully we can resolve most, if not
all, of the issues that are of concern.
Finally, I point out in my testimony that the department
this year issued a national policy on contract support costs,
and hopefully that policy will help alleviate some of the
issues regarding contract support funding and having the money
accessible to tribes.
With that, I will complete my comments, and I am pleased to
answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Skibine appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. How many years have you been dealing with
these issues?
Mr. Skibine. Excuse me?
The Chairman. How many years have you been dealing with
Native American issues?
Mr. Skibine. With Native American issues, myself? About 29
years.
The Chairman. About 29 years. And we saw when self-
determination and self-governance began that it was a great
success, in 1975. Right? We saw more and more tribes taking
advantage of self-governance contracting, because that is the
whole theory of our treatment of Indian tribes, to allow them
to self-govern as much as possible. By weaning themselves away
from the BIA, IHS, and others, they were able to exercise much
more self-governance. Right?
Mr. Skibine. That is correct.
The Chairman. How do you account for what appears to be a
retrograde of tribes exercising self-governance and the lack of
additional tribes seeking the ability to do so? It seems to fly
in the face of everything that tribes seek and what we as a
Nation want tribes to be able to do?
Mr. Skibine. Mr. Chairman, I am, and I stand to be
corrected by my acting director, but I am not aware that we are
having a regression in the number of tribes that participate in
the self-governance program. It is true that the number of
tribes seeking self-governance contracts has slowed
progressively down because ultimately we have reached a certain
plateau and we are certainly open to have more tribes
participate in self-governance. I think ultimately tribes, it
is their decision of whether to enter into self-governance
compacts or not.
The Chairman. In the 1980's when I first started getting
involved in Native American issues from a legislative
standpoint, self-governance seemed to be the way that we
thought all tribes were going to go. And now, many of the
major, largest tribes have not done so. Would you like to
comment?
Mr. Reinfeld. Self-governance began in 1991. You are
talking about, since 1975, the contracting, the 638
contracting.
The Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Reinfeld. One of the requirements to get into self-
governance is to have been operating successfully a contract
for 3 years. So contracting has diminished because some of
these tribes, all of these tribes have come into self-
governance.
The Chairman. So we don't have any problems?
Mr. Reinfeld. I didn't say that.
Mr. Skibine. I guess maybe we are not having, in the self-
governance, under title IV, we have seen a steady increase and
no reduction in the number of tribes. There has been a leveling
off of the number of tribes entering into self-governance
compacts because many tribes, at their option, may decide that
they want to continue having 638 contracts under title I of the
act, or want direct services for whatever reason. It is really
their decision.
If we have a problem with tribes wanting to enter into
self-governance and not doing so, then we need to hear from
tribes that that is the case. I think we have not heard that.
The Chairman. Okay. Here is what we are going to hear from
the witnesses, that there are bureaucratic obstacles, and there
are other impediments that discourage tribes. For example, the
committee has been informed that the BIA is not releasing the
full amount of funding appropriated for self-governance and
that these administrative hold-backs account for as much as 5
to 10 percent of the funds authorized. The Ak Chin people tell
us that, and others.
Why is that occurring? Why would we hold back 5 to 10
percent of the funding?
Mr. Skibine. I think that there may have been a hold-back
because of congressional rescissions that were essentially held
back against all of our budgets, whether central office of
tribes, pending knowing exactly whether there was going to be
some rescission. I am not all that familiar with the inner
working of the budget-area issues. If you want, we can look and
ask our Office of Administration to look into that.
The Chairman. Well, we are also told the BIA sometimes
doesn't distribute funding in a timely fashion. Is that
legitimate?
Mr. Skibine. Do you have any comments on that?
Mr. Reinfeld. Yes; there are certain funds that do get to
our office late in the fiscal year and don't get to the tribes.
Mr. Skibine. But why is that?
Mr. Reinfeld. Well, it depends on the particular program.
Federal Highway funds is one of those. The methodology for
contract support and welfare assistance gets to the tribe in
two installments, so some of it gets later in the year when
there is a better knowledge of the needs, the full need level
that could be funded. Those are capped appropriations, so the
tribe does not get 100 percent, but there is a pro-rata
reduction to keep it within the appropriation limit.
The Chairman. Let me get this straight. The tribe enters
into a contract with somebody to provide a certain service and
they agree to pay that contract to that organization, whatever
it may be, only they don't get the full amount of money to pay
it. Now, if I were a tribe, I would say to heck with that. I
will just let the Government pay it.
Mr. Reinfeld. The appropriation language does limit the
amount that can be spent for the contract support and for the
welfare assistance. So to keep within that appropriated level
or ceiling, it is pro-rata reduced for all the tribes.
The Chairman. The IHS tells us that approximately one-half
of its budget goes to tribes through self-governance contracts
and compacts. I think that in your written testimony, you tell
us tribes have only contracted for $300 million in the BIA
programs. It seems to me IHS has been more successful than the
BIA. Is that a legitimate comment?
Mr. Skibine. I am not familiar with the IHS program and
funding, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you.
I don't know if I heard an answer there in the exchange
with the Chairman, but in my opening statement I asked for the
witnesses to address the question of whether or not inadequate
contract support costs are deterring tribes from entering into
self-governance compacts. I am not sure if you acknowledge that
you agree there is a deterrent effect, if we are not adequately
funding the contract support costs.
Mr. Skibine. I am not sure if there is a deterrent for the
tribe. They can address that better than I can. I think that
what we have done this year to try to ameliorate the situation
with contract support is adopt this national policy, for which
we have the following objectives. It will stabilize funding to
each tribe from year to year. It will expedite payments for
each tribe, and it will respect the Act's prohibition against
reducing contract amounts from one year to the next.
The policy accomplishes these goals by requiring that,
subject to appropriations, a tribe be paid the same amount it
was paid in the preceding year. It allows the payment to be
made very early in the fiscal year, and the only restriction is
that the BIA must ensure that tribes do not receive more than
100 percent of its total requirements.
So the adoption of this policy certainly represents forward
progress in the area of self-governance. We believe that it
will significantly improve administrative flexibility and
fiscal stability for tribes with funding agreements. To
implement the funding aspect of the policy, the President's
2007 budget included a 14-percent increase for contract support
costs.
Senator Murkowski. So do you consider this full funding for
contract support?
Mr. Skibine. I am not sure that it is or not.
Do you have any comment on that?
Mr. Reinfeld. It remains to be seen, according to what the
needs are. It may not be. I do want to add that self-governance
tribes receive contract support on the same basis as
contracting tribes.
Senator Murkowski. Did you mention, Mr. Skibine, in your
initial comments, that there is a report due out on the
contract support costs? You mentioned the national policy.
Mr. Skibine. Yes; the national policy that we have adopted.
Senator Murkowski. Okay. And that policy was adopted how
long ago?
Mr. Skibine. It was adopted this year.
Senator Murkowski. So this next fiscal year will be the
first time that it is actually in place?
Mr. Skibine. That is correct.
Senator Murkowski. Let me ask you about the PART
requirement. OMB requires that Federal agencies justify their
programs using the program assessment review tool. One of the
concerns that we have heard from our tribes is that, well,
self-governance is working for them. They have concerns that
BIA is not collecting the data necessary to justify the
program. Can you give me your thoughts on this? What are we
doing to address this concern?
Mr. Reinfeld. I think that the department is changing its
strategic plan so that the data that is to be measured in that
process, in the Government Performance and Results Act process
[GPRA], is going to be more relevant to the tribes' activities.
Senator Murkowski. It is not my understanding that it is
relevancy so much as just the data is not being collected. Is
there going to be an effort to step that up to make sure that
we have the data that is needed for this review or required by
this review?
Mr. Reinfeld. We have put in the funding agreements
provisions which tribes are agreeing to provide the Government
Performance and Results Act, which is one of the first steps in
the PART process. So yes, we have moved forward on that.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Let me just get this straight. The tribe
enters into a contract for a certain service for a certain
amount of money. But because of budgetary constraints or acts
by the Appropriations Committee, there is not enough money, so
they don't pay them as much as they originally contracted to
pay. Is that correct?
Mr. Reinfeld. The provision in the fund agreement says that
it is just an estimate and we really don't know until the year
goes on.
The Chairman. What is just an estimate?
Mr. Reinfeld. For the, like, welfare assistance. They don't
know what their need is going to be on contract support. They
don't know what their need is. So it is an estimated amount and
it is going to be based on the indirect cost rate that is
negotiated. So it is dependent on how many funds they get, and
it is a certain percentage of that. Part of the funding is non-
recurring.
The Chairman. That is interesting, but again, is it a fact
that the tribe enters into a contract for certain services, and
that contract, they are able to do that under self-governance.
Right?
Mr. Skibine. Yes.
The Chairman. Okay. So they enter into that contract and
they say they will pay them a certain amount of money to
perform that service, but then because of appropriations
cutbacks, you may not have sufficient money to allow them to
pay the commitments under that contract. Is that correct?
Mr. Skibine. Yes.
The Chairman. Well, I wonder what would happen if we did
that with the defense contractors? I mean, that would be
interesting. It would be a fascinating experience.
Mr. Reinfeld. We do have a provision in the funding
agreements. We negotiate off the President's budget.
The Chairman. Excuse me. But the tribes are negotiating off
of what their needs are. They are contracting-out a certain
service. Right?
Mr. Reinfeld. We do adjust according to the appropriation,
and that is a provision.
The Chairman. Have you ever adjusted up?
Mr. Reinfeld. Yes.
The Chairman. You have?
Mr. Reinfeld. If Congress appropriates more dollars for a
program, yes, they get more dollars.
The Chairman. So again, suppose that our defense
contractors were dependent upon how much money the
Appropriations Committee appropriates for a certain program,
and I am sorry we didn't have enough, so we are not going to
pay you completely. I mean, that doesn't make any sense.
Mr. Reinfeld. We roll up their base funding into one number
and then adjust it. There is also not only if the President's
budget is greater than the appropriated amount, then we reduce
it to the appropriation. But we also add the pay costs to it,
so any increases. One time, there was TPA increase, tribal
priority allocation increases, that were also added. So I mean,
tribes are not only getting reductions, but they are getting
increases just by the nature of how it is formulated.
The Chairman. But is it true that some contracts are not
given sufficient amount of money to fulfill the obligation
under that contract? Is that true?
Mr. Reinfeld. We have pro rata reduced contract support and
that is true for that.
The Chairman. For contract support?
Mr. Reinfeld. Yes.
The Chairman. If I were the guy doing the contracting, I
would say, I am not sure I want to get into this contract if I
could be paid 5 or 10 percent less than what I entered into. In
fact, I think I would see you in court.
Senator Dorgan has just arrived. Do you have anything?
Senator Dorgan. Mr. Chairman, let me offer my regret that I
was detained at another meeting, but thank you both for being
here. I will defer questions.
The Chairman. Well, thank you. We will get more into this,
but really, Mr. Skibine, we have known each other for a long
time. It just doesn't seem appropriate to me that as we
encourage tribes to contract out for certain services, and they
are making the decision to do it, and then they obviously
should have guidance as to how much money they can contract out
for. I am sure that that is the case. But if they can't pay
their bills, then it seems to me that that is not a very
attractive way of doing business, where if they would just rely
on the Federal Government to do the contracting, the Federal
Government very rarely does not pay its bills. So I can see why
this might be a disincentive.
Do you see my point?
Mr. Skibine. Yes; I see your point. We will certainly look
into that.
The Chairman. All right. I would appreciate it. Thank you.
It is good to see you all again. Thanks for coming.
Mr. Skibine. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Our next panel is Delia M. Carlyle,
chairwoman of the Ak Chin Indian Community; Floyd Jourdain,
chairman of the Red Lake Band of Chippewas; Melanie Benjamin,
chairwoman of the Mille Lacs Band Assembly; and Ron Allen,
chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, an old friend of the
committee.
We will begin with Delia M. Carlyle, since she hails from
the great State of Arizona, a prerogative of the Chair.
[Laughter.]
STATEMENT OF DELIA M. CARLYLE, CHAIRWOMAN, AK CHIN INDIAN
COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Ms. Carlyle. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman,
and Senator Murkowski.
My name is Delia Carlyle and I am currently the chairman of
the Ak Chin Indian Community.
The Chairman. Located?
Ms. Carlyle. Okay. I have that coming up, sir.
The Chairman. Okay.
Ms. Carlyle. Our reservation was established in May 1912
and was originally comprised of over 47,000 acres. In the same
year, 3 months later, our reservation was reduced by more than
one-half, to its present-day size of just under 22,000 acres.
My community is located approximately 35 miles south of
Phoenix, AZ, and near my sister tribe of the Gila River Indian
Reservation. We are a small, but proud tribe, of 767 enrolled
members.
Today, my community is being significantly impacted by
hyper-growth in our area. We were once a small rural farming
village, but today my area is one of the fastest growing
suburbs of Phoenix, if not also in the United States. The
explosive growth has also brought big-city problems to my
community, which adversely affect our air, water, land,
culture, traditions and our own tribal members.
Thus the need for timely and full-funded self-governance
programs is more important than ever to assist my community in
providing necessary services for our tribal members. I am here
today to speak about self-governance programs as they pertain
to my community.
At Ak Chin, we have social services, criminal investigator,
education, roads maintenance and other consolidated tribal
government programs which includes the courts, enrollment,
adult education, Band adult education in our self-governance
compact. In theory, self-governance was intended to allow an
Indian tribe to consolidate all its BIA 638 program funds and
reporting requirements into one self-governance compact. The
primary objective of self-governance programs is to enable the
tribe, not the BIA, to operate its own tribal programs.
Unfortunately, self-governance programs have strayed away
from their original intent to strengthen Indian self-
determination and self-sufficiency.
One of our biggest problems for my tribe's self-governance
program is that the BIA's Office of Self-Governance has become
an additional layer of BIA bureaucracy. The problem is that our
negotiator is not a local person. The individual is located
over 1,000 miles away and three States away in Vancouver, WA.
Thus, they do not know the local resources of our area.
Another example is that my tribe may need a social worker,
teacher, nurse, therapist, or police officer to help implement
a self-governance program. Because there are no local resources
through the OSG, my tribe has to turn to the BIA agency and/or
regional office for administrative and technical support to
implement and operate our self-governance programs. This
creates several problems.
First, there is no local BIA support because of the BIA's
agency or regional office lost their technical support person,
who was let go or reassigned when OSG took over the program
administration. Furthermore, tribes may be stuck in the middle
of an OSG and agency regional office turf battle. At times,
tribes pay the price for BIA internal strife when an agency
office loses personnel and funding to the OSG. The result is
that the tribe gets the bureaucratic runaround instead of its
questions answered.
In addition, technical assistance funding is practically
gone. This hurts tribal program development because of the lack
of BIA program technical assistance and support. This is
especially true for navigating through the complex funding
formula process.
Besides a lack of adequate funding for tribal programs, a
huge problem is getting the available self-governance funding
drawn down to my tribe. These funds are already authorized and
appropriated, but my tribe gets excuse after excuse from OSG
that the BIA central office has not forwarded the funds.
For example, in my case, my tribe has not yet received our
fiscal year 2004 reservation roads funding. Because of my
area's hyper-growth, roadway infrastructure is a major need.
From 2004 to the present, we were promised almost $200,000 for
road construction from OSG. Based on that information, we
planned and negotiated, along with State and local county
officials, for a joint roadway project to help alleviate the
mass congestion of traffic going through the main road in my
village. The road was built, but the funding has yet to come.
Therefore, my tribe had to cover the funding gap, which
meant that other tribal programs such as meals services to our
elders, as well as budget cuts to early childhood development
programs, as examples, were used to make up for the self-
governance shortfall.
Finally, we have recently been informed by OSG that the
funding should be available soon, but the amount is less than
originally promised.
Another glaring problem is the expanded use of
administrative hold-backs by the BIA. In short, the BIA central
office is not releasing the full amount of authorized and
appropriated funds for tribes, and holding back about 5 percent
to 10 percent of tribally earmarked funds. This is a direct
violation of section 405 of the Interior Appropriations Act,
which requires any hold-backs to be approved by the
Appropriations Committee. To this date, there has been no such
approval.
In some cases, the BIA claims that hurricane relief or
Cobell litigation fees consumed the funds. In addition, at
times we have also been told by staff within the BIA that
instead of the funds going to the tribes, those funds were
returned to the Treasury. In any case, the funds are not going
to tribal programs. As a result, tribes have to cut other much-
needed tribal programs to make up for the hold-backs.
We offer the following recommendations to hopefully resolve
some of these problems. First, positive impact comes simply
from the BIA following Federal law and not enabling
administrative hold-backs. It seems that streamlining the
funding process would be another good start. There are still
too many bureaucratic layers involved. It should not take over
2 years to have funds drawn down to my tribe or any other
tribe. We rely on the promised self-governance funding and
incorporate those funds into our annual budgets. If we do not
receive those funds, we have to make cuts from other important
tribal programs, which impact our elders, youth, and all our
tribal members.
In addition, we respectfully recommend having local
negotiators, limiting the number of tribes per negotiator, and
rewarding good negotiators, while getting rid of the
ineffective ones.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and committee members, I would
like to thank all of you for this opportunity. Our community
has high hopes that this committee will address the problems of
self-governance and we look forward to working with you toward
solutions.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Carlyle appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Floyd Jourdain? Is that the proper pronunciation, sir?
Mr. Jourdain. Yes.
The Chairman. Thank you. Welcome.
Mr. Jourdain. And I agree, Arizona is a beautiful State.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF FLOYD JOURDAIN, Jr., CHAIRMAN, RED LAKE BAND OF
CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF MINNESOTA
Mr. Jourdain. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, members of
the committee, good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to
present our issue today and provide the testimony on behalf of
the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians in Northwestern
Minnesota.
I will focus my remarks on the harsh impacts on my tribe
and on other tribes that have been caused by the failure of the
BIA, the OMB and the Congress to fully fund pay cost increases
for self-governance programs. As an aside, I want to add that
the Red Lake Band supports the bootstrap amendment that Chief
Executive Benjamin and Chairman Allen have testified upon, and
having title V authority applied to our title IV agreement
would help Red Lake in our ongoing negotiations with the BIA.
To my main point, under Public Law 93-638, tribal employees
do what Federal employees previously did for tribes. Congress
has regularly encouraged the Administration to treat 93-638
tribal employees the same as BIA employees are treated with
respect to pay cost increases and other fixed costs. Because
Congress and the Administration have failed to fully fund these
costs, Indian tribes have been forced to either absorb the pay
cost increases by reducing services, or to deny tribal
employees the pay cost increases received by their Federal
colleagues.
As a result, the House Appropriations Subcommittee wrote in
its fiscal year 2005 Interior report
Absorption of costs associated with the Federal pay
increases and other unfunded fixed costs cannot continue
indefinitely without further eroding core program capabilities.
Over the past 3 years, the Indian programs have absorbed
over $500 million in unfunded costs. Reducing Indian services
by $500 million every 3 years in order to pay our tribal
employees their basic cost of living increases is not a choice
tribes like Red Lake can live with.
My written testimony sets out in detail the painful funding
cuts that the Red Lake Band has endured in the past 5 years. I
will briefly summarize these cuts. For fiscal year 2006, we
timely submitted our pay cost worksheet to BIA. If fully
funded, that would have given us an increase of over $260,000.
The President requested and the Congress enacted fully funded
pay costs for the Department of the Interior in fiscal year
2006, but BIA gave us only $97,000.
Why was Red Lake shortchanged $153,000? It turns out BIA
did not collect some pay cost worksheets from other tribes when
OMB was calculating a totally funded Interior need. So BIA
decided to distribute erroneously smaller amounts pro rata
among other tribes. Once again, tribes like Red Lake had to pay
for BIA's mistakes.
For fiscal year 2002, there apparently was such acrimony
between the BIA budget office and Interior's Office of Self-
Governance that when OSG missed a deadline for submitting pay
cost information on self-governance tribes to BIA, $3.3 million
was not included in the request that went to OMB and the
Congress. When we learned about this mistake, we pleaded with
the Congress to correct it. The House added $3.3 million, but
at conference with the Senate, that amount was halved. So BIA
pro-rated the shortfall to all tribes. Once again, tribes like
Red Lake had to pay for Interior's mistakes.
For fiscal year 2003, 2004, and 2005, Red Lake believes the
BIA has miscalculated Red Lake's proper share of the limited
pay cost funding that was requested and appropriated. We have
repeatedly asked BIA to report to us how it calculated our
share for those years. They have repeatedly failed to give us
the report. We even made BIA promise in our legally binding
self-governance funding agreement last year to provide us with
this information by April 1 of this year. The date has come and
gone without the BIA report.
Mr. Chairman, the BIA's neglect and disinterest in self-
governance borders on hostility because we insist on being
dealt with fairly and honestly. Must a tribe like Red Lake sue
the Secretary just to get something done? This year marks Red
Lake's 10th anniversary under self-governance, but is there
cause for celebration?
Certainly, there have been some good things that have come
under self-governance, and I describe a few of them in my
written testimony. Yet the fact is that prior to fiscal year
1996, the Red Lake Band enjoyed relatively stable funding for
our tribal priority programs, and even saw an occasional
increase for the cost of inflation.
Then, beginning with the devastating $100 million cut to
the TPA in fiscal year 1996 when Senator Gorton was an
Appropriations Chairman, Red Lake saw in that year alone a
sudden reduction of 16 percent to 18 percent in funding for our
core service programs, including law enforcement, fire
protection, social services and natural resources. That was the
year we began self-governance and we have never recovered, what
with the mandatory and targeted rescissions and pay cost cuts.
No matter how efficient we have become at spending our
funds as a result of self-governance authority, we have gone
backward because of all the funding cuts and BIA
miscalculations of our pay cost increases. Core service funding
is less today than 1 decade ago. Contract support has been
chronically inadequate and uncontrollable fixed costs have not
been funded.
It might seem easiest for some tribes to simply revert back
to BIA direct service. At least the BIA service providers would
get their annual and step pay increases. But is that really in
our best interest? Red Lake does not think so. We want to
continue on the self-governance path, but we will need your
continued help, Mr. Chairman, and that of this committee, to
ensure that self-governance tribes are treated fairly by the
BIA, by Interior's Budget Office, by OMB and by the
appropriators.
To that end, we have a couple of requests we have outlined
in my written testimony. We suggest a series of questions for
you to consider asking the department, and some of them you
have asked today; a letter to trigger a GAO investigation of
the pay cost debacles at Interior; and a request that you
demand that the department immediately provide the Red Lake
Band with the pay cost report promised to us by April 1, 2006;
and provide us with the funds that should have been given us in
prior years and add them to our base funding in future years.
We need your help and we need the help of this committee.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, the failure to fully fund tribes'
uncontrollable costs, especially pay costs, during the last 5
fiscal years, has caused serious and irreparable harm to tribal
core service programs. Errors, omissions, and miscalculations
on the part of the BIA have compounded this problem. These
matters are clearly a disincentive for tribes to continue
participating in or to expand their participation in self-
governance.
On behalf of the Red Lake Band and tribes across the
country, thank you for asking me to testify today. I appreciate
the opportunity and for your assistance in drawing attention to
the matters that I have presented today.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Jourdain appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Chairwoman Benjamin, welcome.
STATEMENT OF MELANIE BENJAMIN, CHAIRWOMAN, MILLE LACS BAND
ASSEMBLY
Ms. Benjamin. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. You have my written statement, so I will be brief. I
also want to say Arizona is a beautiful State. [Laughter.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. Benjamin. The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe has been among
a handful of Indian tribes that have----
The Chairman. Senator Dorgan says that is not a requirement
for witnesses. [Laughter.]
Ms. Benjamin. The Mille Lacs of Ojibwe has been among a
handful of Indian tribes that have devoted countless hours over
the past 18 years to the task of shaping Federal-tribal self-
governance laws, regulations, and practice. Our former tribal
Chairman Arthur Gahbow was among the 10 tribal leaders who met
in Kansas City under the name of the Alliance of American
Indian Leaders in 1988. They were led by Roger Jourdain and
Wendell Chino. As a group, they first proposed the concept of
self-governance.
Our goal has always been to expand tribal participation in
self-governance. But to do that, we must remove the obstacles.
It is no secret that generally speaking the Federal
bureaucracies are threatened by any expansion of tribal self-
governance because it results in a shift of power, money and
job away from the Federal agencies and into tribal government
employees.
From the beginning, our tribal allies in Congress such as
you, Mr. Chairman, have had to push self-governance laws
without support from the Administration. Today, we are here to
report that after 6 years, we have been unable to persuade the
Department of the Interior to support detailed reform
legislation. We only want to bring the title IV BIA self-
governance statute into conformity with the title V Indian
Health Service self-governance statute.
So we ask that, as an interim measure, the Congress pass a
simple technical bootstrap amendment. We realize that these are
the closing days of Congress, yet this amendment is so
important. It will provide interim relief to expand tribal
self-governance at BIA. The bootstrap amendment would simply
capture the improvements made by Congress in 2000 regarding
Indian Health Service and extend them to the BIA and Interior
at the option of the tribes.
Put another way, it would allow self-governance tribes to
apply other provisions of Public Law 93-638, especially title
V, to their BIA self-governance agreement. The bootstrap would
immediately make self-governance more attractive to tribes
because it will, first, increase tribal flexibility in the
administration of our programs; second, produce cost savings by
allowing tribes to conform our BIA-funded administrative
practices to our Indian Health Service-funded administrative
practices; third, expand eligibility and simplify the
application process; fourth, shorten negotiations by applying
time lines for decisions in dispute resolution; and fifth,
expand investment authority over advanced funds.
It is a very cautious approach to reform because it would
apply to only existing law and authority from title V to
Interior self-governance agreements. This is a law that has
been working well for the past 6 years at Indian Health
Service. It is time to allow tribes and BIA self-governance
compacts to take advantage of these improvements.
From its beginning days, the goal of tribal self-governance
has been to allow Indian tribes to redesign programs to better
meet the needs of our people and to allow us to prioritize the
funds ourselves to address the needs with administrative
efficiency. The bootstrap amendment would help us achieve these
goals.
On behalf of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, I thank you,
Mr. Chairman, for considering it and urge its swift passage.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Benjamin appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Ron Allen, welcome back.
STATEMENT OF W. RON ALLEN, CHAIRMAN, JAMESTOWN S'KLALLAM TRIBE
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is always an honor
to be here before you and this distinguished body, so I am very
honored to be here. So I thank you and the vice chairman for
inviting me.
For the record, I am Ron Allen, chairman for the Jamestown
S'Klallam Tribe. You have my testimony, and I am submitting it
for the record.
The Chairman. The written statement of all the witnesses
will be made a part of the record.
Mr. Allen. Thank you, sir.
Senator Dorgan. Mr. Allen, would you like to tell us your
thoughts about Arizona? [Laughter.]
The Chairman. Or North Dakota.
Mr. Allen. It is hot. [Laughter.]
I am from the Northwest. We like it a little cooler up
there, but not as cool as it gets in North Dakota in the
wintertime, mind you.
Anyhow, I am very honored to be here with my colleagues
with regard to self-governance. Self-governance, as Melanie had
pointed out, has been advancing since 1988. I am very honored
to have been a part of that process. I remember Chairman Roger
Jourdain, Chairman Art Gahbow, and Joe DeLaCruz from the
Quinault Nation, Wendell Chino and Alex Lindeman from the
Rosebud, and Ed Thomas from Tlingit-Haida.
There were 10 of us who wanted to move this agenda forward.
I am very, very delighted that we have been moving forward, but
we are here before you to talk about why it has slowed down,
why we are now entering a new phase of struggles with the
Administration and with the advancement of this very
progressive concept of empowering tribes. That is what self-
governance and self-determination is all about. It is
empowering tribes to take care of ourselves, because we can be
more efficient with the limited Federal dollars that are made
available for our people than any other system that exists. We
have shown that.
We have written books and have countless examples of how
efficient that we can be. You have seen it move forward from
1988 to the enactment of title IV in 1994 and enactment of
title V in 2000. As Melanie Benjamin has advocated, we are
looking forward to another step progressively forward.
You have asked some interesting questions earlier with the
Administration. Why are we slowing down? What is going on? What
is the problem? Chairwoman Carlyle talked about her experiences
down in Arizona. Quite frankly, you have an Administration who
is digging in their heels. Self-governance moved forward very
progressively and it has been shown to be quite successful. But
now you have a bureaucracy that really does not want to let go.
And that has been always the historical challenge, to let go of
Indian affairs, to let us control our own destiny. And they
don't want to let go.
So you have a concept out there called inherent Federal
function. You have a concept called residual funding that goes
with inherent Federal function, that only the Federal
Government can do, that quote/unquote, the tribes cannot do.
The question is, now, is that starting to grow? The answer is
yes. They are starting to come up with new ways of couching
what they can do and only they can do, and we can't do, and
they need more resources.
So when you look at available dollars that are made
available to the tribe, they are becoming less and less and
less. So consequently, tribes who are interested are looking at
this picture and saying, there is a problem with this picture
because you are not letting go of the system. The way it was
conceptually back when we began this process in the 1990's was
that as we took over more of the Federal system, you should see
a marked diminishment of the Federal system because their role
has changed in terms of their liaison with the Congress, with
regard to what the tribe is doing with those dollars. So those
dollars should reciprocate as the system adjusts down, and the
tribes grow in their strength, and we report to you the
successes of what we are achieving.
That was what was happening, and now it is starting to slow
down. We came before you after 1994 and advocated an adjustment
to title IV when title V got enacted. We were opposing some
significant comprehensive adjustment to move it forward beyond
the BIA and into the Department of the Interior, all agencies
into the Department of the Interior.
Remember back when this thing started in 1988 when you did
your investigation. You said, well, we made a big mistake. We
are doing a terrible job. Let's talk about a whole new
Federalism concepts. Let's take our Federal dollars and turn it
over to the tribe. We said we liked the concept, but we want to
do it on our own terms. We want to make sure that you are not
relinquishing your legal liabilities and obligations to Indian
country, so it had to be on our terms.
If we are going to move that concept forward, there has to
be continuity. There has to be consistency on how these Federal
Governments and agencies are administering this concept. You
don't have consistency. So when you look at the BIA, 231
tribes, $300 million, well, what is that? You have about a $2-
billion BIA budget. That is about 15 percent, if my math is
right. If you looked at the IHS, you have around 306 tribes and
you probably have around $900 million. So we figure that it is
somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 percent of its budget. I
think the number is around $2.4 billion, something like that.
The issue is, why is it working over there? Well, you have
more flexibility. They have empowered tribes. Congress has made
it clear what tribes' discretion and authority is. So we have
more authority, so they have less ability legally to try to
restrict the tribes. We still have problems over there. You do
need to know we have some issues over there. Why is it we only
have 40 percent of that money? We should have a whole lot more
of that money. More tribes should be taking over those
resources. Under BIA, you have talked about a number of issues
that are out there.
So we think that the bootstrap proposal for title V into
title IV helps us move and break the logjams. We want a more
comprehensive piece of legislation, but we need a progressive
first step to send a clear message from the Congress to the
Administration.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Allen appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Just briefly, Chairwoman Carlyle, because I think this is a
concrete example of what we are wrestling here, unless I am
missing something. You made an agreement with the State of
Arizona to have a road through the reservation. Is that right?
Ms. Carlyle. There is a road. It is called Ralston Road,
which borders the county and our side. It borders Ak Chin.
The Chairman. So this road was an agreement between you and
the county?
Ms. Carlyle. Right.
The Chairman. And did you seek permission or inform the BIA
that you were going to enter into this contract?
Ms. Carlyle. Yes; we did, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. And were you assured that you would get the
money for it?
Ms. Carlyle. We were told that the dollar amount given for
those years is what we would be getting, the projections. I
have to admit one was a projection. And so based on that, we
moved forward with the road, again, to alleviate the congestion
going through what is known as Farrell Road, which is the main
road through the village area.
The Chairman. So did you have that in writing?
Ms. Carlyle. Yes; we have documents. We have an agreement
about the moneys to be received.
The Chairman. Send a copy of those documents to the
committee, would you?
Ms. Carlyle. I sure will.
The Chairman. And then when it came time to pay?
Ms. Carlyle. We are still waiting to get paid.
The Chairman. But you had to go ahead and pay, along with
the county, for the construction of the road, so you had to
take it out of tribal funds?
Ms. Carlyle. Yes; we did. It was a commitment. It was on
schedule, which apparently the funding cycle for the bureau
does not meet the schedule, obviously, with our budget. So we
went under the promise that we would be reimbursed for those
costs.
The Chairman. And how long has that been?
Ms. Carlyle. We are still waiting 2004. We got our first
dollar numbers for the roads project, and just recently as of
yesterday I called back home to see what the status was and the
remark was still the same. It is at the area office waiting for
a draw-down. I said, well, we would have withdrawn those moneys
2 years ago, and we are still waiting. That is the excuse we
are getting. It is there in the central office. All it needs is
a signature, but we are just not able to draw down the funds.
The Chairman. Well, then if I were you and the tribal
council, I would say next time to the county, deal directly
with the BIA. Maybe you will get all your money that way.
Ms. Carlyle. Well, hopefully the full amount, because we
were notified that what we were told we were going to receive
was less than what now they say we will be getting.
The Chairman. So even if you receive the money, it is going
to be less than what you were told.
Ms. Carlyle. Exactly.
The Chairman. Senator Dorgan.
Senator Dorgan. Mr. Chairman, we decided to hold this
hearing because we wanted to understand why the tribal self-
governance program was not working particularly well, why
tribes were not coming to this program and making themselves
available to participate.
I think when I hear the testimony today, I think I
understand why that is the case. I don't think this is a
mystery. Nobody is going to want to sign up to a program that
puts you in this position, where you have certain requirements,
contractual expectations that are not met.
So I think we have learned what we intended to learn or
what we had hoped to learn today. What is going on here? Why
are more tribes not coming to this program? I think I now know,
and I think it gives us some responsibility here on the
committee, and opportunity as well to begin to address these
issues. Because I think the program, if run properly, can hold
out some real promise. I think self-governance for many tribes
is attractive, makes a lot of sense, gives them opportunities
to make their own decisions about their own priorities. All of
that makes great sense. But it doesn't make sense to sign up to
something that won't work.
So I think this has been very helpful to me to hear the
testimony that you all have submitted. I appreciate very much
your coming to Washington, DC, and Arizona is a wonderful
place. [Laughter.]
And so is North Dakota. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. North Dakota is wonderful. [Laughter.]
Could I ask you all, since you are on the receiving end, if
you would correspond with us to tell us what you think the fix
is. Is it legislative? Is it a mandate from Congress that full
compliance with contracts that were freely entered into with
the approval of the BIA have to be honored? Is that one of the
answers, Ron?
Mr. Allen. We believe that if we are going to move it
forward like we did in the 1990's, Congress has to send a clear
message back to the Administration that we intended for the
tribes to be empowered, to address their own affairs. You are
slowing it down. So get back to work and re-empower the tribes.
That message has to come from the Congress.
The Chairman. Chairwoman Benjamin, do you communicate with
the BIA these concerns that you have?
Ms. Benjamin. Yes; we have ongoing dialog. When we have our
regional meetings and we have the regional reps in the
meetings, we have discussions. I think Mille Lacs is in a
different position because the funding is short. We are
shortchanged and we are in a position where we use our other
revenue streams to kind of balance that out, but that still
doesn't make it right. And also, there are a lot of other
tribes across the country that are not in that same situation.
The Chairman. Chairman Jourdain, overall do you still
support strongly the concept of self-governance?
Mr. Jourdain. Yes; we do. We feel self-governance is a very
positive thing, and the tribe would like to continue on with
self-governance. We are hurting as a result of the cuts and the
pay cost is really an issue for us. It is hard for us to
compete when, say, for instance our law enforcement officers
are being paid one-third less than BIA cops. They go train.
They get whatever credentials they need, and then they leave to
go somewhere else to work for higher pay.
We want to carryout those programs. And us, just like the
other bands represented here, have to pull money from other
areas in order to cover those shortfalls. We do not have a lot
of resources tribally to do that.
The Chairman. Could I end by asking a question unrelated to
this hearing, that continues to be of great concern to all
Americans and to you. I begin with you, Chairwoman Benjamin.
How serious is the methamphetamine problem?
Ms. Benjamin. We are starting to see that rise on our
reservation. We are about 100 miles from the Minneapolis-St.
Paul area, and we are the southern-most Ojibwe Tribe in the
State of Minnesota. There area those entities that are in the
cities, we call it the cities, Minneapolis-St. Paul, that then
travel north. We understand that there is a strategic plan from
some of the drug cartels to come to the reservations, and even
to marry tribal members so they have a foot in there to be able
to start that new clientele, if you will.
For the Mille Lacs Band, we are working very hard to make
sure that we get a hold of this. Law enforcement is one issue
that is very important, but also the other important issue is
why are people turning to this as their escape. We know that we
have a lot of depressed people in our reservations, based on
generations of oppression. So we want to go from that, and find
that peace, and help our members find the peace within
themselves so they don't turn to those kinds of releases.
So we do that in terms of making sure that we really
enhance our cultural opportunity for them, to bring them back
to the ceremonies and make sure that we have adequate housing,
education, and find jobs. One of the things that we did just
recently is that there are a lot of folks who for some reason
are not able to work in the economic development normal sense
of work. So they are unemployed and look at some of the welfare
benefits.
So what we did is we now have what we call a cultural labor
pool, where we are allowing our tribal members to go out and do
cultural related things for their families, for instance
fishing, wild rice, harvesting maple syrup, and that would be
their job. We will pay them to do this job, because is does
help their families. Any of those harvesting activities that
they do, and they have enough for their families and they want
to sell the other portion of that, we allow them to do that to
enhance that income for their families.
So we are trying to look at new ways and innovative ways to
make sure that our tribal members have the opportunity to be
successful. So we look at that in new ways, and hopefully
educate our youth of the dangers of that meth.
The Chairman. Chairman Jourdain.
Mr. Jourdain. We are one of the more remote tribes in
Minnesota, so we don't have a lot of exposure to the
methamphetamine, although it does exist on our reservation. We
are battling a crack cocaine epidemic on our reservation. But
because minimally we have not seen a lot of the methamphetamine
abuse on the reservation, at this point even one instance we
take very, very seriously. We are concerned about
methamphetamine in Indian country and the State of Minnesota,
and we are talking to the other tribes as much as we possibly
can to network, along with local and State and Federal
authorities to see what we can do to curb drug trafficking and
methamphetamine abuse in Indian country.
The Chairman. Chairwoman Carlyle.
Ms. Carlyle. Senator, you know, I talked about hyper-growth
in our area. We were just that small little rural community of
about 1,000 people or so, including the town of Maricopa. I
believe we are up to 18,000 plus currently, and in a few more
years they are projecting 100,000 to 130,000 residents in our
area.
Chairman Ron Allen was just out in our area and saw the
hyper-growth happening around us. Because of that, we feel that
the meth issue is there. However, unfortunately, it seems to be
well hidden in our small community. Our law enforcement people
have taken steps to combat this, along with council members and
other community members.
Unfortunately again, too, is that we seem to be a traffic
stop area from the south. Those who are drug-trafficking from
the south, and Maricopa seems to be for some reason the local
stop. We are still far enough from Phoenix, but still close by,
if you can see what I mean about exchanges in that area to off
to different ways. The O'Odham reservation has also expressed
that concern about their boundaries, the border issue.
Meth, unfortunately, as we all know, is a growing problem
and its effects, however, have been real devastating. We are
not sure if meth was related to the suicide of three beautiful
young ladies, two were 13 and one was 14, all within a span of
three months. They killed themselves. So we do what we have to
do and we are coming together as a community because it is not
the council's problem. It not the PD's. It is not the housing.
It is all our problem to find a solution to do away with this
horrible, horrible, I refer it to as a disease.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Chairman Allen.
Mr. Allen. Mr. Chairman, in my community meth is a serious
problem. It is a serious problem in Indian country. Our
president at NCAI has declared war on meth in Indian country
because it is so devastating to our people and to our families
and to our community.
We are experiencing it in my small community. The thing
that is most disturbing is the limited amount of resources
available to fight it, to educate our people like my colleagues
have commented, and to provide them better opportunities. There
are very little dollars, and so we have to use precious hard
dollars to fight that fight. But it is out there. It is the
ugliest drug I have ever known, and we have a lot of people
getting exposed to it. Worse yet is the devastation it causes
their families and our communities.
The Chairman. I thank the witnesses. We will continue to
make that one of the highest priorities that we can, and our
sympathy to the families, Chairman Carlyle, of that tragic
incident.
I thank you all very much. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:40 a.m. the committee was adjourned, to
reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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A P P E N D I X
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Additional Material Submitted for the Record
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Prepared Statement of the Association of Alaska Housing Authorities
The Association of Alaska Housing Authorities [AAHA] is pleased to
have this opportunity to submit testimony for the record at this
important hearing.
AAHA's membership consists of the 13 statutorily created Alaska
Native regional housing authorities which collectively provide services
on behalf of approximately two-thirds of the tribes in the State, with
combined annual budgets of just over $100 million. Alaska's regional
housing authorities (in partnership with the Alaska Housing Finance
Corporation which also holds a seat on the AAHA Board) serve residents
in every part of Alaska--in larger urban cities, in small towns and in
Alaska's rural, ``bush''communities. The regional housing authorities
have built well over 6,000 housing units since their inception in 1971
and are the primary builders of new housing in rural Alaska.
Although we realize your focus is primarily on tribal self-
governance programs administered pursuant to titles IV and V of the
Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 [ISDEAA]
[Public Law 93-638, as amended], we know the committee is well aware of
the fact that housing is a critical--and sadly lacking--basic need
throughout Indian country and that the policies and issues under
consideration by the committee have direct cross-over implications and
application to the programs AAHA and other tribes and tribal
organizations administer through HUD pursuant to the Native American
Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 [Public Law 104-
330, as amended] [NAHASDA].
As the committee members consider the future of tribal self-
governance and the testimony presented by the various tribal leaders
presenting at this hearing, we respectfully request that a brief look
backward to the genesis of self-determination and its evolution into
self-governance may be instructive.
In 1970, President Nixon gave his historic ``Special Message to the
Congress on Indian Affairs.'' In his message he stated:
For years we talked about encouraging Indians to exercise
greater self-determination, but our progress has never been
commensurate with our promises. Part of the reason for this
situation has been the threat of termination. But another
reason is the fact that when a decision is made as to whether a
Federal program will be turned over to Indian administration,
it is the Federal authorities and not the Indian people who
finally make that decision.
This situation should be reversed. In my judgment, it should be
up to the Indian tribe to determine whether it is willing to
assume administrative responsibility for a service program
which is presently administered by a Federal agency. [Emphasis
added.]
In response, Congress passed the ISDEAAM in 1975, giving tribes at
least a limited level of the decisionmaking authority President Nixon
had advocated for. Tribal self-governance, which was passed as a
demonstration project in 1988 and made permanent in 1994, was of course
an extension, or evolution, of this self-determination philosophy.
It is well to remember however, that as tribal leaders formulated
and advanced the tribal governance concept, from its infancy through
the successful passage of the concept into law, tribal leaders and many
Members of Congress had a much broader vision of self-governance than
that which has been realized to date.
When self-governance was made permanent in 1994 [12 years ago!],
the House report which accompanied the legislation contained a
discussion of concerns held by the House Resources Committee over
resistance within the Indian Health Service to certain aspects of self-
Governance implementation. As the report stated:
This resistance is due in large part to the misapprehension
that tribal self-governance is a temporary project. Tribal
self-governance, as reflected in this legislation, will be a
permanent program and it is the committee's intent to expand
tribal self-governance to include each Department of the
Federal Government. [Emphasis added.]
Cong. Rec., at H11141, October 6, 1994.
AAHA is hopeful that the Senate Indian Affairs Committee shares the
views expressed by the House Resources Committee. We contend that
expanding the Self-Governance model to HUD and the Indian/Alaska Native
programs which it administers pursuant to NAHASDA is a logical and much
overdue next step in this evolutionary process.
In fact, it should be noted that Congress has already expressed its
intent to move in this direction by passing the NAHASDA amendments of
2002 [Public Law 107-292], which included the following new provision:
``Section 202. ``Eligible Housing Activities.
(8) SELF-DETERMINATION ACT DEMONSTRATION PROJECT.--(A) IN
GENERAL.--Consistent with the provisions of the Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act [25 U.S.C. 450 et
seq.], the Secretary shall conduct and submit to Congress a
study of the feasibility of establishing a demonstration
project in which Indian tribes and tribal organizations are
authorized to receive assistance in a manner that maximizes
tribal authority and decisionmaking in the design and
implementation of Federal housing and related activity funding.
(B) STUDY.--Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment
of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-
Determination Reauthorization Act of 2002, the Secretary shall
submit the study conducted under subparagraph (A) to the
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the
Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate, and the Committee on
Financial Services and the Committee on Resources of the House
of Representatives.
AAHA is not aware of any attempt by HUD to comply with this
mandate. The mandated report was supposed to be submitted to this
Committee over 3 years ago! Again, we are aware of no effort by HUD to
comply, and if it did, to our knowledge this information has never been
shared with Indian country.
The critical issue at this point in history, at least from AAHA's
perspective, is that we are no longer interested in a study. Tribal
Self-Governance has been aggressively pursued and implemented in Alaska
now for over 15 years. Alaska has a higher concentration of Tribal
Self-Governance Compacts than any region or State in the country. Most
of the BIA funding and almost all of the IHS funding is already
administered under Tribal Self-Governance Compacts. AAHA does not see
``a study'' as providing any value or benefit in terms of the ultimate
objective--the improvement in the delivery of housing programs and
services to our beneficiaries. To the contrary, a study would simply be
an unnecessary diversion and an unfortunate waste of scarce resources.
Administering Federal Indian/Alaska Native programs and services
within the framework of Tribal Self-Governance should no longer be
considered novel, unique or something that needs to be done in a
``demonstration'' mode. The reality is that Tribal Self-Governance is
now a proven, ``mainstream'' model for the successful administration of
Federal programs and services. It is time the model be extended to
housing programs administered within HUD and that those Indian housing
service providers who choose to exercise self-determination and self-
governance rights by adopting a self-Governance model be allowed this
option.
AAHA assumes the committee is well aware that NAHASDA is up for re-
authorization in 2007. While NAHASDA was a much needed improvement
relative to the pre-NAHASDA administration of programs under the
Housing Act of 1937, the act has significant defects and numerous
substantive amendments are needed--starting with provisions that remove
the necessity for some of the oppressive, bloated bureaucracy that
stifles tribal innovation and drains much needed resources away from
direct services in favor of meeting administrative/regulatory
requirements that add little or nothing in terms of accountability or
actual improved services. BIA's (and perhaps to a lesser extent IHS's)
programmatic oversight pales in comparison relative to that currently
exercised by HUD.
As an example of just one gross inefficiency, funding under NAHASDA
is provided and required to be tracked by the recipient on a separate
grant year basis, with a lengthy ``Indian Housing Plan'' (much of which
is needless boilerplate) to be submitted each fiscal year. This
necessitates that recipients administer complex financial systems that
have to spread the expenditures across multiple grants and submit a
separate Annual Performance Report for each grant year that remains
open, even though the goals and objective for each successive year are
likely to be very similar if not identical. Under the Tribal Self-
Governance model, funds are simply rolled over from year to year and
accounted for through the Federal Single Audit process until expended,
a system which saves considerable administrative expense.
In closing, AAHA respectfully requests that the committee exercise
its jurisdiction to the fullest extent possible, and that members
exercise their individual influence to assist tribes and tribal
organizations to expand the tribal self-governance model--a model which
has proven to be so successful in the BIA and HIS service delivery
arena--into the delivery of HUD housing programs and services. In
short, if Congress wants more and better services per dollar of funding
provided, this is the clear path toward achieving that objective.
Thank you for this opportunity to express our concerns and positive
recommendations for how we can provide the highest quality services to
the tribal members we serve, with the with the least amount of
administrative bureaucracy, while maintaining the highest level of
accountability to all interested parties.
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