Posted on 07/29/2006 10:14:13 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Officials in the federal agency that oversees American Indian trust assets had an improper social relationship with an accounting firm and pressured subordinates to give the firm preferential treatment, a government investigation found.
Senior managers in the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians based in Albuquerque, N.M., golfed, drank and partied with the executives of the New Mexico accounting firm Chavarria, Dunne & Lamey, which won $6.6 million in contract work over eight years, according to the report by the Interior Department's inspector general.
The investigation, first reported this week by U.S. News & World Report, found that employees in the trustee's office "felt pressured by these senior OST officials to continue to award work" to the firm and that they feared retaliation for speaking out.
The officials' relationship with the firm "created an appearance of preferential treatment," violating ethics standards and an internal memo directing employees to avoid close contact with contractors, Inspector General Earl Devaney wrote to department officials in the letter accompanying the report dated May 16.
The office was created in 1994 to improve accountability and management of Indian funds held in trust by the government.
Special Trustee Ross Swimmer said in a statement that he had directed his managers to take new ethics training as a result of the report's findings.
"Any appearance of an ethics violation at any level within OST is a great concern, and I believe that the additional ethics training will allow everyone to be fully informed of the rules," Swimmer said.
Accounting firm executives said in a statement that they believe their contracts were awarded under the appropriate guidelines. They pointed out that the report does not allege that they did anything wrong.
"We believe that OST management has acted appropriately and that the (Inspector General's) concern of 'an appearance of preferential treatment' for CD&L is subjective and unsubstantiated," the statement said.
Devaney's report outlines how the firm's executives and trustee managers exchanged gifts of meals and drinks, took out-of-town trips to a major golf event and played golf together almost weekly.
An eight-page chart details the dates of golf trips and meals, which often fell just days before contracts were awarded.
The office awarded, extended and expanded the contract without competition, the report found.
Donna Erwin, principal deputy special trustee, said the socializing referred to in the report "involved only refreshments and meals which may have given the appearance of preferential treatment." But she believes that no preferential treatment was given.
Devaney said the findings are of particular concern to the Interior Department because they go "close to the heart" of a 10-year-old class-action lawsuit by thousands of Indians accusing the government of mismanaging billions of dollars in royalties from their lands since 1887.
"The seriousness of this conduct on the part of the OST senior management is exacerbated by the nature of the contract, the sensitivity of the work involved, the level of the OST officials' positions and the mission of OST," Devaney wrote.
The office was created in 1994 to improve accountability and management of Indian funds held in trust by the government.
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Nothing like more bureaucracy to fix things.
The agency was a 1994 creation, who was President then?
Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians http://www.ost.doi.gov/
Would anyone accept an office of Negro Affairs or office of Jewish Affairs or office of, well you get the idea.
Yikes. Got my hopes up there for a minute that perhaps some money was sitting there waiting for me, from minerals interests the Indian Trust was holding in my name. Nopey nope, of course not.
Seems to me I thought Swimmer was a "good guy" way back when I paid attention to those things. He took over as Chief after the prez of my dad's company passed the reins of the Cherokee Tribe. He is the one who hired Wilma Mankiller as his deputy, which gave her an in when he was appointed by Ronald Reagan to the DOI, then the BIA. He was a banker or an attorney or both, IIRC.
Truthfully, I've never figured out exactly what it is the BIA does for me. The tribe probably does things that I don't know about, other than the newsletter and the yearly calendar I get. I'm not enough blood to be entitled to anything, except the right to vote in tribal elections.
Seems like I tried to get a discount at the motor lodge in Sulphur once, but it was a no-go. However, the Alabama-Coushattas let me in free to their village park (not the casino) with my BIA card, lol. And they're not related to us at all. Maybe I could buy cheap cigarettes and re-sell them down here or get my beloved fireworks discounted if I lived near an Indian fireworks store.
Things haven't been the same since the buffalo died.
ROFL!
100% of the royalties goes to the Indians.
Every tribe has a lockbox account where all checks and electronic payments are deposited. Those lock box accounts are drawn on by the tribes, and the tribes alone. Monthly statements of account are provided to each tribe showing, in the case of oil and gas, the gross sales, the royalty amount and the amount of the check for each lease.
The tribes get what's left after the Department of the Interior takes what's needed for programs that "benefit" the tribes.
Unlike the states which share the royalties with the federal government, all Indian tribes receive 100%.
More of the money goes to civil servants and government contractors who have never set foot on an Indian reservation than goes to the people living on those reservations.
It is simply untrue. Perhaps you could reference your charges?
Actually, all of those funds come from appropriations (tax dollars), not any Indian monies. All DOI salaries, contract expenditures, etc, come from either congressional appropriatations or from the sale of oil and gas off the outer continental shelf (offshore).
Millions, like the $6.6 million referred to in this report, is siphoned off by the crooks who are supposed to ensure that the tribes do not get cheated.
The report suggests that there may have been non-arms length negotiations in the contracting, not that the $6.6 million over 8 years was in any way misused or taken away from Indians. Please get your facts straight.
Gale Norton was appointed Interior Secretary on Jan. 31, 2001 by the president. She created the Office of Historical Trust Accounting that was supposed to stop the theft of Indian money that has been an ongoing problem since 1887. Looks like the theft of Indian money is still as big as ever to me.
Can you identify any report showing an amount of Indian money stolen? Are you in any way aware of the systems involved, or are you simply making empty charges? OST does not receive the money, but simply cuts checks for the allotted Indians (not tribes) for each allottee's share of oil and gas, grazing, timber, and the federal allocation. What information do you have to support your charges?
I can:
Billions Missing From U.S. Indian Trust Fund
Bruce Babbit and his cronies were held in comtempt multiple times IIRC.
I'm pinging Alamo-Girl as she is the repository of all knowledge re: the Clinton Scandals.
L
I'm not an apologist for BIA going back to the 1800s, but some evidence of an amount owed should be necessary.
Bruce Babbit and his cronies were held in comtempt multiple times IIRC.
As far as the Cobell lawsuit goes, Babbitt was held in contempt once, IIRC, and Norton once by Judge Lamberth, who was recently removed from the position for his inability to use any degree of balance or reason. His contempt charges were based on failed attempts to completely reconstruct the records of hundreds of thousands of allottees and their relatives and descendants from 1878 to demonstrate they all received exactly the amount due.
Of course, no government agency could reconstruct such records in the days before computers. Most were lost, destroyed or otherwise incomplete. On many of the leases in question, there was never any oil or gas drilling taking place. So, outside of grazing fees and timber, where were the billions in royalties to come from?
I'm pinging Alamo-Girl as she is the repository of all knowledge re: the Clinton Scandals.
This isn't a Clinton scandal. I can tell you that since 1970, record keeping has been very good on all federal, state and Indian leases. Some production records have been lost from time to time, but few if any payment records. BIA has had difficulty in keeping accurate records of the ownership of leases when as many as several hundred owners of a lease would not be atypical, some of whom receive only a few cents a month in royalties. Those allotted Indians frequently failed to update their ownership records and their descedents also failed frequently to do so, meaning that more often than not, mispayments were made.
Whatever money the plaintiff's feel is due would have had to have accrued between 1879 and 1970. Very little chance of any misappropriation of funds past that time. As for whether the oil companies all paid the Interior Department all the royalties due, that is a different question not a part of the lawsuit. BTW, BIA handled all of the Indian payments up until around 1970, and all of the allottee payments up until the Office of Special Trustee was formed. BIA has a policy of hiring only Indians to run it.
I'm going to back away from this one as gracefully as I can and bid you a pleasant weekend.
Regards,
L
Everything I collected on the issue is in this section of the DSL
Thanks for the links and information!
Wasn't there some sort of scandal between the Indians and somebody in the Clinton administration?
L
You too. Take care.
Can you identify any report reflecting the "billions" stolen? Doubt it. You can definitely find reports showing a record keeping problem all the way back to the 1800s. I didn't see any rebuttal of the $67 mispayment found on Cobell, et al leases on an audit back to 1909. Was that too big? I see Cobell et al rounded it up to $178 billion.
You are repeating hogwash from the Indian Trust Brochure produced by the Department of Interior, Gale Norton, Director.
I have read both the DOI brochure and the rebuttal, which BTW rebuts little, but charges a lot. This is the biggest scam on the American taxpayers ever. It will only be surpassed by a reparations settlement in coming years. You might point out "specifically" what is in error in the DOI brochure. The Department has spent $100 million in trying to comply with a totally biased judge's rulings. Thousands of employees in the Department have been working on trying to reconstruct records going back to the 1800s since the early 1990s and are continuing to do so.
The plaintiffs are simply trying to get a settlement for themselves over record keeping and perhaps payment issues (which they cannot identify) since the late 1800s. For any lost or stolen payments which may have occurred, none of the plaintiffs were even alive then. Again, very similar to the upcoming reparations litigation.
Any stolen payments, and I cannot say there are not prior to 1970, were all handled by BIA, which of course was employed almost entirely by Indians!
You made the charge that money currently earmarked for Indian disbursements is siphoned off to pay DOI employees etc. I told you that was not true yet you did not respond. You said the money is today being stolen. Please back that up with some data of your own, not just the propaganda from Cobell.
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