Indian Trust Reform Still Mired, Watchdog Says Receivership Urged for Interior Program
The Washington Post
By: Bill Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
September 18, 2001
The Interior Department has failed to correct record-keeping problems plaguing a trust fund the government maintains for 300,000 Native Americans, and the current management team appears unable or unwilling to get the job done, a court-appointed monitor said yesterday.
The monitor said Interior’s managers, in a series of quarterly reports to a federal judge that maintained progress was being made, “failed to provide a truthful, accurate and complete picture” of the status of reforms. The monitor, Joseph S. Kieffer III, said Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton must share responsibility for trust fund problems — even though they were decades in the making and Norton assumed office only in January — because Norton continues to rely upon the guidance of the same longtime managers who have had years to fix the system.
“The cry that ‘it didn’t happen on our watch’ can no longer provide a defense for this administration,” Kieffer said yesterday in a 43-page report submitted to U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth.
Lamberth is presiding over a lawsuit filed by Native Americans that accuses the federal government of inadequate record-keeping, mismanagement and neglect. After a trial in 1999, Lamberth ordered reforms, but he stopped short of putting the system in the hands of an outside receiver, saying officials deserved one more chance.
Lawyers for the Native Americans said they now will ask Lamberth to put a receiver in charge.
“This report sets the groundwork and makes the case for why a receiver is necessary,” said Keith Harper, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “You need to have a manager in there who can put them on the correct course to finally get trust reform done.”
The trust accounts were created more than 100 years ago to compensate Native Americans for use of their land. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, an arm of the Interior Department, is responsible for maintaining land and title records covering about 11 million acres. Royalties from the sale of petroleum, timber and other resources on these lands go into the trust fund accounts, generating about $500 million a year.
A centerpiece of the reform effort is a new computer network that is supposed to track titles, trust accounts and income coming from roughly 170,000 tracts of land. Kieffer issued a report last month that said the computer project is behind schedule and might never work. Even if it does, Kieffer said yesterday, the quality of the automated system depends on the accuracy of the records that go into it. He noted that officials promised two years ago to “clean up” or correct records kept at nearly 100 offices. “Garbage in will mean garbage out,” Kieffer said. “The data must be accurate, complete and usable.”
Only a small fraction of work has been completed in the past 18 months, Kieffer said. An average of one land tract a day is logged into the computer, and even that data is suspect, he said. Saying “the math speaks for itself,” Kieffer warned there is little hope that the reform efforts will be completed in the near future, and he faulted Interior managers for not providing enough know-how and direction.
Interior spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna said officials hadn’t had a chance to fully review Kieffer’s report but added, “This administration believes that we are taking the appropriate steps to move forward on comprehensive trust reform.”
Norton has said she is making trust reform a priority, and she has met many times with BIA staffers. Government lawyers recently asked the judge for more time to come up with a complete assessment of progress. Kieffer urged Lamberth not to ease up on the pressure.
“The Interior defendants have asked this court to start the clock running anew for their administration, based on their performance to date,” Kieffer wrote. “In less than four years, another administration could be asking for the same leeway to correct the record of this administration’s actions or inaction. The . . . account holders do not have the luxury of starting over. Neither, perhaps, should the Interior defendants.”
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