by Robert Gehrke
Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) A Reagan-era official who advocated private accounting of $500 million a year in historically mismanaged royalties from Indian land will help craft the government’s new accounting system.
Ross Swimmer, the former chief of the Cherokee Nation and head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs under President Reagan, will shape the new Bureau of Indian Trust Assets Management, created last week by Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
‘It’s an absolutely enormous task and you either have to be masochistic or really enjoy public service’ to take the job, said Swimmer.
The new bureau’s birth came under the threat of contempt of court citations against Norton and nearly 40 other past and present officials for their failure to reform the trust fund, which manages mining, grazing, logging and other royalties from Indian land.
For more than a century, the funds have been mismanaged. A class-action lawsuit on behalf of 300,000 Indians claims more than $10 billion has been squandered.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Interior Department to piece together how much it owes the Indians and to fix its accounting system, but neither has happened, according to recent reports by a court-appointed watchdog.
Frustrated with the progress, Lamberth last month called Interior’s actions ‘clearly contemptuous’ of his court orders.
In response, Norton moved trust fund management from the Bureau of Indian Affairs into a new, separate bureau which Swimmer will shape. It remains to be seen whether he stays to head the bureau after the two- or three-month transition, he said.
He will work with fellow Oklahoman Neal McCaleb, who heads the BIA.
Swimmer has a background as a banker, investment adviser and practicing lawyer, in addition to his work with the Cherokee Nation and the BIA. He also works as a consultant, helping tribes build power plants.
As Reagan’s BIA director, he proposed turning over part of the mismanaged Indian trust fund to private contractors, a move opposed by Indian tribes and later forbidden by Congress.
Swimmer said Monday that privatization should not be ruled out as a way to repair the trust fund.
Dennis Gingold, attorney for the Indian plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said appointing Swimmer, who failed to fix the Indian trust fund during the Reagan administration, is unacceptable.
‘We don’t think anyone who has been involved in creating the problem should be appointed as the solution to the problem,’ Gingold said.
Ron Allen, vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, said Swimmer’s support for tribal self-government will be useful in his new job.
In 1995, Swimmer resigned as CEO of Cherokee Nation Industries. He said he had personality conflicts with the board of directors, but board members said Swimmer had loaned $550,000 of CNI money to private investors without the board’s approval.
The loan went into default, but Swimmer said that at least part of it was eventually repaid.
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