The Associated Press
Mona Infield is still getting an $80,000 annual salary, but she’d like to
get back to work at the Bureau of Indian Affairs after nearly a year of
being idle.
She has not been at work since she testified last year about improper
handling of records in a lawsuit over billions of dollars in money belonging
to American Indians.
A former federal official, Donald Whitener, said in a sworn statement last
month in federal court in Washington, D.C., that his boss at the BIA told
him last March to take away Infield’s duties. The affidavit was filed in
support of a request by lawyers for 300,000 Indians for court sanctions
against former Interior and Justice department officials for acting against
Infield, 42, a member of the Potawatomi Nation.
As a computer supervisor in the Albuquerque office charged with managing the
trust land accounts, Infield was part of the BIA’s computer nerve center.
Interior and Justice officials have denied in court documents that she was
treated improperly. They contend she refused a transfer to the Washington
area and the offer of another job in Albuquerque.
“The department does not believe she was retaliated against in any way,”
Interior Department spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna said.
Late last month, a special master overseeing the lawsuit found probable
cause for proceeding with a contempt trial sought by Infield against 10
high-ranking BIA employees and former employees.
“I’d like to get back to work,” said Infield, a 19-year BIA veteran. “I
carry my cell phone around with me. I check my e-mail all the time to check
for new assignments. I do an awful lot of waiting.”
Her testimony described the accounting system responsible for reforming
trust fund accounts as inept and grossly behind schedule. She alleged the
BIA paid government contractors for work not completed and allowed
unauthorized contractors access to private financial data.
The trust fund lawsuit, filed in 1996, aims to end an accounting mess that
has spanned two centuries. Elouise Cobell, a banker and a member of the
Blackfeet tribe, sued the Interior Department to force it to revamp the way
it manages Indians’ personal trust fund accounts, worth about $500 million
each year, and to pay the account holders for losses dating back
generations.
The government admitted it had a 100-year record of mismanaging the funds,
which contain money from mining royalties, timber sales and grazing leases
on lands allotted to tribal members. But it fought efforts to reconcile each
account.
A federal judge ruled in 1999 that Indians were entitled to a full
accounting and said he would oversee the process over the next five years.
Infield was one of 130 Albuquerque employees given the choice in late 1999
of losing their jobs or moving to Reston, Va., a move the BIA said would put
trust data closer to top agency officials. Kevin Gover, head of the BIA at
the time, said the office had been chronically mismanaged and needed
supervision.
Infield did not want to move. So when a Washington supervisor called her in
December 1999 and told her he’d received approval to keep her in Albuquerque
to work on a data cleanup system for up to two years, she thought it a lucky
break.
However, she was disturbed that employees from a private firm hired to help
in the move to Virginia worked in areas containing confidential records in
Albuquerque’s computer center offices. She said she was worried about
untrained contractors losing or destroying data important to resolving the
account mess.
Infield went to her boss with her concerns and received a directive from the
BIA’s second-in-charge, Hilda Manuel, to give the contractor unfettered
access.
On March 5, 2000, Infield filed an affidavit with the federal court hearing
the trust fund case, outlining her concerns that the data were not secure.
Two days later, the judge issued a temporary restraining order barring the
private contractor from access to trust data.
On March 9, Infield was told her assignment had been scaled back to a job
that would expire in six months.
She filed three more affidavits, including one alleging the Trust Asset and
Accounting Management System the BIA touted as the solution to its
accounting woes didn’t work.
Infield accepted the six-month detail under protest. When she showed up for
that job, she was told there was no work for her and that she should go home
and wait for an assignment.
Today, she’s still waiting.
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