WASHINGTON – Neal McCaleb started his last month as head of the BIA Dec. 4 by announcing a major reshuffle of the agency. Although presented as a step toward fixing the trust account debacle, the reorganization might have more immediate impact on other functions like economic development and the hot-button issue of tribal recognition.
As McCaleb described the “Indian Trust Management Plan” to a hastily called telephone press conference of Indian journalists, its impact on trust fund management seemed largely bureaucratic, although it emphasized a substantial strengthening of local services for individual account holders. A long-term goal of Interior officials, the elimination of the legislatively mandated Office of the Special Trustee, was sidestepped since it required Congressional action.
While waiting new legislation, the plan would shadow the OST in the regular BIA line of command and separate trust affairs from the BIA’s other duties. Although relations between the BIA and previous Special Trustees have been tense, leading to the dismissal of the past two, McCaleb said he worked well with the acting Special Trustee Donna Erwin, but that disagreements would be settled, as before, by Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles.
The plan, billed as the product of a year of consultation with the tribes, would also decentralize administration of trust affairs into its regional and agency levels. A new staff of some 85 trust officers and trust account managers would work from field offices to provide “the first line of contact” for tribal and individual account holders.
McCaleb acknowledged, however, that the reshuffle of organizational lines would not touch some of the thorniest problems of the trust accounts, including the “fractionation” of individual accounts and the “historical audit” of the alleged mishandling of trust assets, going back to the 1880s. The Department of Interior is under court order in the Cobell class action suit to submit a more comprehensive plan to U. S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth by Jan. 6, 2003.
The reorganization also highlights Indian economic development, a personal cause of McCaleb, who came to Washington after serving as the Oklahoma Secretary of Transportation. The plan would create a new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Development Policy, who would take over the Office of Economic Development as well as the Office of Indian Gaming. This post, said the plan fact sheet, would “promote the idea of Self-Governance and Self-Determination” by devoting a new office to the theme.
The plan also creates a new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Services Management, an apparent response to Interior’s long-running embarrassment over Internet access. Judge Lamberth ordered the department to disconnect from the Web last year when a consultant showed how easy it was to hack into trust fund records. The shutdown lasted months longer than anyone expected, depriving the BIA of email and seriously disrupting disbursement of trust account payments.
In the course of the conference, McCaleb gave vent to his personal resentment at Judge Lamberth’s holding that he was in contempt of court in the suit, by all accounts a powerful factor in his decision to resign as Assistant Interior Secretary – Indian Affairs. He quoted Lamberth’s sentence that he and Interior Secretary Gale Norton “would justly take their place in the pantheon of unfit trustees.”
“That personalized it,” he said. Asked if he resented the statement, he replied, “Yes, I did. I do.”
His staff also knocked down a rumor circulated by the web site Indianz.com that Secretary Norton would soon leave office for a judgeship. BIA spokesman Dan Dubray said the story started as a humor piece in the Washington Post that Indianz.com took seriously.
Mindful of the storm of protest from Indian country when Secretary Norton unveiled another trust reorganization plan over a year ago, McCaleb emphasized that the current proposal followed more than 45 meetings across the country with key tribal leaders. He said that the Indian Trust Management Plan closely reflected consultations with the joint Tribal/DOI Trust Reform Task Force. He said the Task Force would hold a final meeting Dec. 16 to discuss the plan.
Although formal task force meetings ended more than a month ago, the BIA invited six of its main figures to a session in Washington before the announcement of the plan. Several leaders afterward reacted positively to the plan but cautioned there were still areas of disagreement.
Keller George, president of the United South and Eastern Tribes, said, “I really think it’s workable.” He said it basically followed an agreement worked out with the Task Force at a meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, which McCaleb referred to as the Anchorage Accord. “I think it needs a little tweaking,” he added.
George met with McCaleb before the announcement along with James (Tim) Martin, executive director of USET, Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe of Washington state, John Berrey, chairman of the Quapaw tribe of Oklahoma, Bill Anoatubby, governor of the Chickasaw Nation, and Troy Swallow, chairman of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.
One of the primary differences with the Task Force, McCaleb said, was over the degree of outside supervision of Interior’s effort to reform the trust accounts. He said that Interior was unable to accept the tribal leaders’ demand for a commission with subpoena powers and the ability to sanction non-performing bureaucrats. “Not even the GAO [General Accounting Office] has subpoena power,” he said.
McCaleb also said that several barriers remained before the plan took effect. He said it would need a “sign-off” from chairmen of the Congressional appropriations committees. He also said it would take time to train the 85 new field staff, who would deal directly with account holders. “They’re not just going to parachute out of the sky,” he said. “You’ve got to find them and you’ve got to train them.”
