WASHINGTON – Tribal jails, schools and health facilities remain in a radical state of disrepair or inadequacy, due primarily to lack of funding, according to the consensus of tribal witnesses before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs March 6.
Federal agency witnesses offered a differing scenario – of measurable progress against great need. Randy Grinnell, deputy director for management operations at the IHS, said the agency continues to work with tribes and its parent organization, the Department of Health and Human Services, to ”review and revise” the priority ranking system for facilities construction. The 22 facilities at the top of the current Healthcare Facilities Construction Priority System require an estimated $2.6 billion for new or replacement facilities, he added in written testimony.
The BIA relies on the government-wide Facilities Condition Index ”to track and report the status of facilities,” according to Jack Rever, the BIA’s director of facilities, environmental, safety and cultural resources management.
”Beginning in 2006,” he testified, ”Indian Affairs adopted new procedures and methods of school construction programming. Indian Affairs started to plan and design projects in the two years prior to requesting funds for construction, with the goal of beginning construction on major projects in the year of appropriation,” thereby speeding construction along once funding becomes available and reducing the impact of inflation. Many school construction projects have been delayed since 2001 by various factors, creating an inflationary effect and therefore a need for additional funding.
”We are pleased and grateful that the fiscal year 2008 appropriation bill authorized the execution of our shortfall recovery plan. We are even more pleased to report that the plan continues on schedule to eliminate the shortfall by the end of fiscal year 2008.”
Tribal courts, jails, law enforcement and detention facilities were the subject of a two-year planning effort that led the BIA to visit 38 justice system facilities in Indian country, Rever said. ”Based on the demographic and facility information collected, BIA formulated a comprehensive solution to address justice system facility requirements in Indian country. A draft master plan for facilities construction in Indian country is under review, and the results will be provided to the [Senate Committee on Indian Affairs] at a later date.”
Domingo S. Herraiz, director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance within the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, also cited advances in justice system facilities construction, mostly in the spheres of cooperating with tribes and providing program improvements, as well as no-cost technical assistance on architectural and site selection, needs projections based on population profiles, local-based training and the dissemination of best practices.
The numerous testimonials to modest progress did little to move senators who have looked for better funding of tribal facilities since at least 2004, when an inspector general report ignited a firestorm over jail and detention facilities in Indian country. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., among others, expressed dismay over ongoing shortfalls, noting that President Bush’s proposed FY ’09 budget ”provides less than 1 percent of what is necessary to improve current conditions” at justice, health and school facilities in Indian country.
Along with Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., Johnson has introduced the Indian School Construction Act to create a tax credit for BIA school construction.
