In the midst of a federal government shutdown wherein he's refusing to negotiate with congressional Republicans, President Barack Obama had time to hold forth with his thoughts on the name of the Washington Redskins, telling the Associated Press on Saturday that he would "think about changing" the name were he owner of the NFL franchise. Of course, the Big Three networks and major newspapers across the country dutifully snapped to attention to cover that non-story. The New York Times went so far as to say the president's opinion amounted to a "new turn" in the "long-simmering debate."
But today the Associated Press is reporting something over which President Obama does have a direct say: the federal government's abject failure to address the widespread waste and fraud that marks Indian tribes' spending of U.S. taxpayer monies. The Associated Press has the story, which I accessed at Time magazine's website. Here's an excerpt:
(ETHETE, Wyo.) — American Indian tribes have been caught misappropriating tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, according to internal tribal audits and other documents. But federal authorities do little about it — due to a lack of oversight, resources or political will.
The result? Poor tribes like the Northern Arapaho of Wyoming suffer.
One Arapaho manager pocketed money meant to buy meals for tribal elders. Another used funds from the reservation’s diabetes program to subsidize personal shopping trips. And other members plundered the tribal welfare fund, then gambled the money away at one of the tribe’s casinos.
Altogether, employees drained at least a half-million dollars from the coffers of a tribe whose members have a median household income of about $16,000 a year.
Federal agencies questioned millions more dollars the Northern Arapaho government spent, but decided not to recover any of the money — and even increased funding to the tribe.
The Wyoming tribe is hardly unique.
An Associated Press review of summaries of audits shows that serious concerns were consistently raised about 124 of 551 tribal governments, schools or housing authorities that received at least 10 years of substantial federal funds since 1997.
Fraud and theft occur across the range of nonprofits and local governments that get federal money. But tribes are five times as likely as other recipients of federal funds to have “material weaknesses” that create an opportunity for abuses, according to the review. Overall, 1 in 4 audits concluded that tribal governments, schools or housing authorities had a material weakness in their federally funded programs; the rate was 1 in 20 for nontribal programs.
Thousands of pages of audits and dozens of reports by federal investigators, obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act, show evidence of embezzlement, paychecks for do-nothing jobs and employees who over-billed hours and expenses. The audits, conducted by private firms, are required of tribes that spend more than $500,000 in federal funds annually.
Agencies often cannot legally cut funding because of treaties, Supreme Court decisions and acts of Congress, and they frequently refuse to take control of failing programs.
“It’s basically a reluctance to take on tribes. The Department of the Interior bends over backwards to be their friends,” said Earl Devaney, the former inspector general at the department that houses the bureaus of Indian Affairs and Indian Education. "It’s ‘make nice,’ and what you don’t know, you don’t know."
You can read the full story here.
