WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2001
http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/Headlines/

A mandate from Congress and orders from a federal judge haven't been enough to correct more than 100 years of
mismanagement of trust assets of 300,000 American Indians, a senior Department of Interior official testified on
Tuesday.
There were, and continue to be, numerous conflicts over how to provide such basic duties as an historical accounting to
Indian beneficiaries, Tommy Thompson said in federal court. Department officials, senior management and government
attorneys can't even agree on what constitutes an accounting, he admitted.
There is even debate over what to tell Congress and U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth about efforts to fix the
broken trust, Thompson continued. Although the Clinton administration as far back as September 1999 knew about
failures of a $40 million software system designed to bring trust accounting into the 21st century, he acknowledged the
court was never told the true status of the project.
"I guess I just don't understand that any more than I understand you having a meeting when you have an agenda item:
'Do we tell Judge Lamberth something?'," said the judge when the issue was brought up.
"If you have a meeting with an agenda item like that, wouldn't it be obvious that you better tell him?" questioned
Lamberth.
"Many people who went to the meeting expected that you would be told," responded Thompson. "I certainly did."
"So you're dumbfounded as to why I was never told the truth," Lamberth said.
"I honestly thought you had been provided that information," said Thompson.
Thompson's revelations come on the second day of a contempt trial against top Bush administration officials. Secretary
Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb face five charges in their official capacities for the government's
handling the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust fund.
Going by the testimony provided, there is little to suggest the pair won't be sanctioned. As the second highest-ranking
trust reform official at the Interior, Thompson detailed a level of infighting and confusion at the Interior that has
prevented the account holders from ever being told how much money they are owed -- seven years after Congress
directed the government to do so and nearly two years since Lamberth ordered the same.
But Thompson also provided evidence that conflicts stretch beyond his department. Attorneys at the Department of
Justice, he said, frequently fought over what kind of information to provide to Lamberth, when to tell him and just how
much of it.
And because the Office of the Special Trustee, where Thompson is the principal deputy, is a "bad client," matters have
not been made any easier, he said. Views of highly qualified trust, banking and management officials were rejected by
Justice attorneys as they sought to limit the government's obligations to American Indians, testified Thompson.
"From time to time, we've worked together and from time to time, we've worked at odds with each other," said
Thompson of his relationship with Justice. "We've questioned some of the steps that Justice has taken."
With Thompson confirming a number of conclusions made by court monitor Joseph S. Kieffer III, Norton's defense
team faces a significant challenge in rebutting his testimony. But even beyond that, the constant bickering is proof the
IIM trust has to be taken out of the hands of the Bush administration, said lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell yesterday.
"It's a mumble jumble mess at the Interior," said Cobell. "I'm hoping that the judge saw that."
"Creating a new bureau is not going to do anything," she added, referring to Norton's controversial Bureau of Indian
Trust Assets Management. "Shifting over to a new bureau under the same leadership of the Department of the Interior is
not going to do the job."
Testimony in the trial continues today with Thompson expected to return to the stand in order to review, in minute
detail, Kieffer's reports. Mark Nagle, chief of the civil division of the U.S. Attorneys office in Washington, D.C.,
indicated his team might be able to reduce the number of objections Norton has raised to the documents, but the
substance of his proposal wasn't readily apparent yesterday.
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After seven years, trust reform still lacks 'strategy'
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2001
http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/Headlines/showfull.asp?ID=law01/12122001-1
More than seven years after Congress directed the government to fix its trust fund problems and nearly three years after
the Department of Interior finally created a plan to do so, no clear progress has been made on reforming the broken
system, a management consulting firm has told Secretary Gale Norton.
In a draft report provided to Norton and her top aides last week, EDS Corporation paints a failing portrait of the
government's much criticized efforts to correct more than 100 years of financial ineptitude. Based on a review of the
government's High Level Implementation Plan (HLIP), the "blueprint" to reform, and four breaches of trust identified by
a federal court, EDS has found that the Interior is not in compliance with federal law -- and won't ever be unless it
revamps its entire outlook.
"Trust reform has lacked a vision or strategy," wrote EDS in a 170-page report. "As directed by [federal] law, there is
not an overarching fiduciary focus to trust management, activities and operations."
With regard to eleven tasks identified in the HLIP, the report becomes more specific. EDS acknowledges there has
been "substantial progress" in some projects, such as management and retention of trust fund records.
But while EDS says the government can point to successes in these areas, additional problems have surfaced over the
years. In some cases, the Interior hasn't even gotten around to determining how much work as to be done, said the
report.
"The trust reform subprojects are not well coordinated or integrated," writes EDS. "Beneficiaries are not receiving
appropriate services [and] inefficiencies exist in the management of the trust."
When it comes to four breach of trust projects identified by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, the assessment isn't
much better. While a "plan to do a plan" may exist, as Lamberth himself has described some of the Interior's efforts, the
government still has a "considerable amount of work" to correct these problems, said EDS.
Coming at a time when Norton and Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb face five contempt charges for their handling of
the trust, the EDS report solidifies in many ways the testimony of the sole witness who has taken the stand. Just
yesterday, Principal Deputy Special Trustee Tommy Thompson, the second highest-ranking trust official, said he
believed there are many reform efforts "underway."
At he same time, he wasn't able to point to significant movement on key issues such as an historical accounting or a $40
million software system on which EDS has told Norton to halt all development. While he said "the story isn't over yet"
with regards to telling beneficiaries to the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust how much money they are owed, he
admitted the Bush administration won't even have a plan to conduct an accounting until summer 2002.
On other basic trust duties, both Thompson and EDS appear in agreement. For example, Thompson testified on
Monday that the Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the Interior, hasn't fully surveyed the 11 million acres of
land held in trust for individual Indians.
Yet this "fundamental" obligation doesn't even have a project manager, a plan, a schedule or even enough money to
attack its huge backlog, EDS confirmed. The department estimates it will take $62 million to survey the lands but only
has $6.5 in this current fiscal year to do so, the report states.
The EDS report has yet to be made public, although Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles indicated in a private meeting
with a select group of tribal leaders and government advisors last week he would do so soon. According to court
documents Norton's defense team has filed, a final version will be made available, including a scheduling "roadmap," on
January 10, 2002, well into her scheduled consultation with tribes and Native Americans on her proposal to create a
new Bureau of Indian Trust Assets Management to handle the trust.
EDS was paid nearly $3 million to assess trust reform. A report on two aspects, the Trust Asset and Accounting
Management System (TAAMS) and an inter-related subproject known as data cleanup, was made available just last
month after tribal leaders insisted it be made public.
The Interior's "indiantrust" web site, heralded as the place Indian Country can turn to for trust information, is still
inaccessible as a result of a department-wide Internet shutdown.