Panel mulls line item veto
Power would help president curb overspending of UUF

By John Christian Hopkins
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — President Joe Shirley Jr. and Vice President Ben Shelly were among the tribal leaders who joined a Budget & Finance Committee work session Monday aimed at strengthening the Nation's laws and making better use of resources.

Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan and Chief Justice Herb Yazzie were also scheduled to join the B & F discussion.

A big problem is the frequent use or misuse of the Undesignated, Unreserved Fund, according to B & F Chairman LoRenzo C. Bates.

"I think we can all agree that at some point in time the constant digging at the Undesignated Fund will hurt the Nation," said Bates. Whenever the Nation seeks to borrow money, lenders will look at its spending pattern to make an assessment and that could be a problem, he said. "When it comes to the Unreserved, Undesignated Fund we have a definite spending pattern and it's nothing we should be proud of."

Delegate Danny Simpson plans to introduce legislation to B & F Wednesday that would give the president the line item veto and perhaps help the Navajo Nation reign in its often wild spending sprees.

Ending runaway spending
A bill will come to the council asking for $300,000 for some project, but when the delegates get done adding amendments the legislation's price tag will rise from $300,000 to $16 million, said Shirley.

In the past four years delegates have spent $135 million from the UUF, the president added. Coming as amendments added to spending bills, these last-minute legislations bypass oversight committees and review by the Controller or Office of Management and Budget, Shirley said.

"A lot of these are off the cuff," he added.

To outside lenders, the Nation's often-reckless spending would seem "atrocious," the president said.

The UUF after normal expenditures and projected budgets will hold about $16.2 million, reported Controller Mark Grant.

Shirley said he supported council approving a line item veto option for the president's office. It might help curtail waste, he said.

All three branches of government need to recognize the danger of overspending and work together to combat it, said Shelly.

"The right hand needs to know what the left hand is doing," said Shirley.

Presidential priorities
There are many needs facing the Navajo Nation and there will never be money enough to meet them, said Shirley.

"To me, everything is a priority."

There isn't enough money to fund everything so tough decisions have to be made, said B & F's Lorenzo Curley. To him, program budgets should be based on performance.

"To me, it's performance. Why pour money into programs that are not performing?" wondered Curley.

Education has been and continues to be one of his administration's top priorities, Shirley said. He would like to see the day when all Navajo students seeking higher education get their tuitions paid for, he said.

Other priorities are economic development, elder services and veterans affairs, Shirley said.

There have been discussions on setting up a tribal division to oversee veterans issues, Shirley told the committee.

Shirley also wants to revitalize the Boys & Girls clubs on the reservation. Currently, only eight clubs remain open, he said. One problem has been the lack of adequate facilities to house the clubs, Shirley added.

Shirley said he would also like to see more of the 110 chapters become local governance certified. Recently, San Juan became only the sixth chapter to attain certification.

"It's tough going; we always have our critics," Shirley said. "We try to do what we can to save money. We try to justify spending, but we don't have the wherewithal to count pennies."

Time to get tough
It is true that funds are limited, but wasteful spending also has a negative impact, committee members said.

A major drain on tribal finances is bad employees, said B & F Vice Chairman Leonard Chee.

"We're losing a lot of money through the Office of Labor Relations and the schools. Most of the time (the schools) lose, and money that should go to the students goes to pay settlements," said Chee. "The same for employees."

There are certain employees with a "backlog of judgments against them" who seem immune to firing, Chee said.

"We are forced to keep incompetent employees," Chee charged.

The Nation often finds itself behind the eight ball in these labor matters, agreed Bates.

"We lose hundreds of thousands of dollars" over the labor issues, Bates said.

His office is looking to do something about that, said Shirley.

Ironically, the president's office was caught up in one of the most recent high profile labor cases when Department of Child Enforcement manager William Nez wrote to his underlings on presidential letterhead that he was "protected by witchcraft."

Nez, who remains employed by the Nation, has lost several harassment judgments in recent years.

Some of the tribe's division directors and managers are unproductive and there should be a consequence for poor job performance, said Curley.

Chee said Navajo money should be kept on Navajo. He lamented seeing training sessions held off the reservation.

"They should be held on Navajo, not in Las Vegas or Laughlin," said Chee.

The problem, Shirley explained, is a lack of facilities or a space large enough to hold training sessions.

There should be a separation between the political process and taking care of business, Shelly said.

"Business and politics shouldn't mix, but we all know it does," Shelly said.

"It's all about doing it better, doing it faster and growing," Shirley said.

Taking care of business
"We have to find new revenue or else we'll never make it," Shelly said.

Shirley sees future casinos as a new revenue stream one that will start flowing soon.

"Hopefully, this side of six months we'll have two casinos going," Shirley told B & F. "I keep my fingers crossed, I keep my toes crossed even my eyes are crossed! We're that close. I'm confident."

Last week, Shirley announced that the first casino should open at Church Rock Chapter within six months. Originally, Nahata Dziil Chapter was tapped for the premier casino, but that was before the Nation found it only owned surface rights on the land.

The Nation couldn't build a casino and then have some company come along and order them to tear down the casino so it could get to the minerals it owned below the surface, explained Shirley.

However, the subsurface rights issue is being negotiated and could be settled soon, he said.

Although the council passed a law nearly a decade ago requiring all chapters to become certified, only a handful have done so, noted committee member Jonathan Nez. The idea of LGA chapters may be outdated, and chapters have little incentive to pursue their certification, Nez suggested.

One solution may be to allow certified chapters to issue their own business site lease permits, said Nez.

That has been one of his administration's goals, said Shirley.

If chapters are to see new business growth, it will have to come from within, Shirley said. Outside companies are leery of "dual taxation," he said. In addition to paying the Nation's business tax, a business would also find itself being charged a state business tax, he explained.

The State of New Mexico may be willing to work with the Nation, said Curley. In some instances, deals have been reached where the business just pays one business tax and it is divided between the tribe and state, Curley said.

Other business revenues should come in through Desert Rock and Raytheon, Shirley said.

"We're not going to solve the problems in one sitting, but we can take baby steps," Bates said.

The bottom line
Shelly, who spent eight years on the Budget & Finance Committee, said he will be available to work with the panel on funding issues. He said he and Shirley have a good working relationship and he is optimistic that the three branches can work together to tighten spending.

"I will be here to help out," Shelly said. "We should help each other to make this work."

But working together is sometimes the problem.

"If we can be together, be unified, we can get some of our colleagues to support some of this," said Bates. "But that's a problem. Within the Nation we don't stay unified; we all go our own ways."

"There's just not enough money to go around," Shirley said. "If you give money from this program, you hurt that one over there."

Maybe Navajo laws need to be re-examined, suggested Curley. While those laws may have been good in their time, it is a different time now, he said.

One thing council may want to take a look at is the way spending amendments and riders are piled onto unrelated legislation, creating a massive drain on tribal resources, said Shirley.

John Christian Hopkins can be reached at hopkins1960@hotmail.com or by calling 505-371-5443.