Diné budget session gets out of hand

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — After having several appropriations requests ruled out of order Tuesday, Delegate Young Jeff Tom was back again Wednesday morning, taking up where he left off with new budget forms and more amendments.

Council took a $10,876,500 bite out of the Unreserved, Undesignated Fund Balance of $18,334,331 on Tuesday based on amendments by Tom. Before delegates were through Wednesday, there was a little more than $6,000 remaining.

Despite the new budget forms, Delegate Pete Ken Atcitty said Tom’s packet still was lacking and requested it be ruled out of order. Speaker Lawrence Morgan agreed, however, Tom challenged the speaker’s ruling and eventually won.
Council then threw the rule book out the window and filled the morning with amendments to amendments: $200,000 for lobbying services at the federal level for the Transportation and Community Development Committee; $100,000 for lobbying services for the Education Committee; $1.3 million to renovate a business site in Baby Rocks; $450,000 for Chinle Nursing Home; $160,000 for a solar project in the Oak Ridge area of Black Mesa; $290,000 for Facility Maintenance.

There was something for everybody, but with only $6,191 in the UUFB remaining, not enough to support Delegate Roy Laughter’s request of $942,000 for a Navajo Nation Code Talker and Veterans Museum.

“Since there’s no rules,” Laughter said, he requested taking the money out of the minimum fund balance, which Council approved.

Delegate Katherine Benally then made a request to move $128,412 out of the executive branch fund for executive security and transfer it to the Office of Legislative Services, but that would have opened up a whole new can of worms. Delegate Ervin Keeswood cautioned against trying to move money around between branches.

Delegate Orlanda Smith-Hodge agreed.

“This is a real dangerous precedent. Once we do this, it just opens the door to move money all over the place. I would like to transfer some funds too, but I know there would be a danger in it,” Smith-Hodge said.

“In the spirit of cooperation, I’m going to withdraw my amendment,” Benally said. However, she questioned what kind of threats had been made against the Navajo Nation president and vice president to merit the half-million-dollar executive security budget. “I don’t want to see this again,” she said.

Atcitty made a few technical amendments to language in the main budget resolution, numerous conditions of appropriations were added and approved, and it looked like Council might wrap up the budget session in two days when Delegate Leonard Tsosie dropped the proverbial bomb.

Tsosie requested taking the $44,770,000 from the Fiscal Year 2008 budget reprojection and combining the $12 million capital money and the $32.7 million for unmet needs to provide power line, waterline, and telecommunications extensions for Navajo residents.

“We would adopt a policy on the use of this money,” he said, “and we will work with the chapters as we do this. The reason why we need to do this is so this in one huge pot is so it would be cost effective and use the economies of scale.”

Tsosie’s motion would not undo the nearly $18.3 million in appropriations from the Undesignated Reserve. Keeswood and Jonathan Nez tried to have Tsosie’s proposal ruled out of order, however, it didn’t work.

Leonard Chee questioned the impact Tsosie’s plan would have on the overall budget and was advised by Frank Seanez, acting legislative counsel, that if passed, all of the capital improvements and unmet needs in the budget proposal would be eliminated.

Keeswood said the amendment would create a ripple effect in the FY2009 budget “and we’ll have more people lined up for supplemental appropriations.” Budget and Finance Committee member Nelson Begaye said his committee worked very hard to get the unmet needs addressed and also reminded Council that they have the approval of the three branch chiefs.

“As to the rippling effect on the budget, there is none,” Tsosie said, adding that it does not affect the mainstay of the budget. “Maybe some committee won’t travel or some departments may not get temporary employees. My question to you is, what about the unmet needs of the people vs. the unmet needs of the government?

“It’s the people we’re here for. We have many elders out there that haven’t received the privileges of using power line electricity. It’s time that this Council make a policy move and say that we want to upgrade the standard of living for our people,” Tsosie said. After lengthy debate, the motion failed 18-49, with 21 delegates not voting. It is expected to resurface today.

Delegate Leslie Dele said afterward that several appropriations under “unmet needs” in the budget resolution sponsored by Budget and Finance Committee Chairman LoRenzo Bates will become fixed costs, such as the $635,868 to the Office of the Attorney General and $64,132 to the Navajo Tax Commission for salary adjustments.

“If you do that, next year you’re going to have to look for that amount of money to put back in the budget,” Dele said. One attorney’s salary was increased more than $27,000 annually to make it competitive.

“What we’re doing is we’re saving the Nation’s government and forgetting about our people out there. That’s why we’re challenging this. We want more money to go to the people. What the president should be doing is decentralizing. That way people don’t have to come to Window Rock. Each agency would take care of their own,” Dele said.

“We take care of the officials, but not the people. We have children without computers at home because they have no power lines,” Tsosie said. “We have elders whose food spoils because they have no refrigeration. They can’t refrigerate their medicine.”

He labeled some issues raised during debate as “scare tactics,” including Bates’ argument that the Department of Justice has lost 13 attorneys because of low pay. If they’ve lost 13 attorneys, he said, “Something is amiss over there. To pit that against the needs of the people, as an argument, it doesn’t wash.”