Heartaches come for trust fund employees

FROM THE ARCHIVE

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WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2001

Working on fixing the broken trust fund can be hazardous to one's career, as evidenced by a number of high-profile shakeups at the Department of Interior.

But while the problem has been highlighted recently with the case of Mona Infield, a senior computer analyst who is still being paid an $80,000 annual salary without having stepped into a Bureau of Indian Affairs office in more than a year, and now, with the resignation as Dom Nessi as the bureau's Chief Information Officer, the government's inability to hold onto its talent stretches back to the resignation of Paul Homan in early 1999.

Homan was the government's first Special Trustee, a position created by the American Indian Trust Reform Act of 1994. Congress, so lawmakers believed, had clear directives for the new official: to bring some responsibility to an agency plagued with more than one hundred years of financial mismanagement.

By his own admission, though, Homan failed. But he cast blame towards former Secretary Bruce Babbitt, charging that his boss never fully funded his efforts. He resigned hastily in January 1999, a day after Babbitt reorganized his office and got rid of one of his top aides.

That top aide, it turned out, was Joe Christie, a long-time veteran of the BIA. Like Homan, Christie was regarded by outsiders -- particularly critics -- as a highly qualified asset to the government, just as the trust fund lawsuit was about to heat up.

Christie had been tracking down trust fund records a federal judge ordered the government produce for lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell and four others. It was a skill the government desperately needed. But within a month of being removed from his duties, Babbitt, former Assistant Secretary Kevin Gover, and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin were held in contempt of court for failing to come up with the documents.

Unlike Homan, though, Christie stuck around at the Interior, where he was eventually re-assigned to an Albuquerque, New Mexico, office where he did more trust-related work. But he ran into a snag when the office was targeted for a move to Virginia.

About the same time, Infield raised questions about the proposed move. As a result, she was assigned to work at home in March 2000 by top BIA management, including Nessi. Christie himself left at the end of 2000, taking early retirement.

To be sure, the overwhelmingly majority of Interior employees continue to work on the trust fund with little problems. In a recent report, Joseph S. Kieffer III, a court monitor assigned to watch over trust reform, praised the government's employees for their continued dedication to fixing the broken system.

And comings and goings are nothing new to the federal government. The problem of "brain drain" is not unique to the Interior -- Nessi, in fact, was a former top-level official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development but moved to the BIA after a corruption scandal forced a shakeup in leadership.

But the problem may uniquely impact the Interior because of its long-running history of mismanagement. As administration after administration pledges to make inroads on trust reform, the debacle seems to grow bigger.

Dennis Gingold, an attorney who represents the Cobell plaintiffs, says the departure of persons like Christie and Nessi hinders adequate resolution of the mess. As employees leave, they take with them their "institutional memory," leaving future generations to repeat mistakes unnecessarily.

"The loss of institutional memory is irreparable," said Gingold of the recent departures. "Whoever comes in should at least be informed of the mistakes made by predecessors."

The BIA will begin a search to replace Nessi, following standard government hiring procedures, said a spokesperson.

Today on Indianz.Com:
Retaliation charged as BIA official jumps ship (7/25)

Relevant Links:
Office of the Special Trustee - http://www.ost.doi.gov
Trust Management Improvement Project - http://www.doi.gov/bia/trust/tmip.htm
Indian Trust: Cobell v. Norton - http://www.indiantrust.com