Saturday
November 13
1999
(selected stories)

| Nov 12 | Nov 11 | Nov 10 | Nov 8 | Nov 6 |
— Contents —

Independent appoints new editors
 Chris Martinez, tries on an actors costume during a talk-back session after a performance of "For the Love of It" at Red Rock Elementary school. Local area student actors participated in the play supported by the Gallup Area Arts Council and Red Mesa Art Center. Students who wish to try their hand at acting may call the Red Mesa Art Center for information on upcoming youth workshops.
Photo by Nicole Goodhue
Tohatchi school must respond to greed charge

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The board of Choosh Gai Community School in Tohatchi received an extension to Dec. 10 to respond to allegations of excessive greed and mismanagement.

The school is at least the fourth federally-funded Navajo contract or grant school to gain notoriety for lavish spending by board members on themselves and selected staff.

The allegations came in an Oct. 11 report given Friday to the Education Committee of the Navajo Nation Council by Fred Silver Fox of the Diné Technical Assistance and Assessment Services Department.

Choosh Gai Acting Director Leonard Chee responded to some of the charges and recommendations.

Education Division Director Genevieve Jackson told the committee she felt it would be proper to have all the responses before making a decision. The committee agreed, continuing the matter until Dec. 10.

Choosh Gai became a Public Law 100-297 grant school in February 1998, receiving grants to cover administrative costs separate from operational costs. It has a seven member board, drawing its members from the Coyote Canyon, Mexican Springs, Twin Lakes, Naschitti, Sheep Springs and Tohatchi chapters.

Lack of accountability

On Sept. 1, Charles Johnson of the Office of Indian Education Programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs sent school board president Bobby Sandoval a letter charging that the board was not being accountable in its use of funds.

Johnson found that the meeting stipend rose from $60 per meeting under BIA operation but health insurance began Jan.1, 1998 at a cost of $578 per month, he said.

The average number of days between meetings feel from 30 under BIA operation to 5.25 since May 19 1999. Even though the average length of meetings dropped from five to three hours, the hourly rate skyrocketed from $12 under BIA operation to $66 since May 19, 1999.

Silver Fox told the committee he wanted a directive from the committee before investigating. Jackson sent him on the fact-finding mission rather than waiting. Silver Fox’s report said that he and Anno Pino, as a representative of the Navajo Area School Boards Association, visited the school on Sept. 16 and 17.

Their report concluded that the committee needs to establish policies for all P.L. 100-297 school boards for their activities, stipends “and other matters... deemed essential to grant school, and being accountable for prudent management of federal funds.”

Up to $1,000

They found the board was paid $200 per meeting, with another $200 if the meeting had to be continued to the next day. Study sessions were worth $100 a meeting.

With mileage, “board compensation averages out to $800 to $1,000 plus per month... Since there is no set limit on board payments, the amount a board sets is legal,” Silver Fox wrote. With seven members for 12 months this would cost the school $84,000 a year.

The visit also uncovered a practice of adding board members to the insurance plan for employees which was questioned be committee Vice Chairman Wallace Charley.

Included in the plan are medical, dental, vision and life insurance, with the school paying $216 a month per employee.

“Board members who have accepted the family plan are Peter Watchman, Kathleen Francisco, Kenneth Howard Jr. and Cecil Sylversmythe... There were no written statements nor board minutes indicating approval... board members who declined to accept the plan are Bobby Sandoval, Edith Loretto and Treva Roanhorse,” again without any minutes or statements to confirm, Silver Fox wrote.

With four members participating, this would cost the school $10,368 a year.

Failure to follow policies

He then said the average time between board meetings is only three to five days, with the board meeting 32 times from January 1998 through August 1999, which suggests “that the board is involved in administrative matters not within their scope of authority.”

And meetings average four hours, the not the three hours told to the BIA.

The board fails to follow its own policies and procedures, Silver Fox maintained.

“The acting director and business personnel provided pieces of unfinished or missing copies of personal policy manual, school by-laws, school board policies and procedures. The review of these documents shows that the documents are inconsistent,” Silver Fox wrote.

With two different sets of standards the board paid an attorney $8,260.

“This same service could have been performed by the school staff at no cost,” he maintained.

Former Director Donald Creamer did not have his contract renewed for 1999-2000. The board named principal Gloria Arviso as interim director, and on Sept. 10 named Chee as its acting director.

Serious nature of changes

In a Sept. 2 letter to Arviso, notifying her of the on-site review because of Johnson’s letter, Jackson pointed out that “due to the serious nature” of the questions, the nation must investigate the allegations of misuse.

Chee said he was told the school would have an edit interview of Silver Fox’s findings, but one was never scheduled.

One root cause, Chee indicated, was friction between the board and the BIA’s OIEP during the transition from a BIA-operated to community-controlled school.

Chee maintained the school was never out of compliance because at no time was it given the guidelines. When the committee slapped a limit on all grant and contract school boards for the meeting stipends, Choosh Gai complied, he said.

A personnel policy with job descriptions was adopted on July 22, 1999, the acting director said.

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Independent appoints new editors

By S.J. Ludescher
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Pat Reed, a long time journalist, has been appointed managing editor of the Gallup Independent.

Bill Donovan, a reporter at the Independent, has been named assistant managing editor.

She had previously edited the Albuquerque Journal’s Impact magazine and was arts and entertainment editor at the newspaper. She was also an assistant metro editor at the Houston Chronicle.

In addition, Reed has edited the Museum of New Mexico’s El Palacio magazine and the Santa Fe Institution’s Bulletin.

Before returning to journalism this year, Reed worked for nine years as an international disaster relief consultant in Sudan, Iraq, Kuwait, the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia and Bangladesh.

While working in disaster management, Reed edited six books, three of them under a Macarthur Foundation grant, and was a reporter in Bosnia for Bosnia Winter Watch, a humanitarian publication.

Donovan, a native of Kentucky, first worked at the Gallup Independent in 1971. He left the Independent in 1976 to be general manager of the Navajo Times. From the 1979 to 1999, he was a correspondent for the tribal newspaper.

Donovan has also written for the Arizona Republic, the Holbrook Tribune, the Apache County Observer and the Winslow Mail. In addition, he has reported for radio stations KHAC, KGAK and KYVA.

Since 1980, Donovan has been editor of the Indian Trader, an Indian arts and crafts monthly head quartered in Gallup.

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