Delegates receive an additional $1.6M

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The 88 delegates to the Navajo Nation Council received an additional $1.6 million in their paychecks during calendar year 2004 about a 50 percent increase from their predecessors.

Responses to an information request early this year by the Independent shows that meeting stipends, mileage, motels and meals added more than $1.6 million to the $2.2 million in salaries. The fringe benefit cost for delegates approaches 50 percent, much higher than for other tribal employees. This means it cost about $4.9 million for the lawmakers upkeep in one year.

Delegates have lamented for years that their $25,000 salary is woefully inadequate since its remains at the amount received since 1990 when the three separate branches of government were established. This means 15 years of inflation have eaten away at the value, reducing it to about $17,000 worth.

One of the 88 delegates tribal lawyers say the public cannot have the name with the numbers made $75,079 in the first full year of the 20th Council's term. He or she was the only one taking in more than $70,000 for the year. In 2003, the often controversial 19th Council was in office for about two weeks.

The lowest-paid delegate earned only $29,110 and was the only one below $30,000.

Two council members gathered in more than $60,000 from tribal payments, including boards and commissions other than the 11 standing committees and the"committee of committees," the Inter-government Relations Committee which includes the speaker and the panel chairs (or their vice chairs, if the chair is absent). The two received $67,483 and $63,404.

Delegate wages
More than half the council, 48 delegates, earned between $40,000 and $49,999. Another 28 were in the $30,000 range, leaving nine earning at least $50,000 but not more than $59,999.

Mileage, meals and motels are either reimbursed or taken from the daily meeting stipend, $60 for members and $80 for chairs.

The $2.2 million for salaries does not include $30,000 paid to the speaker to be the Legislative Branch's chief executive officer. In return, the speaker does not get the chair's stipend for being the head of the Inter-government Relations Committee.

The $2.2 million excludes the seven-month portion of the $10,000 additional salary members enjoyed until Aug. 2, 2004, when the three designated Navajo Nation Supreme Court justices invalidated the 19th Council's"back door pay raise" action to begin paying council members $35,000 a year on Oct. 1, 2000. That action included the $10,000 raise for the president and vice president.

All 90 lost the extra salary when the designated Supreme Court agreed with the designated Chinle District Court judge that different types of votes of the people are needed to approve those raises. Nellie Judy, Cleo Johnson, Eddie J. Arthur and Ernest Yazzie the two men are now delegates in January 2000 sued then Controller Bobby J. White on the grounds tribal law allowed him to only pay the lawmakers $25,000. While the plaintiffs excluded the president and vice president, the courts included them.

Going up
In April 2002, the Independent published a story showing delegates averaged $1.1 million a year in extra pay in 2000 and 2001 for hotel rooms, meals and mileage, on top of $3.1 million a year in salaries, then $35,000 a year for all of 2001 and $35,000 for the last quarter of 2000.

Two delegates pocketed between $27,955 and $33,776 each of the first two full years of the 19th Council's term.

The smallest extra compensation was $1,500 for one year.

Reimbursement for miles driven has almost doubled, from 26 cents a mile in 1999 to 40 cents a mile this year.

In 2004, council members also began receiving (for the first time and retroactive to Oct. 1) $250 for each chapter meeting they attend, normally twice a month 58 delegates represent more than a single chapter along with the same stipend for district and agency council of elected officials meetings.

Delegates also receive stipends for agency caucus of delegates meetings.

Council members also can take in extra money, up to $2,550 a year, by receiving $150 each time they appear before a committee (except their own) when sponsoring a bill, memorial or resolution.

The $150 and $250 fees came from money the council stashed in this fiscal year's budget ($1.5 million) after losing the Supreme Court decision, although the justices said the immunity against lawsuit act would not allow the money to be recovered.

Only the budget limits the extra income, and the council usually replenishes the committee accounts several times a year because there is no incentive to meet only twice a month, which are the only regularly scheduled meetings. Each meeting automatically draws with it the mileage for a round trip to and from home.

Recently the Inter-government Relations Committee gave each of the 12 panels $25,000 for the last quarter of this fiscal year, shifting the money from funds the speaker had reserved for consultants or lobbyists for each committee.