A federal judge says he’ll personally oversee the
Interior Department’s effort to untangle a mess of mismanaged
Indian trust money.
U.S. District Judge Royce
Lamberth’s decision settled the first half of a class-action
lawsuit, led by banker Elouise Cobell of the Blackfeet tribe. She
and others charged the federal government with losing track of
billions owed to Native Americans from farming, ranching, mining,
and logging leases on Indian lands (HCN,
3/15/99).
In his ruling Dec. 21, Lamberth ordered
the government to report to him every three months on its progress
in fixing the accounting system. The judge lambasted the U.S.
government for its “long and sorry history” of mismanaging Indian
money, but concluded, “The court has given the defendant one last
opportunity to carry through on their promises.”
Nonetheless, the Justice Department appealed the
ruling Jan. 3, arguing that the judge’s supervision could hamper
Interior’s ongoing efforts to clean up Indian trust accounts. To
ensure better supervision, the Bureau of Indian Affairs says it’s
moving its computer-systems management office from Albuquerque,
N.M., to a suburb of Washington, D.C. Last summer, the department
unveiled a new software program designed to end its sloppy
accounting.
No one is certain, however, that the
changes are enough. The General Accounting Office reported in June
1999 that the computer program was a waste of money; last May, the
U.S. Treasury Department admitted to shredding 162 boxes of
documents possibly related to the lawsuit.
Says
Keith Harper of the Native American Rights Fund, “The appeal is
just a continuation of the notion that they can do anything they
see fit on tribal issues.”
*Robyn
Morrison
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Judge rules on Indian money mess.
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