Indianz.Com. 


Court report criticizes trust fund software 
FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2001 

Department of Interior officials have repeatedly and purposely failed to 
notify a federal judge that a $40 million software system designed to 
track the trust assets of American Indians and tribes has serious 
deficiencies, a court investigator charged in a report released on 
Thursday. 

For the past two years, the government has hid the problems of the Trust 
Asset and Accounting Management System, or TAAMS, from US District Judge 
Royce Lamberth, said court monitor Joseph S. Kieffer III. Court-mandated 
quarterly reports authored by the Interior have been "misleading 
regarding the true status of the TAAMS project" even though officials 
knew the system failed critical tests more than two years ago. 

Yet when Tom Slonaker, who began his position as overseer of trust reform 
last summer after being appointed by former President Clinton, attempted 
to provide more accurate updates about TAAMS, top officials at the 
Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs opposed his apparent candor. 

The Interior's Office of the Solicitor, then headed by Clinton appointee 
John Leshy, and BIA managers, including Deputy Commissioner Sharon 
Blackwell, have removed Slonaker's comments from the reports, said 
Kieffer. Blackwell herself has only been on the job a little over a year. 

"Every effort has been made to show progress and positive events and 
suppress negative results when in actuality the system was repeatedly 
failing in major areas that clearly would set back trust reform by many 
months if not years," said Kieffer. 

Kieffer's revelations, contained in an explosive 130-page report, are the 
latest in a series of criticisms the government has received over trust 
reform. In a July report, he slammed both the Clinton and Bush 
administrations for stone-walling on a court-ordered historical 
accounting of the funds owed to an estimated 300,000 American Indians 
throughout the country. 

But while top Interior officials were aware of, and anticipated, Kieffer's 
findings on TAAMS, they have attempted to downplay their significance. 
BIA employees are happy with the new computer system, even if it doesn't 
work completely, and are eager to see it fixed, even if it takes three or 
four more years, they said. 

They are, however, acknowledging recent failures which have added up to 
one year of delay to TAAMS. In June, a new, critical part of the system 
did not pass the required tests and the government is working with 
outside contractor Artesia System Group to correct the bugs, they said. 

Officials also admit the BIA needs help in making sure trust reform is 
executed properly. The government is paying EDS Corporation, a management 
consulting firm, nearly $1 million to help BIA managers, including TAAMS 
project leader Chet Mills, do their job. 

Still, Kieffer's report adds more fuel to claims of the Cobell v. Norton 
plaintiffs that top officials should be held in contempt-of-court. In 
various filings, the plaintiffs, led by Blackfeet banker Elouise Cobell, 
have asked Lamberth to consider holding Secretary Gale Norton, Blackwell, 
and former and past Interior officials in contempt. 

In February 1999, Lamberth previously held then-Interior Secretary Bruce 
Babbitt, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and former Assistant 
Secretary Kevin Gover in contempt. 

An Interior spokesperson yesterday said the department is still reviewing 
Kieffer's report. The department is "committed to improving trust reform 
for the good of Indian Country," said Nedra Darling, who pointed out that 
Norton has created a new Office of Historical Trust Accounting to try and 
provide Indian beneficiaries with a report of their funds. 

Norton and new Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb are in New Mexico today 
to visit the Office of Trust Records in Albuquerque to better understand 
how trust duties are carried out. The office, which is overseen by 
Slonaker, is currently being investigated by the special master in the 
Cobell v. Norton case on charges trust documents are not being properly 
handled. 

Next week, Bert T. Edwards, the director of Norton's new office, will 
begin holding meetings to discuss an accounting. Edwards is a former 
State Department official from the Clinton years. 

In his report, Kieffer makes note of Norton's new trust initiatives, 
which include the hiring of EDS. But he warns that her department needs 
to acknowledge the past problems of trust reform. 

Along those lines, Kieffer is recommending Norton take some sort of 
action against the BIA and Solicitor employees. "They have created the 
record of opposition to and actions against the provision of open and 
honest communications to this Court and Congress on trust reform both in 
the past and the present administrations," he said. 

Since its inception, TAAMS has seen six project managers. The first, Dom 
Nessi, who was recruited by Gover, has since quit the BIA and taken up a 
position as Chief Information Officer at the National Park Service. 

In February, Nessi wrote a confidential memo to Slonaker charging that 
"trust reform is slowly, but surely imploding."