Archives

Note: This is the lead article in the January 2014 issue of the Delaware Indian News

In a look back at 2013, the list of accomplishments and completed projects is extensive with focus in many areas. My first draft of my article was 10 times longer than any previous article. If now I seem brief in places, it didn’t start that way.

I thank the Tribal Council for their diligent work. Without everyone’s efforts, we would not be as far as we are. I thank our staff for they provide services and service to our people on a daily basis.

Here are some of the highlights.

Enrollment Growth 2013! New enrollees up by 23% over 2012. Increase by 26% of 18 and under enrollees but out of 10,698 members, only 949 are 18 and under. You can make a difference in the Tribe by making sure your younger relatives get enrolled by contacting the Enrollment Office today.

A personal goal is to reduce the list of the missing Delawares. In 2013 we have reduced the list by 10% but there are still over 2000 missing. Please check the lost list on our tribal web site at www.delawaretribe.org. You may know some of the people on the list who need to update their contact information. We want to make sure that we can communicate with all of our people during these exciting times for the tribe.

Job Creation! Both in Tribal Operations and business entities such as DFMS. We anticipate job creation to continue to rise as we expand our programs to provide the kinds of services we envision, grow Tribal businesses, and continue progress.

Jobs Growth! Employee Statistics: 72% of employees hired between November 2012 and November 2013 are Delaware. Of the 11 employees hired prior to Nov 2010, three are Delaware, so that means that 58% of all employees are tribal members. Nearly 75% of our employees have benefits.

Infrastructure and Staff Development! The Social Services and Infrastructure ICDBG (Indian Community Development Building Grant) projects finished in early 2013, increasing space for programs, expansion of the Community Center in the Elder Nutrition Kitchen, lengthening the road, increasing the retention pond’s capacity, providing tornado shelters, increasing data infrastructure, and more. Personalized bricks were offered to Tribal members and many families are represented in the front of the new building.

In early 2013, DEA, the economic arm of the Tribe, had a significant reduction in overhead. The scope of the holding company was refocused to follow through with projects in process. A lawsuit filed in 2012 against DEA and the Tribe (but not served) was negotiated and settled. The settlement agreement kept costs down and out of court.

Interested in DEA? We’re looking for you!

DFMS! Delaware Facilities Management Solutions is a wholly-owned Tribal entity. Currently, the Tribe (including the Housing Program) is the largest contract for DFMS. However, pre-DFMS, the Tribe contracted out the same services or maintained associated overhead costs. Now, the Tribe is able to keep dollars within the Tribal economy and provide jobs. I am confident in the skills of the management of DFMS as well as the workers and look forward to a bright future with this business.

The Tribe worked on a strategic partnership with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (S&K) to form an informal mentor/protégé relationship with regard to economic development.

The 8a application for DFMS (Delaware Facilities Management Solutions) is pending final reviews and considerations, which will allow us to bid on federal government set-aside contracts.

In May, the Tribe proposed to open a Memorial Garden by the pond. The area is intended to be a beautiful place to reflect on our loved ones and ancestors. Several employees took up the charge of launching the garden. We hope to have more volunteers this coming spring to join in the fun. If you have an addition to the garden to celebrate your Tribal loved one, you are welcome to come to the Tribe or let the office know how they can help you. I hope there will be traditional gardens as well as community gardens.

The Lodges! After studying the Tribe’s waiting list for tribal housing, more single-bedroom dwellings were in greatest demand. The Tribe purchased a 12-unit garden-style complex in Bartlesville, OK, formerly known as the Irene Apartments. After a nearly complete renovation, the complex has been remodeled, repaired, is now up to code and renamed the Lodges.

Our gift shop is finally (once again) a reality, and it will soon be online as well. We hoped that there would be a space opening up on the Bartlesville campus for a museum, but this has not happened yet. But a museum is on our wish list for 2014! Our Archives program continues to gather more and more material, thanks to the generosity of our tribal members.

I wish I had room here to highlight each program of the Tribe. Please check out our web site for more information.

A highlight for me in 2013 was the pleasure to host the female Chiefs/Governor/Presidents of Oklahoma for a gathering in Bartlesville. The visiting tribal leaders attended a presentation held in conjunction with childcare and returned to tour the Tribal complex, share ideas and discussion.

Expansion Progress! A major announcement of 2013 was the purchase of nearly 100 acres near Lawrence, KS. At this time, the Tribe continues to prepare paperwork to submit a non-gaming Fee-to-Trust application for the property located within the Tribe’s last reservation. The property originally belonged to Captain Sarcoxie. The second owners were the Pine Family who has had the property since the 1860s. Thus the Tribe is first and third owners of the land. The acreage includes a home which will be used as the Tribe’s first offices in the Lawrence area. We spent much due diligence in considering the property, which is high quality farmland, close to the river with abundant topsoil. The area is some of the best farmland in the nation as well as being a large contiguous piece of property which has a large house, an irrigation unit, and several outbuildings. The Tribe is currently earning income from the property by leasing the property to a sod farmer for 18 months. Property value for current use (agricultural) is estimated at a little over 2 million dollars.

We met with now-former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Interior Larry Echohawk in 2012. This year, we met with Assistant Kevin Washburn as well as Mike Black, Director, BIA and Mike Smith Deputy Director, BIA, to further discuss the Tribe’s plans in Kansas. Additional federal meetings include meeting with the Regional Directors of the BIA and IHS. Requests for Kansas Service areas are being prepared to present to both agencies. With each meeting of federal officials, the conclusions are that the Tribe has a “unique” situation, is charting unprecedented territory, has a justified reason for seeking to exercise sovereignty outside of the Cherokee Nation, and should be encouraged to keep moving forward.

Another highlight of 2013 was meeting with Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas. We had been meeting with Governor’s Liaison Chris Howell since October 2012. In August 2013, at the meeting with the Governor, he welcomed the Tribe’s efforts in Kansas and told us that he wishes all the Tribes displaced from Kansas would move back to Kansas. Since August, the Tribe has met with Governor’s cabinet members from Kansas and community and county officials to discuss concepts of the Tribe in the state of Kansas and Kansas communities.

While taking care of business at home, at the federal level, and at the state level, we also gained support of many other tribes. We have focused on intertribal relations in Oklahoma and across the nation. The former intertribal organization of Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas restructured into the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas (UINOKT) and representatives from the Tribe attended nearly all of the meetings which were hosted by various tribes in Oklahoma. UINOKT passed a resolution supporting the Tribe’s expansion into Kansas.

The National Congress of American Indians held their 70th annual conference in Tulsa, OK this year. We were active in the NCAI planning sessions held monthly to prepare for the event. With the conference in Tulsa, we were able to have a good representation and take several vans to the “Cultural Night,” an NCAI tradition. Many tribes including the Cherokees stood with us as we told our story.

We have gained ground in our government-to-government relationship with the Cherokees. The administration has been working with us through the year to resolve some of the issues. They have released the hold on our ATG (Aid to Tribal Governments) money (with the urging of the BIA) and are in the process of releasing our housing money! We are eagerly continuing discussions for further modification of the MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) that we have with the Cherokee Nation,

The Cherokee Administration has been most supportive of our efforts in Kansas. We applied to continue our elder nutrition program, a three-year grant. We proposed a second site in Caney, Kansas. The Cherokee Nation joined us in sending out a needs survey to area elders.

Our Kansas expansion has been the topic of general public discussions recently, even though the resolution to expand our service area into Kansas was passed nearly 18 months ago. Since the passage of that resolution we have all been hard at work to make that vision a reality. However, it is a concern of some tribal members as to whether the Tribe was ready to embark on the Kansas journey.

Our organizational infrastructure is the foundation for growth, progress, and expansion. In addition to physical infrastructure renovations and upgrades, the Council undertook major efforts to work with the staff as individual employees as well as within the departments and programs. The Child Support Services program has completed its first year as the first federal agency to recognize the Tribe’s Kansas jurisdiction.

In 36 counties in southeastern Kansas, there are 50,000 un-served Native Americans without access to IHS, Section 638 programs, and other Native American-based federal programs. We spent a great amount of effort on the Tribe’s infrastructure and staff development in the last year. With the capacity being demonstrated by our departments, the federal agencies are talking to the program directors about possibilities in Kansas. Requests for service area for IHS and Section 638 are being studied and written.

EPA director Jimmie Johnson organized and facilitated a strategic planning session with the Department of Energy and the DOE has indicated they are excited to work with us. This is just one example. The Tribe has an opportunity to administer programs to all Natives, help our people, take land into trust, and be sovereign. We carefully chose the 36 counties so that they would not overlap another tribe’s jurisdiction.

We are in uncharted territory, but we continue to move forward.

Staff Development! We have been hard at work streamlining our current procedures and preparing for the inevitable growth that we hope to undertake in the next few years.

Our areas of focus included internal communications. Our directors had specialized training in team building, problem solving, and using software on our work computers to improve our internal communications. Another tool for internal communications is the newly-created and implemented employee intranet. The intranet allows our staff to have all forms and information for each department available to them with only a keystroke. (Personal and confidential information will still be safeguarded in password protected files and with limited access.) We are hopeful that the intranet availability to staff will result in increased efficiency and assistance to tribal members.

Reporting – In order to aid in transparency, as a result of the reporting project each department uses a consistently formatted template for monthly reports to the Tribal Council. This consistent collection of information will allow us to produce an annual report for our people.

Writing Legislation – Directors were trained in researching and writing basic (and in a few cases not so basic) legislation related to Tribal programs. By training our staff, we can reduce costs paid to consultants or attorneys every time we need this kind of work because we now have staff that not only can do this work but do it well.

Tribal Codes – Over the years, many resolutions have been passed by the various administrations. We are working to update old resolutions that refer to antiquated systems and processes when we need to be moving into the future. One example of this is the work that our judges are doing on updating the judicial code. This law, found in our code book, has not been updated since 1986. Indian Country and Indian Law have changed tremendously since that time. I would like to thank our judiciary for their hard work in updating the code.

The Code Commission that we put together last year has also been doing some work in reviewing all past resolutions to make sure if they should be included in the code book that they are putting there so that our laws will be available to not only the judges but also to the Delaware people.
We are working to make all of our forms electronic as well as to improve the format and content of those forms for public use. Each form will now have a check list for the tribal member to ensure that applications are complete, while also able to prompt other departments/programs to contact the tribal member for additional services for which they qualify. Finally we have worked to restructure our weekly director meetings and monthly all-employee meetings to reduce the time that workers are away from their work stations as well as to increase the participation of our employees in the problem solving process for each department.

Enrollment Department – In addition to reducing the number of Delaware on the lost list I am happy to announce that we have added another position in the enrollment department, added another license to our Progeny software, and provided proper training in the use of the software. This has eliminated the huge backlog we have been experiencing in that department for years. We have also secured all of your enrollment files to a limited access area so all personal information kept in those files is accessible to Enrollment staff ONLY.

Job Descriptions – I am happy to announce that all job descriptions for our current positions have now been updated (with the exception of three positions in Caney). We have also identified a list of positions that we will need to fill over the next 18 months. We no longer have one job description to cover one person doing three jobs. They have all been separated so that as we have funds through these new programs and we can hire staff to perform one job we will be ready with approved job descriptions.

Policies and Procedures – We are in the process of making sure that each department has its own policies and procedures as well as what we are calling “Administrative Services” which contains the Tribal Operations Manager, the Assistant Tribal Operations Manager, the Administrative Assistant to the Chief, and the Receptionist.

H.R. Policies and Procedures- We are beginning a project now to update the overall Human Resources Policies and Procedures as well as to establish a new hire orientation process.

I ask for your support in 2014 as we move forward in not only Kansas but as we continue to grow and support our programs in Oklahoma. Let us hear your voice!

Lapich Knewel
Chief Pechonick