Federal consultant to try to help save Head Start
By Noel Lyn Smith
Navajo Times
WINDOW ROCK, Dec. 12, 2011
Fixing the problems with Navajo Head Start continues to be a focus of President Ben Shelly's office, said Dawn Yazzie, an assistant to Shelly, in a report Tuesday to the Budget and Finance Committee.
Yazzie announced that the consulting firm Community Development Institute has been hired to help restructure the program.
Community Development Institute is based in Denver and helps manage and build high-performance organizations, team development, fiscal management and structures for accountability, according to the company's Web site.
It is also a contractor with federal Head Start and usually becomes the administrator of troubled Head Start grants.
The company started its six-week contract this week and its services will be paid by executive office funds, but if the contract is extended for an additional nine months, it would cost $700,000, Yazzie said.
Yazzie told the committee that the Department of Justice is appealing the federal Head Start's reduction of grant funding for fiscal 2012.
This issue went under legal review after federal Office of Head Start Director Yvette Sanchez Fuentes issued a letter to Shelly in July saying it planned to "recapture, withhold or reduce" more than $14 million beginning Nov. 1.
Fuentes said the reduction was based on lowered enrollment in the Navajo program, which lost about half its students when serious deficiencies became public and the feds froze funding in 2006.
Yazzie briefly explained that the $3 million in supplemental Head Start funding requested last month by the three Navajo branch chiefs would be used to match the federal grant.
As a grantee, the Navajo Nation is required to match at least 20-25 percent of the federal grant but in the past the tribe has never made that match, she said.
When asked for a clarification of her comments to the committee, Yazzie said a press release focusing on the current status of Head Start would be issued.
Navajo Head Start has continued to struggle with compliance and enrollment issues since 2006.
Shelly's chief of staff, Sherrick Roanhorse, told the committee that staff spent Monday and part of Tuesday meeting with Fuentes to appeal for more time and restored funding.
This is the latest in a series of visits from the federal Office of Head Start.
An April 2010 federal review found 11 deficiencies and 18 noncompliance issues and federal officials returned in September to do a follow-up review.
Roanhorse said the president appointed Yazzie to oversee the task of fixing Head Start's problems.
"We are committed to it, our hearts are in it," Roanhorse said. "We want to make sure this program is brought back up to speed but we can't do it alone."
Budget committee chair LoRenzo Bates asked for information on a Nov. 4 memorandum from Roanhorse that went out to Head Start staff, parents and consultants.
The memo included a statement that the program still faces possible termination of its grant due to deficiencies and noncompliance findings.
Yazzie said those deficiencies have not been corrected. A monitoring team visited the program in May, June and September but its report has not been issued.
"Currently, we don't have any indication of whether the grant will be terminated," she said.
Committee member Mel Begay was unimpressed with hiring a consulting firm and was unhappy that both Shelly and Vice President Rex Lee Jim were absent from the meeting.
"It seems like it's not serious enough to have the president be here or the vice president," Begay said. "If it was so, either one would be here."
He was also critical that neither Roanhorse nor Yazzie mentioned the impact the potential loss in Head Start services would have on Navajo children.
"I think that should be up in the forefront and top of the discussion in how our young ones are being positioned and being threatened in losing the services they are receiving," he said.
Committee member Danny Simpson requested a memorandum listing the deficiencies and noncompliance issues found in the federal review. He asked that copy go to the Health, Education and Human Services Committee as well as B&F.
In addition to the request, he suggested that continuance of low enrollment for Navajo Head Start could be a result of less children being born.
"It seems like our generation and the younger generation are not having kids anymore, that's why Head Start enrollment is down," Simpson said.
Bates said for the last five years the committee has been sending memorandums to the executive branch regarding Head Start's problems and those memorandums continue to be ignored.
"As a result of the executive branch ignoring those concerns, we're faced with this situation today," Bates said, addressing the president's aides. "Only your actions will convince me that this is a priority."