Discretionary funds, first lady's office, to be audited

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Tribal auditors will audit the discretionary funds of the executive offices and legislative branch, as well as the Office of the First Lady, in a work plan approved Tuesday by the Budget and Finance Committee.

On Nov. 3, the committee directed acting Auditor General Elizabeth Begay to revise her office's proposed work plan to include an audit of discretionary funds allocated to the president's office. Begay already had scheduled an audit of discretionary funds allocated to the speaker and council delegates.

It will be the first audit of discretionary funds for either branch, although annual audits of legislative branch funds were mandated in 2007.

Committee members noted that it would only be fair to audit all the discretionary funds, instead of just those spent by the council and Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan (Iyanbito/Pinedale).

Vice President Ben Shelly predicted the audits would vindicate the practice of giving top tribal politicians discretionary funds to spend as they see fit.

 The allocations absorb up to $10 million a year in tribal revenues and are subject to few rules and almost no oversight.

"An audit of the use of discretionary funds by our office will reveal that hundreds who've had difficulty were served," Shelly said Wednesday. "The fund is there for times of tragedy, assistance for families, and college students faced with need for a few hundred dollars to stay in school."

Shelly offered no comment on the audit of the first lady's office. Delegate Curran Hannon (Oak Springs/St. Michaels) requested the audit, saying he'd heard that first lady Vikki Shirley was using the office's budget for spending sprees.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, President Joe Shirley Jr. said, "It's public money and it's their prerogative if they want to audit. I don't think they'll find anything there."

Shirley's comment on the audit of his wife's office was stronger.

"The auditor general is looking into millions of dollars and Curran Hannon is asking her to look into this little bitty money," Shirley said. "It doesn't make sense. I don't think they'll find anything there."

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Hannon is sponsoring legislation to take the first's lady budget of about $200,000 and use it instead to provide drinking water to the community of Box Springs, Ariz., where local water supplies are contaminated by radioactivity and other toxins.

Told that the auditor's office is too short-staffed to get to all the audits requested of it, the B&F committee had directed Begay to drop the first lady's audit.

However, the Government Services Committee strongly urged that it be put back into the auditors' 2010 work plan, and the budget committee honored the request.

Begay said she's working with the tribe's personnel office to fill four vacant auditor positions, which would increase her office's capacity to perform audits by 50 percent. Currently the office has eight full-time auditors.

On Tuesday, committee members again asked Begay, as they had in the previous meeting, why she was auditing the discretionary funds of the council and speaker.

Begay explained again that an annual audit is mandated - a term meaning it is legally required - in the policies and procedures governing those funds.

She reminded them the audit will cover 2006 through 2009. Because this will be the first audit done under the 2007 rule, it will cover all the years that were supposed to be audited but were not.

B&F committee member Nelson Begaye (Lukachukai/Tsaile/Wheatfields) then asked why her office had failed to conduct the previous audits.

"I was not notified of the request until the issue was published in the paper," she responded. "But now I'll be able to audit the discretionary fund every year in compliance with the polices and procedures. The bottom line is that I was not informed (about the discretionary fund policies and procedures for the council and speaker)."

In a Sept. 15 press release, Speaker Lawrence Morgan called for an audit of his and the council's discretionary funds after the Navajo Times reported that people with close ties to the legislative branch had raked in thousands of dollars in discretionary aid.

On Wednesday, Begay said the audit of the executive office discretionary fund - though not mandated by law or regulation - would cover the same time period, 2006 to 2009.

On Tuesday, the B&F committee also approved reallocation of 1,000 audit hours originally scheduled for the Diné Power Authority, a tribal enterprise that has drawn fire for absorbing over $20 million in tribal support with no solid accomplishments to show for it.

And as directed by the committee, Begay reduced the audit hours she allocated to office financial statements, desk reviews and consulting services, which freed up 160 hours.

The hours will be directed to assist the chapters of Wide Ruins, Becenti, and Crownpoint with "special review" audits. Sawmill, Kayenta, Red Valley and Bodaway-Gap chapters, which are all under sanction by the B&F committee for mismanaging money, will get "corrective action follow-up reviews."

Two tribal programs under sanction, the Capital Improvement Program and the Insurance Services Department, also will get "corrective action follow-up reviews."

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