Auditors: Delay in jobs as long as 8 years

By Bill Donovan
Special to the Times

WINDOW ROCK, March 13, 2014

Text size: A A A



Most people who have tried to get a job with the Navajo Nation before 2014 knows what it means to be patient.

Tribal auditors discovered that it could take weeks or months, if not years, to go through all of the procedures within personnel management before a decision is made on whom to hire for a vacant position.

The Office of the Auditor General released its report last week, finding a number of problems that result in vacant positions going unfilled for as long as 11 months in some extreme cases.

Looking at a period from October 1, 2011 to December 30, 2012, the auditors discovered the first problem was getting the personnel management to accept that a vacancy has occurred.

The auditors checked 1,409 positions during that period that became vacant and discovered that it took tribal departments anywhere from two to 2,134 days (eight years, two months) to inform personnel management that they had a vacancy in their department.

They also discovered that 337 of the requests that came in from the tribal programs had to be sent back because the paperwork was incomplete.

How to get The Times:

Back to top ^