Speaker gets OK for stipend hike
Increase in pay for attending meetings not a raise, Morgan says
By Marley Shebala
Navajo Times
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| Font: N / N+ / N++ A $50 increase in stipends paid to council delegates for attending meetings is not a raise, Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan (Iyanbito/Pinedale) said Tuesday.
Morgan said he sponsored the $50 increase because of rising fuel prices.
Morgan got the increase through with little fanfare - and less publicity - on April 16 by introducing a measure before the Intergovernmental Relations Committee to increase delegate stipends from $250 per meeting to $300.
The committee added Morgan's bill to its agenda for that day's meeting and unanimously approved the $50 hike, which took effect immediately.
Under tribal law the stipends, unlike a salary increase, do not require a vote of the Navajo Nation Council, nor do they require approval by Navajo voters.
The IGR consists of the chairs of the council's 11 standing committee.
Meetings for which delegates can collect a stipend are agency caucus meetings, agency council meetings, district council meetings and regular, special and planning meetings held by chapters.
The $300 also applies to council committee meetings that a delegate attends as a sponsor of legislation.
The $300 does not apply to regular or special council sessions, council committee meetings or budget hearings. For these meetings the delegates receive $60 a day plus mileage.
For orientation and training meetings, delegates received lodging, meals and mileage.
Delegates attending special committee meetings receive $150 a day.
The annual salary for a council delegate is $25,000, and the most recent effort by delegates to vote themselves an increase, in 2000, ran aground when challenged in tribal court.
On Aug. 21, 2002, the Navajo Nation Supreme Court ruled that the $10,000 raises for delegates, the president and vice president, were illegal.
The ruling was unclear on whether they would have to repay the salary increases for 2000 and 2001, and in the meantime the delegates voted to place the money for the $10,000 raises for 2002 into an escrow account controlled by the legislative branch.
Morgan confirmed Tuesday that in 2004 those funds were used to pay meeting stipends and other delegate compensation. He could not remember how much was placed in the escrow account.
Morgan said money to cover the $50 increase would come from "readjusting" the council budget, which is close to $15 million this year.
He noted that one of the four individuals who sued the council to overturn the 2000 raise has since benefited from Morgan's efforts to compensate delegates for their work.
Morgan was referring to Earnest Yazzie, now the delegate for Church Rock and Bááháál’ (formerly Breadsprings) chapters.
The base budget for the council was about $5.7 million for this fiscal year. But after five supplemental appropriations and one carryover, which all required council approval, the council's budget now totals about $14.8 million.
