‘A leadership issue’: Delegates grill controller over undelivered Hardship checks

WINDOW ROCK

Frustrations ran high in a five-hour Naabik’iyati’ work session on Monday as delegates heard another ARPA Hardship Assistance report from Controller Elizabeth Begay.

She told delegates that her Hardship team has endured verbal abuse, death threats and bomb threats in recent weeks.

In a deja vu to her last presentation to Council in mid-April, delegates also learned that not much has changed at the controller’s office in terms of improving communication and customer service, which is why delegates are still receiving complaints from constituents trying to get updates on Hardship checks with no response.

“There’s no communication whatsoever,” said Delegate Herman Daniels.

“They’re calling Window Rock every day with no answer,” he said. “They’re waiting for their checks. I know what my people are going through – they’re very frustrated.”

This all comes in the wake of the debacle in Phoenix where hundreds of Navajo Nation members waited in line for hours in the blistering heat to get assistance, only to be turned away when the Hardship team shut down the operation due to safety concerns.

Evidently there was no follow-up with those hardship applicants left in the lurch, some of whom had travelled long distances to Phoenix.

“I need to express my displeasure with how the whole process has been conducted,” said Delegate Carl Slater. “What happened in Phoenix was reprehensible… the Council and our people need more answers and real action at this point.”

With about 6,500 unresolved Hardship applications and 2,200 returned checks still outstanding, delegates demanded solutions and accountability.

“I feel we’re stuck in the same circle,” said Delegate Charlaine Tso. “There’s no progress and the people are suffering.”

Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty said those people who were left unattended in Phoenix deserved an apology from the executive branch – Begay reports to President Jonathan Nez – but evidently that has not happened.

Despite the millions of dollars allocated to the executive branch to administer ARPA funds, the Council discovered that the controller’s Hardship team is still understaffed and underpaid, and, despite their best efforts, unable to keep up with the workload.

“Constituents say their calling in, but no one’s answering the phones,” said Delegate Elmer Begay.

Paulson Chaco, chief of staff for the president’s office, did not join the Naabik’iyati’ teleconference call despite being listed on the agenda to represent the president’s office.

’A reflection of the administration’

In April, Begay explained that her staff of 20 on the Hardship team simply could not keep up with responding to the thousands of calls and emails they were receiving from applicants.

Since that time, the number of inquiries has declined, she said, and the Hardship staff has grown to 25, but that is still not enough people to keep up with the work of the office, especially since many of the employees have been travelling off site.

“It’s a reflection of the administration,” said Delegate Otto Tso. “This controller’s office works under the executive branch. Your job to get these dollars out is very, very critical.”

Tso suggested the proverbial buck stops at the top, with President Nez being the CEO of the executive branch.

“This is unorganized,” Tso told Begay. “The people don’t deserve this. Remember, the Navajo people are paying your salary and they deserve to get these funds in a timely manner.”

Delegate Charles-Newton called the implementation of the Hardship assistance program a “fiasco” due to a lack of leadership.

“What happened in Phoenix is really disgraceful,” she said. “If you’re going to take credit for something, then you should take credit for the bad thing too. We have a system that is not working right now and the Hardship team is taking the brunt of it.”

Gerald Shirley, accounting manager for the Hardship program, acknowledged that the Hardship team also does not have enough security workers to safely operate large events like the one in Phoenix to handle “crowd control.”

“What are the next steps to make sure an incident like Phoenix doesn’t occur again, because lives were put in danger?” Delegate Amber Crotty asked Begay.

“We need accountability from the Office of the President and Vice President,” said Crotty. “This is a leadership issue.”

Controller touts progress

Crotty also said the stress being put on Hardship employees also is not being addressed.

“On a daily basis they are harassed,” said Charlaine Tso. “It worries me what our staff is going through.”

Defending her team, Begay reported that the controller’s office has successfully distributed 310,894 Hardship checks totaling $531 million since February, or about 100,000 checks per month, and commended her staff.

“They worked after hours and on weekends just to process these checks,” she said.

She reported that, despite the problems, the Hardship team has also made progress in distributing over 8,000 checks that were returned to the controller’s office by the U.S. Postal Service because of mailing address issues.

They are now down to 2,200 unclaimed returned checks that have not yet been distributed to their rightful owners and the Hardship team is focused on calling them, said Begay.

In addition to that, Begay said there are a remaining 6,500 previous CARES Act Hardship recipients who have not received their ARPA Hardship assistance because of incomplete addresses and certificates of Indian blood problems that they are also working to resolve.

She added that there are still about 2,000 people with duplicate CIBs who have not received their ARPA checks because they can’t issue two checks on the same CIB.

Begay’s office has also confirmed about 200 instances of fraud, where people have, for example, found ways to cash their checks twice or submit two Hardship applications, one with a made up CIB, she said.

No applicants

Delegate Kee Allen Begay and other delegates asked why, with an $180 million allocation for administration of ARPA funds to the executive branch, Begay had still not hired more staff.

“With the lack of support, equipment, services and staffing – why aren’t those funding being utilized to address this particular issue?” he asked. “I know you are stretched thin with staffing and manpower.”

Begay responded that they are still having a hard time attracting the office specialists they need. The job pays about $13 per hour.

“We’re still advertising those positions,” said Begay. “There’s just not that many applicants for the Hardship program.”

Begay did say that the Department of Personnel has waived the background check requirement to expedite new hires and she is working to increase wages for Hardship workers.

“I agree, they need to make more money,” said Begay.

At the same time, Begay said they are now “tracking” Hardship workers to make sure they are answering the phones.

Shirley, however, said there has also been a problem with high turnover among the Hardship employees.

“We’ve had difficulty in the last couple of months just maintaining adequate staff levels,” said Shirley. “The ability to return phone calls relates to staff turnover we had.”

Shirley also said they don’t really have sufficient office space to accommodate more workers.

“Window Rock is willing to cut corners in the system, but it’s our people who are getting neglected and forgotten,” said Crotty, who said that in addition to the $180 million being managed through the president’s office, the controller’s office received $17 million to administer ARPA funds.

“Who is making the decision not to on-board additional staff to assist and provide services to our people?” Crotty asked Begay.

Consultants hired

Begay did reveal that she hired one consultant, who was paid $400,000, to convert the old Baker Tilly system to the new system, and paid another consultant $125,000 to analyze the data.

“Overall, we paid $525,000 to consultants to do this Hardship program,” she said.

Begay said she is also working on a request for proposals to hire someone to upgrade the Hardship database to provide more “real-time” information so that when people call with questions it’s available.

Crotty asked why Begay had not contracted out some of the Hardship assistance processing duties.

“This was an emergency legislation – how do we keep this office accountable for how they distribute emergency funds that we received on the behalf of the people?” said Crotty. “What we need is a better system so that folks don’t have to come into Window Rock.”

Daniels said that for many people, it’s not feasible to travel long distances to Window Rock to try to get answers, especially with the price of gasoline.

“People are now experiencing hardship again due to rising prices, and the drought,” said Delegate Charlaine Tso. “Our people are hurting.”

Crotty said by this point, the controller’s office should be scaled up to address the ARPA Hardship program needs.

“We knew from CARES what to expect,” said Crotty.

In the last meeting, Begay had said that it was decided to keep the Hardship work all in-house in order to save money.

Last year with the CARES Act Hardship Assistance program, accounting firm Baker Tilly was paid $14 million for their services, she said.

However, Begay said her staff had to do “a lot of clean up” on the Baker Tilly portal because it had a lot of missing or incorrect information.

“We did not realize the information in the portal needed a lot of work, a lot of changes,” she said.

What are solutions?

Delegates once again implored Begay to come up with a plan to improve customer service and communication with the public.

“What kind of solution do you have in regards to trying to accommodate our Navajo people?” Delegate Vince James asked Begay. “We’ve heard the many excuses, the many reasons why we are failing to address those issues.”

James said he’s also heard that something went wrong with the change of address forms that Hardship applicants submitted.

“I don’t know what’s happening to it, but I’m being told there was some sort of hack that happened on our system that screwed up the changes,” said James.

Other than saying there were “tens of thousands” of change of address forms submitted, Begay did not respond to that question.

The controller’s office does not have its own ARPA public information officer but, according to Begay, has been relying on the president’s office communications staff to share public updates.

In the last meeting, Begay had said they were considering assigning a full-time Hardship worker at each agency office.

As of right now, only Tuba City Chapter has a Hardship employee designated for Western Agency.

She said she would work toward providing an employee at each of the other four agencies.

Shirley said they are planning to hold additional return-check events at Tuba City and Shiprock chapters that have the highest amounts of outstanding returned checks.

At a certain point, if checks become dated before reaching their owners, they will have to be voided and reissued, he said.

No ‘solid plan’ in place

A representative of the president’s office, Staff Assistant Arbin Mitchell, did join the meeting mid-stream and acknowledged the problems that need to be addressed, including improving communication, customer service and increasing pay for Hardship employees.

“I know we need folks to be answering the phone and responding to emails,” he said. “If you’re lacking personnel, you can’t do all these tasks.”

“We do get a lot of calls at the Office of the President,” he added.

Delegate Crotty said the Hardship program issues would be addressed again at the next Budget and Finance Committee meeting.

“I’m walking away from this meeting knowing that there’s not a solid plan in place to reach our people,” said Crotty.

The next hurdle is that the controller’s office only budgeted for 345,000 Hardship checks (totaling $557 million), per the legislation that was passed by the Council and signed by the president on Jan. 4.

As of June 6, $25 million remains in the account.

The estimated number of Navajo Nation enrollees is now at 405,000. So to accommodate the possibility of an additional 60,000 applicants, the Council is preparing legislation to approve another $120 million to fully fund the Hardship program.

“Without that funding, we will not be able to assist the new enrollees and those Navajos who did not apply for CARES last year, who now are applying for the ARPA Hardship assistance program,” said Begay.

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