NAVAJO COUNCIL ON AUDIT OF 2013 NAVAJO NATION OPERATING BUDGET.
DELEGATE WALTER PHELPS
$6.6 m spent from Permanent Trust Fund so how were they spent, invested?
DELEGATE JONATHAN NEZ
this is a “clean” audit and have to give credit to people for giving President line item veto power. AND remember when some of council delegates wanted to pull investors out and we supported keeping investers.
CONTROLLER MARK GRANT
casinos are very successful. fire rock, northern edge and flowing water generating above expectations. Twin Arrows about to break even. and i can’t speak for strategy and decision other than to say they missed the market. Navajo Nation not receiving its full interest payment from Twin Arrows so asked Gaming Enterprise to hire CEO and CFO, who was hired but he had to return to family. COO and have Director of Marketing so looks favorable for them to find market and bring in market so have positive territory.
Delegate Tsosie asked why chapters and enterprises not included. chapters not considered part of central government. theother issue is enterprises not included because their years do not coincide with tribal budget year. audit came in May 30, 2014, and fastest came in in ten years so we are prety happy.
Balloon payments for Judicial Safety fund: 2015 balloon payment and council fully informed and approved. strategy has been for bank loan to fund project and issue bonds to public market and take out bank loan and talking about 3 years and interest rates rising and more expensive to loan so interest rates good so shud refinance.
NDOT money not part of financial audit. they are part of single audit and included in there.
$2 m. expenditures for scholarships cuz limited and not allowed to spend entire amount.
page 26: wat helpful is percentage to come up with amounts listed. some generating significant interest and others not. such as land acquisition fund is $80 million and grew to $117 million.
different funds we have, veterans, land acquisition, water rights, historical trust – all hve different spending policies. if spending policy low, such as Veterans Fund which allows 3 percent of market value can be spent so rest returns to fund.
so we can give percentages.
Build America Bond and thru US Treasury Dept and we applied to Treasury Dept and they refunded us the interest we were paying. we took out $60 m loan and they pay us back 30 percent. we gave report to Law & Order Committee and we send to Delegate Russell Begaye.
Next question is Window Rock Fair and I’d like to skip but will not. Fair inadquately funded for activities to have so Tribal Parks and Recreation supplementing Window rock fair and July 43th, which has inadequate budget. Window rock fair has $250,000 and they spend up to $750,000 and $1 m in operational costs.
page 16: phone costs too high and travel too: address to president and we can give report by program but no power block travel and phones.
Reversions of Grant Fund: the best way prevent reversion is spend the money and that almost simplistic but truth is, is that reversions cuz not spending. we are doing pretty good job but need to talk to programs to spend more of money.
AUDIT TIMELINE; audit comes in May, 8 months after year and he wants sooner. Navajo government large operation and May is doing good job. one way bring audit in sooner wud be to ask KPMG throw more resources but increase cost of audit or increase employees in Controller Office and that wud increase costs too.
CHAPTERS AND MONEY GETTTING, page 16, look at orange bars, went from $36 m to $40 m and chapters not get all $40 cuz includes scholarships. Bulk goes to chapters.
how many chapters getting money from Business INdustrial Development Fund: projects under BIDF are in some chapters. we cud ask Division of Economic Development Director Albert Damon to provide report on that.
DELEGATE LEONARD TSOSIE, POINT OF ORDER
WHO SET standards? just to say casinos doing good is not good enough. that is my concern. other thing is these pple set up their own rules. again when i asked about NDOT/Navajo dept of transportation and why not part of audit and told NDOT under grant but who voted on that. this concerns whole Navjao Nation so Council or Naabik’iyati Committee vote on standards and policies. and then how give “clean” record? auditors say clean but standards lacking.
$6.6 m Permanent Trust Fund spent and lot to investment fees for manager and other expenditures such as travel.
WHAT STANDARDS FOR TWIN ARROWS: Prudent Man Rules, large booklet of investment policies and Council delegated to Budget & Finance Committee so as long as getting return then working. Financial Rules also used and those are guided by FCC, oversee General Accounting Principles. so large number of rules used to oversee investments.
DELEGATE DANNY SIMPSON
Page 24, 25, notes receiveables – Navajo used $174 million and that is termendous amount of money to invest in TWin Arrows at $174 million. When Twin Arrows presented to Council we supported cuz told that profits wud go to chapters. so how long are we going to do this? we told constituents that the large loans for casinos were being made because loans cud be paid back very quickly by casino profits but that’s not happening because of Twin Arrows. I want report from Casino on how restructuring to make Twin Arrows profitable.
