BIA Area Office Plans
John Berry (vm.cfsan.fda.gov!fdacd.bitnet!berryj)
Tue, 7 Feb 1995 12:39:00 -0400
To all,
Abstracted From AP:
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There are currently 4 plans on the table for streamlining the BIA in
Oklahoma.
Two of the plans would merge the Anadarko and Muskogee offices into one
office - no location specified. One plan would eliminate the OK area office
and leave the tribes in Oklahoma supported by the area office in Nashville,
TN.
One plan (not supported by BIA) would eliminate all area offices.
BIA officials have urged consensus warning that change will come with
or without it.
A position paper developed by Oklahoma tribal leaders demands that an
area office be left in Oklahoma. It also advocates a South-Central region
consisting of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana and Texas under that
office. Upon finding out about the no area offices option - they reserved the
right to study and comment on that option later. Overall the position paper
and comments made it plain that tribes were not happy w/ BIA's hurry-up
re-organization, and questioned if Indian programs should be streamlined at
all.
Elmer Manatowa, principal chief of Sac & Fox Nation said, "We're not
saying for other tribes in the U.S., this is what your region should look
like." "This is what we want our region to look like."
Supporting data in position paper points out that among the
South-Central states Oklahoma has largest Indian pop. w/ 278,600 people, which
is 23.5% of Indian population in the country. With 32 tribes for Oklahoma, 4
in Kansas, 3 each for Texas and Louisiana, and none in Arkansas (I think this
is in error as the Keetoowa-Cherokee, have recently purchased tribal land in
Arkansas- JDB)
The BIA now has 12 area offices, the mid link between 83 agencies and
HQ in Washington, D.C. (Apparently the GAO has been after the BIA to cut their
budget as part of the Federal downsizing - JDB)
Wallace Coffey, chief of the Comanche Tribe said, "Give me an
indication of how we were cause of this deficit. We're not responsible for
it. I don't think we should have any type of re-organization or cuts".
Gary McAdams, president of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes said, "We
feel like the land, the great country that we ceded is still giving and
producing, probably more now than it did we we gave it up. Until that land
begins to produce less, we don't feel that we should be subjected to any
budget reductions."
So far there have been 10 meetings on this topic around the country.
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John Berry