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About Siletz news / (Siletz, OR) 199?-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 2000)
TRIBAL HISTORY Tribal History, con’t from page 29 Tribal, con’t from page 1 who forwarded it to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The report was sent to everyone in the Indian Department chain of command. It recommended that any notion of removal be dispelled and if any action was necessary to secure the title of the remaining reservation to our people, it should happen. At about the same time, Captain Jack and his people caught national attention for their resistance to the mistreatment of reservation life. Also at about the same time, a spiritual movement, the Warm House Dance, came to Siletz from Northern California. Its message was for all Indian people to hold on to their traditions. If they danced strong and practiced those ways, all their family members who had been taken before their time by the white man’s violence and disease would come back and walk the earth again. This, of course, scared the hell out of the agents and soldiers. The message was a strong backlash against assimilation and made anyone near a reservation nervous. At about this time, an Oregon senator (Jdhn Hippie Mitchell) began devising a scheme to open more of the Coast Reservation to settlement. Senator Mitchell started his attack in early 1874 with a letter to the secretary of the Interior. He complained of the Coast Reservation’s size and asked that all lands north of the Salmon River and most of those south of the Alsea River be made available to settlers. His scheme has devised at least partially in consultation with former Siletz Agent Benjamin Simpson (who had been promoted to surveyor general of Oregon). Simpson was the agent during the first reduction and appears time and again in schemes of various kinds against the Siletz Reservation. Sen. Mitchell eventually, after making several inquiries and attempts, introduced a bill that would enact his proposal. He couldn’t get enough support for it as an individual bill, so he ended up (ironically) making it a sort of “rider” on the annual appropriations bill for fulfilling treaty stipulations. He still couldn’t get enough support for his bill (which by this time included the area north of the Salmon River and the entire area south of the area described in the 1865 executive order). To allay any concerns about a forceful act, he added a proviso that the act would not take effect unless the Indians living within the areas to be opened to settlement agreed to remove to what would be the remaining reservation lands. The act passed on March 3, 1875, as part of the Annual Appropriations Bill for Fulfilling Treaty Stipulations. This led to the failed intentions and neglect that were characteristic of the government’s dealings with Siletz. Several meetings were held at Yachats with tribal members who lived in that district. Each time, the headmen stated their desire to stay and hold on to the places they had been forced to fence and farm. Former Agent Simpson falsely reported that they had given their consent to remove and the act took effect - opening another approximately 700,000 acres of our reservation to use by non-lndians. At the close of the first 20-year period of this reservation, about 75 percent of its mass was taken from us without compensation. This represented approximately 900,000 acres. Only about 225,000 acres remained after the act of March 3,1875. The next major issue of Siletz Reservation life would be the allotment in 1892. The recent letters in Siletz News defame the personal integrity of individual Council members as well as damage the reputation of the tribe and the casino and their respective employees. For the most part, the negative letters in Siletz News either do not cite documented sources or they contain inaccurate information as they express opinions. The best way to counter biased and inaccurate information is to provide you with documented facts. We will do that in the following paragraphs, addressing concerns and allegations raised in various letters to the editor regarding Council compensation, tribal budgets, and health services. 30 Tribal Council Compensation It is misleading to divide the tribal government budget by nine and conclude that this is the true compensation received by Council members. Council members are compensated for actual hours worked and for work-related expenses. The General Council approves the salary and wages paid to Tribal Council members. In the February 1991 elections, the General Council approved a wage of $7.88 an hour subject to an annual cost-of-living (COLA) adjustment equal to the COLA granted to federal and tribal employees. From 1981 to 1991, Tribal Council was compensated at $5 an hour. Nine years after the 1991 vote, the Tribal Council now earns $9.54 an hour. On the tribal wage scale, this places Council at a tribal level 4. Of the 183 tribal employees, only seven staff members are currently making less than $9.54 an hour. Beginning with the approval of an hourly wage for Tribal Council, statutory fringe benefits needed to be paid on wages earned. This includes Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA), State Unemployment Tax Act (SUTA), and Worker’s Compensation. In 1994, the tribe developed a self-funded health plan that covered any employees and Tribal Council members who met the required hours worked according to the plan. In 1995, the IRS approved a 401 (k) retirement plan for the tribe. Any tribal employee or Council member who met the required 1,000 hours worked received a contribution according to the approved plan document. In 1997, the Council approved a proposal to pay each member for 30 hours a week; this was rescinded in 1998. Also in 1997, the Council voted to refer a salary package to the General Council for a vote. That referendum provided a $35,000 annual salary in the first year of office, $37,900 in the second year, and capped the salary at $40,000 in the third year of a Council member’s term. The Council later rescinded the motion. In this same year, some tribal members questioned whether fringe benefits were compensation that the General Council should approve. The tribal attorney issued an opinion that supported this viewpoint and in 1998, the Tribal Council rescinded its non-statutory fringe benefits (tribal self-funded health insurance). In 1999, the total cost of wages for Tribal Council members was $81,217.16, or an average of $9,024.12 per Council member. If a Council member worked 2,080 hours a year (full-time), they would earn just under $19,844 (the equivalent of a tribal level 4). Recently, the General Council was asked to authorize fringe benefits (medical benefits) for Tribal Council members and that vote (See Tribal Council on page 31)
