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.
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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)