Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (June 13, 2002)
The Annual Report of the Confe4entec Tribes of Warm Springs Th& Business The role of the Confeder ated Tribes' Business and Eco nomic Development Branch is of increasing importance on the reservation. The branch was formed in 1989, when the economy of the reservation was declining. Since that time, Economic Development has accom plished a number of goals, but many challenges are still ahead. Growing and diversifying the local economy of the Confed erated Tribes remains the over all goal and purpose of this and Economic Development employs 13 people. Twelve of them are tribal members. The branch's Small Business Center has three employees, two of them tribal members. The branch also includes an administration office, employ ing four tribal members. Included in Business and Economic Development is the Simnasho Store, which em ploys six people, all tribal members. The annual budget of the A couple of years ago, the ever-changing face of tribal education and its components, split the Education Branch into two branches. The Essen tial Education branch is com prised of Higher Education (tribal college scholarships, etc.), the 509 J Jefferson County School District (K-12), the Tribal Trust Fund and Early Childhood Education. Early Childhood Education includes Head Start, Early Head Start, Child Develop ment Center (infanttoddler care and school age care), Early Intervention and Early Child hood Special Education, Child Care Development Fund and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. The Early Childhood Edu cation Center has 74 employ ees with more than half (45) being tribal members. The an nual budget for the entire branch includes slightly more than $1 million in tribal dol lars. There are a number of other funding sources for this most important branch. Julie Quaid, the Essential Education Director, said the downsizing efforts over the last few years have had a dramatic impact on the program. One childcare classroom has closed, resulting in fewer childcare slots being available. There arc two less Preschool and school age childcare classrooms avail able due to eliminating posi tions. This has resulted in class sizes reaching the maximum allowed for this age group. Routine office duties fall to supervisors and non-teaching staff due to the elimination of the secretarial staff, This re sults in less time for adminis tration, planning, and fiscal responsibilities. There isn't enough money for groceries for ECE meals because food costs increased as the budget decreased. This resulted in re ducing other operational costs to shift funds to buy groceries. Another challenge is hiring. The downsizing and the two year hiring freeze have resulted in lengthy delays in filling va cancies. During the approval, and Economic Development Business and Economic Development Director Mike Clements branch is $500,000. A chal lenge for the long-term future will be maintaining financial resources sufficient to produce successful results in strategic economic areas, said Mike Clements, general manager of the branch. Already, the downsizing of tribal government, due to bud getary limitations, has resulted in the revising of one job posi tion at the Small Business Cen ter, said Clements. Essential advertisement, selection, and hiring process, a temporary replacement assumes class room responsibilities. This negatively impacts the quality , of the early childhood educa tion and care each child re ceives. Quality is difficult to maintain with an untrained and inexperienced temporary staff. Despite these many chal lenges, the staff at Early Child hood take pride in their work and every day, good things hap pen for children. The program supports staff in pursuing their higher education in an effort to increase their own knowl edge and abilities for working with children. Regularly sched uled in-service trainings pro vide the entire staff with addi tional knowledge and practical information about supporting every child's healthy develop ment and early learning. "Quality early childhood education is one of the best investments Warm Springs can make for our children's fu ture," said Julie Quaid. Re search shows that children at tending high quality programs are more likely to develop the language, pre-mathematics and social skills they need to suc ceed in school. The Kindergar ten teachers at Warm Springs Elementary have commended the I lead Start preschool pro gram for the excellent skills they are seeing in children as they transition into the public school system. If we value our children, our families, our schools, and our community," says Quaid, "we must make accessible, affordable, high quality early childhood educa tion a priority." Warm Springs ECE advocates a comprehen sive effort to improve the qual ity of early childhood educa tion, including: Providing professional de velopment opportunities and adequate compensation for teachers and staff; Improving the health and safety of programs; Using developmentally ap propriate practices to encour age literacy and learning from birth; and, In reviewing some of the most recent accomplishments of his branch, Clements men tioned the following: Establishment of Warm Springs Ventures, a corpora tion dedicated toward diversi fying the economy of the res ervation, and generating rev enue for the Confederated Tribes. The tribal construction pro gram was established as a new enterprise. Plans for Warm Springs Environmental Services, a new tribal business operation, were finalized. This program has ,'r been funded, and now employs eight people. ,,v The Small Business and the Grant program have pro gressed. In looking toward the fu ture, Business and Economic Development will be focusing on the Economic Revitaliza tion Initiative. Part of this initiative in volves planning ways to in crease tourism and travel on the reservation. Another part of the initiative focuses on , Education Lr- ' -jt-tty- .-3 , J - it" r i . - if Wa -v Warm Springs Elementary School student enjoys recess. Supporting the family's cru cial role in early education. When asked about accom plishments in the last two years, Ms. Quaid said she took great pride in the fact that Es sential Education branch orga nized a successful campaign to build a new elementary school, maintained an effective part nership with the Jefferson County School District, and held the first annual Education Summit focused on public school education in Warm Springs. Other accomplish ments include the Early Child hood Education Center pro viding high quality early care and education programs to the Warm Springs community by collaborating resources with tribal, state, and federal fund ing agencies. The I Iighcr Edu cation department provides in dividualized post-secondary and vocational education plan ning and preparation activities for eligible tribal members. The Essential Education office staff improved tracking of tribal member high school graduates in order to imple ment the Tribal Council edu cational requirements to re The overall goals of Business and Economic Develop ment develop-' ment and diversifi cation of the local economy - are identical to the main goals of the Confederated Tribes, as set forth in the Peoples Plan, and by the Tribal Council. commercial and retail busi ness, and development of the downtown area of Warm Springs. The overall goals of Busi ness and Economic Devel opment - development and diversification of the local economy - are identical to the main goals of the Con federated Tribes, as set forth in the People's Plan, and by the Tribal Council. - r - Vf . ceive the minor's trust fund. The tribal organization fo cused its emphasis on essen tial education services from infancy through higher edu cation by organizing similar programs under one depart ment. This addressed the need to maintain an effective partnership , with the Jefferson County School dis trict for K-12 education. In the future, Julie Quaid foresees a number of excit ing improvements. As an example, there is a complete new Warm Springs elemen tary school project. She also has plans to develop re sources to open and main tain a Warm Springs Library. Another goal is to seek ad ditional funds to maintain delivery of quality early care and education programs. The branch will maintain a student-tracking database of middle and high school stu dents to ensure participation and completion of high school. Set ESSENTIAL EDUCA TION on 1) Compensation ana Benefits The Comp and Benefits Managed Care Program has eleven full-time employees and a part-time physician who as sists at the Health and Wellness Center. The staff includes four tribal members, three married into tribe, one other Indian and three non-Indians. Group Benefits has a bud get of f 1,245,000, Comp and Benefits is $129,000; Workers Comp $460,500; 401 (k) pen sion $1,998,218 for a grand to tal of $3,833,618. The Managed Care Program is operated by the Confederated Tribes, but funding is through the federal government. The budget at the beginning of 2001 for patient referrals for health care was $2,605,830. A major accomplishment at Comp and Benefits was the establishment and implemen tation of a 401(k) retirement plan. The staff also managed to maintain accurate records and update data for all pension plans. On-going support was provided to the Tribal Pension Committee, enterprises, and current and former employees. The staff monitored and tracked all new hires and per sonnel actions, while ensuring Information Systems The Office of information Systems (OIS) has eight em ployees and an annual budget of $655,724. Two positions have been cut during the past two years, so branch employ ees are extremely busy trying to provide technical support for the entire organization. During 2001, OIS re sponded to over 1,300 service requests in support of eight Local Area Networks, 480 mi crocomputer users, 370 elec tronic mail users, and 210 Internet users. The branch also supported the upgrading to network-based systems of the Financial Management Sys tem, Credit Office and Vital Statistics appliances, which enables the Confederated Tribes to phase-out central computer operations. The Wide Area Network (WAN) was expanded to in clude Early Childhood Educa tion, Housing and Commu nity Counseling buildings. Most of the tribal offices now have the ability to share com puter resources and files, and communicate over the WAN. OIS has managed and main tained the Warm Springs web site, expanded the Electronic Tribal Library, and offered starter web sites to local busi nesses, so as to encourage e Commcrce in Warm Springs. The branch has been ex tremely productive over the past two years and the chal lenge that lay ahead will be to remain on the cutting edge of technology. Goals for the im mediate future are as follows: Continue to maintain and support the information tech nology base of the tribal gov ernment including PCs, net works, database structures and telecommunications. Maintain and support the development, implementa tion, and operations of the tribes' critical systems such as Tribal Enrollments and Finan salary administration compli ance. They also monitored and updated vacancy listings for down-sizing efforts. Another major accomplishment of the department was to maintain competitive benefits levels at the least possible expense to the Confederated Tribes. Managed Care operated within its budget while facili tating the referral of eligible patients to specialists off the reservation without resorting to deferred services. With dol lars retained through efficient operations the department was able to pay for numerous on site specialty clinics conducted by specialists in the fields of rheumatology, nephrology, ENT, oral surgery and endodonistry, and physical therapy. Staff assisted IHS ef fort to sign up all community members eligible for the Or egon Health Plan. The staff's close perusal of bills and coop erative efforts with a medical claims auditor ensured that rea sonable prices were paid for medical services rendered. In the future Comp and Benefits hopes to implement a Please see COMP and BENEFITS on page 12 cial Management System. Support the development and implementation of the Community Benchmark Re porting System (Report Card to the Community). Support efforts to preserve and maintain tribal culture and heritages resources through the use of electronic records stor age and retrieval systems. Enhance the usefulness of the tribal web site and elec tronic library by applying elec tronic document management methods and functions includ ing imaging and full-text re trieval systems. To help reduce organiza tional cost while improving service, begin exploring appli cation for e-Government (24 7 service to the community). Pilot projects to include on line job listing with job appli cations and listing with appli cation for bidding on tribal contracts. Information processing, re porting systems, and commu nications networks are valu able components of the tribal infrastructure. Tribal programs and managers are better able to support Tribal Council priori tics through the effective use of these technologies to sup port sound decision-making. By providing technical services and support of these systems, OIS indirectly supports all of the Tribal Council priorities. Computer and Internet technology is an essential part of the economic and employ ment health of a community. Its importance will continue to grow significantly over the next 5-10 years. Investing in technical infrastructures today is an essential ingredient for future economic health. It docs not appear this investment is being given a priority at this time. We need to keep pace if we are to take advantage, but with the budget cuts growing, this will be difficult.