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Trust Funds and Asset Management-Department of Interior (DOI)
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- Part of Records of the Office of the Chief of Staff (Clinton Administration), Lynn Cutler's Files
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OCR Page 1 of 8DOI
Indian Trust Funds
For immediate release Feb. 22, 1999
Asset mgmt
Contact: Stephanie Hanna 202/208-6416
STATUS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S
INDIAN TRUST FUND & ASSET MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS
Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt has made fixing Indian trust funds management systems
one of his highest priorities. Currently the Secretary, through the Office of the Special Trustee
for American Indians (OST), maintains approximately 1,700 accounts for 338 Tribal entities with
assets in excess of $2.5 billion. Each year, more than $800 million pass through the Tribal trust
funds system. The Department also maintains nearly 300,000 Individual Indian Monies (IIM)
trust fund accounts through which over $300 million pass each year.
Over many decades, the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) record keeping and other trust fund
systems have not always been what they should be. This is the first administration in 100 years
to have attempted a serious correction of that deplorable situation. Administration after
administration, and Congress after Congress simply have not allocated necessary resources to the
complex job of managing Indian trust assets and trust funds.
Improvement of the Department's trust fund management responsibilities has involved acquiring
and installing commercial trust and investment accounting systems for tribal trust funds and
significantly better internal controls through yearly audits of financial operations, daily
reconciliations of all trust related cash, and use of third party services for safekeeping of
investment securities.
In a little over a year, the Department has cleaned up over 200,000 IIM (Individual Indian
Money) account files, two-thirds of the total. By the end of 1999, it will have completed the
installation of a commercial bank trust fund accounting system for all IIM and tribal accounts.
The Department has awarded a contract to replace BIA's key trust management system with
modern commercial systems for lease management, accounts receivable, land records and trust
administration policies. Supporting these efforts is work on records management, training,
policies and procedures and additional internal controls.
Trust fund systems will be modernized and centralized so that the trust data the Department uses
is accurate and current. More importantly, the systems and information will be available to tribal
managers and Indian trust fund owners all across the United States.
The Department has been increasing budgetary investment in trust reform. The FY 2000 budget
seeks more than $100 million for the Office of the Special Trustee to continue improvements.
All told, the Department will devote more than $150 million to trust reform.
The Department also has proposed legislation to resolve disputed tribal trust accounts and is
working with tribal interests to develop a proposal that all parties can support. We also have
proposed legislation to address one of the greatest obstacles to good trust fund practices: the
highly fractionated ownership of Indian lands as a result of the failed allotment policies of the
past.
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