Leader of Crow Tribe blames 'gross mismanagement' on others

Monday, October 8, 2018

The leader of the Crow Tribe is vowing to pay back any misspent water settlement funds after yet another federal audit uncovered problems on the reservation in Montana.

In an October 4 statement, Chairman Alvin “A.J.” Not Afraid, Jr. pinned the "gross mismanagement" of the funds on the Bureau of Reclamation and an outside engineering firm. He also said prior tribal administrations were to blame.

“Program by program we are cleaning up decades of mismanagement between these governments,” Not Afraid said in the statement.

Since 2016, the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Interior has issued three audits that have questioned the tribe's management of federal funds. Combined, about $29 million has questioned, The Associated Press reported.

All three of the reports focused either entirely or largely on time periods before Not Afraid came on board. He was sworn into office in December 2016.

The most recent audit, which was issued last week, covered activities from October 1, 2014, through March 31, 2017, so there was only a couple of months overlapping with Not Afraid's arrival.

Two of the reports focused on contracts that the tribe was awarded in order to implement its water rights settlement, which signed into law in December 2010. A major component is a water system being overseen by the Bureau of Reclamation.

The settlement authorizes $460 million settlement in federal spending, according to a law firm that helped secure the deal. Some $45 million has been provided to the tribe through March 2017, The Billings Gazette reported last week.

Not Afraid's statement about the latest report came on the same day the Crow Tribal Legislative Branch accused the chairman and the executive branch of failing to submit a complete budget for the current fiscal year. Lawmakers said the documents submitted so far show "expenditures greater than revenues."

A week prior, tribal lawmakers warned of a government shut down due to the lack of a submitted budget. Not Afraid said that wasn't the case and operations have apparently continued as expected.