get our final, unbanded report from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Alaska.

I have reviewed that information, and it still does not look complete, because I was able to get some other information when they were talking about reorganizing the Bureau, and therefore I think my information is still incomplete.

Also, what is happening in some of our areas is that the Bureau agencies are campaigning in opposition to the policies not only of the Congress, but of their particular offices-campaigning against demonstration projects, campaigning against more modifications to the way we administer our programs.

The CHAIRMAN. How are they campaigning?

Mr. THOMAS. Campaigning by going to other tribes and saying that if we got rid of the Southeast Agency, for example, that if they, themselves, wanted to get into another contract by themselves there would be no technical assistance for them because there would be no agency. Yet, to clarify that and say that technical assistance is not a tool only of the agency, but of the Federal Government, it is pretty hard to dispute that when they have all the figures and the resources to go out and do that campaign. So that is one mechanism.

The dominance of a larger tribe like mine in the area is brought forth in the various councils of the smaller tribes saying that we can't have the dominance within an agency. That would be negative in the long run. That kind of campaigning is what is going on in my area.

And then some personal campaigning with other members saying that I'm a tribal member, so why should I be displaced because of the demonstration program.

One of the positive things that have happened as a result of title III is that we have, in spite of the fact that it has been very slow, been able to get information that will allow us to do a financial analysis on all of these levels of Government, and this analysis has confirmed the suggestion that the BIA has been overburdened at the administrative levels, and that the cost is phenomenal compared to the services that we actually get out to the people.

We hope that working together we can remedy some of that. Another positive thing has been legal and historical analysis done by the various tribes. Many of the tribes are concerned that by getting rid of one or two layers of Government agencies that we somehow diminish our relationship-the government-to-government relationship that was spoken about a little earlier.

Our legal work has shown us that that is not necessarily true, nor does it have to be true. We can, in fact, eliminate various levels of Government agencies and still maintain our government-to-government relationship.

Another positive thing is that by being a part of the demonstration group, we have been asked by other tribes, not only in our own area, but throughout other parts of the country, in the development of regulations as to some of the experiences that we have had that would help lend some insight into the development of regulations. I think that was very positive.

Indirect costs-I need to stress that these programs all need indirect costs. Simply because they are a demonstration or a separate

purpose does not minimize the need of the tribal Government to have resources to manage those particular programs. I think, while we're talking about indirect costs, I would propose that all programs equally get indirect costs, including ICWA and HIP-other programs that have historically been left out.

I think that indirect costs are the lifeblood of many tribes, and I think that Public Law 100-472 has time and again stressed the importance of indirect costs to tribes. I hope that we can move past having various programs exempt from indirect cost pools.

Like you, I believe that title III, as well as other amendments to Public Law 93-638, must lead to permanent improvements in Federal contract policies to Indian tribes. Otherwise, I feel that this process and the process that we are experiencing in our demonstration project can, in fact, lead to more polarization between tribes and Federal agencies. I think with the limited resources that we have, we cannot afford to have any more polarizations and expending large amounts of energy, resources, fighting with each other over jurisdictions, over various ambiguous policies, delays in funding, and other things like that.

I think it is very important that we begin with the idea that we are going to get into a much better relationship for the future.

I was to talk a little bit about the liability insurance, and I believe we have other experts here that will do a much better job in that. I will briefly say that my tribe is very interested in the amendments that provide for the Government to work with us to get better insurance to our tribes in the area of liability and other types of insurance.

We do endorse the Government doing a little bit more. I think they need to publish lists of people that are interested in providing reduced rates to the tribes. In my State, we are quite isolated. We need more information about insurance companies. I think many other isolated tribes may be faced with that very same problem.

I think that the Government should coordinate and try to attract insurance companies to workshops concurrent with national Indian organization meetings. By doing that, I think we can capitalize on the fact that many Indian tribes are already at those meetings, and that by providing them more information about insurance, I think that would help all of us become more familiar with some of the options available to tribes in the area of insurance.

One of the important concerns that tribes have, however, is that as you get into insurance and self-insurance, whether to form your own insurance company, how do you deal with the issue of waiving your sovereign immunity. I think that we need help in that area, and I hope we will hear more about it here today.

But I think that it is important that we continue to work with the administration, as well as Congress, in trying to find ways to address the area of waiving sovereign immunity so that we can insure ourselves against liability.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I had hoped that, like these cleansing rains of today, these amendments would cleanse the process that tribes go through in order to contract, and I think it can. We all know that we're going to get a little wet, but I think the final resolve should be-and I hope will be-that we are going to start a

fresh, new approach to working together for the benefit of all of our people.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Thomas appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Thomas.

Mr. Kenmille.

STATEMENT OF HON. LAURENCE KENMILLE, COUNCILMAN, CONFEDERATED SALISH AND KOOTENAI TRIBAL COUNCIL, FLATHEAD RESERVATION, PABLO, MT, ACCOMPANIED BY THOMAS ACEVEDO, ESQ., TRIBAL ATTORNEY

Mr. KENMILLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

I bring greetings from the Salish and Kootenai Tribe of the Flathead Nation.

We have had a good description of the background of self-governance. The way the tribes are approaching self-governance is very, very cautiously. It is a new era that we will be looking at in a relationship with the U.S. Government and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe.

The process that we are looking at in self-governance is sort of redefining the process that we have had before. We have always looked at it, from the time of 1855, where we have had a true government-to-government relationship in defining our treaty and working out that relationship. From that point on, it has been declining.

The way we look at self-governance is that it is a new era, and in this new era we are going on a government-to-government relationship.

The tribes, themselves, have made significant strides in trying to work out this relationship of self-governance-how it is going to be affecting our tribes, and how it is going to be affecting the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

We want to make sure that every avenue is addressed so that my tribal people are protected and the United States Government still has that relationship of fiscal responsibility in the funds that they do give the tribe that we are requesting.

The investments that we have made have been long hours in council meetings, we spent four and a half days, we have made extended reports to Congress previously on how we have progressed, we have also made them available to other tribes, we have made up a consolidated budget that would be not only looking at the IPS sections of the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget.

Our ideas of self-governance are far-reaching into the efforts of the amounts that are being spent in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in comparison to the tribe.

We are looking at consolidating the budget and how much money the tribe is putting in, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is putting in, and all other agencies, so that we can get an overall view of where those needs and priorities have to lie.

It is a very difficult process. It is a long process. But we know that this process, in the end, will be beneficial to all.

One of the problems that we have run into is the funding parameters-what the tribal government needs and what the Bureau of Indian Affairs has in the contract is very, very difficult to work with. We have to make it more broad.

The definition of how the Bureau of Indian Affairs is looking at it at this present time is just the IPS portion of it. We just can't look at it similarly-if it is going to be a workable program we have to look at it totally, and not only the IPS, which only consists of about 25 to 40 percent in some instances. Approximately 60 to 75 percent of the budget is not actually being looked into in the selfgovernance program that should be related to the tribes, and must work in the relationship in that way.

The process that we are looking at with the Bureau of Indian Affairs would be a true transfer model where the tribes would be taking into consideration all the aspects and then having these models transferred over to the tribes with the Bureau of Indian Affairs having their input.

But, at the same time that we're doing these transfer models, we have to, in our own words, get our own tribal house in order. And how we're revealing that is that we're looking at each portion of our department and how they are fitting in with the Bureau of Indian` Affairs-forestry, natural resources, general assistance, IHS, a variety of programs that are handled under the tribe, and how they intermingle with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and all the other agencies within the reservation.

Our tribal secretary and tribal treasurer at this point in time are developing a fiscal plan that would be providing those departments, how those will be intertwined, and where those moneys are coming from, and making a multiyear budget that would be consistent with the self-governance projects as we go along.

The way we're looking at this is that when we first started this process, Mr. Chairman, it was kind of like looking at a shotgun marriage. The Bureau of Indian Affairs wanted to give us all of this and get us going on it.

But we're looking at this process right now as sort of a prenuptial agreement where we are looking at each side and we're saying, "This will be your responsibility. This will be our responsibility. And as we go along, maybe we will not be villains to each other, but we will be advocates to each other, as it used to be in the early stages of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes where they used to be a helpful hand and we used to be a helpful hand.

Maybe as we go along, we will have this sort of marriage so that they will be taking the considerations of the U.S. Government's responsibility and the tribes will be accepting their responsibility as a nation to their people.

We have come a long way since the beginning of this project, and we have a long way to go. We do have a lot of people working on it. We have all of our resources people working on it. We also have a consultant, Chuck Johnson, who does all the gathering of the information from outside of our area and brings it in and gives a report to the tribal council.

As I stated before, the tribe is looking at a multi-year consolidation of all of our resources. I feel that when we do the consolidation of those resources, that the tribe has to be the forerunner in

making the rules and regulations with the advocacy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs reviewing them.

As we looked in the past, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has made rules and regulations without really responding to the tribes' needs.

We, on the reservation, are the Flathead Nation. We know our needs and have our priorities established. We loose them when we go through the Bureau of Indian Affairs' IPS system. They are lost. After we make our priority system, they go to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and they are all mingled together and they are lost.

The way we see this agreement working is that the tribes will take on the responsibility of doing the prioritization in response to the need and the dollars that are available. If we feel that there are more dollars needed, the priorities will be justifying where the tribal dollars will have to go.

We are not against putting in our own dollars and supporting our tribal needs. We are minimal in what funds we do have available, but as we look at it, there are some responsibilities that this tribe has to pursue, and one of those things is to make sure that we are self-governing our people's needs and resources.

As you know, we have taken on a lot of responsibility in other areas such as shoreline protection, natural resource stream life protection, and we have handled it very well working with the residents of the reservation-not only Indian, but non-Indian, as well.

I would like to read the five areas we will be pursuing. In these five areas, Mr. Chairman, we want to know if those recommendations that we are making—the process that we are going throughwill be those satisfactory to or in conjunction with what the Senate has address in our direction.

The first one on the recommendations is that Congress interpret the self-governance transfer model broadly. We have a lot of areas that, in relationship to the budget, we are not getting the information well, we want to have the transfer, the capacity, the technology, the authority, and the range of the budget all included in the interpretation of this self-governing transfer model.

We recommend that Congress mandate BIA to participate in the Confederated Tribes' consolidated budget system. That process is that we will be developing the system, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs will then come to the tribes and review those systems with the tribe to see that they are in comparison with the statutory requirement that the Federal Government has in those specific areas. We recommend that Congress support the tribes serving as the lead management agency for other Federal funds that pass through the Bureau of Indian Affairs when the tribes cannot demonstrate capacity to serve and lead in the priority-setting role.

Now, when we get into that area, we find that the BIA has not fulfilled its obligations through its intergovernmental affairs, nor has it provided full and timely information to the tribe. A lot of times the tribes receive outside funding other than the funds funnelled through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and we do not receive the initiative information until it is too late or we have to scramble to get things put together so that we can meet those requirements to receive funding for certain needs of the reservation.