FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 19, 1998
CONTACT: Christopher M. Changery
(202) 224-2251

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Senate last night unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Indian Affairs Committee Chairman Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) to streamline tribal job training programs.

Under the Indian Employment, Training And Related Services Demonstration Act of 1992, tribes can consolidate funds they receive for employment training and education services into one streamlined program, enabling them to serve their members while cutting administrative costs and time. Campbell's bill amends the program by expanding programs that can be consolidated, allowing for more job creation and moving the program's oversight from the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs to its Office of Self-Governance.

At a May 13, 1997, hearing tribes testified that the BIA was standing in the way of effectively implementing the new program. Criticism included paperwork delays resulting in cash flow problems, insufficient staff assigned to the program and little or no commitment to implementing it.

"This program can help Native communities bridge the gap as people are moved off the welfare rolls and into jobs," Campbell said. "By reducing paperwork and other administrative burdens, it lets tribes focus time and money where the needs are the greatest: with their members. But tribes -- facing an average unemployment rate of 52 percent --cannot help their members if they are held back by Washington bureaucrats resistant to change.

"By respecting tribal governments to make the best decisions about what their citizens need, this program is built on a fundamental respect for tribal sovereignty. It also recognizes that local authorities are in the best position to create programs around local needs --- not the `one size fits all approach' that plagued Indian policy for decades."