Hopi tribal members initiate removal petition for Hopi chairman

Rosanda Thayer/NHO

Rosanda Thayer/NHO

KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. - "This Shingoitewa administration reminds me of that dictator Quadaffi, we might as well be living in Afghanistan. We have no rights, we have no access to information, there are unjust employee suspensions, unauthorized purchases, we're spending big money on attorneys without knowing what they are working on. Our council members are clearly in-conflict on some of their decision-making and the Hopi people are not being fairly represented throughout all our villages. Only four villages are represented right now at Hopi Council," said Phillip Quochytewa, former Hopi tribal vice chairman and honored veteran, at a recent meeting on Hopi. The public meeting was sponsored by the village of Kykotsmovi to discuss the current state of affairs at the Hopi central government.

Kykotsmovi Village Governor Antone Honanie held a special "open public" meeting in his village last week to allow community members, tribal employees and their village tribal representatives an opportunity to share their concerns with current Hopi Chairman LeRoy Shingoitewa's management of the Hopi government without fear of intimidation or redress. Concerns included several employee suspensions, confiscation of tribal technology equipment, which included shutting off of their tribal email and lack of notification of grounds for these suspensions as well as non-adherence to current tribal personnel grievance policy.

Added to the meeting mix was the deep concern about tribal finances, including a recent investigation performed by Henry and Horne, LLP, certified public accountants out of Scottsdale, Ariz., which was shared by three of the council representatives at the meeting that has not been made public to the entire Hopi community by either Shingoitewa or his finance director.

The Henry and Horne 11-page report reveals troubles in payroll, investments documentation, accounting and purchases made by out-of-tribal policy compliance.

The report also states that the Hopi Tribal finance department is understaffed with several of the current employees lacking much needed financial training including its finance director.

In the opening page of the report, Henry and Horne, LLP state, "the instability in the leadership has caused turmoil in the organization as a whole. With the lack of organizational stability and strong leadership, the role of the Finance Department to function as an integral part of the organization has deteriorated causing tension among the departments."

On top of the report, the council members in attendance also stated publicly that Shingoitewa never received formal authorization from the Hopi Council to conduct such an investigation, though Shingoitewa has stated otherwise.

Danny Honanie, Kykotsmovi Tribal Council representative, said, "We are just now starting to find out how many things the chairman is doing without our knowledge. We were never informed at the council level about this investigation and there are other things with our money and employees happening down there, too. This is a problem that needs to be looked into and dealt with."

The areas that Henry and Horne cited as needing critical work at the Hopi Finance Department included Accufund implementation-payroll, purchase requisitions, communication between payroll and Human Resource Department, personnel and budget capacities, cash reconciliations, required annual audits, data backup and information security with Henry and Horne even going so far as to recommend that a "whistle-blower policy" be implemented.

"It is the responsibility of those charged with governance to detect and deter fraud or unethical behavior from occurring. The Tribe should not only work to strengthen the internal controls over the Finance Department, but should also establish a tone throughout the organization that unethical behavior will not be tolerated," stated the report on Page 9.

There currently is not a "whistle blower" policy in place at Hopi to protect employees who suspect unethical conduct, thus placing employees at a high risk for dismissal for expressing concerns within their departments at the Hopi Tribe.

A seriously critical area that was brought up by former Hopi Vice Chairman Caleb Johnson at the meeting was his concern with Henry and Horne's assessment of audits.

The Hopi Tribe through its own fiscal policy is required by federal funding requirements to hire independent auditors to conduct an annual audit.

According to the report, the past several audits have been delayed due to the disarray of the tribal financial system. Both the 2007 and 2008 audits were completed two years after the years ended and subsequent audits have "not yet been completed."

As a result, the "non-compliance with federal requirements puts the Hopi Tribe at risk of losing all federal funding due to the inability to maintain accurate and timely financial records," according to the report.

These financial concerns were echoed by two of the tribal employees in attendance at the meeting who had expressed their compliance concern to the Hopi finance director, who has since placed them both on "indefinite suspension."

The Henry and Horne report did make recommendations to the Hopi Council on how to correct its current deficiencies including the development of new policies, performing backups by the technology department daily to ensure security of the tribe's finances and revision of the tribe's organizational chart, which could result in the hiring of an "assistant finance director" and to include more training for staff in the Accufund payroll and reconciliation areas.

Councilwoman Nada Talayumptewa of Kykotsmovi said, "I don't remember ever giving the chairman this much authority to do what he wants, to get into day-to-day administration, like suspending employees or even authorizing the financial report. We want to address these concerns at Hopi Council since we are hearing directly from some of the tribal directors about workplace harassment by the chairman and his staff, it's a serious concern."

Caleb Johnson said to the crowded room, "Shing is abusing his power as chairman. A society cannot tolerate that and we should not tolerate that. There must be oversight to that chairman power."

Silent Majority organizers have since drafted a removal petition for Shingoitewa citing several instances of Hopi constitutional violation that could warrant a formal tribal council removal hearing of Shingoitewa as chairman. The Hopi constitution does provide for removal of a tribal officer for "serious neglect of duty" which the Silent Majority feels has occurred.

Phillip Quochytewa, Silent Majority organizer presented the removal petition at the meeting, which got heavy tribal support by almost all in attendance signing the petition and several attendees requesting that Quochytewa and his group take the petition through the entire Hopi villages for more signatures to present to the Hopi Council later this month to consider removing Shingoitewa as tribal chair.

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