As Self-Determination March 2, 1989 it is becoming more apparent that the term "selfdetermination" means that IRA's need to become much more aggressive in the acquisition of funds to operate not only programs, but to cover increasing costs of administration, two recommendations (for now) probably ought to be discussed. In administration, it is clear that the administrative costs need to be increased. Pending discussion by the council the rate most likely to be increased percentage wise to somewhere between 75% and to something nearing 100% (of each program expense). The other part of the discussion should center on the problem of securing funding itself for programs the the IRA is responsible for, and the possible exploration of new ones that may benefit the Native people of Kotzebue which is the main reason for the existence of the organization. With these and probably other problems that are becoming almost routine, it is even clearer that something needs to be done to address these and other unforeseen things that may happen and become a little out of control. With these things in mind, I recommend to the council that a 5 year plan be discussed and adopted as a document to guide the administration and council of our IRA. If funds cannot be found to do this professionally by someone like Leonard Lane and Associates, then we do our own using this guide. It may look something like this. I. II. Planning Process A. B. Strategic thinking "Brainstorming Session" C. Actions stemming from decisions Values and Goals statements discuss and clarify - discussion of constitution/financial define programs and associated costs V. Unit Plans discussions of MIP, ICWA, (Historical and future guesswork) etc and trends VI. Support Unit Plans discussions and functions of ad VII. Plan Implementation This needs to be in place to have some way of measuring progress (or otherwise). This probably ought to include some plan to bypass BIA Area office- plus an organized effort to eliminate the high cost of administration of these offices, such as corresponding with Senator Stevens office, Senator Inouye's office, etc. Depending again on whether we will have to do this ourselves will involve a lot of time, however, it should be worth the effort. Perhaps the chair can direct administration to set up a work session dedicated to this plan - at least for discussion by the council. From that we can get some idea as to whether we want to proceed with some kind of a plan or not. There is a definite need to begin to financially stabilize the IRA. PS/mc15 |