Inside this issue:

Legislative Update 2

Note from the Special 

Trustee

2

Get “Linked” to OST 2

A Discussion on 

Trust and Records

3

Special Trustee Visits 

Blackfeet Staff

3

Name our Newsletter 

Contest: Vote Today!

4

Trust Employee 

Accomplishments

4

holders. OTFM submitted IIM account holder 

names and social security 

numbers or last known 

addresses to Trans Union 

Credit Bureau to see if 

these information fields 

(Continued page 3, see 

“Locating IIM Account 

Holders”)

OST has recently begun to successfully utilize a new 

resource to help locate 

addresses for Individual 

Indian Money (IIM) 

account holders for which 

no current address information exists. OST refers 

to these estimated 50,000 

account holders as 

“whereabouts unknown” 

and has been involved in 

an extensive effort to 

locate them. 

In May, the Office of 

Trust Funds Management (OTFM) initiated a 

new, automated process 

to seek these account 

With his family by 

his side, Mr. Tom 

Slonaker was sworn into 

office as the Special Trustee for American Indians 

on June 27, 2000. Secretary of the Interior, Bruce 

Babbitt, administered the 

oath of office to the 

second Special Trustee to 

lead the office since 

Congress established it in 

1994 to oversee and coordinate the management 

of the trust fund reform 

efforts.

“I am confident that Mr. 

Slonaker is the strong 

leader this Department 

needs to direct and manage effectively the Indian 

trust reform efforts 

currently underway and 

planned for the future,” 

remarked Secretary Babbitt. “The private sector 

experience Mr. Slonaker 

brings to 

this position will 

greatly 

benefit the 

trust fund 

beneficiaries and 

the Department, 

and I look 

forward to 

his years

 

of service ahead.”

For his part, Mr. 

Slonaker noted that 

receiving the oath of 

office from the Secretary 

of the Interior, who is 

himself the Trustee of the 

Indian assets administered by the Department, 

“is a great privilege and 

honor.”

Mr. Slonaker thanked the 

Assistant Secretary - 

Indian Affairs, Kevin 

Gover, the staff of the 

Office of the Special 

Trustee and his family for 

their support in this new 

endeavor. Mr. Slonaker 

remarked “I look forward 

to working closely with 

the Secretary to meet the 

challenges ahead and for 

the chance to provide a 

significant management 

service both to the Indian 

trust fund beneficiaries 

and to the country.”

OST Today ** 

Tom Slonaker Sworn In as New Special 

Trustee 

Special points of interest:

• ** SEE BACK COVER 

FOR STATUS OF “NAME 

OUR NEWSLETTER“ 

CONTEST

• THE THIRD QUARTERLY 

REPORT TO THE COURT 

WAS PUBLISHED 

AUGUST 31, 2000. READ 

IT ON OUR WEB SITE: 

WWW.OST.DOI.GOV

Department of 

the Interior —

Office of the 

Special Trustee 

for American 

Indians

September 1, 2000

Volume 1, Issue 2

New Process to Locate Whereabouts 

Unknown IIM Account Holders 

Secretary Babbitt (left) administers the oath of office to Tom 

Slonaker. His son, Pete, is in the center holding the Bible as 

granddaughter Sarah watches.
O

ST would like to add links from our home page on the 

internet (www.ost.doi.gov) to other appropriate federal 

and tribal web sites. Does your Tribe have a site on the 

Internet? Link up with us —it’s easy!

OST’s web site has a button (Links/Photos/FAQs) where 

other helpful tribal and Federal web sites are listed. These 

links help visitors to our web site find information about 

other tribal governments and Federal links more easily. To 

add your tribal government web site or to suggest another 

helpful link for inclusion on our home page, just contact us. 

 To add a tribal government link, just send an email to our 

webmaster giving us permission to link your site to ours and 

the address of your link. To suggest a link, just send a note 

with the address and we’ll take it from there. With your 

participation and suggestions, 

our site will be a great resource 

including many different tribal 

and federal web pages. 

Recently, we added links to the 

U.S. House and Senate Committees with jurisdiction over Indian 

trust fund matters. The Senate 

Indian Affairs Committee and the 

House Resources Committee web 

sites contain information on Indian trust fund issues that 

are pending before the U.S. Congress. Check it out! 

 Get “Linked” to OST

Note from the 

Special Trustee 

With just a few weeks left in this 

current Congressional legislative session, appropriations bills are 

taking center stage. Because this is 

an election year, predictions that the 

Congress will adjourn in early October 

mean that the consideration of annual 

appropriations bills highlight the 

agenda. 

The budget request for the Office of 

the Special Trustee is a component of 

the Department of the Interior Appropriations legislation, which passed the 

House of Representatives on June 16, 

2000 and the U.S. Senate on July 18, 

2000. The legislation includes the 

Administration’s request of $95.1 

million for OST and for the continued 

funding for the implementation of the 

trust management reform activities of 

OST, BIA and the other DOI Bureaus 

and Offices. Members of the House 

and Senate are in the process of 

resolving any funding differences 

between the two versions of the bill 

and final action is expected in the near 

future. 

*******************

Special Trustee Tom Slonaker recently 

provided testimony at a Senate Indian 

Affairs field hearing in North Dakota. 

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) held a 

hearing on September 1, 2000, to discuss Individual Indian Monies 

Account Issues at the Standing Rock 

Agency. Also testifying before the 

committee were Cora Jones, Regional 

Director of the Great Plains Regional 

Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 

and The Honorable Mr. Charles 

Murphy, Chairman of the Standing 

Rock Sioux Tribal Council. The 

hearing focused on ways to improve 

the provision of high quality services 

to the trust beneficiaries, or clients, 

served by OST and BIA.

In his testimony, Mr. Slonaker 

stressed the important objectives of 

the OST trust operation: to protect 

and preserve the assets of the trust 

clients; to provide accurate record 

keeping; and, to provide good and 

timely services to trust clients. Mr. 

Slonaker’s full testimony can be found 

on our web site at www.ost.doi.gov.

Legislative Update: 

Congress Ready to Adjourn; Field Hearing in

North Dakota; Fractionation Legislation Pending 

Page 2 OST Today ** 

Look at our new 

web site often— 

we are frequently 

adding new 

information!

Senate Bill S. 1586, entitled “The Indian 

Land Consolidation Act Amendments of 

2000,” was approved by the Senate on 

July 26, 2000 and is awaiting House 

action. This bill establishes a framework 

to reduce the administrative and financial 

complications arising from the fractionation of Indian land ownership. New 

processes would be put in place to reduce 

fractionated land ownership in the future, 

and to allow the sale or lease of current 

fractionated lands upon approval of a set 

percentage of land owners. 

Since being confirmed as the Special 

Trustee by the U.S. Senate in late May 

2000, I have had the opportunity to 

review the progress of trust reform 

within the Department of the Interior. 

The “blueprint” for such reform has 

been the High Level Implementation 

Plan (HLIP) which outlines future 

progress and milestones on ten remaining subprojects covering such tasks as 

implementing new accounting systems, 

reducing the probate backlog and 

performing data cleanup. I also have 

reviewed the progress on the four projects to correct the “breaches of trust” 

declared by the Court in the Cobell case. 

I am pleased that many of these subprojects are progressing quite satisfactorily. 

And, as you know, one subproject, to 

implement the new Trust Funds 

Accounting System (TFAS), was successfully completed last spring. 

Some subprojects appear to face significant management challenges, for which 

the OST staff is and will continue to 

provide support and assistance. To 

further assist the trust improvement 

efforts underway, I am considering 

actions to increase our management and 

reporting capability.

I must tell you that I have enjoyed the 

strong support in this effort from 

Secretary Babbitt (who is the Trustee), 

Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary - 

Indian Affairs, and Sharon Blackwell, 

Deputy Commissioner for Indian Affairs.
Blackfeet Chairman Earl Old Person 

and to enjoy the dancing. 

Blackfeet Agency OST staff include (left to right) Jodi Wagner, 

Lois Carlson, Tom Slonaker, Marie Gussmann, and Mary Salway.

S

ome 35 OST employees attended a 

mid-level management briefing at 

the DOI University Training Center in 

Albuquerque, NM, on July 14, 2000. 

This briefing centered around a 

discussion on trust and records. 

Richard Fitzgerald, Trust Policy Officer 

from the Washington, DC, OST Office, 

and Ken Rossman, Director of the 

Office of Trust Litigation Support and 

Records (OTLSR), Albuquerque, NM, 

provided staff with an informative discussion that focused on the history and 

mission of OST, as well as the general 

legal and historical characteristics and 

fiduciary responsibilities inherent in a 

general trust relationship between a 

trustee and a beneficiary. Additionally, 

Secretarial Order No. 3215, the Secretary’s recently adopted trust principles 

which provide his directives to the 

Departmental agencies responsible for 

implementing trust management 

reforms was a topic of the briefing. 

In the afternoon session, the definition 

O

n August 11, 2000, Special Trustee Tom Slonaker had the occasion to visit the Blackfeet Agency Office 

located in Browning, Montana. The 

Special Trustee was in town for a 

meeting with OST Advisory Board 

Chair Elouise Cobell, and spent an afternoon touring the agency office and 

meeting many members of the BIA and 

OST Office staff.

The visit allowed the Special Trustee to 

meet with a number of the BIA employees, and to hear first hand the issues, 

concerns and challenges this agency 

office faces on a daily basis. The visit 

also provided the Special Trustee with 

the opportunity to introduce himself to 

members of the OTFM field operations 

staff manning the Blackfeet Office and 

to spend some time getting to know 

them. 

The visit to Browning coincided with 

Heart Butte Indian Days, where Tom 

Slonaker had the opportunity to meet 

matched address information currently 

contained within Trans Union’s extensive database.

Each month credit grantors across the 

country provide over 1.2 billion updates 

to keep this database as accurate and 

current as possible. (OTFM is working 

with Trans Union to secure current 

addresses for these individuals and is 

not obtaining any credit information.) 

To date, OTFM has provided 6,657 

names or other fields of information 

from the Western, Pacific, Alaska, 

Navajo and Southwest Regions to 

Trans Union. The company matched 

3,727 account names from its 

database – a 56% match. OTFM is now 

processing and validating these results 

by contacting the account holders at 

the addresses identified by Trans 

Union and verifying their identity.

This initiative is proving to be the most 

successful and cost effective effort to 

date to locate these account holders.

After the names of all the IIM account 

holders whose whereabouts are 

unknown have been processed through 

the Trans Union database to determine 

A Discussion on Trust and Records at OTLSR July 14, 2000

Special Trustee to Blackfeet Staff: Keep up the Great Work! 

Locating IIM Account Holders Effort Meeting with Success

Continued from Cover

Volume 1, Issue 2 Page 3

the existence of matches, OTFM will 

continue its ongoing efforts to identify 

current addresses for the account holders who still have not been located. In 

the future, OST anticipates working 

with similar automated databases to 

determine additional address matches. 

Additionally, OST is developing an 

interactive search capability on its web 

site for the list of IIM account holders 

whose whereabouts is unknown. This 

new function will make the list easier to 

search and will provide additional information. View the list on the OST home 

page at www.ost.doi.gov.

of trust records and trust record keeping requirements were also linked to 

the Secretary’s trust principles. In a 

presentation and discussion aimed 

primarily at the Indian Affairs Records 

Management specialists in attendance, 

the role and responsibility of every BIA 

and OST employee in managing records 

was emphasized. Good record keeping 

and longer-term records management 

are essential components in providing 

the necessary documentation for past, 

present, and future actions in administering the Indian trust.

The Court-appointed Special Master 

also attended the July 14 session and 

reported to the court that “OST is to be 

commended for developing a thorough 

and informative program.” Photo: Richard Fitzgerald discusses the responsibilities of a Trustee.
Name our Newsletter Generates Winning Entries 

To vote, please write, fax or 

email us at: 

Department of the Interior

Office of the Special Trustee

18th and C Street, NW

Suite 5140

Washington, DC 20240

Attention: Newsletter

******

Fax your vote to: (202) 208-

7545 

******

Email your vote to: 

webmaster@ost.doi.gov 

L

ast quarter, the first edition of this 

new quarterly newsletter made its 

debut. We are delighted that the newsletter was met with a very supportive 

and positive response by you, the readers. 

The contest to suggest a name for the 

newsletter generated so many clever, 

witty and thoughtful responses that the 

OST newsletter staff cannot select a 

winning entry alone. We need your 

help. 

The newsletter staff did undertake the 

challenging task of narrowing the list 

from many excellent suggestions to the 

following 5 finalists. Although the 

sponsors of the entries are not listed, 

we know who you are. Please vote for 

your favorite newsletter title and see 

the result in the next issue! 

Department of the Interior, OST

18th and C Street, NW

Room 5140

Washington, DC 20240

Phone: 202-208-4866

Fax: 202-208-7545

Web Site: www.ost.doi.gov

Department of the Interior —

Office of the Special Trustee for 

American Indians

And the 5 finalists are:

Trust Matters

Rolling Hoop

The Lookout

Trust in the News

and

Winds of Stewardship

Use the contact information 

on the right to vote for your 

favorite Newsletter title 

today!

 Hat’s Off to These Trust Employees!

Cecilia Curley, Faye Ward, Rae Padilla, Deanna Lucero and 

Shelly Lee from the Albuquerque Office of Trust Funds Management staff won a Third Place Ribbon at the New Mexico 

State Fair for the Governor’s Cookie Jar Contest! 

Cheryl Jodoin from the OST Washington, DC office completed all requirements and graduated from the Women’s 

Executive Leadership Program in August 2000!

ð Let us know about the professional and personal accomplishments of DOI 

and tribal trust employees and we’ll spread the word in this section of future 

newsletters. We would like to recognize the outstanding contributions of trust 

employees to their workplaces and communities.