TRUST MATTERS

Depa rtmen t of the Interior 

Office of the Special Trustee 

for American Indians 

Volume 8, Issue 2 

Spring 2008 

Functions of the Fiduciary Trust Officer (FTO) 

“Our function is to listen, respect, and talk to beneficiaries,” said FTO Jim 

Cordry, who works at the Rosebud Agency in South Dakota. Respect is a 

word that comes up often when talking with FTOs. Cecelia Henry, the FTO 

located at the Pima Agency, expanded that focus to include government 

employees when she noted, “We’re all here to do a job. There is so much 

work to do together, and we need to be respectful of each other.” 

The FTOs were hired to be the primary points of contact, providing all the 

“behind the scenes” work so beneficiaries are not relayed from one office to 

another. Most of the 52 FTOs are co-located with Bureau of Indian Affairs 

agencies throughout Indian Country. The FTOs are specialists, hired for 

their expertise in trust matters. 

So what does a day in the life 

of an FTO look like? It is as 

varied as the tribes with whom 

FTOs work. 

For example, Deb Dumontier, 

the FTO at the Flathead Field 

Office, works with tribes who 

compact services. She works 

directly with tribal staffs, 

making sure the tribes have the 

tools they need and helping FTO Diana Wuerth helps a beneficiary at an them succeed in their efforts. outreach in California. Deb says, “You’ve got to be 

part of the team.” Supporting self-governance is gratifying and she knows 

she is fortunate to work with professional, dedicated people. 

Donnie Smith’s work with the Osage Tribe includes the Osage mineral 

estate, a unique situation. He meets regularly with the three branches 

(executive, legislative and judicial) of the tribe and with the Osage Minerals 

Council chair and members. He also provides assistance to individual 

beneficiaries. He knows FTOs can help beneficiaries by working closely 

with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and other government employees. 

He calls it “front-line resolution,” which gives realty and other specialists 

more time to stay focused on their jobs. As Dean Webb puts it, he has a firm 

belief that working closely with BIA is important since we’re “co-agencies” 

with the same bottom line—serving the beneficiaries. Dean, who works at 

the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Agencies, says, “It’s really all about 

helping someone each day.” And that’s what motivates Daniel Vis, an FTO 

in Northern Idaho. He finds receiving a thank you goes a long way in job 

satisfaction and inspires him to do more. His work has such variety and 

constant challenges that he is never bored! 

Continued on page 2 

Table of Contents

 FTO Functions 1 

Solving Fractionation 1 

Trust Support Team 2 

Whereabouts Unknown 2 

Internet Reconnection 3 

Contract s & Compacts 3 

Self-Governance Conference 3 

CFedS Ceremony 4 

Survey Support 4 

Solving Fractionation 

Special Trustee Ross Swimmer attended the Intertribal 

Monitoring Association (ITMA) 

meeting in April when fractionation was a major topic of 

discussion. ITMA is leading 

the process to address 

solutions to fractionation and 

will be reaching out to other 

organizations and tribes for 

participation. 

The Special Trustee and staff 

noted the concern that twenty 

years from now, most of the 

land will be so fractionated 

that it will lose much of its 

productivity. Therefore, tribes 

are encouraged to become 

involved in the process. 
Page 2 Trust Matters 

Continued from page 1 

So how does the Trust Beneficiary Call Center 

(TBCC) fit into the work of an FTO? FTOs 

promote the TBCC. Cecelia Henry says she 

hands out TBCC information whenever her office does outreach. She wants beneficiaries to 

have the toll-free number 1-888-678-6836 as an 

additional source of information. The TBCC 

operates six days a week—Monday through 

Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturday

from 8:00 a.m. to noon, Mountain Time.

Deb Dumontier says she also provides three Operators handle an average of 500 calls each day to the TBCC. telephone numbers to beneficiaries: the tribe’s, 

her number, and the TBCC number so beneficiaries can decide who to contact and when. She promotes the TBCC as 

another resource for beneficiaries. Dean Webb frames it this way: the TBCC can be used for quick facts and FTOs 

can help when there are more complex issues to be addressed. 

Operators at the TBCC answer a wide variety of questions—over 90 percent of calls are resolved at the TBCC! 

The remaining calls are transferred to FTOs for follow-up. Those calls are tracked to ensure original callers receive 

timely responses. 

The easy-to-use map on the OST website helps beneficiaries locate FTOs. Visit www.doi.gov/ost and access the 

“Information for Individual Trust Beneficiaries” in the left hand navigation. 

Ch e Trust Support Team 

ian 

i

lude someone 

lopes that are processed. A 

of statements. 

accounts. Team members also mail collecti

holders. 

ers depend on getting their checks in 

ecking in with th

The Trust Support team at OST consists of five people—Brady 

Luxon, Rochelle Lorenzo, Stanley Waquie, Daniel Lorenzo, 

and Marvin Waquiu. This team sends out mailings to Ind

trust account holders. The mailings include quarterly statements to Individual Indian Money (IIM) account holders, 

monthly statements to Tribal accounts, semi-monthly checks 

for oil and gas royalties, and daily checks for prearranged 

disbursements to account holders. 

In fiscal year 2007, the team sent out a total of 529,795 checks. 

Checks are printed onsite. The team accounts for every check 

using a Daily Disbursement Report to reconcile checks printed 

that day w th the day’s mailings. As one team member stated, 

“We take pride in what we do, always double checking our 

work.” The team’s checks and balances inc

physically counting the enve

machine also counts the envelopes that go out. The number 

of checks and envelopes are reconciled, as well as the number 

In addition to checks, the team sends out advice notifications 

that alert account holders about deposits to their checking 

on notices, which 

inform leaseholders how much they owe individual account 

There is pride but humility among the 

team members. “We impact people’s 

lives directly. We know account holda timely manner,” explained the team 

leader, Brady Luxon (pictured). 

Whereabouts Unknown Outreach 

OST is always looking for Individual Indian Money 

(IIM) account holders who don’t have current contact 

information on file. OST refers to these account 

holders as Whereabouts Unknown (WAU). There 

have been several WAU outreach efforts in California, the state with the largest population of American 

Indians, according to the Census Bureau. 

In February, OST’s Pacific Region held outreach 

efforts in San Francisco/Oakland and in San Jose. 

OST partnered with the local Indian health clinic, 

California Indian Legal Services, local radio and 

newspapers, the University of California Berkeley, 

and nearby federal agencies to publicize the event. 

The outcome has been an increased volume of 

inquires to the regional office and the Trust 

Beneficiary Call Center. 

Please call 1-888-678-6836, toll-free, if you have 

information or questions about a WAU. Confirmation of address changes will be forwarded to the 

account holder’s new and old addresses. 
Volume 8, Issue 2 Page 3 

Reconnected to 

the Internet 

Internet access is once again 

available to the Office of 

the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST). This 

means OST employees will be able to use the Internet 

to conduct business. At press time, internal IT personnel expect it will take about five to eight weeks to provide Internet access to all OST employees. 

In December 2001, the judge in a class action lawsuit 

against the Department of the Interior, Cobell et al., 

vs. Secretary of the Interior, et al., ordered that the 

Department cease its connectivity to the Internet due to 

perceived risks to trust information. Parts of the Department were permitted to reconnect in 2002. However, 

five offices that work closely with Indian trust data 

remained off the Internet. On May 14, 2008, Judge 

Robertson, the presiding judge in the case, vacated the 

consent order, thus allowing the reconnection to the 

Internet. 

In addition to OST, the other offices that may resume 

access to the Internet are the Office of the Solicitor, the 

Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Hearing and 

Appeals, and the Office of Historical Trust Accounting. 

Programs OST Contracts and Compacts 

The Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians 

(OST) has two programs that may be contracted or 

compacted under Public Law 93-638: the Real Estate 

Appraisal Services Program and the Beneficiary Processes Program (BPP). If a tribe desires to assume operation of either of these programs, OST and the tribe 

negotiate the standards for operating the program. These 

standards are contained in separate Memoranda of 

Understanding (MOU). Once the MOU has been negotiated, it will be attached and incorporated into the Tribe's 

funding agreement. 

For self-governance, two or more otherwise eligible 

tribes may agree to form an organization of Indian 

tribes, i.e. a "consortium,” which would be responsible 

for operating the compacted programs for each of the 

tribes. It is always possible for a tribe to end its participation in all or portions of contracted or compacted 

programs, if it so desires. The federal government would 

then be responsible for operating the programs that the 

tribe, in an exercise of its sovereignty, has returned. 

For more information, call 505-796-3169. 

May 1, 2008. 

Ross Swimmer, Special Trustee for American 

Indians, participated in a panel discussion on 

included: 

• 

Eagles Fly”), 

• 

• 

inator, 

Lummi Indian Nation. 

ium, SelfTribal Self-Governance 

Celebrates 20 Years 

The 2008 Tribal Self-Governance Conference 

marked the 20th anniversary of Tribal SelfGovernance. The theme for this year’s 

conference was “Celebrating Excellence.” The 

celebration took place at the Riviera Hotel and 

Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, from April 27 to 

The Conference represents one of the largest 

meetings of tribal government leadership in 

Indian Country. It provides a forum for representatives from Congress, the Administration 

and Self-Governance Tribes to share information and to engage in discussions that focus 

on policy and the implementation of SelfGovernance within the Department of the 

Interior and the Department of Health and 

Human Services. 

the “Historical Perspective—Sharing the SelfGovernance Experience” on Wednesday, 

April 30, 2008. Other speakers on this topic 

William G. Lavell, former Associate Solicitor 

of Indian Affairs and first Director of the 

Office of Self-Governance (deceased— 

showed excerpt from video entitled, “Where 

William A. Sinclair, former Director of the 

Office of Self-Governance, and 

Kenneth Reinfeld, former Acting Director, 

Office of Self-Governance. 

The moderators for this discussion included 

Cyndi Ferguson, Director of External Governmental Affairs, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, and 

Jerry Folsom, Self-Governance Coord

OST congratulates the Self-Governance Communication & Education Tribal Consort

Governance Communication and Education 

Staff, Office of Self-Governance, Indian Health 

Service and Department of the Interior on 20 

years of excellence in Tribal Self-Governance. 
Oh, What a Night! Wow, What a Program—CFedS! 

lands. Undertaken by state, tribal, and other licensed 

The second class of the Certified Federal Surveyor 

(CFedS) program attended their graduation ceremony in Spokane, Washington, on Saturday evening, 

March 8, 2008. This class, with 91 graduates, added 

to the 69 graduates of the first class makes a total of 

160 of these specially trained surveyors available to 

assist you with your survey needs. 

The CFedS program trains registered professional 

land surveyors in the federally accepted methods, 

orders, and procedures of surveying federal interest 

surveyors, the course—equivalent to a graduate level 

college course—is very demanding. It is taken online 

and via CD over a period of months and culminates 

in a rigorous six hour exam. 

What standard of survey is enough for Indian lands? 

Federal survey standards are higher than state standards, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) 

federal authority surveys conducted through its 

Cadastral Survey Program meet the strictest federal 

qualifications. In fact, the BLM surveys are considered authoritative in a court of law, which is not the 

case for all surveys. However, a BLM federal authority survey is not always necessary. Now, surveyors 

with the CFedS certification can use the federal 

standards taught in the CFedS course to address the 

demand for quality surveys on federal lands. 

The training program to certify professional licensed 

surveyors to address the unique survey requirements 

on federal trust lands was an outcome of the 

Fiduciary Trust Model (FTM), a plan approved by 

the Department of the Interior in August 2004. 

Arrangements for the CFedS training program 

started after approval of the FTM and the first 

CFedS class graduated in 2007. 

The American Congress on Surveying and Mapping 

(ACSM), which is a partner with the federal government in the CFedS program, offers enrollment into 

the CFedS program on their website. ACSM is a 

national organization that represents the majority of 

this country’s registered professional land surveyors 

through state society affiliations with the National 

Society of Professional Surveyors. 

The CFedS program has been very successful. 

Currently, there are CFedS graduates registered to 

work in 33 states. Another 370 students, from 45 

states, are studying the CFedS coursework and plan 

to take the exam sometime in 2008. As more graduates of the program are available, they will help 

ensure the delivery of quality surveys to better 

protect trust assets. 

“My office has been working with the Department’s 

Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian 

Affairs since the inception of this program,” said 

Special Trustee Ross Swimmer. “Now we need to 

get the word out to Tribes and individual Indians 

about the availability of these specially trained 

surveyors.” 

If you haven’t received the recently released video 

about the CFedS program, contact Ron Scherler at 

602-906-5568 or ron_scherler@blm.gov for your 

CD. Learn more about the CFedS program at 

www.cfeds.org. 

Survey Support Do you need technical guidance on boundary issues related to 

land description reviews, resource management, or other survey needs? 

Contact the BLM Indian Land Surveyor (BILS) in your area. These senior land 

surveyors, located in the BIA regions, are there to help answer your questions. 

Link to a list of BILS at the bottom of the Cadastral Survey page: 

www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/cadastralsurvey/BLM_Indian_Land_Surveyor.html