TRUST MATTERS

Department of the Interior

Office of the Special Trustee

for American Indians

Volume 5, Issue 3,

October 2006

Staff members at OST and BIA continue to reform trust processes, systems, and services

across the nation. Account holders with assets managed at agencies that have been converted to the new leasing system and reformed trust processes are receiving account

statements that include additional information, as listed below. When all regions are converted, and all systems are current with their data (early in 2008), all individual Indian

trust beneficiaries will receive these expanded statements.

The new Account Statements include:

z the date of each account transaction during the quarterly statement period; 

z cash receipts and disbursements (funds coming into and out of the account),

including the names of payors, types of lease and sources of payment;

z account beginning and ending balances for the statement period.

The new Real Property Asset Statements provide information about the land that

each account holder owns including: 

z the number of acres in a tract of land;

z the location of a tract, including the county and state;

z the undivided interest or percentage of the tract owned;

z the type of ownership a beneficiary has in the property,

whether an account holder owns the title to the interest 

but does not receive the income from the interest, or 

if they have “beneficial ownership,” (account holder 

doesn’t own title, but receives financial benefits);

z the encumbrances (lease, right-of-way, or other 

legal instrument) that authorize property usage;

z the encumbrance holder, or person or entity paying for the use of the property;

z the effective and expiration dates for the terms 

of a lease; and

z the tract ID number and the tract description 

or official name, if any, of a tract of land.

Beneficiaries With Assets in Reformed Regions Get

More Detailed Account Statements

OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL TRUSTEE

FOR AMERICAN INDIANS

INDIVIDUAL INDIAN MONIES

STATEMENT OF ACCOUNT ||| ||||||| |||||| ||||| ||||| |||||| |||||||| |||||| |||||| ||||||||| |||

Account Holder Name

ACCOUNT OF JOHN DOE

Street Address

000X000000

City, State & Zip Code

TRANSACTION ACTIVITY

DATE

FOR ACCOUNTING PERIOD: 04/01/06 THROUGH 06/30/06

TRANSACTION DESCRIPTION CASH

_____ ____________________________ ________

BEGINNING BALANCES 0.00

04/11/06 CASH RECEIPT 100.00

FARM PASTURE

DOCUMENT ID: 000 00000000

TRACT ID: 000 0000

RECEIVED FROM: XXXXXXXX

INVOICE #: 0000 PAYMENT DUE: 05/01/06

OWNERSHIP: 0.5000000000

05/03/06 CASH RECEIPT 14.36

OIL & GAS ROYALTY

06/02

JV00X000000000000000

/06 CASH RECEIPT .89

INTEREST

PAID FROM ACCOUNT # 000X000000

06/26/06 CASH DISBURSEMENT -115.25

PAID TO

John Doe

Street Address

City, State & Zip Code

ACCOUNT BALANCE

T/A CHECK # 00000000

ENDING BALANCES 0.00

THE BALANCE IN YOUR ACCOUNT IS INVESTED DAILY. REALIZED GAINS OR LOSSES MAY OCCUR IN THE FUND AS A RESULT

OF REDEMPTION OF ASSETS PRIOR TO MATURITY. ANY GAIN OR LOSS IN THE FUND IS REFLECTED ABOVE IN YOUR MONTHLY

INCOME EARNED IN THE ANNUALIZED RATE. IF THE BALANCE IN YOUR ACCOUNT GENERATES AT LEAST ONE CENT OF

INCOME, THEN THE INCOME IS POSTED.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS,

PLEASE CALL 888.678.6836

TRUST BENEFICIARY CALL CENTER

HOURS OF OPERATION:

MONDAY – FRIDAY: 7:00AM – 6:00PM (MT)

SATURDAY: 8:00AM – NOON (MT)

A New Focus to

Fixing Fractionation

The Indian Land Consolidation Program (ILCP)

has developed a new

strategy, approved by the

Department earlier this

year, to target the purchase of interests on

reservations with the

most highly fractionated

tracts (more than 200

interest owners). The following reservations contain the most highly fractionated tracts (1,577 all

told):

Bad River, WI

Bois Forte, MN

Crow, MT

Fond du Lac, MN

Ho Chunk, WI

Keweenaw Bay, MI

Lac Courte Oreilles, WI 

Lac du Flambeau, MN

Navajo, (NM only)

Pine Ridge, SD

Quapaw, OK

Red Cliff, WI

Rosebud, SD

Spirit Lake, ND

Standing Rock, SD

Sisseton, SD

Wind River, ID

Winnebago, NE

For more information, 

contact ILCP at 

(715) 682-0310.

Tickertape: Media Matters ... Professor David M. English, a member of the Office of the Special

Trustee’s Advisory Board and professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has written an extensive article titled “A Uniform Probate Code for Indian Country, at Last.” Published in the American Bar

Association’s magazine Probate & Property, the article explains the intricacies of the new American

Indian Probate Reform Act. The article is available on the External Affairs page on the Trust Portal, or

online at www.abanet.org/rppt/publications/magazines/2006/ma/english.html.
Trust Matters 2

Last spring the Department of the Interior opened the new National Indian Programs Training Center in

Albuquerque, NM. The facility, dedicated to former Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan, Jr., is an education center

for Interior's Indian Affairs programs-including trust programs, social services, law enforcement, education, and more.

Since it opened, the center has held 94 classes, and enrolled 2,833 employees from BIA, OST and tribes. Trust-related

classes have included a series of financial trust management courses sponsored by OST and Cannon Financial Institute

as well as training for the Trust Asset and Management System (TAAMS). Staff at the Center is developing a state of

the art audio visual system that will eventually reach all Indian Affairs regions. Additionally, computer training labs

are launching new applications, including the Native American Student Information System, a database capturing

information on students in BIA schools. More than 500 BIA teachers are expected to complete training on this system

by the end of December of 2006. 

National Indian Programs Training Center: Just the Facts

Mission: Provide state-of-the-art training to individuals who are committed to fulfilling the government's 

responsibilities to Indian Country

Training offered: Broad range of leadership and career development courses

Broadcast learning studio: Training and information sharing capabilities via digital broadcasting systems

Seating capacity: 552

Classrooms: 11

Breakout and meeting rooms: 7

Computer labs: 5

Number of computers: 43

Square footage: 50,000

Print shop: Print and duplication services to produce course materials in-house

Projected number of employees: 15

Annual budget: $2,000,000

President: Ms. Dolores Chacon

Director: Ms. Michelle Pelletier

Address: 1011 Indian School Road, NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104

Telephone number: (505) 563-5400

Tickertape: Rolling Out Reforms ... So far OST and BIA staff have converted the Southern Plains, Great Plains, Rocky Mountain

and Navajo regions and certain agencies in the Northwest, Pacific, Eastern Oklahoma and West to new trust management systems.

The converted offices account for approximately 80 percent of all recurring dollars that flow through the Indian trust, and more than

70 percent of accounts managed by Interior. ... Probate Update: For the first time since OST took over the distribution of probate

assets in 2004, the Trust Funds Management group has brought the distribution process current. When completed probate files

reach OST, they are now processed within the targeted 10-day goal. Congratulations!

Indian Affairs Training Center 

Up and Running in Albuquerque

Opening ceremonies for the new National Indian Programs Training Center were held in April of 2006. Inside the new Center, along with requisite classrooms

and training facilities, are a number of exhibits about Native American history and culture.
Trust Matters 3

New Publications Offer Information to 

Indian Trust Account Holders and Tribes

OST has produced three new publications for both individual Indian trust beneficiaries and tribes. 

zWelcome to the Indian Trust: A Guide for New Account Holders is a booklet that includes comprehensive information from

how accounts are established to how to sign up for Direct

Deposit. These new booklets should help new Individual

Indian account holders better understand their accounts.

zIndividual Indian Money Account Information is a

brochure that offers beneficiaries information on how

accounts are invested, how money comes into and is disbursed from accounts and where to find more information. zTrust Reform Systems and Services Available

for Self-Determination and Self-Governance Tribes

provides information to tribes that manage their own

trust programs through agreements with Interior.

The pamphlet explains what new systems and

processes are available to self-governance and

self-determination tribes. 

These publications are available on the

Office of External Affairs Trust Portal page,

or by calling External Affairs at (505) 816-1081.

Tickertape: Around OST ... OST has been working with new self-governance tribes accepted into the program in 2006. The White

Earth Tribe of Minnesota has chosen to manage the OST appraisals program, the Washoe Tribe of California and Nevada is considering managing appraisals, and the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico is considering managing both the beneficiary process and

appraisal programs. Almost 40 tribes contract or compact OST’s programs. ... The D.C. Scene: Carl Artman, Associate Solicitor

and a member of the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, has been nominated as Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs. In fall, Artman’s nomination was approved by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. At press time, a final vote before the Senate had yet to be scheduled.

Today 51 of 52 OST Fiduciary Trust Officer positions are filled. Every day,

these 51 employees and their staff members are in the field working with trust

beneficiaries. Some recent examples: Tim Lake and Lisa Gonsalves staffed a

booth at the Sisseton Pow Wow in South Dakota and worked with beneficiaries

to help answer their questions and help them understand their accounts.

Rebecca Clarke at the Pima Agency in Arizona is reaching out to minors and

their parents and guardians in her region to help them understand their

accounts.

FTOs and staff are also making great strides finding whereabouts unknown

(WAU) beneficiaries. Clarissa Bright Wings at Crow Agency, Montana, located an elderly woman who had almost $90,000 in her account. Bright Wings

and FTO Kevin Bailey were able to work with the local BIA Social Services

staff to establish a supervised account and ensure the beneficiary’s best interests were addressed. In March, Crow

Agency staff found five WAU beneficiaries with a total of $108,545. David Jenkins, at the Horton Agency in Kansas,

confirmed that a local man was a WAU who had been adopted at birth. Jenkins worked with the man to prove he was

the rightful owner of the account, and then sent him to his tribe's offices because Jenkins knew the tribe may be holding

judgment or per capita funds on his behalf. The beneficiary was overwhelmed with the amount of funds; he paid off his

home and kept the rest to use for retirement. Staff at the Horton Agency had a very successful year, finding WAU beneficiaries with a total of more than $280,000. Karen Whitenton and her staff in Carson City, NV, found one of their top 100

WAUs with help from a WAU beneficiary’s grandparents. It turned out the beneficiary had more than $40,000 coming his

way. With three small children, he assured Whitenton the money was much needed.

Trust Officers 

Keep Up the Good, Hard Work

Lisa Gonsalves (right) staffs an OST outreach

booth at the Sisseton Pow Wow in South Dakota.
The final original serialized land patent, issued for 80 acres in Wisconsin, was scanned at the Bureau of Land

Management (BLM)-Eastern States office earlier this year. This feat marks the end of the second phase of electronic scanning and indexing for nearly 1.25 million post-1908 land patents that were issued for the "30 Public Land States," or states

that were not included in the original 13 colonies. The electronic version of this final land patent can be seen at www.glorecords.blm.gov. In fact, more than 4.2 million records are available on this site. Over 3,163,200 land patent records have

been scanned, indexed, imaged and posted to the web site since the project began in 1989.

Title companies, historians, genealogists, and others are now able to view these historical records that provide the

public with a wealth of historical data, and essentially tell the story of the settlement of the West.

Today, the BLM-Eastern States office is the largest public land title holder in the world. As the successor agency to

the original General Land Office, BLM-Eastern States maintains more than 9 million historic land documents including

survey plans and field notes, homestead certificates, cash patents, military warrants, and railroad grants. These records

were among the very first land records developed from the Land Ordinance of 1785, which authorized the transfer of public lands to private individuals. (The General Land Office was established within the Treasury Department in 1812 to take

charge of all survey and land title records. The office became part of the new Department of the Interior in 1849; it merged

with the U.S. Grazing Service in 1946 to form the Bureau of Land Management.)

Over the years, these historic land patent books were continually used by BLM, federal and state agencies, title insurance companies, and researchers. The long use of these books caused tremendous wear and tear, despite the efforts of artisan bookbinders to help maintain them. BLM faced an urgent need to preserve and protect these records but still ensure

their availability for research. In 1989, BLM-Eastern States launched this unique project, the General Land Office

Automated Records Project, to copy these priceless documents onto laser disks. Once copied, these historic documents

were stored in acid-free boxes in climate-controlled vaults. BLM expanded the General Land Office Automated Records

System by making the historic patents available to the public online. The second phase of the project included automating

Federal land grant records from July 1, 1908, when the General Land Office centralized the issuing of land patents out of

their Washington office, until the early 1970s when this practice reverted to the various BLM state offices.

"The Web site remains one of the most popular Web sites at the Department of the Interior. It offers customers the

ability to easily research and query the General Land Office database by name, land description, and county, and view and

print these historic documents from their homes or offices," said BLM-Eastern States Director Mike Nedd.

To view the historical documents, go to www.glorecords.blm.gov.

Trust Matters 4

Around the Department of the Interior

BLM Milestone: The Last Serialized Patent Gets Imaged and Scanned

and the History of the Settlement of the West goes High-Tech

By Peggy Riek, BLM-Eastern States, External Affairs

This land patent was issued to William Johnson for 79.40 acres in Alabama and signed by John Quincy Adams in 1826. Other records housed at BLM

include documents signed by George Washington, James Madison, and Theodore Roosevelt and military warrants issued to companions of Lewis and Clark

during their expedition. In February of 2006, BLM-Eastern States Legal Instrument Examiner Dave Meinke (above right) scanned the final serialized patent

for 80 acres in Wisconsin. The General Land Office Automation Team has scanned and indexed 3,163,201 land patent records. 

Photo by Bill Davenport.