The Department of the Interior’s Indian education programs derive from the federal government’s trust responsibility to Indian tribes, a responsibility established in federal statutes, treaties, court decisions, and executive actions. It is the policy of the United States to fulfill this trust relationship with and responsibility to the Indian people for educating Indian children by working with tribes to ensure that these programs are In accordance with this trust of the highest quality, among other things.responsibility, Indian Affairs is responsible for providing a safe and healthy environment for students to learn. Indian Affairs oversees multiple bureaus and offices that play a key role in managing and overseeing school facilities for Indian students (see fig. 1). These bureaus and offices have several key responsibilities, including the following: The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Management oversees a number of administrative and operational functions to help Interior meet its responsibilities for designing, planning, building, and operating Indian school facilities. Specifically, the Deputy Assistant Secretary oversees the Office of Facilities, Property and Safety Management, which includes the Division of Facilities Management and Construction. This office is responsible for developing policies and providing technical assistance and funding to Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) regions and BIE schools to address their facility needs. Professional staff in this division—including engineers, architects, facility managers, and support personnel—are tasked with providing expertise in all facets of the facility management process. The Bureau of Indian Affairs administers a broad array of social services and other supports to tribes. Regarding school facility management, BIA oversees the day-to-day implementation and administration of school facility projects through its regional field offices. Currently there are 12 regional offices that report to the BIA Deputy Bureau Director of Field Operations. Nine of these regions have facility management responsibilities, which include performing school inspections to ensure compliance with regulations and providing technical assistance to BIE-operated and tribally-operated schools on facility issues. The Bureau of Indian Education oversees various educational functions, including funding and operating BIE schools. Three Associate Deputy Directors report to the Deputy Director of School Operations and are responsible for overseeing multiple BIE education line offices that work directly with schools to provide technical assistance, including on facility matters. Some line offices have their own facility managers, and many schools—both BIE-operated and tribally operated—also have their own facility managers or other staff who perform routine maintenance and repairs. Indian Affairs collects and tracks school condition data related to facility deficiencies, capital improvements, or construction for specific inventory items, such as classrooms, sidewalks, or utility systems. It also includes information on school facility repair needs—commonly referred to as the facilities deferred maintenance backlog—which are entered into an automated information system known as the Facilities Management Information System (FMIS). Responsibility for data entry into FMIS is shared by Indian Affairs staff, school personnel, and an Indian Affairs’ contractor who conducts inspections of school facilities. Indian Affairs uses a multilevel review process to examine the accuracy and completeness of backlog information in FMIS. In this process, each entry that school facility managers propose to add to the backlog list is reviewed and approved by several levels within Indian Affairs, including BIA agencies and regional offices, the Indian Affairs’ facility condition assessment contractor, and with final approval by the Division of Facilities Management and Construction. Indian Affairs uses approved backlog information to make funding decisions regarding school facilities. Backlog repair projects are prioritized based on health and safety risks, among other factors. Indian Affairs also has various funding categories, including emergencies and minor improvements. Once funding for school construction and repair is approved, Indian Affairs offers three main project management options. Tribes and/or schools may choose to (1) have Indian Affairs manage the project, (2) manage the project based on a contract received from Indian Affairs, or (3) in the case of tribally- operated schools, manage the project based on a grant received from Indian Affairs. Over the past four decades, we have conducted a body of work on challenges related to Indian education, including longstanding issues regarding Indian Affairs’ management of school facilities. Our work on BIE school facilities conducted in 1997 and 2003 highlighted the poor conditions of Indian schools and the need for more reliable national data to assess the condition of school facilities. Interior’s Inspector General and others have also reported similar issues, including health and safety hazards at BIE schools. Our past work and other research pointed to a variety of persistent challenges Indian Affairs has encountered in maintaining complete and accurate data on the condition of BIE school facilities. For example, in 2003 we reported on inaccurate and incomplete data entry by school officials, ineffective agency guidance, limited training in using FMIS, and agency staff not being held accountable for ensuring data integrity. Similarly, in 2011, the No Child Left Behind School Facilities and Construction Negotiated Rulemaking Committee, which the Secretary of the Interior was required to establish under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLBA), also identified problems with the quality of FMIS data on BIE school facilities.of school-level expertise in using FMIS, inadequate training, unreliable access to FMIS, and infrequent data validation of deficiencies by Indian Affairs’ contractor, among other issues. Further, the Committee reported that no Indian Affairs staff were tasked with monitoring schools’ use of FMIS to ensure that school officials were entering backlog items and, if not, to provide them with technical assistance. As a result, the Committee reported that problems using FMIS at many BIE schools were unresolved, schools did not know where to turn for assistance, and data entry across schools was inconsistent. The Committee attributed the problems to a lack Our ongoing work suggests that issues with the quality of data on school conditions—such as inconsistent data entry by schools and insufficient quality controls—continues to make it difficult to determine the actual number of schools in poor condition, which impedes Indian Affairs’ ability to effectively track and address school facility problems. For example, while Indian Affairs has a multilevel review process for examining the accuracy and completeness of backlog entries, we found that it does not routinely monitor whether schools are entering complete data on their facilities. For instance, an Indian Affairs internal control review of FMIS in 2010 identified inadequate controls for determining if and when all identified safety deficiencies are addressed by schools because no Indian Affairs office takes responsibility to ensure that such deficiencies are addressed by schools. According to the 2010 review, without this information Indian Affairs cannot identify and prioritize for funding for these critical deficiencies. Indian Affairs officials told us that this issue continues to be a significant challenge to FMIS data quality. We also found that some schools we visited encountered obstacles to data entry. For example, officials at one BIE-operated school noted that they did not routinely enter information into FMIS because staff lacked expertise and Indian Affairs did not provide them adequate training. As a result, they said existing information on their facilities in FMIS significantly understates their actual repair needs. According to a BIA regional officer, frequent turnover among facility staff, especially at tribally-operated schools, can exacerbate this gap in FMIS expertise. Schools can also face difficulties gaining or maintaining access to FMIS. For example, officials with one tribally operated school told us they encountered persistent problems with connecting and maintaining access to FMIS, sometimes limiting their use of the system to about 5 minutes at a time. Interior’s Inspector General has recently found similar challenges with data entry at several other schools, and it continues to monitor this issue. According to Indian Affairs officials, the last centralized training on using FMIS was held in 2012. While Indian Affairs uses a contractor to address some data quality issues by validating deficiencies on schools’ deferred maintenance backlogs and facility inventories, our ongoing work has found that the scope and frequency of their assessments are limited. According to Indian Affairs officials, the contractor is supposed to assess the conditions of schools by performing a visual inspection of each school once over a 3-year cycle, and inspections are grouped by region. One BIA regional official told us that in his region one field inspector was sent to conduct an onsite inspection and noted that a single inspector may not be capable of assessing a school’s facilities because they may contain multiple systems—such as heating/cooling, and fire alarm and suppression systems—that require specialized expertise to assess. Officials also reported that Indian Affairs policy is for the contractor not to assess schools in a particular 3-year cycle if they are about to be replaced or undergoing major construction. At one school we visited, which had not been assessed in 5 years because of ongoing construction, we found problems with both older and newly constructed buildings, such as leaking roofs. Also, Indian Affairs’ contractor is responsible for reviewing and updating information on school facility inventories during onsite inspections. However, one school facility manager suggested that the contractor’s inspections may be too short for a thorough and accurate inventory of all buildings and systems. In 2012, Indian Affairs began an effort to identify and correct inaccuracies in schools’ backlog and inventory data to respond to the findings and recommendations of the No Child Left Behind Negotiated Rulemaking Committee’s 2011 report. Further, Interior is currently moving all school facility data from FMIS to a new Indian Affairs facility information management system based on Maximo, which is required by the agency Officials said that through this data cleanup for all departmental offices.effort, they have identified and eliminated duplicate backlog deficiencies in FMIS, and they noted that Maximo will simplify data entry. However, these officials also noted FMIS constitutes a one-stop shop for managing school facility data, and that Maximo lacks several key functions that exist in FMIS, such as project management and budget execution, among others. They said they plan to add new applications to Maximo to work around some of these limitations. Additionally, one BIA regional official said that Maximo could be cumbersome to use and will require schools to use multiple new systems.