Oneida Wages - Big Budgets, Big Wages But No Raises for the Oneida Employees, WHY? By Vince DelaRosa
NOTE: This memo went to an Oneida Business Committee meeting on June 11th and I never received any answers. My request for answers was handled very un-professionally. You can ask records for a copy of the tape (June 11. 2008) if you'd like to hear how poorly the last Oneida Business Committee (OBC) acted. Several of those that did not handle this situation properly then are on the current OBC.
Oneida, WI - I have recently released an e-mail from 2009 which I spoke to some budget and regulatory matters. These issues are compromising the ability of the Oneida people to be serviced properly by our tribe. Whether these are socials welfare matters, pay raise matters, or budget issues, we just can't seem to get a handle on any of these monetary matters in any meaningful way.
Just think about the scenario I will lay out below. One can clearly see, leadership is seriously lacking on these issues. The three parts below may seem disjointed but they paint a true picture of what is happening.
1.) I suggested in a previous blog positing, the following:
"To be able to foster financial change and reform, the Oneida people need mechanisms in place that they can point to and say, this is not working, we need a change. Pretty soon with the way the economy is going nationally, how will we ever control spending and place spending dollars where they can benefit the people (WAGES) the most?
We can’t really rely on management to control their spending, they are a bureaucracy that self-perpetuates themselves, and spend-and-spend, that is what governments do. All management structures need controls put on them. Today, our internal financial budget controls are so weak, the controls have the bite of a toothless lap dog." The current Treasurer is trying to tighten things up, but we are many years behind in this area.
2.) Look at how damaging this really is practically, when the government refuses to reform or change. I also spoke in the blog about the last budget cycle, and I said the following:
"If you look at the budget packet for the last budget meeting, the Treasurer revealed in her letter to the GTC that budget review processes reveal that the tribe is still facing "extreme difficulty in keeping operational cost in line with FY2011-2013 revenue projections." The Treasurer went on to say, in this same letter to the GTC, "both 2012 and FY2013 are projected to have deficit balances of -$34,680,688 and -$12,900,899 respectively." This is not a good scenario! Why has it come to this? This is a serious condemnation on the current leadership. If you go on to read the entire budget packet and sift through the budget, you must ask yourself, who's running the tribe?"
Now, when we think about weak leadership on matters such as these, one might say,"Well how does this affect me?" Poor leadership can affect you directly, in the pocket book and in the home. Today most of the employees are struggling to pay a mortgage (or rent) or to put food on the table. Raises have been held-up for years and last year, approved employee bonuses were taken away from the employees.
3.) Think a little further here. The current government did this with the last budget, read below:
In the last budget packet, which the Oneida Business Committee (OBC) authorized to go the General Tribal Council (GTC), the OBC asked the GTC to support a bird farm (Page 96) proposal while the majority of the OBC did not support a pay raise (Page 60) for the employees. How is this even a logical choice: Birds v. Employees? When is the last time the employees got a pay raise? Luckily the bird idea lost, but so did the employees, no raises this year.
Merge all of this together in your mind, budget problems, deficits, over-spending, no cost of living adjustments, no wage increase protections, no answers, this tangent is just along the lines of the wage issue. This is just one practical example, whereby, the needs of the people are not being met. That's just the employees, image the short-shaft that unemployed Oneida's are getting. Can you say Salvation Army?
On the wage matter, I tried to ensure that nonsense like this would not even be possible. On June 11th of 2008, I submitted a memo to the OBC and asked them to intervene on the wage issue. This wage work was known as the Valiant project. Valiant was sailing by at a fast rate of speed.
When work like Valiant is being done, oversight is required. There are rules and policies that needed to be in place, and questions that needed to be answered before the current wage system got to where it is today, but no one cared to do the right thing. Go listen to the meeting tape! The meeting date was June 11, 2008 when I submitted my memo. I received no support to protect your wage interest. I received no support to intervene on the wage matter, to ensure for example, that the employee's had structured cost of living adjustments (COLA), or a safety valve for wage increases.
This whole situation was preventable, this is a sad episode in our history. Today there is no leadership on this issue, there are no COLA and there is no safety valve, nothing. When you look at who did not support the employees then and who did not support the employees at the last budget meeting, it speaks volumes about the priorities of the current OBC. Think about it, the government placed the priority of birds before that of its employees, that's not good!
The memo I wrote in 2008 is listed below.
Inter-Office Memorandum
To: Oneida Business Committee
From: Vince DelaRosa, Councilman
Date: June 3, 2008
Subject: Valiant Discussion
I am bringing the issue involving the Valiant wage work to the Oneida Business Committee (OBC) for discussion and possible action. Many employees have brought these issues to my attention and the OBC should discuss these matters. My Office also has concerns regarding how the Valiant work is progressing. Accordingly, I am requesting that the OBC discuss and possibly take possible action on the following points:
1.) Who determines certain wage highway placements?
My Comment: "The wage highway was supposed to be determined by the OBC, but that never came back. In fact, management believes that they are allowed to handle all these highway placement matters."
2.) The approved wage scale has to be fined tuned with the values of our operation, who does the fine tuning?
My Comment: "The wage scale has to be fined tuned by the OBC. I did raise a concern regarding very high wages of management on the scale, some of which could rise to over $240,000.00. But my concerns have been dismissed as that will never happen."
3.) If the wage impacts are calculated to be over 35% of budget for the total budget, where are the bulk of the percentages increases going to?
My Comment: "I have heard from many employees who say they were told they were in the black and that they will not be getting an increase."
4.) Why isn't there an allowance for COLA?
Comment: "My office wanted a COLA system honored as we move forward."
In closing, it is really hard to access the overall strategic impacts and how fairly things are going with this project. I cannot get answers to my questions. Also, every wage is kept secret and that also hampers true knowledge around what is occurring. The OBC needs some answers on this project.
It is my opinion that we need to have hearings on these matters so we can get all the facts on the table and find out how fairly things are going with these wages adjustments. I offer this idea up with the hope that we can find solutions to make sure everyone is getting a good, honest and fair shake at reasonable wage adjustments. I would also note that wage-caps might be in order, short-term, for those that are making $100,000.00 or more as we sort these matters out.
The OBC needs to determine what if anything we should do about these matters and I offer this memo as an attempt to stimulate some discussion amongst the OBC members.
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