PART THREE
WHO
WE ARE
—
WHAT
WE DID
Once we restore the families, things will fall into place. Children are part of the family (and they) have rights to be protected, to be safe, to have the opportunity to enjoy life, and to develop their potential.
Beverly Hugo
Barrow
_________________________________________________________
TABLE OF RECOMMENDATIONS
_________________________________________________________
This section of Volume I includes all recommendations made by the Alaska Natives Commission and its task forces and not otherwise contained in Part II of this volume. Several of the following recommendations do, however, relate closely and at times overlap recommendations made in Part II. Each of these recommendations can be found in Volume II of the Final Report of the Alaska Natives Commission. That volume also contains substantive discussions and analyses on each of the listed recommendations.
Economic Recommendations
Employment
1. Institute Native preference for all federal employment in or related to rural Alaska; at a minimum, every agency of the federal government that is available for contracting under P.L. 93638 should have a Native hire requirement similar to that which is in place with the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
2. Establish veteran's preference for service in the Alaska National Guard by changing the civil service employment procedures in order that those who have served in the Alaska National Guard receive veteran's preference.
3. Davis Bacon (i.e. the federal Davis Bacon Act and the Alaska "MiniDavis Bacon") requirements should be applied effectively and rationally for village/rural capital projects by following the statutory rule of the "local prevailing wage."
4. Eliminate HUD requirements that prohibit local design and construction, enabling village councils, village corporations, and ANSCA regional corporations to become directly involved in housing construction with provisions in place that will both ensure substantial Native hire, improved housing, and contract stability for participating Native firms.
5. Facilitate contracting of land conveyance surveys, especially in rural areas of the state, and employ more Natives in the surveying field.
6. The state and federal governments should reorient training programs, with support from the job Training Partnership Act to develop and implement dedicated programs to prepare young Alaska Natives to participate fully in the burgeoning Information Age employment and services opportunities.
7. The Commission recommends that all Alaska Native corporations and organizations aggressively pursue employment and education opportunities that will soon be available through the new AmeriCorps (e.g., the National Service Corps).
8. Establish a State Office of Alaska Native Recruitment within the Governor's Office to develop and implement procedures within all departments to ensure more equitable Alaska Native hire practices.
Village Economies and Cottage Industry
9. Congress should create an Alaska Native Economic Development Trust, the principal of the trust to be used in the development of feasible, locally initiated economic projects in predominantly Native areas of the state that create real local employment and training opportunities for rural residents.
10. The federal government should improve outcomes for village planning and training in economic development by evaluating the Administration for Native Americans and the extent to which its social and economic development strategies are actually accomplishing stated goals in Alaska; programs should be restructured if it is found that more effective means are available to effect economic growth in Alaska Native villages.
11. All Alaska Regional Development Organizations (ARDORS) should expand their support for Native businesses and review their policies and procedures to ensure that Alaska Natives are receiving their share of assistance, training, and support.
12. Government should increase support for Native tourism and ecotourism by promoting and assisting in the acquisition of capital investment by Alaska Native individuals, village councils, and Native firms that wish to become involved in this growing industry.
13. It is recommended that the Community Development Quota (CDQ) program be expanded to include at least one other extraction industry, as a demonstration project, to be studied and further developed if its benefits resemble those that have already been realized from the CDQ for the pollock fishery.
14. A standing Bulk Fuel Task Force should be established by the State of Alaska to operate during the moratorium that the Coast Guard has given before forcing the cessation of fuel delivery to 75 villages that have unsafe storage facilities; and the Legislature, Congress, and the private sector should set remediation of the bulk fuel storage problem as a high priority for future allocation of funds.
15. The Department of Housing and Urban Development should fund an Alaska Native Housing Authority that (a) designs, manufactures, and constructs houses for villages, with the participation of village residents and (b) has the long-term goal of substantially increasing rural local hire and other economic benefits to localities and regions in which major HUD construction activities are taking place.
Fish and Game Resources
16. The State of Alaska should convene a special task force, with strong representation of Alaska Native communities, to study the problems created for Alaska Natives by the Limited Entry system and to propose ways in which the program can either be expanded to allow additional permits to be acquired or, alternatively, replaced with a program that accomplishes more effectively the program's original objectives.
17. The CDQ program should be codified in the Magnuson Act through its inclusion by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in its final comprehensive rationalization plan; the percentage should be raised from 7.5 percent to 15.0 percent of the pollock fishery and the CDQ should be expanded to other fisheries in the future.
18. Both the federal and state governments should develop long-range plans in order to effect stabilization of the reindeer industry, along with development of outside markets, to accomplish the Reindeer Industry Act's goal of a self-sustaining economy for Alaska Natives; specifically, existing state agencies dedicated to developing and promoting markets for other Alaska products should assist in the expansion of reindeer markets.
19. The federal and state governments should become more active in establishing training programs related specifically to reindeer herding, animal husbandry, product preparation, business skills, marketing, and other issues related to this industry.
20. The growing shellfish mariculture industry in many Alaska Native villages should be fully supported by federal and state government agencies through increased training and redirected economic development funding.
21. The State should reconsider its ban on fin-fish farming and establish an Alaska Native demonstration project; oversight for the program should be federal, with support and technical assistance provided by the Alaska Department of Community and Regional Affairs and the F.R.E.D. Division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Judicial and
Law Enforcement
Recommendations
General
1. The Village Public Safety Officers should (a) receive significantly more professional training in law enforcement; (b) be given greater compensation for their work; (c) enforce local ordinances; (d) be empowered to make arrests (in addition to "citizens' arrests"); (e) wear a distinctive, standard uniform throughout the state; (f) have the option of carrying a nonlethal weapon (such as a nightstick or sap) or be armed, with appropriate training provided by the State Troopers; and, (g) be sought out as the first source of recruitment for positions in the State Troopers when vacancies occur.
2. Village Public Safety Officers should enforce village ordinances as well as state statutes.
3. The State of Alaska should empower local councils to (a) pass their own ordinances; (b) enforce local ordinances; (c) apprehend those who fail to obey ordinances; and (d) pass on to locally established dispute resolution or judicial bodies those who are so apprehended (see later recommendations).
4. The State of Alaska should enter into formal agreements with each village court (i.e. tribal councils or courts, or other dispute resolution body or individual established by consensus of the village residents) to determine which infractions or which classes of infractions will be the domain of the local jurisdiction and which will be the domain of the State.
5. The State of Alaska should convene a task force composed of representatives of the different Alaska Native groups involved in the judicial system and all three branches of state government to devise a structure of parameters within which village (and Native community) court systems can be given due respect by the State.
6. The State of Alaska must evaluate its entire judicial system, from the District Court to the Supreme Court, relative to its incorporation of Alaska Native law ways and ethics; it must also pursue options and alternatives to the current system, returning dispute resolution and decision making authority to Alaska Native villages and the Native communities that exist in the state's larger municipalities.
7. Village Councils should be encouraged to establish dispute resolution bodies and procedures that are consistent with the predominant tradition and culture of the village, and the state and federal governments should provide training and technical assistance to further this establishment; the Tribal Court in Minto should be looked at as an exemplary model for local dispute resolution bodies.
Correctional System Issues
8. The legislative and executive branches of state government need to revise perspectives regarding its correctional system and the ways in which its three purposes (punishment, rehabilitation, and protection of society) can be met; punishment can, as recommended by the Alaska Sentencing Commission, be achieved through the use of alternatives to incarceration, and incarceration can be accomplished closer to "home" if appropriate means are provided regionally.
9. The state and federal governments should develop alternative punishments consistent with the ethics and culture of the village or region in which they are to be implemented; such alternatives must also be integrated with alternative forms of dispute resolution.
10. The Indian Health Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services and the Department of Corrections must combine their resources and support the development and maintenance of halfway houses and other transitional and supportive living arrangements for Native offenders who can receive rehabilitative treatment at least regionally, if not in their own communities, and for incarcerated Natives who are in the process of returning home.
11. The Alaska Department of Corrections should increase opportunities for Native inmates to participate in substance abuse counseling and to begin that participation earlier in their stay in corrections.
12. The Alaska Department of Corrections should waive academic requirements for hiring Alaska Native counselors to enable the hiring of more Natives who have extensive life experience and a demonstrated ability to assist in the healing and spiritual strengthening that is needed for those inmates who have substance abuse and addiction problems.
13. The Alaska Department of Corrections should (a) review all cases of Native individuals now incarcerated who are in correctional facilities merely because of a violation of probation or parole and release back to their home villages any individuals who are not dangerous to themselves or others; (b) establish a means by which probation and parole can be carried out in the home village of the offender, utilizing the cultural and social structure of the community both to support and monitor the individual, in the spirit of rehabilitation and community healing; (c) eliminate the requirement that Alaska Natives from rural areas who are on probation and parole must relocate to and remain in an urban area, thereby allowing them to return to their home villages; and (d) report all the changes made and their impact on probation/parole violations and recidivism to the Alaska judicial Council no later than July 1994.
14. Consistent with the recommended decentralization of the judicial and correctional systems, village dispute resolution bodies should have the authority to establish monitoring and assistance teams that will supervise a parolee or probationer in the village.
15. An Office of Alaska Native Recruitment should be established within the Governor's Office to develop and implement procedures within other departments to ensure a more aggressive campaign of recruiting Natives into all levels of positions related to law enforcement, the judiciary, and corrections.
Local
Self-Determination
Recommendations
Self-Governance Issues
1. The state and federal governments and their respective agencies should give full and complete recognition to whatever governmental entity that a community has chosen, whether it be a traditional council, an IRA council, or a state-chartered municipality.
2. Existing programs for assistance to local governments available through the state and federal governments should be reviewed and their use be monitored to determine their effectiveness in strengthening the governance skills of the community and, to the extent necessary, such programs should be augmented to accomplish effective self-governance.
3. Native organizations, such as regional nonprofit corporations, the Native American Rights Fund, and similar institutions which have the financial and technical capabilities to do so, should, in addition to pressing for resolution of tribal governance powers questions, examine the existing governmental entities used by Native communities in order to identify ways in which such entities can be used more effectively to achieve the goals of the communities.
4. An evaluation of Bureau of Indian Affairs programs and fund utilization should be completed and, unless there is compelling evidence that would convincingly argue against it, the 103(a) grant program should be reinstated to provide stable financial support for tribal administrations in Alaska.
5. Using the training funds now incorporated into the BIA Area's administration, a coordinated program of decentralized training and assistance should be offered by the Bureau at the village level to accompany the reinstatement of the 103(a) grant program; and the Administration for Native Americans, which also has a goal of strengthening tribal governments and which invests approximately $600,000 a year in pursuit of that goal in Alaska, should direct its funding into this statewide training and technical assistance effort.
6. Alaska Native regional nonprofit corporations should be directed — as a requirement of their contracting with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service — to increase technical assistance to village tribal governments in their respective regions, and consideration should be given to establishing a matching-grant program under which regional nonprofit corporations distribute portions of their administrative funds to tribal governments that become involved in the redesigned Section 103(a) and 103(b) grant programs.
7. The Alaska Native regional nonprofit corporations, including health corporations, should work with member tribal governments to review significant shifts in programs and services from the regional to the village level, balancing community and tribal empowerment needs with the realities of providing cost-effective, high-quality services throughout the state.
8. Federal and state departments that provide grants and contracts to Alaska Native nonprofit corporations should be directed to evaluate the programs and fund utilization of the corporations for the purpose of limiting administrative costs and striving to move more of the funds, functions, and services to village governments.
9. Congress should appropriate and specifically direct a minimum of $10 million annually for five years for use by Alaska Native tribes in solving Alaska Native social problems in culturally appropriate ways.
Local Resource Management Issues
10. The Governor and the State Legislature should reconfigure the Board of Fisheries and Board of Game to enable Alaska Natives to regain more local control over subsistence resources, harvests, and traditional uses, and the federal government should augment the authority of the ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act) regional councils.
11. Each ANILCA regional board should have veto power over the application of hunting and fishing regulations impacting subsistence; and an oversight group, composed of representatives elected by the regional boards, should review subsistence policies and regulations no less often than annually.
12. The State of Alaska should establish a special task force with strong representation of Alaska Native communities to study the original intent of, and present problems with, the Limited Entry program and propose ways in which the program can either be expanded to allow additional permits to be acquired or, alternatively, replaced with a program that accomplishes more effectively the program's original objective while honoring Alaska Natives' traditions and needs.
Education
Recommendations
1. The Alaska Department of Education should continue or take action necessary to create a three component K-12 education system of Alaska Natives that includes home community K-12 schooling that is the right of every American child, distance education delivery that effectively redresses the limitations inherent in small rural schools, regional academic and vocational schools that effectively redress the limitations of small rural schools that cannot be overcome by internal improvements and distance education delivery, and vocational schools that adapt curricula to regional and local needs.
2. The State of Alaska should establish total local control of schools by recasting advisory boards as policymaking boards and increasing Native administrators and teachers through affirmative hiring and alternative certification.
3. The State of Alaska should establish a model curricula that meet the needs of Alaska Native students by engaging Native scholars and educators in developing: model K-12 curricula differentiated on a regional basis; model post-secondary programs that will aid Native students in the transition from high school to college or vocational education; and model programs that will aid Native students in becoming proficient in the skills necessary to continue the subsistence tradition and economy.
4. The State of Alaska and local school districts should substantially increase efforts to recruit and train educational staff, including local Native professionals, to meet the special needs of Alaska Native students by, among other means, providing incentives to Native college students to become teachers, incentives for Native teacher aides to become certified, alternative certification avenues to encourage qualified Native professionals to enter the field of education, and incentives to Native teachers to become school administrators.
5. The Congress and the State of Alaska — in a concerted effort to make real improvements in the social and cultural linkages between schools and the villages — should encourage parents and community leaders to become and stay involved with the education of Native children by, among other means, initiating a program to develop parent and village government involvement in rural school districts and using, where appropriate, culturally relevant methods and materials; and creating an Alaska Native Heritage Trust, the funds from which to be granted to Alaska Native tribes for use in schools and in the community for enhancing Natives languages and cultures.
6. The State of Alaska should commit to making measurable improvements in the percentage of Native teachers and other employees in schools with predominantly Native student populations by ensuring that requirements for measuring teacher competency are balanced with local Native needs.
7. The State of Alaska should ensure a competent, stable work force of teachers in village schools to enhance student learning and to maintain stability in school programs by amending Sec. 14.20.150(2) of the Alaska Administrative Code (AAC) to extend years necessary to qualify for teacher tenure from two years (current) to five years (desirable), and instituting remedies, mainly through increasing the local Native teacher work force outlined above, to decrease teacher turnover in village schools.
8. The federal government and the State of Alaska should address options for management and funding of schools in village Alaska and other funding issues by, in addition to other means, enabling, over a five-year period, the Regional Educational Attendance Area system to delegate authority for schools to tribal governments in partnership with the State Department of Education; requiring tribal governments, to the extent of their local capabilities, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to participate in the funding of schools whose authority for management has been delegated to said tribal government on a per capita level equaling the minimum state support given schools currently operated by rural municipalities; and providing one-time federal funding of $50 million to $100 million for upgrading and/or replacing former Bureau of Indian Affairs schools that are now being used as elementary schools.
9. Congress should create and fund an Alaska Native Heritage Trust to be administered by the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, the funds to be granted to Alaska Native tribes for use in schools and Native communities for enhancing Native languages and cultures.
Physical and
Behavioral Health
General
1. The Alaska Natives Commission endorses the recommendations made by the Alaska Sanitation Task Force which include, among others, involvement of communities in the planning, design, and construction of their sanitation utilities; expansion of the remote maintenance worker program to ensure certified, trained operators for all sanitation systems; and awarding of direct grants only to those communities providing at least 10% of the total project costs or an equivalent amount of in-kind services.
2. A coordinated data system should be established that integrates the efforts of the Alaska Area Native Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the State of Alaska, the Veterans Administration, other cognizant agencies, and Native health corporations.
3. Current governmental expenditures supporting the diversified data gathering that now occurs should be focused to support a comprehensive statewide health needs and status-evaluation survey of Alaska Natives to include behavioral health risk assessment information and wellness indicators and provide direction to the new health promotion and disease/risk reduction programs recommended by the Commission.
4. The Governor and Congress should safeguard the continued funding for the Community Health Aide Program (CHAP), increasing wages over time to ensure the continuity of the program and reduce turnover among CHAs and providing training funds and other support.
5. Congress should respond favorably to the need for increased support for patient travel in Alaska and appropriate funds to meet the authorization level of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.
Child and Family Health
6. The Alaska Area Native Health Service should continue to set its objectives toward high rates of immunization in order that, by the end of the century, all Alaska Native children throughout Alaska will be age-appropriately immunized.
7. Present reductions in Bureau of Indian Affairs' funding for Indian Child Welfare Act grants and any plans for the eradication of that important program should be reversed and the Bureau should reinstate the funding to levels available for federal FY 1993 and offer even further assistance to tribes and tribal organizations in their efforts to eliminate child abuse and its consequences in the Alaska Native community.
8. Child abuse and neglect data should become part of a unified, comprehensive data system for Alaska Natives, and roles and responsibilities, especially between the Division of Family and Youth Services, the judiciary, Indian Health Service, regional health corporations, and other tribal contractors, and federally recognized IRA and traditional councils need to be clarified.
Health Education and Preventative Health
9. The entire health care system for Alaska Natives must be reoriented to emphasize primary prevention, and every primary prevention program must concentrate on families and communities, not on individuals.
10. The Indian Health Service, through contract with the Alaska Native Health Board and in conjunction with the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, should develop a comprehensive infectious disease prevention education strategy geared directly to address Alaska Native tribes, families, and children with materials developed by and for Alaska Natives and in Native languages; the effort to be made through all mediums, schools, and other institutions found in the villages and should clearly recognize the linkages between physical health and cultural, spiritual, and mental well-being.
11. Aggressive health education campaigns specific to avoiding HIV and AIDS should be initiated and a curriculum addressing the disease should be established in schools statewide; educating and raising the awareness of parents, and helping them to help their children, is an essential element of a successful anti-AIDS program.
12. It is incumbent upon all levels of government and the entire educational system of the state to revisit the need for health education for Native children, youth, adults, and elders; and the Public Health Service should augment funding and support for health education and promotion programs.
13. The Alaska Native Health Service and the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services should aggressively pursue new approaches to increasing cancer screening and diagnostic capabilities while at the same time offering greatly enhanced health education and risk prevention activities for Alaska Natives.
14. The capability of the Indian Health Service should be enhanced to make effective and timely diagnoses so that when Alaska Natives do seek help in response to early signs of illness, they will be assured appropriate intervention and timely care to prevent more serious consequences.
15. The Suicide Prevention Program administered by the State Department of Health and Social Services should be examined as a possible model for the development of additional government-supported endeavors, upholding the goal of empowering communities to design, implement, and be responsible for their own creative solutions.
Substance Abuse
16. The Alaska Area Native Health Service, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, and others who provide funds for substance abuse prevention and treatment should conduct an outcome evaluation of the effectiveness of programs that they fund and, when relatively unsuccessful approaches are found, redirect the funding to fill in the gaps in the treatment system and implement new and different methods to reduce the incidence and prevalence of substance abuse.
17. The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services and the Alaska Area Native Health Service should use existing funds to support the establishment of an Alaska Native Family Development Center modeled after the successful Kakawis Centre in British Columbia, monitoring and evaluating its effectiveness over time for possible expansion.
18. Programs for early risk detection, for example the "Healthy Start" program that has proved to produce drastic reductions in child abuse, should be implemented for Alaska Natives, with initial contact beginning prior to the birth of the child to also help prevent Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effect.
19. There should be an immediate establishment of federal and state policies and procedures that will ensure (a) consistent gathering of needs assessment data related to the incidence and prevalence of substance abuse among Alaska Natives; (b) routine sharing of data between the various agencies of the federal and state governments that collect information about substance abuse; (c) the establishment of a consistent evaluation methodology that will assess the performance of programs that receive funds from the state and federal governments to fight the substance abuse problems that have become endemic in Alaska Native communities; and (d) research into the type of binge drinking common among Alaska Natives and evaluation of treatment approaches attuned to that type of client.