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Dissatisfied with the answers she's received from a local tribal welfare program and the federal agency that oversees it, Rep. Mary Bono Mack said 2011 and the return of a Republican majority to the U.S. House of Representatives could bring further scrutiny of the tribal program's use of taxpayer money.
Rep. Mary Bono Mack on Thursday said she intends to work to strip control of a tribal welfare program from the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, citing persistent evidence of waste and missing accountability for taxpayer funds. For the complete investigative report, visit mydesert.com/tribalmoney
Beneath the surface of rampant poverty and joblessness on one of California's poorest American Indian reservations is nearly a decade of mismanagement and misuse of millions in taxpayer dollars meant for those needing the money most, federal and state documents show. For the complete investigative report, visit mydesert.com/tribalmoney
A lack of financial accountability, questionable spending and findings of misuse of taxpayer dollars have plagued the country's second highest-funded welfare program for Native Americans since 2001, government documents show.
The amount of public funding of the Torres-Martinez Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program — an average of more than $15.4 million per year since 2002 — was made possible by the federal and state governments allowing the tribe to also provide service to American Indians in other parts of Riverside County, and to Indians and Alaskan Natives in Los Angeles County, about 130 miles away.
“Our People Helping Our People” is the motto of the Torres-Martinez Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
A review of the Torres-Martinez Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program's annual audits shows many of the same financial accountability problems persisting year after year despite assurances from tribal officials and program administrators that solutions were in place or on the way:
Philip and Kristina Picciotti know how it looks. The couple admits that audits and court filings make it appear they bilked the Torres-Martinez Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program out of millions of dollars in ineffective, incomplete, non-working computer hardware and software.
Paying the unpaid parking tickets of a former Torres-Martinez Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program caseworker was defended as a legitimate expenditure of taxpayer money by the program's former director.
An accountant brought in to “clean up” financial disarray within the Torres-Martinez Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program was later convicted of embezzlement of government funds from a tribal housing program in Arizona.
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer vowed to follow up on the findings of The Desert Sun's investigation into a Torres-Martinez tribal welfare program, saying Americans no longer “have the stomach for” potential waste or misuse of taxpayer funds.
The Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians were established by President Ulysses S. Grant on May 15, 1876.
Desert Sun reporter Keith Matheny spent more than a year examining the Torres-Martinez Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
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