Tax and Transparency, Part II

Chief Smith's opponent keeps trying to distract voters from the real issues. The latest is a literal smokescreen about an airplane, something the Cherokee Nation has owned for more than 38 years.

Here is Chief Smith's response:

May 6, 2011

Councilman Bill John Baker

Meredith Frailey, Speaker of the Council

Re: Response to Baker delivery of FY 2009 Tax Returns

Dear Council Baker and Speaker Frailey,

Please find enclosed the FY 2010 Tax Returns for my wife and me that the Cherokee Phoenix requested.

I find amusing Mr. Baker’s letter releasing his FY 2009 Tax Returns.

First, he says “Since my announcement as a candidate for Chief of the Cherokee Nation, I have championed full transparency and openness.” Yes, only since he has become a candidate has he expressed his desire for a transparent and open government. In Mr. Baker’s first term as Councilmember (1995-1999), he conducted and voted for the illegal and punitive removal of all high court Justices of the Cherokee because the Cherokee Nation court had issued a subpoena for disclosure of public financial records that Chief Joe Byrd refused to release. Rather than advocating for open and transparent government, he attacked the Justices who required disclosure of financial records. He attended illegal Council meetings and sponsored an unconstitutional act which would have made it easier to get rid of judges with whom he disagreed. The act he sponsored reduced the required number of Council votes from 2/3^rds to a simple majority so as to more easily remove judges he did not like. Adding insult to injury, he called the Justices “idiots and boys” during the illegal impeachment hearings.

Second, he states, “I have previously called on Chief Smith to forgo campaign contributions from Non Cherokee outside vendors.” In violation of his own challenge, his campaign financial report reflects he took $5,000 as a campaign contribution from Christopher DeLoache, who is a non Indian vendor of the Cherokee Nation and its Health department. He asks me to do something he has not and will not. Most people call that hypocrisy.

Third, he calls for “a full audit of the Nation’s finances and business entities.” During his first Council term, when he was Co-Chair of the Executive and Finance Committee during 1995-1997, there was no budget, and several years during his first term there were no audits. During my tenure, our Accounting Department has earned the prestigious award for Excellence in Financial Accounting nine years in a row. Only a handful of governments in Oklahoma receive this award. The Cherokee Nation has earned an outstanding credit rating from Fitch bond rating company for our sound management of the Cherokee Nation finances.

His call for a “full audit of the Nation’s finances and business entities” comes some twelve years too late. Every year during my twelve years, there has been a comprehensive audit of the Cherokee Nation and its businesses. Every year for the last eight years that Mr. Baker has been a Councilman, an independent Certified Accounting Firm has audited the entire Cherokee Nation and its business entities. The CPA firm has reported the findings to the Council each year. The outside CPA firm was selected in conjunction with the Council’s own full time CPA. Mr. Baker is close friends with the Tribal Council’s CPA who reviews the Cherokee Nation books every month and has full access to every transaction of the Cherokee Nation. For Mr. Baker to call for a “full audit” is non-sense and political theater. The audits for the Cherokee Nation and its business entities have been clean since I corrected the mismanagement caused by Mr. Baker when he was Co-Chair of the Executive and Finance Committee between 1995 and 1999. Today, Mr. Baker sits on the Council Advisory Board for our businesses and has full access to their financial materials and audit reports. If he attended the meetings, he knows there are 24 employees in the internal audit department for our businesses which reports at each board meeting. The assertion the Cherokee Nation and its business are not audited is disingenuous at best and deceitful at worse.

Fourth, he requests the release of Cherokee Nation’s airplane logs and purchase price. This is particularly interesting since he has full access to this information as it has been provided to the Council on a number of occasions during his last eight years on the Council. All he has to do, as other Council members and Cherokee citizens have done, is submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act. He must identify what documents he wants and from whom, and the documents will be delivered in a matter of days. In fact, the flight logs were last provided on June 11, 2010 to Council member David Thornton with copies to Council Speaker Meredith Frailey and Todd Hembree, Attorney for the Council. Mr. Thornton has requested plane logs annually and they have been provided to the Council. As to the purchase price of the plane, Mr. Baker called Tom Tucker, the pilot for the Cherokee Nation for 38 years and an NSU campus minister on or about April 28, 2011 and received the purchase price for the plane. Mr. Baker, before his public challenge, knew not only the purchase price of the plane but that a 1977 twin engine plane and a 1981 twin engine plane were traded in for the 2004 plane. The net price after trades was approximately $1.4 million.

When you represent 300,000+ tribal citizens, businesses, healthcare interests, etc., that work is not always done from a desk in Tahlequah. Sometimes it takes you to the halls of Washington DC, or to a community meeting in Salina—sometimes in the same day. So of course, the Cherokee Nation has a twin-engine plane; it’s had one for 38 years. Cherokee Nation Businesses (CNB) owns this plane and charges for its use just like any other business. Our employees, council members and I use it for business purposes when it saves money compared to commercial air travel. CNB then charges back the cost of the plane to our budgets. Mr. Baker knows this and, again, he has access to all of these records.

It appears Mr. Baker is unwilling to do what he, and every other Council member, has the ability to do and has done: retrieve records. I have prepared and enclosed the form for Mr. Baker to request from Cherokee Nation Business the flight logs for the plane. All he has to do sign the request and submit it as Council members have done for years to receive flight logs. He could have done this weeks ago, but perhaps he wishes to continue his political theater.

Fifth, Mr. Baker makes reference to travel expenses for the entire office of the Principal Chief for the last four years, and specifically what appears to be $15,000 a year for per diem. It should be noted for the period of time between FY 2008 and FY2010, the cost of travel for the Council exceeded $292,715 while my travel was $105,003. Mr. Baker, as a member of the Council, approves my travel budget each year. While per diem is provided by federal and Cherokee Nation travel regulation, it should be noted that Mr. Baker in addition to his $7,500 annual travel budget, received an additional $6,000 local travel payment last year. Instead of accounting for mileage reimbursement on his private vehicle, he received and accepted a $6,000 raise. Councilmember Glory-Jordan called this a “back door raise.”

Indeed, my administration brings unprecedented transparency and accountability to our government and businesses in stark contrast to the secretive and oppressive environment Mr. Baker created during his first term in 1995-1999. We've created 5,000+ jobs, continued to expand and improve a health care system that has tripled and is a model of success across Indian country, all the while revitalizing our culture and language. This is the right direction; the effort to help our people become a happy and healthy nation. And when facts are acknowledged, it is obvious my administration has made the Cherokee Nation the most transparent, stable, productive, progressive and open government in Indian country.

Chad Smith

Principal Chief