Back in June, Deckboss predicted conflict among the six companies operating under Alaska's Community Development Quota program.
Now we're seeing that prediction play out, as five of the companies are opposing efforts of the sixth, Coastal Villages Region Fund, to obtain a greater share of the quotas.
Coastal is vowing to continue its efforts, which the other five consider to be "dangerous" to the CDQ program.
Read a remarkable exchange of correspondence among the CDQ players in this press packet Coastal distributed this week.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
240 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 240 of 240@9:20pm... APICDA has too much fish and so does CBSFA. Their CEOs make bundles to do less with smaller populations, and their leadership make millions.
9/24 9:58PM. I share your opinion about the problems with corporatizing rural Alaska but what are we supposed to do?
The villages are dying a slow lingering death. There are not nearly enough opportunities for productive employment despite massive allocations of money provided by the state and federal government. Everything gets converted into self-serving bureaucracies and moved to the urban areas so that the managers can live their preferred lifestyles. Very little of the money is used the way it is intended and the state and feds are careful not to look too closely so that they won't have to deal with trying to come up with solutions for why these programs work so poorly.
Take the employment numbers posted by 9/24 6:19PM at face value. I assume they are from the CDQ group annual reports. The CDQ program in 2010 supposedly provided 2,527 jobs paying $10,601 each and that's success? How is a person supposed to live on that in rural Alaska with its high living costs?
In addition, a lot of the "jobs" are actually commercial fishermen who have to pay for their fishing expenses off the top of their share of the "job" income. The rule of thumb has been that commercial fishermen get to take home about 1/3 of their gross income. That's not very much if your gross is only $10,601.
The National Research Council and Governor Murkowski's Blue Ribbon Committee failed to adequately evaluate the economic impact of the CDQ program, mostly because they couldn't get the data from the CDQ groups. I hope that the decennial review will do better. It seems to me that it would be in the best interests of the groups that are claiming to be successful to put forth the proof of their success. Their adherence to almost paranoid confidentiality rules don't make them look very good.
We need to know how many career type jobs have been created where a person can make enough income to raise a family, have enough money to live a decent life in the villages where they want to live and eventually retire with enough to live on in their old age. Looking around, I don't see very many. In fact the only ones that fit the bill are the ones working in the CDQ group offices and almost all of the good jobs are in Anchorage. Viable privately owned fisheries related businesses are nonexistent. There are actually fewer of those in my area than before the CDQ program came along. That's after 20 years of trying.
Is this the best we can come up with?
9/24 9:58PM. I share your opinion about the problems with corporatizing rural Alaska but what are we supposed to do?
The villages are dying a slow lingering death. There are not nearly enough opportunities for productive employment despite massive allocations of money provided by the state and federal government. Everything gets converted into self-serving bureaucracies and moved to the urban areas so that the managers can live their preferred lifestyles. Very little of the money is used the way it is intended and the state and feds are careful not to look too closely so that they won't have to deal with trying to come up with solutions for why these programs work so poorly.
Take the employment numbers posted by 9/24 6:19PM at face value. I assume they are from the CDQ group annual reports. The CDQ program in 2010 supposedly provided 2,527 jobs paying $10,601 each and that's success? How is a person supposed to live on that in rural Alaska with its high living costs?
In addition, a lot of the "jobs" are actually commercial fishermen who have to pay for their fishing expenses off the top of their share of the "job" income. The rule of thumb has been that commercial fishermen get to take home about 1/3 of their gross income. That's not very much if your gross is only $10,601.
The National Research Council and Governor Murkowski's Blue Ribbon Committee failed to adequately evaluate the economic impact of the CDQ program, mostly because they couldn't get the data from the CDQ groups. I hope that the decennial review will do better. It seems to me that it would be in the best interests of the groups that are claiming to be successful to put forth the proof of their success. Their adherence to almost paranoid confidentiality rules don't make them look very good.
We need to know how many career type jobs have been created where a person can make enough income to raise a family, have enough money to live a decent life in the villages where they want to live and eventually retire with enough to live on in their old age. Looking around, I don't see very many. In fact the only ones that fit the bill are the ones working in the CDQ group offices and almost all of the good jobs are in Anchorage. Viable privately owned fisheries related businesses are nonexistent. There are actually fewer of those in my area than before the CDQ program came along. That's after 20 years of trying.
Is this the best we can come up with?
What do you suppose CDQ groups do then Tim?
I'd like to hear your suggestions for fixing the poverty problem in rural Alaska, you make it sound so simple. Your insight may provide these groups with the spark they've been missing for the past 20 years.
What do CDQ groups do? They enrichen their administrators and provide them with a luxurious urban lifestyle. They do some other stuff too but not as much.
My suggestion for fixing poverty in rural Alaska. Replace welfare and transfer payments with earned income. If I make that sound simple, it is because you are not listening carefully. I don't think it is simple but the people who run the CDQ groups have gotten away with convincing the right people that it is so hard that they should just move on to something else. Why are we paying them so much if they can't do the job?
The CDQ program needs a lot more insight. The problem is that the people in control want to hold onto what they have acquired and they think doing that means locking everybody else out. Maybe they are right about that but their need to maintain control shouldn't outweigh the needs of the impoverished people in the communities.
Some complain about bringing up race as an issue, but in the case of the CDQ group CDRF, its senior managers are all white, which is not the case at many of these CDQ organizations.
Not only CVRF managers white, but also unlike many other CDQ group managers, they are not residents of the CDQ regions at all.
Now after almost two decades the senior management at CVRF is still all white and non-residents of the communities they are supposed to be serving.
As Supreme Court Justice Blackmum said when describing the seafood industry in Alaska:
"This industry long has been characterized by a taste for discrimination of the old-fashioned sort: a preference for hiring nonwhites to fill its lowest level positions, on the condition that they stay there."
After over a decade, the management at CVRF is still outrageously paid, and the senior highly paid positions appear to have been off limits to Alaska Natives for years.
Racism dies hard. It must be pried forcibly from the hands of those who profit from it.
The CDQ group CVRF is managed at its senior positions by over paid white people who do not live in the affected region.
Contrast that to CDQ groups which are managed by local managers who are modestly paid.
It reminds one of Supreme Court Justice Blackmum's famous words for describing the Alaskan seafood industry.
"This industry long has been characterized by a taste for discrimination of the old-fashioned sort: a preference for hiring nonwhites to fill its lowest level positions, on the condition that they stay there."
I bet Morgen Crow's mother will be shocked to find out her son is white.
Let's have 100% transparency among all CDQ groups..
"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."
-Louis Dembitz Brandeis
CVRF has been in the sunlight for years.
"Let the midnight special... shine the light on me!"
Tim - you haven't answered how you're going to solve poverty in rural Alaska. What's your plan? Once you've destroyed CDQ then what? There ain't no ANC that's going to be there to help out your region - yours has had their own problems right...then what? What industry are you going to propose carry the water out there?
At a corporate level this program attracts more than it's share of dung beetles. All represented by consultants & attorneys of the same ilk. It all needs to be rebooted.
CVRF makes a strong point. Bring this to the residents and let them review the imbalance of CDQ allocations.
Same time let the residents evaluate CVRF Administration and the Board of Directors to determine whether or not they are effectively meeting the needs of the residents in the 20 villages. Especially with their mandate to alleviate poverty and provide economic and social benefits for residents of western Alaska.
"Racism dies hard. It must be pried forcibly from the hands of those who profit from it."
Making CDQ management a racial issue does nothing but perpetuate racism.
People should be hired according to their ability not the color of their skin.
Unless there is a hiring policy which identifies native preference. Makes me wonder now if CVRF or any of the other CDQ groups have a policy in place which requires them to consider applicants from their respective regions prior to hiring from outside of their CDQ region. The CVRF CEO is not even from one of the 20 villages identified as a CVRF community. Go figure.
People Power!
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
POLLOCK PROVIDES!! (forget salmon)
WE NEED MORE FISH FOR MORGAN!!!
In Norton Sound the most important CDQ group hiring policy is nepotism now, nepotism tomorrow, nepotism forever.
Racism is nearly as important as nepotism but not quite.
Did the population of the two small groups shrink over time? Maybe too much fish is a bad thing.
Why does CVRF only give out organizational benefits to the Tribal Governments within their region?
CDQ program is not a "Tribal" CDQ program. It is supposed to be for all the residents in their region.
City governments should not be excluded from decision making either when it comes to the CDQ.
Summary of Key CDQ Program Elements A western Alaskan community is eligible for quota if the community:
* is within 50 miles of the Bering Sea;
* is an Alaska Native Claims community;
* has residents who conduct 50 percent of their commercial or subsistence fishing activity in the Bering Sea; and
* did not already have significant pollock activity.
IMO Alaska Native Claims communities are defined as a Incorporated Cities, since ANCSA extinguished all aboriginal land claims.
Limiting participation to ANCSA communities meant that they didn't have to repeat the determinations already done in ANCSA about which of the many coastal communities that existed historically are still viable today. That's all.
Not all ANCSA communities within 50 miles of the Bering Sea; having residents who conduct 50 percent of their commercial or subsistence fishing activity in the Bering Sea; and that did not already have significant pollock activity made the cut for the CDQ program.
Many people look at this provision as meaning the CDQ program is a native program but the government says it isn't. Some in CDQ group management administer the benefits of the program and operate the group governance as if it is anyway.
That's another thing congress needs to fix with more legislation.
So based on the correct interpretation of the criteria for a western Alaska community; Incorporated Cities within the CDQ region who are certified as meeting ANCSA requirements are legally supposed to be the entities receiving the organizational benefits from their respective CDQs.
2007-2010 G&A percentages:
APICDA- 27%
CBSFA- 21%
BBEDC- 15%
CVRF- 9%
NSEDC- 16%
YDFDA- 11.26%
The Magnuson-Stevens Act doesn't require municipal incorporation although I think all of the 65 eligible communities are incorporated municipalities.
Looking over the list, I don't see any communities in the geographical area that are not listed in ANCSA.
A community that was not a municipality could theoretically petition congress to be listed in the MSA as CDQ eligible but I don't think any of them have. There has been talk about adding King Island and Solomon but it hasn't gone beyond the talking stage. The way NSEDC governance works, the only thing that would do is create a per diem opportunity for a couple more board members.
For many reasons it would be a lot better to split up the larger CDQ groups. No one has come up with a way to govern these artificial conglomerations in a way that treats all of the communities fairly.
"smaller is better" - some of the CDQs are too large, allowing a handful to hold the reins tightly for personal gain on the backs of the poor the money was intended to help.
"smaller is better" - that is the message APICDA is demonstrating.
Determining how much money a CDQ is using for wages, which eats into money available for charity - is important in measuring the performance of any non-profit.
The previous writer lists the CDQ groups and their percentages of overhead.
I believe the percentages used by the previous writer are erroneous and misleading, especially when it comes to Coastal Villages Regional Fund.
Coastal Villages had one extraordinarily year in 2010. Over $200,000,000 in revenue from investments. This extraordinary years should be excluded from analyzing the performance of CVRF because this extraordinary event is not likely to be repeated.
Using four years of data including the extraordinary year, makes CVRF look efficient at the use of staff compensation paid in generating revenues.
Cherry picking the years of data is one of the oldest tricks in the book to make an organization look extremely efficient, and takes CVRF from being the worst performer to the best performer.
Well which is it?
The best method of measuring the performance of a CDQ and whether it has a bloated payroll siphoning off salaries band depriving funds from its residents is to look at two numbers, over ten years, and then exclude any unusual one-time events.
If this measure and is applied over ten years and excluding unusual events is fairly applied to all CDQ groups we get another story altogether.
There are two numbers from the tax returns that are important in any measurement of a non-profit. "Program Service Revenue" and "Salaries, other compensation, employee benefits"
Many numbers fluctuate wildly, but these two numbers do not, and this is why they are so important to measure.
If we divide "Service Revenue" by Salaries, compensation, and employee benefits" for CVRF we get the following numbers:
2007 54%
2008 67%
2009 51%
2010 83%
All of these numbers are horrible and a red flag that the organization is paying too much in wages and bonuses.
Now watch what happens if we take the extraordinary one time even year of 2010 and include "Investment Income"
2010 drops to the unbelievably low 6%, used by the writer above.
It makes the management of CVRF look like rocket scientists with hearts of pure gold.
CVRF cannot go from having the highest overhead for the last ten years, and then in one year take a windfall, and make themselves the lowest overhead.
CVRF are obviously cooking the statistics.
No good accountant would fall for these misleading numbers.
CVRF may have been able to fool the residents of their local communities, but this review will have a national audience, and if self reported numbers are used by the State for review, then it will be the equivalent of the student writing and correcting their own test.
There is $1,000,000,000 of the taxpayers money at stake over the next ten year period, and an incomplete, biased, or incompetent review will not stand, but will be an embarrassment for the State.
I am sure as the sun is going to come up tomorrow, attorneys, accountants, and non-profit consultants watching over this $1,000,000,000 pot of gold with a critical eye, for any signs of a fix being in.
Nobody is dumb enough to fall for the proposition that CVRF put in nine years as the worst performer and then right before the review all of a sudden became the best performer.
Limiting this review to only the last few years, instead of the last ten since the last review, or self-reporting numbers rather than audited numbers, is just cooking the books to get more of the $1,000,000,000 pie.
For the taxpayers $1,000,000,000 they deserves a thorough and scrupulously objective review. Anything less will be a disaster and put this whole program which ultimately is good for our state at risk.
If it were not for the CDQ program, 100% of these valuable fishing licenses would have gone to non-residents.
Most logical split for the CVRF Region.
CVRF West
Scammon Bay
Hooper Bay
Chevak
Newtok
Tununak
Tooksook Bay
Mekoryuk
Nightmute
Chefornak
Kipnuk
CVRF Southwest
Kwigillingok
Kongiganak
Tuntutuliak
Napakiak
Oscarville
Napaskiak
Eek
Quinhagak
Goodnews Bay
Platinum
A good way to split NSEDC would be:
NSEDC North - 4,475 residents
Brevig Mission
Diomede
Nome
Teller
Wales
NSEDC Central - 1,352 residents
Gambell
Savoonga
NSEDC South - 2,904 residents
Elim
Golovin
Koyuk
Saint Michael
Shaktoolik
Stebbins
Unalakleet
White Mountain
With the split, allocations from APICDA will have to be taken away to account for smaller groups. APICDA is pick-pocketing fish from all the other groups except for CBFA.
The think they are entitled to a bloated allocation while stockpiling a dividend in long-term reserves. Goes to show APICDA doesn't need the extra fish. They spend more money on their payroll than they provide in community benefits.
This is a red herring!
Quite a coincidence that this is timed with the upcoming decennial review. If CVRF knows they won't fare well in the review then they must find a way to somehow make them moot.
Common sense will prevail. The allocations will change tomorrow or the next day. As people take over and APICA and CBSFA continue to shrink, they will have no choice.
September 28, 2012 7:16 AM: Your comment is laughable. As one poster correctly points out, using the numbers published by an entity is a mistake. Only a 'real' audit of the books would revel the truth and, unfortunately, that will never happen.
2,500 Western Alaska residents employeed in 2010 and how many of those jobs were seasonal? People can't live on income for only part of the year.
I'd say for Congress to hold all CDQ allocations and allow entities from the qualifying Western Alaska region submit economic development packets. People of the villages know what they need best.
The present CDQs can continue on as they have had for 20 years paying back to the government what they have squandered. They have built empires and have locked the villages out.
To the blogger who makes reference to a "real audit of the books" for the CDQ programs - it's possible. We just got to find an honest Congress man to push the issue. The 8(a) contracting Congress lady McCaskell did a great job bringing that issue to the forefront. It can be done. It should be done. Too many poor people are being ignored again.
This year's review of the CDQ program should include a list of all the CDQ employees by name, their salaries, the Board of Directors directive to give each employee their set salary and a list of accomplishments the employee achieved for the CDQ program and ultimately the people of Western Alaska. If we look deep, we'll find a lot of dead wood getting over paid just because.
This employee review should also include the employee credentials. We'll see over-compensation for minimal qualifications and little or no achievements documentating how each employee helped alleviate the poverty level of the poor people the CDQ money belongs to. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is what's going on.
Shame on the greedy people at APICDA and CBSFA.
Una assikaq CVRF-aq. Calinermek cikilarakut wankuta village-memberaamteni. Support-araqa CVRF-aq.
Post a Comment