Put the Politicians on Minimum Wage...

Update on the Union

I spoke with an employee at the UOI yesterday who brought me up to speed so I wish to share bits of that conversation with you, the blog readers/community members.

WM told me that Rama leadership is open to resuming talks with the UOI and that they have been invited to our community twice in recent past, but circumstances, I think one was a death in our community, lead to postponing those talks.

WM encouraged me to encourage our members to continue to ask questions and encourage our leadership to resume those talks. The UOI is there for us as individuals of course and he did say that they don't turn anyone away who needs their help whether they come from communities who are members of the union or not, but they do operate on a BCR process, so Rama would need to pass a BCR restating their position about being members of the Union.

The truth is we need to be united in our efforts in advancing our rights. When we are divided and piece mealed it's easier to dismiss our concerns then when our voices are united as ONE. The union is doing a lot of great work for our Nation and our Nationhood. We need to get on board and support this to advance our rights and have what's written in the Kanadian constitution actually recognized. To me, it always comes back to the children. What legacy are we leaving for them? Stop thinking in terms of me and I, and starting thinking in terms of us and we.

Shawna

New Post-Financial Information from the June finance meeting

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Group-for-Accountability-and-Fairness/130530581735?v=app_2373072738

Thank you to everyone who took notes at the June financial meeting. The following is a summary of those notes.-


Facts from finance meeting in June
As of June we have $55M in the bank
Total Budget is 40$M for this year ending March 2011
45% of our money for budget comes from our bank account (general revenue account) $16M to 18M
55-18=37$or 39$M left in bank at end of March 2011

Some of which is set aside and cant be touched because of :

Collateral for loans (land purchases) and the Housing collateral fund of $10M and the credit facility of $18M = Which leaves us with approx $15 M actual free and clear cash in the bank at the end of March 2011 at the rate we spend money it wont last long
Money will start to come to us monthly August 2011 which is 1.9% gross of profits could be as high as $10M per year
plus the land leases of approx $4M which still goes into the trust fund
Also casino funding remain the same at approx $10M a year, snow contract/water charges/ sewer charges/ police and fire but is already calculated in the budget so it is not over and above
Even with the new casino agreement we will have nothing left in the bank unless we stop spending like this $24M a year on wages and benefits $18M operating budget

Reserve Transparency

The Canadian Taxpayer's Federation has launched a website to help band members obtain financial information as to how band funds are being used.

This is a great website and a great resource.

It goes to show you that we, the Group for Accountability are not the only ones who see this as an issue on reserve and want to do everything we can to make sure the information is accessible.
This supports the work we have been doing and I am proud to say so.