An ongoing audit of the Southeast Child and Family Services Agency was partly triggered over concerns about inappropriate financial and other relationships with Southeast Resource Development Council, the Free Press has learned.
To this point, the Southern First Nations Child and Family Services Authority -- which is conducting the audit -- has said the trigger for the review was the inquest into the death of 14-year-old Tracia Owen. That inquest raised concerns about the services provided by Southeast CFS to the teenager - who committed suicide in 2005 after spending her entire life in and out of foster care.
Gage Guimond
But documents obtained by the Free Press show there was also some unease about the relationship between Southeast CFS and the Southeast RDC.
The latter is the tribal council for the nine bands whose CFS services are provided by Southeast CFS. The tribal council, with a board made up of the chiefs of the nine bands, is to help those bands with programs such as housing and economic development.
But the tribal council and the CFS agency were far more entwined than they should have been, the documents show. Among the concerns flagged were joint bank accounts, joint payrolls and the sharing of case information from the child welfare agency to the tribal council -- which is actually a breach of the confidentiality provisions of the Child and Family Services Act.
A letter from Southern First Nations Child and Family Services CEO Elsie Flette, written to Southeast CFS last fall, demands the agency immediately separate its bank accounts from those of the tribal council, cease paying the council administrative fees, and provide the southern authority with a list of all money paid to the tribal council between January 2006 and September 2007.
"SECFS is hereby directed to take the immediate steps necessary to be an entity that is financially and administratively separate from the SERDC, and operating at arm's length from SERDC,'' reads the letter written by Flette on Oct. 3, 2007.
Flette would not say Wednesday what the administrative fee was or why it was being paid, or what the concerns were about other payments from the child welfare agency to the tribal council.
"We're in the middle of doing that review,'' said Flette. "I'm really not prepared to comment on it until that is completed.'' She also would not say whether all the demands to separate the CFS agency from the tribal council had occurred.
Other demands included telling the banks not to give any information about the agency to employees of the tribal council, and segregating the child welfare agency's payroll from that of the tribal council. That included no longer allowing the tribal council to manage the payroll. Concerns about the connections to the Southeast Regional Development Council appear to run so deep Flette even demanded that if "there is a possibility that a related third party connected to SERDC intends to submit a bid (for the payroll services), the tendering process will be managed by the Southern Authority.'' The agency was also required to tender out its audit for the 2007/08 fiscal year and that the tendering process and audit "is not to involve any person in the employ, at any capacity, of the SERDC.'' Last month, the Free Press reported that the Southeast CFS executive director, Michael Bear, had been placed on paid leave, for the next several months while the audit continues.
At that time Flette said there were no allegations of wrongdoing against Bear, however a temporary administrator was brought in to help facilitate the changes being made at the agency.
The audit will look at everything from the agency's finances to its service delivery, computer systems and human resources.
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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