iene ta ae Am oe Se ES. — Wnited States Senate (COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS Seer, aia SDAA, May 6, 2015 ‘The Honorable Sally Jewell Secretary U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW Washington, D.C. 20240 Dear Madam Secretary: We are writing to express our commitment to seeing the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) produce a fair, transparent school construction priority list. There are immense infrastructure needs in Indian Country, particularly at our schools, and we look forward to working with you to improve those conditions. As the Department of the Interior works towards completing the 2004 school construction list and publishing a new one, it is imperative that any new list be composed in a fair manner that leads to the efficient and effective utilization of federal funding. It is our hope that the BIE incorporate significant tribal input and elements of the formula framework developed through the 2011 negotiated rule-making process. In addition, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is currently conducting a study of BIE facilities that will provide recommendations for improving those facilities. In December 2011, the No Child Left Behind School Facilities and Construction Negotiated Rulemaking Committee, comprising both tribal and federal officials, published its report, “Broken Promises, Broken Schools.” The report outlined the needs of Bureau-operated schools and provided recommendations for the BIE to reform the school construction process. Incorporating those recommendations is a necessary step to composing a fair school construction list. It is also our hope that this process includes a plan to address all of the school construction needs in Indian Country.We urge you to review the recent plan by the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), the only other federal school system in the United States, to upgrade and modemize its school facilities. In 2010, DoDEA began a multiyear, $3.7 billion construction initiative to renovate or replace its schools worldwide. We encourage you to work with the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Appropriations Committees as you develop this plan to achieve similar levels of strategic efficiency. In February, the GAO testified before the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee that their study’s “preliminary results indicate that issues with the quality of data on school conditions ~such as inconsistent data entry by schools and inadequate quality controls ~ make determining the number of schools in poor condition difficult.” What assurances and safeguards are in place to ensure that incomplete facility data will not contribute to the misidentification of a school’s needs? We encourage you to work with the GAO to implement effective strategies to improve the condition of facilities throughout the BIE system. As you know, the United States Government works to uphold its trust responsibility to provide education for Native students through the BIE. Failure to address dangerous and outdated school conditions in a timely manner weakens the literal foundations of that responsibility. We cannot allow poor Bureau planning and lack of stakeholder communication to leave this problem unresolved for another 10 years, We look forward to learning more about your progress in this area, Please contact Kenneth Martin at the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs at (202) 224-2251 or via e-mail at kenneth_martin@indian.senate.gov with any questions. Sincerely, Uffiited States Senate lited States Senate eb oniasier \LOm ba iw John Barrasso Tom Udall United States Senate United States Senate YW Parhon Bi rey Moran ‘Al Franken Jerry Mot United States Senate United States Senate } ecb: ed keg Heidi Heitkamp United States Senate