Federal audit finds financial mismanagement at Oregon boarding school for Native Americans

The Interior Department's inspector general blamed both school administrators and federal supervisors for poor accounting and oversight

Oregon's only federally-run boarding school for Native American students failed to properly spend or account for millions of taxpayer dollars as well as hundreds of thousands contributed to student accounts by Indigenous families, according to an audit by the U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Inspector General.

The audit of Chemawa Indian School was requested by U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley after the two Oregon Democrats had pushed repeatedly for greater transparency from the school and the Bureau of Indian Education, which supervises the school. The senators' request followed OPB's five-part investigation into Chemawa, which raised questions about financial management and oversight at the school, as well as about the school's approach to student health and safety, academics and its treatment of teachers and staff.

The audit, published Tuesday, calls out the school's problems with a straightforward title: "The Chemawa Indian School Did Not Account for Its Financial Resources, and the Bureau of Indian Education Did Not Provide Financial Oversight." The title notes the two-fold problem - that the school itself wasn't following federal rules for spending and accounting, and the federal bureau wasn't looking at the school's balance sheets or holding administrators accountable.

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