State Focuses on Tribe, Assessors in Review of Aquinnah Finances

By IAN FEIN

Adopting a formal payment structure with the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay
Head (Aquinnah) and overhauling the town assessing department are among
the recommendations provided to the town of Aquinnah in a state report
released last week.

The financial management review, authored by the Massachusetts
Department of Revenue's division of local services, aims to
improve the town's personnel and financial practices. A state
official will present the 30-page report and its 22 specific
recommendations to town employees and selectmen on Tuesday.

The Aquinnah selectmen solicited the state review one year ago after
an era of financial upheaval and chaos in town hall, and said this week
that they were pleased with the final report. "This gives us the
guidance that we needed," said selectman Camille Rose. "It
has provided us with some extremely valuable recommendations, some of
which we've already started to implement."

The report, which is written in clear and unambiguous language,
praised the town for steps taken in the last few years to create a more
professional environment in town hall. But its authors - who spent
time in Aquinnah last November studying the functioning of town hall
- quickly add that a lot of work remains.

Other recommendations from the report include:

* Changing the position of town administrator to town
coordinator, and giving him the authority to oversee the operations of
other departments and personnel.

* Scheduling monthly meetings of the different financial
departments and developing a master financial calendar and budget
process for the town.

* Initiating foreclosure proceedings on the 76 properties that
owe the town almost $1 million in outstanding taxes.

Cooperation was a recurring theme throughout the report, which
suggested that Aquinnah would benefit from improved communication and
partnerships with other towns on the Island, among different town
departments and with its counterparts in the tribal government.

The report also acknowledged that Aquinnah - which is one of
the smallest towns in the commonwealth and home to the only federally
recognized tribe in the state - faces some uncommon and difficult
problems.

"The following pages depict a small town in a unique
situation," the authors wrote in the introduction to the report.
"Beyond the recommendations concerning financial management within
town hall and the ongoing evolution of various relationships that
Aquinnah has outside of town hall, the selectmen and other town leaders
must seek to build confidence among all residents that they are working
toward the best interests of the citizens, tribal or not, taxpayer or
not, of the town of Aquinnah."

The report noted that the pending sovereignty case had strained
relations and led to an era of mistrust and contentiousness between the
town and tribe. The state praised the two groups for their recent
efforts to resolve future land use disputes, but said that discussions
about their financial payment structure would prove more important in
the long run. "Although we applaud the new levels of
communication, we suggest that the focus could be shifted," the
report said.

It continued: "As long as [the monetary issues] are ignored,
tension and emotion will likely continue to confuse the collaborative
process in Aquinnah. As the focus continues to remain on the problems
that have made headlines in the last five years and not on finding the
solution to the fair allocation of payment for Island and town expenses
by those who benefit, the discussion will remain murky."

The two governments have already signed two formal agreements
- 1983 Land-Use Settlement Agreement and 1995 Public Safety
Agreement - that both refer to tribal payments and stipends to the
town, but neither specified methods for calculating those sums, the
report said. The state suggested that the town and tribe need to
determine a transparent payment structure that is amenable to both
governments and understandable to all citizens of the town.

The report acknowledged that tribal payments are a politically
charged issue, and specifically recommended that the two governments
appoint a joint oversight committee of town and tribal representatives
to iron out details on payments. Independent of the report, officials
from both governments earlier this month agreed to form a similar joint
committee.

"I think the tribe makes a much larger contribution to the
community than people are aware of - just by doing what we
do," tribal council chairman Donald Widdiss said this week in
response to the recommendation. "But that does not preclude us
from sitting down and formalizing something that would be thought of as
fair and equitable."

The report suggested that the joint committee should explore outside
revenue sources to offset the cost of educating children who live on
tribal lands. Thirty of the 50 Aquinnah students who attend Vineyard
public schools live on tax-exempt land, and town taxpayers spent more
than one-fifth of their annual town budget last year on educating those
children, the report said.

Along with the education issue, the report also noted that the town
assessing department has no data on tribal lands, making it difficult to
develop a meaningful formula for payments in lieu of taxes.

"These two issues raise questions concerning equitable
taxation, responsible government leadership, and the ability or desire
for the parties involved to abide by the terms of agreements originally
made in good faith," the authors wrote.

The town assessing department received some of the most critical
feedback from the state, which recommended that the town convert its
board of assessors from elected to appointed positions. It expressed
concern about the accuracy of property records in Aquinnah, where
assessors use outdated maps and have not performed a full review of town
properties since the mid-1990s.

The report praised Aquinnah selectmen for changing the town
treasurer position from elected to appointed after Beverly A. Widdiss
abruptly resigned the post in November 2004, and suggested they do the
same with the assessors.

"Aquinnah has recently discovered the financial maelstrom that
can be caused by an elected officer's failure to demonstrate the
professional skills necessary to do the job," the report said.
"We suggest that the town learn from the mistakes made in the
treasurer's office before it becomes a problem in the
assessors' office."

The state recommended that the town explore creating an Islandwide
assessing department with other Vineyard towns as a way to pool their
financial resources and improve the quality of their work.

"The Department of Revenue has been watching the ongoing West
Tisbury case in front of the Appellate Tax Board as well as the
abatement process on the island of Chappaquiddick in Edgartown,"
the report said. "These two situations are examples of the
high-stakes environment that surrounds valuing properties of
unprecedented market value. All six towns would do well to make sure
that their assessing operation is the most professional and experienced
one available under law."

The report suggested that assessing was the first of a number of
municipal functions that the towns could share. The state added together
the fiscal year 2005 governmental budgets of the Island and found that
Vineyard taxpayers spent roughly $5,400 per resident - almost
double the statewide average of $2,800 per person.