The Desert Sun's investigation
Misuse of millions in taxpayer funds. “Inaccurate,” “misstated” or incomplete financial records. More than $50,000 in undocumented credit card expenditures by administrators. Forty-five cars purchased for 90 employees, with little or no tracking of where the cars were or how they were being used. Full federal and state funding despite serving only one-fourth the families expected when funding was set.

Those were some of the findings when The Desert Sun looked into eight years' worth of audits and other government documents related to the Torres-Martinez Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

Read the full report and view related documents at mydesert.com/tribalmoney

A federal agency is allowing a local tribe to use taxpayer-provided funds to pay a penalty for misusing such funds, a move some decry as a “slap on the wrist” that won't deter potential future misuse of public dollars.

Officials with the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians applauded the decision by the federal Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that oversees tribal welfare programs.

“With one less challenge on our list, we can take positive strides towards perfecting the services in all areas relating to the education, employment, health and safety of the members of the reservation,” Torres-Martinez tribal chairwoman Mary Resvaloso said in an e-mailed response to requests for comment.

The Administration for Children and Families in 2007 imposed a $1.54 million penalty on the Torres-Martinez tribe's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, after the program was found to have “misused” federal funds in fiscal years 2002 and 2003.

Administration spokesman Kenneth Wolfe told The Desert Sun in February that one of the settlement conditions was that the tribe pay the penalty without using federal or state grant funds.

But Rep. Mary Bono Mack provided The Desert Sun with an April 8 letter to her from Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Carmen R. Nazario that came in response to the Palm Springs Republican's inquiries to the federal agency after a January Desert Sun investigation that highlighted the Torres-Martinez tribal welfare program's history of questionable management and accountability with taxpayer funds.

In the letter to Bono Mack, Nazario stated that the administration had agreed to the tribe's proposal to pay the remaining unpaid portion of the penalty — almost $1.2 million — through reductions in the tribal welfare program's $20 million annual Tribal Family Assistance Grant, along with an additional 2-percent penalty applied to the grant.
 

The penalties will be taken from Torres-Martinez tribal welfare grant payments in the remaining two quarters of this fiscal year, Nazario stated.

 Wolfe did not return multiple messages requesting comment.

David Williams, vice president of policy for the Washington, D.C.-based Citizens Against Government Waste, criticized the administration's decision to allow the tribe to pay its penalty with public funds.