Salaries For Brenda Bremner's Top Managers Increased 30% From 2006 To 2008

In his campaign letter this year, Tribal Council member Reggie Butler wrote:

The Human Resource Department for Tribal Administration did a salary adjustment study and recommended salary increases that resulted in an increase of up to $20,000.00 for certain employees. The Human Resource Director received a $15,000 raise. There was no criteria to justify raises of this magnitude.

In response to a request I made under the Freedom of Information Act in 2008, I received documentation from a grant application submitted by our tribe. You can download a PDF copy of the entire document (3.16 MB) here. Many tribal salaries from 2006 and 2008 are disclosed in the application. Here are the salary increases for General Manager Brenda Bremner and her top staff:

Position	2006 Salary	2008 Salary	% Increase	2008 Employee
General Manager	$103,255	$114,400	11%	Brenda Bremner
Certified Public Accountant	See Note (1)	$99,341	See Note (1)	Gregg Gubuan
Assistant General Manager	$56,062	$96,948	73%	Tina Retasket
Attorney	$81,612	$88,546	8.5%	Cathern Tufts
Administrative Manager	$72,947	$82,430	13%	Sharon Edenfield
Tribal Accountant	See Note (1)	$81,162	See Note (1)	Randy Wilson
Human Resources Manager	$46,745	$69,712	49%	Michele Rowan
Program Managers See Note (2)	$105,616	$134,707	27%	Bev Youngman Rebecca Williams

Notes:

(1) The documentation lists two Tribal Accountants in 2006 with a combined salary of $76,141. In 2008 only one tribal Accountant is listed, with a salary of $81,162. A Certified Public Accountant with a salary of $99,341 is listed in 2008 but not in 2006. It appears that the combined salaries of the top two accountants working for Bremner have increased from $76,141 to $180,503 - a whopping 137% increase in just two years.

(2) The salaries given are the combined salaries of the two Program Managers. The average salary of of a Program Manager went from $52,808 to $67,353 from 2006 to 2008.

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Setting aside Tribal Attorney Cat Tufts and the two accountants listed, the combined salaries of the top managers listed here went from $384,625 in 2006 to $498,197 in 2008. That's a thirty percent increase in salary in two years for Brenda Bremner's top managers.

Have any of these managers ever earned a comparable salary outside the tribe? I seriously doubt it. And this goes on while our businesses are losing money hand over fist and our casino revenues are stagnating. Casino workers, the people who actually make money for the tribe, are not even getting cost of living adjustments. But somehow it's a Golden Age for managers.

Keep in mind that the salaries listed above were reported in April 2008. The Tribal Council has recently approved another round of big raises for 2009 on top of all this. Will Brenda Bremner's managers get another 15% in 2009? Stay tuned.

Reggie Butler also wrote:

The Siletz Tribal Business Corporation (STBC) is still floundering. The Tribal Council hired an Economic Development Director, nearly one year ago, who reorganized by increasing staff salaries. The Director is also hiring new staff right in the middle of a recession. Decisions of this type have ensured that the Tribe and the Tribal Businesses stay in the red even though STBC is receiving approximately three million dollars per year of Chinook Winds revenues.

So it seems safe to assume that STBC, under Dave Tovey, provides the same kind of gravy train for managers that we see in Brenda Bremner's administration.