[Ginger Carter] Hi everybody, this is Ginger Carter.
We are going to get started with this meeting, so welcome.
This is the webinar that we're going to cover the basics of the Tribal Preservation Program
and HPF Grants to Tribes.
Oops.
Yeah, so let me take you to the screen there.
Sorry, we're learning how to use this program, so hopefully this will go...we won't have
too many glitches in it.
But before we get started, I want to go over a little bit about this program since it's
new to you, new to us.
This is "Go to Webinar" and if you look on your screen, you should see a place where
you will be able to either raise your hand to ask a question or where you can type in
a question and send it to us.
You can type in the question any time and Madeline Konz is sitting here at her computer
and hopefully she'll be able to answer your questions as they come up.
But we will stop periodically and give you a chance to raise your hand and ask a question.
For those of you who are just calling in, but didn't actually log in to the webinar,
unfortunately, you won't be able to talk because we can't unmute your phone.
But you can certainly give us a call afterwards.
You all have our contact information and we'll go over that again at the end of the program
so that you can get back to us with any questions you have that weren't answered during the
presentation.
So, we are recording this session and if all goes well, we will be able to send it out
to you or post it, depending on the size.
We have a couple of presenters today.
Jamie Lee Marks, who is the acting manager of the Tribal Historic Preservation Program,
will be speaking first and going through the basics of her program.
And I'll be covering most of what's in the HPF Grants Program.
Madeline may help out with that.
And Vidette is also going to be online and may chime in.
May not.
Again, we're learning how to use this program, so we're not exactly sure how to do everything
yet.
But we're going to the best we can.
So, with that, I'm going to turn this over to Jamie Lee so that she can go through her
part of the presentation.
[Jamie Lee Marks] Hi everybody.
[Ginger Carter] Chrome.
Mel, I just switched this line.
[Jamie Lee Marks] So, just wanted to give some background about the THPO Program.
The THPO Program, its authorizing legislation, frequently referred to as the National Historic
Preservation Act, was passed in 1966, but of course the amendments allowing for Tribes
to take on Historic Preservation Officer duties passed later in 1992.
Now the law codified under Title 54, a bunch of sections under Section 30010, but as you'll
note, our program tries to refer to both the current and the former statutory locations
just for clarity.
[Unidentified Speaker] We'll do what we've got to do.
[Jamie Lee Marks] In 1996, when the first batch of THPOs were certified for the program,
there were only 12.
And now we just actually just reached 176, so as you can see, the program has grown quite
a bit over the years.
The mechanism for entering into a THPO certification agreement with the National Park Service is
a Memorandum of Agreement.
That Memorandum of Agreement contains initial THPO designation but it is every Historic
Preservation Office's responsibility to update and notify the National Park Service when
there's been a change to who the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer is in a program.
Additionally, the program does require us to recognize one person as the Tribal Historic
Preservation Officer.
So, if there is a Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer or Tribal Historic Preservation Office
Assistant, that's helpful information for us to have as well.
But it still remains the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer's responsibility to make sure other
staff in the office receive important updates related to NPS programs that pertain to their
work.
[Jamie Lee Marks speaking aside] I'm trying to change this thing.
[Slide transition]
[Jamie Lee Marks] So, there are two reporting requirements that come along with the Tribal
Historic Preservation Program itself that are completely separate from the question
of whether or not if any Tribal Historic Preservation Office is receiving funding of any kind from
the National Park Service or from any other federal entity.
And that includes the Grants Product Summary Report and the Annual Accomplishments Report.
[Audio cuts out for a few second s]
[Jamie Lee Marks]...the form itself is called the Grants Product Summary Report.
In order to create efficiencies for Tribal Historic Preservation Officers in reporting,
the grant team and the program team both collect that particular form, and we have asked that
those who do receive grants report only activities that are funded by those grants in order...so
that THPOs might only turn in one Product Summary form versus having to turn in one
to the grant side and one to the program side.
So the reason it's called a grants report even though you need to turn it in if you
don't have a grant is so that THPOs that do have grants only have to turn in one rather
than two reports.
So in your THPO Memorandum of Agreement, which is the document that was signed by a leader,
Tribal Council...at the time the agreement was drafted as well as the Director of the
National Park Service at the time the agreement was entered into.
Which, if you don't have a copy of your MOA on-hand, please let me know so I can send
one to you.
We have copies of MOAs here in my office.
[Jamie Lee Marks speaking aside] Um, OK.
[slide transition]
[Jamie Lee Marks] You will find that in Article 7 or 8 of your THPO Partnership Agreement,
so some it's 7, some it's 8, because the agreements have changed over time, there's always an
agreement entered into by the Tribe to report on the items asked for in the Annual Accomplishments
Report and the Grants Product Summary Report.
So, that's kind of where the authorization to collect that information comes from and
also the requirement that THPOs report on it, whether or not they have a grant, comes
from.
So, part of my job is to collect those and report on them every year.
The Grants Product Summary Report for those of you who have been with the program for
a while, I'm sure this is the familiar sight to you.
This is the form that asks you to report on important activities related to Section 106
compliance reviews, National Register nominations, the acreage or properties you...that have
been surveyed, educational and outreach activities, and other consultations that fall outside
of the scope of Section 106.
This year, we have made the Grants Product Summary form digital and so we are requesting
that those who feel up to it use the digital form.
There are two reasons for this.
The first is that we think it will save you time.
Instead of printing out the form, writing on it, or downloading it in Word and then
typing in numbers, re-saving it and then uploading it, you can simply just enter the numbers
directly into a system.
The second reason for this is that every year we have interested stakeholders asking us
for information about just how much work THPOs are asked to do with the relatively limited
funds that they are provided.
We want to be able to show how much work that you all are doing and how crucial it is to
historic preservation nationally.
And so it's important for us to be able to share those numbers.
In order to aggregate them more precisely, so that would be instead of us printing out
each one of them individually, counting on someone to transcribe them by hand, this would
be you entering the numbers yourself and then our system adding them up digitally without
our intervention.
We think that we're going to be able to get more precise data about the work that you
do.
So, that's the first requirement that is a requirement of all Historic Preservation Offices
for reporting, regardless of whether or not money is received from the Park Service.
The second [requirement] is the Annual Accomplishments Report.
Again, the items that are required in the Annual Accomplishments Report come from your
agreement in Article 7 or 8.
The barebones minimum for this report in the agreement states that you will describe additional
properties surveyed and added to the inventory.
That can be general.
No part of this Annual Accomplishments Report asks that Tribes share sensitive information
that they don't deem appropriate to be shared with the Park Service.
The second requirement of this report is any...the...general...a general description of federal undertakings
reviewed pursuant to Section 106.
So, a general description of your Section 106 activities and maybe one featured outcome
or challenge, success, something like that.
And then a description of educational activities and programs carried out.
So, this...this is again, because it's part of our requirement to collect it for you,
we have to, because of our agreement we've entered into with all of you, but also because...we
are also...we are frequently asked by stakeholders about some success stories or challenges that
THPOs are facing and this is a really good way for us to keep on top of what those are.
If there's any information in an annual report that you do not want us to share externally
with anyone should they ask for an interesting project, please indicate it on your report.
There's also a spot on the report asking for high quality pictures, just in case you would
like anything to be included on social media, or outreach publications, that's also a really
good way to share it with us.
One last tiny comment on the reports.
So, some THPOs...we've actually had many THPOs certified over the last year and I've been
asked, "Hey, I'm new, do I owe you these reports?"
And kind of the rule right now is if you were certified before June 30, 2016, you need to
report on fiscal year 2017 accomplishments.
If you're not sure about that, please feel free to get in touch with me and I'd be happy
to answer that question for you.