Civic Academy
Audit & Performance Review 101
≈ 6 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines
A · Primary source Title 12 provisions were read in the Navajo Nation Code Annotated. How we verify →
What should be measured, reviewed, and reported?
Purpose
Move from suspicion to measurable questions.
Audit topics
Workforce vacancies and turnover.
Accommodation requests and outcomes.
Office of Navajo Labor Relations (ONLR) grievance timelines.
Court backlog and appeal timelines.
Business site lease processing.
Board training completion.
Public records response time.
Audit findings and corrective actions.
Signature question
If you could audit one system tomorrow, what would it be and why?
What performance measure should every citizen be able to see online?
In the news · added July 2026
A live example of everything this lesson covers: the Navajo Nation Council continues to press for answers on what it calls a missing $24 million tied to Executive Branch housing contracts with Indigenous Design Studio + Architecture (IDSA) and its subcontractor ZenniHome, and a special prosecutor has filed an ethics complaint. President Nygren’s office states no money went missing — that a $24M grant was never disbursed and a separate housing contract is under legal action to recover funds. What the Controller has confirmed to the Navajo Times: a $23.5 million wire went out in January 2025, and he is unaware of homes delivered. The dispute is unresolved; both principals are 2026 presidential candidates. This site takes no side — follow the sources and the audits.
Goes with: Fraud, Waste, Abuse & Oversight 101 · Tribal Budget, Appropriations & the Síhasin / Permanent Fund 101
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The law already contains a management system
A · Primary source Quoted from the Navajo Nation Code Annotated, Title 12. The published Code is current through 2009 — check the OLS amendment index for later changes. How we verify →
People ask whether the Navajo Nation should have performance measures, program evaluation, and consequences for ignoring an audit. It already does. All of it. In writing. Since the 1990s.
Metrics — 12 N.N.C. § 830
The budget format “shall also include quantitative performance measures (i.e., demand, workload, efficiency and effectiveness).”
The Office of Management and Budget “shall include the projected performance measures for each branch, division, department and program in the compilation of the annual budget.”
§ 820(B). Every appropriation request “shall be subject to budget impact analysis… needs and costs evaluations, based on objective criteria.”
Program evaluation — and the option to stop
“The purpose of a program evaluation is to determine and recommend… whether a program warrants continuation at its current level of activity, or modified to a new level, or should be discontinued.”
It applies to “all Navajo Nation branches, divisions, departments, and programs.”
What happens after an audit — §§ 6–8
- 10 working days for the audited program to respond in writing. An extension of up to 5 days may be requested.
- Failure to respond is deemed acceptance of the audit findings.
- 30 calendar days to submit a corrective action plan addressing every finding.
- The Auditor General reviews the plan for effectiveness and may identify deficiencies.
- Both go to the Budget and Finance Committee, which approves them by resolution. The relevant oversight committee is served with copies.
- Six months later, the program must file a written status report on every recommendation.
- The Auditor General reports the follow-up results. The Budget and Finance Committee determines what actions should be taken.
- § 8. Once approved, the program “shall have a duty to implement the corrective action plan.”
§ 9 — Sanctions for failure to implement
This section exists. Almost nobody has read it.
§ 9(B). If a program, division, chapter, enterprise, or entity fails to implement its corrective action plan, the Controller “shall cause ten percent (10%) of monies payable from any governmental fund of the Navajo Nation… to be withheld.”
§ 9(C). And the director of that program “shall have twenty percent (20%) of their salary withheld by the Controller… until such time as… the corrective action plan has been implemented.”
Where the audited program is a chapter: “twenty percent (20%) of any payment prospectively due the chapter officials shall be withheld.”
§ 9(D). The person may seek review at the Office of Hearings and Appeals, limited to whether the plan bore a rational relationship to the audit, was approved, and had reasonable timetables.
The Navajo Nation Code docks the pay of officials who ignore an audit.
So: is the law a guide, or a user’s manual?
A user’s manual. It names the metrics. It sets the deadlines. It assigns the duty. It provides the penalty. It even provides the appeal.
What is missing is not law. It is use.
An audit requires an Auditor General with staff. 12 N.N.C. § 3(B) makes hiring “subject to… budgetary constraints” — set by the Council — and provides that the Auditor General “may be removed at any time by majority vote of the Navajo Nation Council.”
The manual exists. The hand that would use it can be dismissed by the body it inspects.
Quick check — the law behind the audit
Check your understanding — private, no grades
If an audited program never responds to an audit report, the law treats that as…
Acceptance (§ 7(A)). Silence is not a defense.
Under 12 N.N.C. § 9(C), a director who fails to implement a corrective action plan may have…
Twenty percent, withheld by the Controller. For chapters, 20% of chapter officials’ payments. There is a right of review at the Office of Hearings and Appeals.
The annual budget must include…
Performance measures, projected for every branch, division, department and program.
A program evaluation may recommend that a program be…
Discontinued is expressly on the table. The law contemplates stopping things that do not work.
Who may remove the Auditor General? Play the matching game →
The office itself: The Auditor General →