DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the December 12, 2024, installment of From the Director’s Desk. We’re glad you’re able join us today. All audio lines are muted, as this is a listen-only briefing. For reference, this recording will be posted tomorrow to the OVC website. At this time, it’s my pleasure to introduce Kristina Rose, OVC Director, for today’s briefing.
KRISTINA ROSE: Thank you so much, Daryl.
Hi, everyone. Today, I’m joining you from the Indian Nations Conference in Palm Springs, California, on the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Reservation. And we are here with over 1,700 Tribal leaders, advocates, survivors, and other representatives from Tribal communities. This is an absolutely beautiful location, and the conference itself has exceeded all my expectations. I had only been to one of these before, and we do them every other year. And I was blown away by the first one, so I am really excited to be here and just experience this with all of my colleagues and the participants.
We are broadcasting today from a room here in a hotel, so you may hear some doors opening and shutting and people walking through, but that’s okay. It’s a 4-day conference, and each day there is an opening keynote speaker, and the three we’ve heard so far have been outstanding. The first was DJ Vanas. He is the author of “The Warrior Within,” and he blew us all away with his dynamic, funny, and inspirational presentation about what it really means to be a warrior. And he reminded the audience to take care of themselves while they’re doing this difficult work, even as they are being warriors. The next day, we heard from attorney David Adams, whose passion and intensity came through as he spoke about the injustices of missing and murdered Indigenous women and focused on a case of a Jemez Tribal member whose violent death was not properly investigated by law enforcement and was ruled an accident. And it just broke all of our hearts to hear about all of the things that went wrong in that particular investigation. And today, Kola Shippentower presented on the importance of Tribes staying rooted in what makes them who they are. And she is a professional tackle football player. And she believes that how Indigenous people move in this world, how they show up and how they carry themselves, always has a ripple effect. So, I just have to recommend all three of those speakers. If you’re ever looking for a Tribal member to be able to present at a conference, I highly recommend all three of them.
We were also honored to have the Osage Singers perform at our opening ceremonies, and if you’re not familiar with them, Google them right now, or at least wait until after I’m finished and then Google them. But they were nominated for an Academy Award for their music in the movie “Flowers of the Killer Moon,” and it was just so intense and beautiful to listen to them play.
Spiritual Leader Randy Cornelius led us through a guided imagery meditation during the opening ceremonies and that really helped all of us in the audience to prepare for the days ahead. The Seven Dancers Coalition provided the solemn shawl ceremony and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Bird Singers provided their beautiful music and songs for us.
We have more than 35 OVC staff at this conference. It is the most staff that we send to any one conference. And that does not even include our technical assistance providers and the staff that we have that are representing our Resource Centers. So, what we’ve done is, we did this last year, and it was such a success that we’re doing it again this year. We’ve set up a Resource Hub so conference participants can meet with experts on grant management, performance management, the JustGrants System, any programmatic and financial technical assistance. And they can get it right then and there, and basically, if they have a list of issues that they have been hoping to get to, they can actually leave the Resource Center having gone through all of those. I just walked by, and it was buzzing. So tomorrow is our last day, and I will be very sad to see it end. It’s such a unique opportunity to be immersed in Tribal culture and to feel the kinship and the joy that is being shared among all of the participants. Even though it’s very tough subject matter, knowing that we’re all together and that none of us are working alone is a very comforting feeling. I want to thank the outstanding staff from OVC and from Saxman One, and from all of the Tribal members who provided their input into this conference and made it what it is.
So now, I’m going to move into the CVF update. And this will probably be a little bit frustrating to many of you, but because of the closing of the fiscal year, the October and November updates to the deposits and the CVF balance charts are going to post later in December. So, we don’t have the final figures yet, but we are happy to report a large deferred prosecution agreement settlement against Telefónica totaling 82 million, and that was deposited into the fund on November 22nd. So, that is in addition to the two large fines that I talked about last month from TD Bank and Raytheon. So, we’re really having to estimate the balance of the fund from September to October and November. So, when you add in the October receipts with the anticipated large fines that I’d already mentioned, the balance shows at just over $4.1 billion. And of course there’s a however. However the BAT, or the British American Tobacco and Binance fines, that are about $1.9 billion, are still being held due to current litigation so that leaves us with an estimated $2.2 billion available for use in FY 25 and beyond, which is good. I feel good about being set for FY 25.
Before I close, I want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to a young woman named Abrianna Morales. She manages the OVC-funded Youth Advocacy Corps that you’ve heard me talk about. And that is run by the National Organization for Victim Advocacy. And she is now a brand-new Rhodes Scholar, and she will be heading to Oxford next September. We are so proud of Abrianna, and we wish her all the best.
So, next month will be my last From the Director’s Desk and I’m looking forward to sharing some parting thoughts with all of you on January 9th. I hope you’ll join me live for that one. And we’ll be sending out lots of reminders to make sure you get that on your calendar. So I wish you all safe and restful holidays and many thanks for all that you do to help victims find their justice.
