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TAHLEQUAH, OK — Members of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's (CNO) tribal council voiced their approval for proposed improvements that will help the CNO provide one the most efficient service delivery systems in the nation. Seven Council members attended a recent briefing by Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma employees on the proposed ideas.

"We've found some recurring themes in our research,” said Ben Stevens, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's Executive Director of Human Resources. "Our employees spend too much time on paper work and not enough time serving people."

A team of employees from the CNO's Health Division found a way in which they may be able to recover more than $2 million a year through improved work processes. A team from the Education Division is working on simplifying the scholarship application process for different programs; one application currently goes through 18 different steps before a scholarship is funded. A group of employees from Human Services is working on recommendations to make their division more client driven; they want to try to find the core problem rather than treating symptoms over and over. A group from the Housing Authority and Community Development are working together to find ways to improve programs so they can build more houses faster.

"I think it's a worthwhile effort because of all the things the employees touched on", said CNO Council member John Ketcher. “It takes time to get things done and improve things, but I’m all for it. Maybe I'll get less complaining phone calls."

"We'd be right with the teams if our schedules weren’t so full", said council member Dorothy McIntosh. "I've seen this sort of procedure work in private industry, and things like this cause the good economy we see now. I'm very optimistic. It's a good process."

"This looks good", said council member Jackie Bob Martin. "I'm hoping it'll work. I'd like to get together a year from now and hear a report on how things are going."

Other CNO Council members in attendance were Barbara Starr-Scott, Don Garvin and Johnny Keener. Starr-Scott was interested in the process for implementing the team’s recommendations.

"The teams will make their recommendations by the end of August,” said Stevens, who is coordinating the project. “The Executive Directors for each division will prioritize and implement the recommendations as the new fiscal year begins, and along a time table that makes sense for their department. This process allows the Cherokee Nation to figure out where we want to put our focus, and the redirect our resources towards that goal."

The teams making the recommendations have been working on this project, known as SGA-DU-GI, for about eight weeks. Employees involved with SGA-DU-GI, a Cherokee word for working together, are developing an overall blueprint and road map for the Cherokee Nation.

"We've been laying bricks for a long time,” said council member Harold "Jiggs" Phillips. "But we didn’t look to see where we were laying them. This project is helping us do that."