Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/188

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Personnel Administration

161

vancement the Service is likely to lose its best. Material increases in the range of salary are therefore recommended with reasonable certainty of advancement for competent employees.^[1]

The annual turnover in the Indian Service amounts to approximately 1200 a year, or between 20 and 25 per cent. Resignations frequently result in temporary appointments to fill vacancies and not infrequently the person available for temporary service does not possess the requisite qualifications for the position. Yet this person may serve in it for a very considerable period because of the difficulty of securing one with the qualifications. This situation is serious in positions requiring technical or professional qualifications, and in these positions the turnover is especially high.^[2]

Conditions of Employment. The question of conditions of employment at schools and reservations is almost as important as that of salary and in some instances may be even more so. One of the abler, more highly trained, Indian farmers complained, not because he had to support his wife and children on $1200 a year, but because his house had no running water and no bath. It was hard to keep the children clean enough for school when the thermometer was below zero and all the water had to be brought in from the pump back of the house and heated on the kitchen stove. He took a very pardonable pride in the fact that his children looked as spick and span as any of those in the public school visited, and he confided

↑ The government might well give serious consideration to the possibility of making special cash allowances to employees on remote reservations who have children fitted for high school and are not within practicable reach of any local high school. Parents who find themselves in this position are likely first to seek transfer to another jurisdiction where schools are available, and the Service under existing conditions must look with favor on such requests, although the employee may be doing excellent work where he is and be much needed there. To move him may be to set the Indians back. If the Office insists on his remaining he is likely to look for other employment in a place where he can send his children to public school without expense for tuition and board and lodging. One superintendent visited was confronting this problem. An offer of a commercial position in an urban community at a somewhat smaller salary to start with seemed from the standpoint of family life and family budget to be far more attractive. The general level of salaries cannot, of course, be fixed high enough so that all officers and employees could if they chose send their children away to secondary schools instead of patronizing local high schools, but where free local high schools are not within reach some special allowance might well be made.
↑ For the situation with respect to nurses, see pages 242 to 251.

[1] The government might well give serious consideration to the possibility of making special cash allowances to employees on remote reservations who have children fitted for high school and are not within practicable reach of any local high school. Parents who find themselves in this position are likely first to seek transfer to another jurisdiction where schools are available, and the Service under existing conditions must look with favor on such requests, although the employee may be doing excellent work where he is and be much needed there. To move him may be to set the Indians back. If the Office insists on his remaining he is likely to look for other employment in a place where he can send his children to public school without expense for tuition and board and lodging. One superintendent visited was confronting this problem. An offer of a commercial position in an urban community at a somewhat smaller salary to start with seemed from the standpoint of family life and family budget to be far more attractive. The general level of salaries cannot, of course, be fixed high enough so that all officers and employees could if they chose send their children away to secondary schools instead of patronizing local high schools, but where free local high schools are not within reach some special allowance might well be made.

[2] For the situation with respect to nurses, see pages 242 to 251.

[1]

[2]