Advancing tribal finance and accounting in Oklahoma

Tribal nations across Oklahoma elect new officials on a regular basis and tend to have a higher turnover rate for finance and accounting positions. 2023 OSCPA Trailblazer Rachel Domnick, CPA, discusses a program that's helping to serve as a solution.

By Rachel Domnick, CPA

In 2017, the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Spears School of Business (SSB) Center for the Future of Work (CFW) began work on an initiative to provide tribal finance and accounting noncredit instruction to support OSU's land-grant mission of outreach, engagement and research to 38 Native American tribes.

Oklahoma's tribes include 367,000 Native Americans, representing approximately 9% of the state's population.

While the program intended to support Oklahoma-based tribes, in 2019, the first public offering of the OSU Introductory Tribal Finance and Accounting Certificate Program, held in Stillwater, attracted participants from Tribes across the nation.

CFW—in collaboration with the Oklahoma Tribal Finance Consortium (OKTFC) and the Native American Finance Officers Association (NAFOA)—has worked to provide accounting and finance noncredit education to tribal nations.

In doing so, CFW has focused on meeting the needs of the tribal employees through three certificate program offerings: Introductory, intermediate and advanced.

The Pilot Introductory Certificate Program was held in November 2018, with the first public offering in May 2019. In response to the pandemic, CFW worked with the Introductory Program instructors to convert the sessions to an online and blended learning format.

The program continues to make a significant contribution to tribal finance and accounting professionals. Many tribes have elections every two or three years for new officers and staff. This type of governmental system impacts the turnover in many of the tribes' finance and accounting positions.

There is a constant flow of new people entering the positions who have little finance and accounting background or may have quantitative experience but may not know the tribal politics, law and different accounting/finance implications.

By placing experts who work with tribal finance and accounting in front of the participants, they can learn and receive practical, relevant information pertinent to their tribes and develop a strong network of peers.

Since it began in 2017, I have been instrumental in creating the CFW Tribal Finance and Accounting Programs. I have served as a member of the OSU Tribal Finance and Accounting Advisory Board and the Introductory Program faculty facilitator and program instructor from 2018 to 2023. In my instructor role for the Tribal Finance and Accounting Introductory Program in May 2019, I taught more than 300 participants in both the in-person and virtual course offerings.

The award-winning Introductory Finance and Accounting Certificate Program has demonstrated innovation by serving an underrepresented population with education in an industry-specific niche. The program provides professionals and tribal leaders with increased industry-specific knowledge and technical training regarding tribal finance and accounting matters.

The Introductory Tribal Accounting and Finance Certificate Program has won three awards:

•  Regional: 2019 University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) Central Region Outstanding Noncredit Program Award.
• National: 2020 University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) National Outstanding Noncredit Program Award
• International: 2019 Conference on Management and Executive Development (CMED) Peer Choice Best Custom Program Award

The program includes 28 noncredit hours in a face-to-face setting and 45.6 hours of CPE credit in the online and hybrid format (CPE credit pending approval by NASBA). Participants can earn a digital badge by completing the Introductory Program, which they can add to their social media (e.g., LinkedIn) profiles.

To help ensure I could successfully contribute to this innovative program and to prepare as an instructor and facilitator, I have attended 10 practice-related conferences and educational webinars, completing more than 80 hours of CPE related to Tribal Finance and Accounting over the past three years.

The OSU Tribal Finance and Accounting Advisory Board, which comprises tribal and industry experts from across the United States, oversees the program. The Board has worked closely with CFW, OKTFC and NAFOA to input the program's curriculum, instructors, formation and more.

The program was offered face-to-face in Stillwater in the Fall of 2018 and the Spring of 2019. Due to COVID, CFW postponed the Spring 2020 offering to Spring 2021 and worked with the program instructors to bring the program online in January 2021.

Program materials include more than 835 pages of instructor-provided content and a copy of the NAFOA Orange Book, a resource created by NAFOA to assist tribes in tribal accounting and financial reporting.

The objectives of the program are to:

1. Provide a quality educational offering to the Native American group to improve their tribal finance and accounting knowledge.
2. Provide a blended hybrid learning environment for continued learning during the pandemic.
3. Receive at least an 80% of combined Excellent and Very Good ratings on the overall program evaluation.

Participants receive noncredit instruction tailored to the unique aspects of tribal accounting and finance over 17 topics delivered by 11 instructors. Some topics include Accounting and Finance for Tribal and Governmental Entities, Preparing for an Audit, the Importance of Tribal Financial Statements, Federal Uniform Administrative Requirements, Best Administrative Grant Practices and Compliance from Tribes, Fraud Protection and Preparing Budgets. Industry experts deliver the content, many of whom are CPAs and sit on the OSU Tribal Finance and Accounting Advisory Board, myself included.

In the online offering, participants work through 17 topics via eight weekly modules in the online and blended program offering. Each topic is mapped to the program's learning objectives and includes pre-recorded sessions, quizzes, short assessments and discussion posts. During the course duration, the instructors from the weeks' modules hold a weekly one-hour Zoom session to connect with the program's participants, take a deeper dive into the course content, answer participants' questions and facilitate discussions around the week's topics.

Both the November 2018 and May 2019 program offerings exceeded the goal of earning at least 80% combined excellent and very good ratings on the overall program evaluation by receiving a combined score of 100% excellent and very good ratings on the overall program. Course administration received a 96% excellent and very good rating for the program, and the relevance of information conveyed received a 90% excellent and very good rating.

As the program's faculty facilitator for 2021, 2022 and 2023 online and blended program offerings, I moderated eight weekly Zoom sessions to help participants more fully understand the program content. I also worked with the Institute for Teaching and Learning Excellence at OSU to record the session I presented as a course instructor, Preparing Budgets, and collaborated with the CFW office to format my course topic in a way that sought to maximize participant learning, including interactive discussion questions and quizzes.

Rachel Domnick, CPA, has been a professor at Oklahoma State University (OSU) for the past six years and is one of the OSCPA's 2023 Trailblazers. Not only is she a dedicated educator who is passionate about her work, she is also a change-maker helping to spearhead the University's tribal accounting programs to prepare future CPAs to meet the needs of our state's unique culture.