For professionals conferences can be a great way to become more productive.  From networking with other professionals in your field, finding new tools to use and learning new things from experts a good conference can make you a better worker.

The problem, however, is that not all conferences are good ones, not everyone needs them to be more productive and sometimes these conferences are held in exotic locations simply to attract attendees more for the trip to the location than the conference itself.

Which is why Las Vegas is such a popular conference location.

Now we certainly don’t begrudge Indian tribes sending some of their people to conferences.  Given the suffering and strife which exists on the Indian reservations it’s no doubt that we need plenty of well-trained people to get things done there.  But was it really necessary for one Indian tribe to send over 400 people to a conference in Hawaii?  At a cost of $1,000,000.00 to the taxpayers?

  The Daily Times reported in November and several times since that as many as 400 people with ties to the Navajo Nation traveled to Hawaii at a cost believed to be more than $1 million, despite participation at previous conferences in Denver and Phoenix being much less. The money used to pay for the trip included federal dollars, Navajo Nation tribal money and government-provided money in public school districts. The travel list included dozens of Navajo government officials, including many without direct ties to education. It also included many more who were school board officials, including multiple representatives who flocked to the islands to represent a single district. Meanwhile, other school districts that did not send any representatives said the money was more important for use on school and student needs.

 Surely this raised red flags with the appropriate federal agencies who promptly investigated the matter, right?  Wrong.  The Department of the Interior, which was responsible for issuing the money for the trip, investigated the matter itself and not surprisingly gave itself a complete exoneration.

Something that was promptly rubber-stamped by New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici:

U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., issued a statement Wednesday accepting the findings of a federal inquiry stating the U.S. Department of the Interior found no wrongdoing in the expenditure of federal dollars to send hundreds of Navajo representatives to an education conference in Hawaii.

The senator’s acceptance came despite an apparent lack of inquiries into agencies outside those involved in the spending and confusion about which office was conducting the investigation.

No big deal.  It’s just a million dollars in a several trillion dollar budget.  Of course, a few million here and a few million there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

On a related note, we Oink Reporters have been putting in requests for a while now to attend a conference in someplace tropical like Hawaii.  Unfortunately, given our corpse-like pallor from slaving away on pork blogging all day, the sun would prove to much of a risk to our skin for our insurance company.

But if there’s ever a conference in Siberia…