Report 2021-047 Recommendation 7 Responses

Report 2021-047: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: Despite Some Recent Improvements, the University of California Has Not Yet Taken Adequate Action to Ensure Its Timely Return of Native American Remains and Cultural Items (Release Date: November 2022)

Recommendation #7 To: University of California

To ensure that campuses provide appropriate resources and oversight to the administration of NAGPRA and CalNAGPRA, the Office of the President should require campuses with more than 100 sets of remains or cultural items to have full-time repatriation coordinators by July 2023.

1-Year Agency Response

With UC Santa Barbara's recent hire of a full-time repatriation coordinator, all campuses with more than 100 sets of human remains or cultural items now meet this recommendation.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented


6-Month Agency Response

UC Santa Barbara has opened the hire for a full-time repatriation coordinator and is reviewing applications. The hire is expected to be completed by July 2023.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending


60-Day Agency Response

UCOP communicated this requirement to Campus Chancellor Designees and Repatriation Coordinators on December 14, 2022. (Of the campuses that this requirement applies to, only the UC Santa Barbara campus does not have a full-time repatriation coordinator. However, they have started the HR process to hire for this position by July 2023.)

As noted above, in UCOP has provided $4.4 million to all campuses over the last two years in support of repatriation efforts (including appropriate personnel) and requested fy23-24 budgets to review the need for ongoing support.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Partially Implemented

As the Office of the President notes in its response, Santa Barbara has not yet hired a full-time repatriation coordinator. Until Santa Barbara has filled that position, we will continue to assess this recommendation as not fully implemented.


All Recommendations in 2021-047

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.