Ulrich financial management consulting services are performed by experts who have created solutions for the fiscal and accounting challenges you face. The Ulrich team goes the “extra mile” to create sound and sustainable fiscal and accounting capacities  with our tribal clients.

In addition to our experience in traditional financial consulting and investment management services, our clients have benefited from our value-added expertise that goes beyond investment returns. In most cases, these services are provided at no additional cost to the client and are included in our retainer. Often, providing oversight for retirement plans is part of the services we deliver.

• Rurally located Tribe with roughly 4,000 members on reservation and 4,000 members off reservation
• Tribal budget was significantly dependent on mineral extraction, which had become volatile, and eventually the mines were closed
• The Tribe also had significant investment assets, but there was no coordinated plan or strategy, and revenues were volatile, thus creating hurdles to long-term budgeting and planning
• The Tribe wished to develop a gaming facility, but was unable to borrow funds at a reasonable rate of interest

Although the Tribe had significant assets, the funds were being inefficiently managed with no overriding strategy or fiduciary oversight.

• Funds from a settlement from the Federal Government were being managed in an extremely conservative manner
• Additional revenue came from federal grants and awards, right of ways and leases, and two businesses (construction and manufacturing) that were the primary employers of tribe members
• Additional tribal funds were scattered around several brokerage firms

• No coordination across managers
• No investment policy in place or input from the Tribe on the management of their investments
• No transparency to fees and conflicts of interest related to financial and/or brokerage firms selling their own proprietary or sales-incentivized products
• No consolidated reporting or means to evaluate or monitor the Tribe’s investments

Ulrich helped the Tribe pinpoint the priorities they would like to achieve, and worked to establish a budgetary process to achieve those goals, which included:

• Financial stability
• Education and increasing services for members
• Healthcare
• Economic development

The priority setting process led to the creation of a financial model that forecasted expected costs, revenue, and expenditures, allowing for the development of a budget and the establishment of several funds, each with their own investment policy:

• General Fund
• Per Capita Fund
• Minor's Trust Fund
• Operating Reserves Fund (to support general in the event of contingencies)
• Scholarship Fund
• Permanent Growth Fund (designed to be invested for future generations)
• Land Acquisition Fund
• Debt Service Fund (interest earnings used to fund capital improvement projects)

Once the planning process was complete, Ulrich developed an implementation strategy to consolidate and invest assets with one custodian, which provided several advantages to the Tribe:

• Considerable Fee Savings: The amount of savings exceeded the prior annual advisory fee
  
• Diversification: Built a well-diversified portfolio, with complete open-architecture and access to quality money managers, including private investments such as loans to other tribes
  
• Established Borrowing Collateral: Aggregating assets provided a large investment pool from which to borrow against at significantly lower rates
  
• Expanded Economic Development: By leveraging the investment portfolio to invest in economic development, business operations have now become the largest single contributor to the Tribe’s revenues
  
• Achieve Financial Stability: Even through challenging economic cycles, the Tribe is now able to plan and budget effectively

• Regularly Scheduled Meetings: Strategic ongoing advice and support for the Council and Investment Committee, and on an as-needed basis
  
• Investment Monitoring and Consolidated Reporting: Monitoring the portfolios and individual investments on a continual basis, making recommendations when changes are necessary, and providing in depth reporting and coordination with auditors to increase efficiencies
  
• Coordination of Additional Resources: As a trusted advisor to the tribe, Ulrich acts as a main point of contact and assists them in finding subject matter experts relating to any of their activities

Thanks to working with Ulrich, the Tribe is in a better place than ever, with economic engines in place that have helped them achieve sustainable self-sufficiency for current and future tribal members for generations to come.