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The Council recommends that the museum's director and staff be professional peers of their Smithsonian colleagues and further that the Institution take the initiative in fostering immediately the education of Indian professionals who may eventually be employed by the new museum in administrative and curatorial positions. Also endorsed are plans for outreach programs regarding tribal cultural resources and proposals for enhanced educational programs to serve both urban and rural Indian communities. In conclusion, the Council expressed the hope that traditional "artifacts" and "fine arts" will be displayed in both their aesthetic particularity and in their wider social and historical context; and that the museum's staff and leadership will display the self-critical energies that, along with celebration and delight, must be part of the perspective of professional museum policy.

The next annual meeting of the Council in October 1990 will be devoted to consideration of biological and cultural diversity and the role of the Smithsonian. 

[[underlined]] REFINEMENTS TO THE PLANNING AND BUDGET PROCESS [[/underlined]]

Over the last three years, the Institution's management has worked to establish an integrated planning and budget process which provides opportunities for involvement of bureau and office staff at all levels and more systematically considers their concerns and aspirations. These efforts have resulted in a more participatory process and consequently a clearer understanding by bureau and office directors of the Institution's goals and objectives. In addition, the process provides numerous opportunities for dialogue between central and bureau managers prior to final budget decisions. Both veterans and newcomers now seem to understand the internal budget process and consider resulting decisions equitable, even if they might sometimes prefer an outcome that is more favorable to them. A summary of refinements to date follows.

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Perhaps the most important refinement to the overall process that has occurred is that planning deliberations now precede budget formulation. Over the last three cycles, central management has set aside time to consider bureau and office goals, objectives and priorities before considering competing budget requirements. Following a deliberately iterative process, management has also developed an "Areas of Emphasis" statement that attempts to blend "top down" Institutional and "bottom up" bureau and office priorities into broad planning themes. This statement, together with feedback from the Assistant Secretaries and the Treasurer to individual bureaus and offices under their responsibility about their plans and expressed priorities, provide general and specific guidance respectively that Smithsonian organizations can use to structure their budget requests. The time devoted to the discussion of Institutional and organizational goals allows bureaus and offices to prepare their later budget requests in a manner that is responsive to the Secretary's "Areas of Emphasis".

The Institution is continuing to refine and bring greater integrity to its planning efforts in the current cycle covering fiscal years 1992-96. In