- Details
- By Rob Capriccioso
- Economic Development
WASHINGTON — Four U.S. senators are asking Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to put the brakes on sending out the final tranche of tribal funding included in the American Rescue Plan until issues of equity are addressed through tribal consultation.
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The senators, Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Alex Padilla of California, and Republican Steve Daines of Montana, sent the letter July 30. They want Yellen to review and act on it before officials at the U.S. Department of the Treasury move forward with their plan later this month to send the final $6.65 billion of the $20 billion in ARP payments allocated to tribes.
“We have received extensive comments from Indian tribes who are concerned that a pure employment-based distribution will not be effective in getting relief funds to where they are needed,” the senators wrote.
They said that the initial allocation of $12.3 billion to tribes based on tribal enrollment has resulted in only 5 percent of tribes receiving more than 90 percent of that allocation. Using basic math, the senators were able to calculate that the top 28 tribes by enrollment have 90 percent of the total enrolled population. The 28 tribes equals approximately 5 percent of tribes with 90 percent of the total tribal enrollment population, and that means less than 30 tribes of the 574 federally recognized tribes have received 90 percent of the $12.3 billion dispersed thus far.
“While that may accurately reflect the varying sizes of tribal populations, it should also make the Department sensitive to disparate outcomes for the remaining $6.65 billion in Fiscal Recovery Funds,” the senators added in their letter.
Inequity issues impede Biden goals
This third and last tranche of funding, which Treasury currently requires to be based on tribally-submitted employment numbers, has caused considerable consternation in Indian Country. Less wealthy tribes are able to employ fewer people and in many cases were greatly affected by the pandemic in ways that the more wealthy tribes were better able to weather, tribal leaders of some less wealthy tribes say.
Wealthier tribes, some of which employ foreign nationals and thousands of non-Indians, have said they should not be punished for being successful. Some have reportedly threatened to sue Treasury if it chooses to change its current planned funding formula to distribute the $6.65 billion.
While the senators say they “celebrate the economic self-sufficiency of many tribes,” they remain “concerned that there is a real possibility that those tribes with the least economic need will receive — by far — the greatest financial assistance from the Department.”
[RELATED: Tribes say Treasury’s American Rescue Plan employment-based formula creates inequity]
Wyden, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, has taken special interest in the issues of equity at stake, fearing that less wealthy tribes could lose out on desperately needed funding because of formulas that Treasury has adopted that tend to favor more wealthy tribes. Legislators and tribal leaders have noted that this plan appears contrary to the equity that the Biden administration says it wants to extend to socially disadvantaged tribal communities.
Under its current plan, Treasury is not setting a cap on the amount of money any one tribe can receive in total ARP funding, so some have already received hundreds of millions. The agency, which says it is trying to be fair and equitable, has hired several employees, including some Natives, to oversee the program. Treasury also set a minimum of $1 million for all tribes to receive, regardless of need.
Bryan Newland, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, argued in August 2020 when he served as chairman of the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan that coronavirus relief funding based on tribal economic employment data is inequitable.
Consultation concerns
“Over the last year, tribal communities have faced the economic hardships of COVID-19 on top of years of underinvestment by the federal government,” Wyden told Tribal Business News after sending the letter.
“The American Rescue Plan provided significant relief for tribal communities, and to make sure those investments are delivered equitably demands more engagement with tribes,” Wyden added. “Tribal consultation must be at the core of the government-to-government relationship.”
Tribes have been calling for increased tribal consultation from Treasury for years, but especially now when billions of dollars in relief funding is at stake, based on what some have described as arbitrary agency timelines and overly burdensome compliance rules.
Some tribes have also raised questions over how Treasury came up with its basic definition of which tribes should receive portions of the initial $1 billion in tribal ARP funding. Many are calling for an Indian office and permanent staff to be institutionalized at the highest levels of the department, which they say could have alleviated the problems the senators are highlighting.
[RELATED: Tribes alarmed by Treasury Department’s handling of $20B American Rescue Plan funds]
The senators strongly agree that more consultation is needed, with almost $7 billion still on the table that could make a real difference for struggling tribes. In their letter, they wrote that they “urge the Department of the Treasury to re-initiate consultation with Indian tribes to determine the most appropriate and justifiable distribution of Fiscal Recovery Funds authorized by Congress in the American Rescue Plan.”
Tribes are also generally concerned that there is incentive for all to submit economic employment data that would get them more money, and these numbers could be difficult for Treasury to check for accuracy for all 574 federally recognized tribes. The federal government historically has done a poor job at gathering tribal labor force numbers at the U.S. Department of the Interior and at the U.S. Department of Labor.
[RELATED: ‘BUREAUCRATIC MESS’: Congressman Young demands missing tribal labor force report]
Treasury officials did not respond by press time to requests from Tribal Business News regarding the senators’ letter. A White House official referred the issue to Treasury. Libby Washburn, the president’s special assistant for Native Affairs, is monitoring the situation, according to tribal advocates, and she sat in on some meetings that Treasury held with tribes over these matters.
“Treasury engaged in extensive consultation with Tribes in March on the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds,” a Treasury official previously told Tribal Business News via email. “Five consultation sessions were held with over 1,200 Tribal leaders and stakeholders participating. Eighty-five Tribal leaders provided comments during consultation and Treasury reviewed and considered 150 written comments to produce the Interim Final Rules and Reporting and Compliance Guidance.”
Treasury ‘does not know Native nations’
Andrew Werk Jr., president of the Fort Belknap Indian Community Council, and other tribal leaders are asking Treasury to slow down and consider the issues the senators are raising, based on concerns from Indian Country. He and others have noted that since tribes have already received a substantial amount of funding from the first two tranches of funding, there is time to make new formulas for the remaining $6.65 billion.
“Respectfully, Treasury does not know Native nations and cannot achieve the equity Indian Country needs from a state of ignorance and inexperience,” Werk wrote to Treasury in an April 8 letter, in part predicting the current issues at stake. “The various tribal size, cultures, landbases, populations, locations, priorities, resources, are all factors that must be weighed into decision-making.”
At that time, Werk and others were recommending individuals such as Professor Emeritus Joseph Kalt of Harvard University be appointed special master over the distribution of the tribal ARP funds, and some believe this could still happen for the remaining employment-based monies.
“Treasury should do everything possible to provide maximum flexibility to tribes in use of the ARPA monies to address the persistent economic inequities and indignities plaguing Indian Country,” Werk wrote in a follow-up letter on July 16. “Restrictions, bureaucracy and failure to understand the practical and capacity challenges of tribes like ours are the enemy of the pandemic recovery Congress intended in ARPA.”
The Tribal Alliance of Sovereign Indian Nations, the Snoqualmie Tribe, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Colorado River Indian Tribes and the Southern Ute Indian Tribes are but a few of the other tribal nations that have raised ARP distribution issues with Treasury in recent days.
‘So many questions’
Before the senators sent their letter to Secretary Yellen, some tribes were feeling pessimistic about the prospect for Treasury to change its employment-based formula. However, the letter provides hope, some tribal leaders say.
Because Wyden is chair of the Finance Committee and Daines has played a major advocacy role across the aisle in getting funds to tribes during the pandemic, some tribal leaders believe their voices, as well as those of Merkley and Padilla, hold real weight.
Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), told Tribal Business News on July 16 that whatever Treasury officials do or do not do to address the situation, it is important that these issues are being raised now so that Treasury leaders can “think about how they failed us” and “maybe in the future, they’ll do a better job.”
Andrews-Maltais assessed that Treasury’s initial error was failing to recognize or make different provisions for tribes to access funding for economic development or business losses.
“Instead, they used the tribal government funding set aside, which should have been used to fund the tribal governments to reinforce the administration of our necessary programs and services and build up our infrastructure and capacity (and) to meet our needs to address the impacts of the pandemic on the human condition of our people,” said Andrews-Maltais, a former Indian Affairs employee for Interior during the Obama administration.
“To fund tribes out of that set aside, for tribal businesses and enterprises, based upon economic development and business employee counts, which include significantly more non-Indians than Indians, diverted those desperately needed Indian dollars away from the Indians,” she said.
“Treasury should have carved out funding from the other economic development and business development funding streams for those purposes, and not have taken the desperately needed tribal government funding to subsidize tribal business losses.”
Andrews-Maltais added: “This is Treasury, the world’s most proficient money people. So how hard would it have been to have taken $10 Billion dollars instead of $1 Billion dollars and allocate it equally?
“And finally, where is the transparency? Why aren’t allocation amounts being shared, at least amongst the tribes? Why wouldn’t they extend the consultation, so more small or medium size tribes could be heard? There are so many questions, with either unsatisfactory or no answers.”