Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1995)
Page 2 September 15, 1995 SMOKE SIGNALS Congress will cut B.I.A. funding to Indian tribes By Mark Merrier As many of you may have already heard, last month, U.S. Senator Slade Gorton took a meat axe to the B.I.A. Fiscal Year 1 996 Bud get. Over the next few weeks, Congress will be finalizing the leg islation that con tains that budget, and while there is a chance that some of Gorton's proposed budget' cuts may be re stored, it is very likely that the B.I.A. will never be the same. To give you some idea about the size of these cuts, Gorton's proposal would reduce the B.I.A.'s main pro gram budget from $1,519 billion this fiscal year to $1,261 billion next fiscal year, a cut of $258 million, or 17. If Gorton's proposal for the entire B.I.A. bud get (which includes construction and court settlement payments) is compared against the amounts requested c-fh by the Administration for next year, and not just the current year, the reduction from $1,910 billion to $1,459 billion is $451 million, or 24. Because B.I.A. education has been protected from most of these cuts, the reductions fall very heavily on other parts of the Bureau's budget. For instance, funding for the B.I.A. Central Office is proposed to be cut by 50, and funding for area offices is proposed to be cut by 36. Now some folks may say this is good, it's high time to cut back on that overstuffed bureaucracy anyway, but cuts of this size will affect all tribes, including ours, even though we have taken over most Bureau programs. For instance, B.I.A. can take land into trust, and the process is pain fully slow right now. If the Portland Area is reduced by a third, the trust land process is very likely to be come even slower. But the most critical cut is proposed for the Tribal Priority Allocations part of the budget, or T.P.A. The Bureau's T.P.A. budget provides funds that go directly to the tribal level; most of our B.I.A. funding is in the T.P.A. budget. Senator Gorton, in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee with responsi bility over Indian funding, is proposing a general cut of $206 million to T.P.A. If that cut becomes part of the final budget, it would be a 33 cut. Then, in the likely event the cut would be evenly applied, we would EDITOR: Tracy Dugan ASSISTANT COORDINA TOR: Kim Mueller Smoke Signals is a publication of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. We have established an Editorial Policy to encourage input from readers about stories printed in Smoke Signals, as well as other tribal issues. Letters must be printed or typed, and cannot exceed 300 words. Smoke Signals reserves the right to edit any letter for clarity and length, and to refuse publication of any letter or any part of a letter that may contain libelous statements or personal attacks. Not all letters are guaranteed publication upon submission. Pub lished letters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Smoke Signals, tribal employees, or Tribal Council. g g Eg m g Q Q Q q q ipj ei q Ql q q 3 B S3 D El El 19 E3 D D E3 I r c: If you have recently moved or plan on moving, let us know so you won't miss a single issue of your favorite newspaper. Smoke Signals is available to anyone at no cost. Just fill out this form below with your name and address, then mail it back to the Smoke Signals. OLD ADDRESS: NEW ADDRESS: find our B.I.A. budget cut by one third. Senator Gorton's proposals for he B.I.A. budget are drawing critical attention. The Washington Post ran a front page article saying that the B.I.A. is preparing notices to fire between 2,500 and 3,000 employees. The article also noted that the cuts to B.I.A. funding "may force tribal governments to fire and additional 2,300 workers". If our tribe has to absorb a 33 cut in our B.I.A. funding, we would almost certainly be in that boat, facing the unwanted layoff of our tribal employees and the reduction or possible elimination of some services. And because the new federal fiscal year starts on October 1, these problems could be ap proaching quite quickly. But we have one possible source of relief: the gam ing. With the doors of our new gaming facility about to open, we may have an alternative source of rev enue to preserve the governmental services for our membership, just in the nick of time. But this life raft the casino may offer ,us peeds.to be carefully tended,, Congressional budgets are expected to continue to decline over the next several years, and Congress is openly talking about further reducing the B.I.A., and perhaps other federal funds to tribes with gaming ven tures or other sources of income. While that idea has been beaten back for the time being, it is expected to continue to pop up. So, as the stormy seas continue to mount around federal Indian budgets, we will have to treat our gam ing life raft very carefully. Across the upcoming years, it may be about all we have to keep the provision of vital tribal services to our members from slipping be neath the waves. CMOKE SIGNALC Qfi1 - . Ronri R d Grand Rond,, Oreaon 97347 ATTN; Kim Mueller B.I.A. Statistics Employees: About 12,000, half of whom work in education. Other fields include engineering, law enforcement, construction, and fisheries. n Annual budget: $1.7 billion oTribal members: There are 1.1 mil lion American Indians and Alaska na tives from 555 tribes. Forty percent are younger than 20. BTrust Lands: 3.6 million square miles b Schools: 187 in 23 states, serving 49,000 students. The Washington Post
