2 Tribal Self-Governance
Smoke Signals
TTh Tells) ta
By Oscar Johnson
nineteenth century
i. l:
iGrand Ronde
tribes and the U.S. gov
ernment often specified
that funds owed for In
dian resources would be
spent "under the direc
tion of the President,"
but in the last 150 years
much has changed in
the way federal obliga
tions to Native America
are met.
In the 1970s, tribes fed up with the arbitrary
"discretion" of far-off federal bureaucrats, began
taking matters into their own hands by advocat
ing for self-governance.
Tribal self-governance is a Congressionally
backed effort by many federally recognized tribes
to take control over their own economic, political
and social affairs.
It is the result of a 1994 Tribal Self-Governance
Act which allows tribes to directly receive federal
funds owed for programs, services and govern
ment functions.
The law has been evolving for more than three
decades and currently lets tribes opt to adminis
ter programs once provided solely by the Bureau
of Indian Affairs and some Indian Health Ser
vices programs on a trial bases.
The Grand Ronde Tribe is one in 59 out of the
nation's 557 federally recognized tribes currently
exercising self-governance for certain Indian
Health programs and one of 206 tribes running
programs once administered by the Bureau.
Last year the Tribe received $6.77 million in
Indian Health funds and $2.1 million from the
Bureau to operate such programs.
For many tribes self-governance means exer
cising sovereignty to use treaty and Congression
ally mandated federal funds for services such as
health, forest management and education. It lets
tribes tailor programs to their specific needs free
from the fetters of federal agency bureaucracy.
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What self governance
is doing for this tribe
is giving us the
additional funds
to expand programs."
-Janell Haller
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For many in Congress it means downsizing a
bulky and costly federal system that at times can
not account for the tribal assets and resources it
is intrusted to manage, leaving lawmakers and
federal courts to sort out the mess.
Both tribes and the federal government also
hope the law will ensure that 'Indian affairs' are
based more on partnerships between self-sufficient
governments than the forced dependency
once asserted by treaties and early federal policy.
"What self governance is doing for this tribe is
giving us the additional funds to expand pro
grams," says Janell Haller, the Grand Ronde
Tribe's self-determination coordinator.
Since the Tribe began running its own Bureau
and Indian Health programs in 1994 and 1995
respectively, Haller said its members have seen
health and social services expand.
Additional services such as optom
etry have also been added while the
Tribe's clinic, forestry building and
new governance center are in part a
result of the new self-governance deal,
Haller said.
"The feds used to give us these 'Scope
of Work' conditions which said how to
spend the money," said Haller, who has
been monitoring the Tribe's self-governance
finances since 1995. "But a
lot of the time that wasn't how we needed to spend
the money."
She said the clearest example of how assuming
more responsibility and control over federal funds
has helped tribal members is the development of
a "one-stop health clinic" which provides addi
tional services such as radiology and a pharmacy
that patients were once sent elsewhere for.
"A lot of tribal members don't work in jobs with
health coverage, and with health costs, that could
be a big financial burden," Haller said.
But the biggest challenge for most tribes is not
self-governance. .
"Iould say the most difficult challenge is keep
ing the folks on Capitol Hill honest," said Haller.
"And making sure the tribes receive the funds
mandated by law."
National meeting highlights tribes' struggle for more self-governance
By Oscar Johnson
p rand Ronde and other tribal as well as fed
I (n eral officials from around the country were
2l among some 4,000 attendees at the 1999
Tribal Self-Governance conference in San Di
ego, California last month.
Indian and Alaska Native tribal delegates,
U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian
Affairs and Indian Health Services officials met
to exchange information and hash out issues
affecting tribal self-governance.
Self-governance is a movement by many fed
erally recognized tribes to control more of their
economic, political and social affairs by directly
receiving federal funds to run programs, and
services tailored to their specific tribal needs.
(See Tribal Self-Governance above.)
At the conference much attention was given
to proposed amendments to the Indian Self
Governance Act which would make tribally run
Indian Health Service programs permanent and
broaden opportunities to manage more federal
health programs in Indian Country.
The proposed changes also seek to strengthen
tribal authority and flexibility to enter into agree
ments with Indian Health. They will also expand
such pacts to include some U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services functions.
Other changes include freeing up tribal access
to federal sources of less expensive medical sup
plies and services; and reinforcing the rights of
tribes to claim reimbursements from Medicare and
Medicaid.
"It should not be necessary to direct funds from
health services to force third parties to pay," said
Sally Smith, president of Bristol Bay Area Health
Corp. during the conference's healthcare law up
date. The bill currently sits in the U.S. House of Rep
resentatives waiting for a hearing before going
to vote.
Paul Alexander, attorney of Alexander and
Karshmer, warned that unless tribal leaders put
pressure on Congress to soon address the bill, it
would have little chance of surviving end-of-session
politics.
. "It is one thing to have a Congressman hold
up a bill at the end of the last session," said
Alexander. "It is quite another thing to have
the whole year to work it out."
Although the need for self-governance over
Indian programs was the major theme at the
conference, the ongoing battle to fund such pro
grams was also a hot topic.
"The (Self-Governance) act authorizes expen
diture of dollars and activities," conceded,
Michael Mahsetky, of IHS's legislative and con
gressional affairs office. But he added the au
thority carries little weight "unless you have
(Congressional) Appropriations Committees
matching those activities" with federal spending.