Tribes plead for better funding of management costs

MATT KELLEY

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 1999 | 10:02 a.m.

WASHINGTON - American Indian tribes now run about half the health care and other government programs once managed for them by the federal government, but have not received enough money to manage those programs, tribal leaders told lawmakers.

At Arizona's Gila River Indian Community, officials are considering cutting back ambulance service from around the clock to eight hours a day because there is not enough money to cover management costs, tribal Gov. Mary Thomas told the House Resources Committee.

The panel's chairman, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, promised help.

"We do plan on solving this problem," Young said Tuesday.

A 1975 federal law allows tribes to take over management of programs once run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service or other federal agencies. Those programs include hospitals and clinics, law enforcement, social services and land management.

The law requires the federal government to provide enough money to pay for the tribes' overhead and startup costs for taking over those programs. But Congress has not provided enough money to cover those costs for most of the 1990s, tribal leaders and Clinton administration officials said.

Several tribes, which now cover the shortfall in federal money by taking funds from other programs or leaving management tasks undone, are suing the federal government to force it to pay all the administrative costs.

The Indian Health Service, for example, now pays tribes between 70 percent and 80 percent of the money they need to run health programs. Gila River took over most of its reservation health programs in 1996, but did not get paid for administrative costs until last year, when the tribe got 56 percent of what was needed, Thomas said.

The lack of money for administrative costs is just one example of how Indian programs are underfunded, said Kevin Gover, the assistant Interior Department secretary who heads the BIA.

"We would need to triple our budget to meet the programmatic objectives given to us by Congress," Gover said.

Gover, Thomas and other Indian leaders urged the panel to pass legislation to give tribes enough money for administrative costs. Young said he hoped to work on a plan to do so after Congress returns from its summer recess on Sept. 3.

The total shortfall for tribes' administrative costs was less than $200 million per year, said Gover and Dr. Michael Trujillo, director of the Indian Health Service.

Young said some of the blame lies with the budget-writing committees in the House and Senate, which have not provided the money needed to cover tribes' overhead costs.

"There is a commitment. There is an entitlement. There is an obligation," Young said. "The amount of money isn't that big. It's one cruise missile. We shot about 200 of them over Kosovo."