The partial federal government shutdown has left Native American tribes playing a shell game to avoid cutting services and laying people off.
In the case of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, Tribal Chairman Mic Isham says they saw the shutdown coming and did early draw-downs of federal grants. They’re using those same grants as collateral for a loan from a commercial bank.
Isham says it’s a game they can only play for a few weeks. “If it goes past December 15, I don’t think that we’ll have any other option but to do a massive round of lay-offs,” says Isham. “There would be very few services. Most of our programs are either direct appropriations or grants – the Indian Health Service, our clinic.”
Head Start, energy assistance and weatherization programs, and the tribal court system also use federal money. Isham says they’ll keep essential services like police and fire departments going, but he says it’s time Congress figures out a solution.
“Washington really has to work things out,” says Isham. “I mean, those kinds of impasses don’t really help anybody, but it does harm a lot of people. I’m really putting Sean Duffy’s phone number out there a lot.”
Duffy is the U.S. representative representing LCO’s district.
Meanwhile, Great Lakes Indian, Fish and Wildlife Commission Director Jim Zorn says they’ll be fine until the end of this year, but they don’t have any federal partners from the EPA or Fish and Wildlife Service to play with now since field operators have been furloughed.
