Leaders express concern over BIA budget reductions

By Natasha Kaye Johnson
Diné Bureau

GALLUP — With BIA budget funding dwindling each year, and proposed budgets and funding pleas being ignored, tribal leaders are expressing their frustration.

At the end of last week's Indian Affairs National Budget Meeting in Washington, D.C, council speaker Lawrence T. Morgan (Iyanbito/Pinedale) spoke of how the decreasing budget for BIA programs is causing disparities for Indian programs.

"This last decade we provided the federal government with budget requests, to no avail. We provided performance data, which saw no increase. We are now going through this process of providing priorities," said Morgan. "My question now is will this process see an increase in funding?"

The BIA budget went from $2.295 billion in 2005, to $2.274 billion in 2006, and now its dropped to $2.221. The total loss to tribes has been $74 million in the last two years.

"Bureau of Indian Affairs funding has not increased the same rate as National Park Service and Forestry," said Morgan. "The BIA budgets for the past few decades indicate that Navajo is not a priority, nor are the other 562 Nations."

Of the $922.2 billion of the federal budget's discretionary funds, the source of the BIA's funding, $489 billion was appropriated for defense spending.

At a recent forum, tribal leaders from around nation gave input about the 2009 budget formulation. Each year, leaders meet to prepare the budget two to three years in advance, which is submitted to Congress. At the meeting, Navajo leaders' funding priorities were education, public safety, petitions for detention facility construction and Navajo tribal courts.

At the meeting, Morgan emphasized the federal government needs to invest in tribal communities by increasing funding. He also made it a point to remind leaders of the relationship between the two entities.

"America's first people ceded insurmountable amounts of land containing vast riches of renewable and non-renewable natural resources," said Morgan, adding that ceding land was done to bring perpetual returns. While America has become a world leader in promoting democracy, Morgan said, as well as developing a strong military defense and building a stable economy, it has failed to institute long-standing governmental and diplomatic prominence to first Americans.