NCI awaits funds to keep doors open

With the help of security cameras posted throughout the building, NCI's security offficer Ollinda Sam keeps an close eye on everything in this Dec. 27, 2000, file photo.

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Phil Stake
Staff writer

GALLUP — Members of NCI’s board of directors left nervous Wednesday after a board meeting that showed an uncertain financial future.

The Na’nizhoozhi Center in Gallup, better known as NCI, is the city’s only detoxification program — a non-profit into which some 17,000 intoxicated people were deposited during 2008. It receives funding from a myriad of sources ranging from McKinley County and the city of Gallup to substance abuse organizations to its largest benefactor — the Navajo Nation — which provided about $2.1 million last year, according to certified public accountant Claudia Klesert, NCI’s contracted director of finance.

Interim Executive Director Jay Azua told the board Wednesday that Navajo Nation’s contribution accounts for about half of the facility’s annual operating budget. The problem is that this year NCI hasn’t received the Navajo Nation money — nor written confirmation that it will ever receive it — and its coffers will soon be bare. Klesert said Friday that the $403,000 left in NCI’s account will keep the facility going for between one and two months.

The Navajo department responsible for distributing NCI’s money, the division of health, has its department head, Anselm Roanhorse, appointed to NCI’s board of directors.

Roanhorse assured the other board members Wednesday that the money will eventually come through, that he is awaiting federal money from the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act President Barack Obama signed into law last week.

“We won’t know the exact allocation until we get notices from Indian Health Services in Rockville (Md.),” Roanhorse said Thursday.

Only $214,000 is explicitly promised to NCI in the Omnibus bill, according to Sen. Tom Udall’s, D-N.M., Washington spokeswoman Marissa Padilla. She said Udall and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., earmarked that amount for NCI during the drafting phase. She did not say when the money will be received by NCI.

“We don’t have our full funding yet since Omnibus has just been signed,” Navajo Nation Behavioral Health Services director Theresa Galvan said Friday. “Our allocation goes through Health and Human Services ... under that is Indian Health Services ... then it’s drawn down to our area.”

Galvan did not know Friday when her department will receive its allocation, or how much it will receive. She said once it receives the money and determines it has enough to fund NCI another year, it may take another month for NCI to get the check.

“Before I can release those dollars, I have to follow the contractual process ... develop a contract with NCI ... send it through our internal review process,” Galvan said.

She said the process includes an open request for funding proposal to which NCI and any other interested facilities may apply. The proposal/contract then cycles through various governmental reviews — the Division of Health, Department of Health, Office of Management and Budget, Division of Finance, Contract Accounting, Department of Justice and finally the Office of the President — before the money is released.

The only hint at the amount Navajo Nation will receive from the Omnibus bill is listed in the text of the bill as “Native American Programs,” a line item under funding for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The amount secured for “Native American Programs” is about $52.8 million — presumably to be doled out among tribes nationwide.

Thomas Sweeney, a Rockville, Md., based spokesman for Indian Health Services did not say how much of, or when, the Omnibus money will benefit the Navajo Nation, deferring response to St. Michaels-based IHS spokeswoman Jenny Notah, who did not return phone calls.

Reporter Phil Stake can be reached at philip.stake@gmail.com, or by calling (505) 863-6811 x223.