by Clara NiiSka

According to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) information, the most recent audits of federal funds awarded to Indian tribal governments and reservation housing authorities in Minnesota detail federal grant and contract funding to Minnesota tribal governments and tribal housing agencies in excess of $121 million.

These federal single audits of Indian tribal governments and tribal housing agencies do not include tribal corporations funded by Indian casino revenues.  They do not include on-reservation organizations that expend less than $300,000 annually in federal funds, for example Indian community programs and agencies funded mostly by state or foundation money, and the OMB does not report audits of state-funded schools.

The $121,367,414 detailed by the most recent federal single audits also does not include money spent by the federal agencies – like the BIA and IHS – operating programs which provide direct services to reservation Indians.

The Minnesota reservation receiving the largest share of the “federal awards” detailed by federal single audits was Red Lake: $32,599,296 in fiscal year 2000.  In comparison, $20,159,056 was detailed in the audits for Leech Lake; $18,198,394 for Fond du Lac; $17,356,412 for White Earth; $14,183,112 for Mille Lacs; $8,113,212 for Bois Forte; $2,442,280 for Grand Portage, and $2,790,611 for the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

The only Sioux community for which a fiscal year 2000 audit was available at press time was Shakopee, which reported $924,197 in federal awards.  The most recent audits available for Upper Sioux and Prairie Island were for fiscal year 1999 and 1998 respectively: the Upper Sioux community filed federal single audits detailing $3,261,055 for fiscal year 1999, and the auditors for Prairie Island reported $1,339,789 for fiscal year 1998.  The federal single audits available at press time did not include any audits at all for the Lower Sioux Indian community.

The reservation receiving the largest per-capita share of direct federal awards was Upper Sioux.  Using the population figures from the 2000 census, the average audited federal award for every adult Indian and mixed-race Indian on the Upper Sioux reservation was $95,913.  In comparison, the direct federal funding award for each adult Indian and mixed-race Indian at Bois Forte was $28,467; at Mille Lacs it was $20,615; at Fond du Lac $19,330; at Red Lake $11,954; at Grand Portage $10,009; at Leech Lake $7,524; and at White Earth $7,424.  These figures are lower than the per-capita share would be if it was more realistically calculated in terms of the people actually receiving federally-funded Indian services, since the US census figures include Indians enrolled on some other reservation, ‘descendants’ who are not enrollable and are thus not eligible for services from most Indian programs, and wanna-be’s who told the census enumerator that they were ‘Indian.’

According to the 2000 census, in Minnesota less than a third of the people who identified themselves as single-race Indians lived on reservations (or on off-reservation trust land).  Less than 15% of the total people describing themselves as Indian or mixed-race Indian in Minnesota lived on-reservation last year.  Whether or not off-reservation Indians receive any benefit from federally-funded programs operated by tribal councils and tribal housing programs on the reservations depends on the program, as well as on politics and eligibility procedures used by the tribal governments.

The $121,367,414 in federal money awarded to Indian tribal councils and tribal housing programs in Minnesota and detailed in FY 2000 single audits includes an increase of about $7.5 million more than last year.  As Press/ON reported on April 27, 2001, the most recent single audits available at that time – mostly from FY 1999 – detailed $113,841,024 in federal funds which was awarded to Minnesota Indian tribes last year.

The federal funds awarded to Indian tribal governments are, ultimately, appropriated by Congress for purposes described in the laws authorizing spending the money.  Thus, for example, Indian “tribal self governance” is detailed in the US Code, Title 25 U.S.C., Chapter 458, which was originally enacted by Congress as P.L. 103-413, Title IV.

Under federal law (Title 31 U.S.C. Chapter 75), non-federal entities that expend $300,000 or more in federal awards annually are required to have audits conducted in accordance with the OMB regulations.  These audits are compiled by the Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC).  The FAC describes its primary purposes as including “to disseminate audit information to the public and Federal agencies,” and it posts audit summaries on the internet, accessible through its website at http://harvester.census.gov/sac/