Oklahoma Native News (OKNN) applauds the efforts of Tribal leadership, Tribal members, and Tribal employees for making Oklahoma Tribal Nations modern lifesavers and changemakers of Indian Country. The information found on OKNN’s Tribal Profiles and social media highlights the $4.3 billion dollars in federal grants, contracts, and compacts brought to Oklahoma by Tribal Nations, according to their latest annual single audits of federal funding. OKNN Tribal profile data comes from existing public information and can be independently verified.
Tribes rely on Federal funding to grow their capacity to govern their citizens and administer services to meet their community needs, just like states and the Federal government. Funding and service areas are tied to each Tribe’s former reservation boundary. Some Tribes have overlapping service areas, and some Tribes have expanded service areas.
Any enrolled tribal citizen in Oklahoma, or any member of the 574 federally recognized Tribal Nations in America that live in Oklahoma, or any tribal member stationed at an Oklahoma military base, should be able to get help in Oklahoma Indian Country.
We’re here to connect Oklahoma Tribal citizens with every service they’re eligible for, so no one misses out on the support they need.
Despite receiving nearly $4.3 billion in federal assistance each year, Oklahoma Tribal Nations continue to face significant funding gaps. The need for services far outpaces available dollars, leaving many Indian people in Oklahoma with unmet health, safety, and community needs.
Oklahoma Indian people face greater health and safety challenges than any other group—including higher rates of heart disease, cancer, accidental injury, domestic abuse, suicide, and abduction.
Tribes serve an ever-growing share of the state: Soon, 2 out of every 10 Oklahomans will rely on Tribal services, funded by limited federal dollars.
Competitive grants are vital. Tribes must write and win grants to keep up with community needs.
Tribes provide courts, police, education, health, and social services—but often face bias and negative stereotypes that threaten their funding and service delivery.
Unmet needs have serious consequences: Families break apart, and communities suffer health, housing, and safety crises.
Unlike states and counties, Tribes can’t tax personal income or property.
Instead, they rely on economic development and sales tax revenue from tribal businesses to supplement services and create new programs.
Just like everyone else in Oklahoma, tribal citizens pay taxes on almost everything they do.
Tribal citizens across Oklahoma must pay income and property taxes to local and state governments and the Federal government based on where they reside.
Indian people also pay fuel tax to the state each time they fuel their cars. They also pay for their own personal Pike Pass. Tribal citizens pay local, city, state, and tribal taxes wherever they buy goods and services.
Some Tribal citizens get reduced car tags through their Tribes. They display these tags of cultural pride, like other Oklahomans pay for and display vanity plates.
Tribes typically fund their tag agency with tribal tag registration fees and tribal taxes.
Oklahoma vehicle registration fees are higher than Tribes. Tribes offer reduced registration, in part, to put more tribal drivers on the road.
This benefits all of Oklahoma in more car sales, more state fuel tax, more tolls paid, and more personal mobility to spend money in Oklahoma.
Most Tribes take a portion of the tag registration income and donate it back to local education and community sponsorships.
Almost all Tribal tag registrations are integrated with the state and connected to the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (OLETS), so all state and tribal law enforcement can pull registration data on any vehicle.
Some Tribes participate in missing persons programs, and Adam Walsh’s “Code Adam and AMBER Alerts” funded by competitive grants.
Oklahoma Tribes have police departments funded, in part, by the Federal government. Some Tribes rely on the Bureau of Indian Affairs to police their land/jurisdiction/service area. All Tribal law enforcement officers are Federal officers and held to Federal training/certification standards.
These officers work with local police, Emergency Management, and Oklahoma Highway Patrol through cross-deputization agreements, and other Federal law enforcement such as the FBI, DEA, ICE, ATF, Fish and Wildlife, and the National Park Police.
Tribes have received federal program funding since 1978 for Indian Child Welfare and since 1994 for Violence Against Women.
Child protection officers of a Tribe’s court system have the ability to travel to serve any child enrolled in that Tribe anywhere in the United States. Despite constant vigilance, Violence among Indian children and women continues to rise.
Tribal governments that are federally recognized today demonstrate thousands of years of self-governance. America’s democratic system is modeled after the way America’s Indigenous people embrace the pursuit of personal sovereignty and practice self-rule.
U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: United States. This survival mentality, against all odds, is the grit and spirit of the United States of America. Tribal histories and people, living and not, remind us that the pursuit of liberty and freedom is handed down through generations.
History has proven that identifiable American Indians continue to be among the most victimized cultural group in America and are denied services all over the country. This is another reason Tribes have federal set-asides. Tribes provide services for their own citizens but also serve the needs of any eligible Indian citizen living in their jurisdiction and/or service area. This could be citizens of any of the 574 Tribes that live in Oklahoma.
American Indian people are tribal citizens of their Nations and also citizens of a county, a state, and of course, citizens of the United States of America. Tribal members live all over the planet but typically receive services in America based on where they live.
If Tribal Nations did not provide for tribal members’ needs, the financial duty and operational capacity would fall on other local and state governments. Tribes enhance and expand public services with their own money and supplement with competitive Federal grants.
Quick facts and answers about grants, audits, and how services are delivered.
Tribes are classified in governance as Direct Serve (Indian Health Service (I.H.S.) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) provide the service for tribal members and the Tribe), P. L. 93-638 contracted and/or Self Determination (reimbursable contracts to provide I.H.S. or BIA services just like the government does), or Self Governance (lump sum annual funding, compacts/Federal agreements, no reporting except annual single audits, and ability to redesign services and dollars to meet needs). Being a Self-Governance Tribal Nation allows for the greatest flexibility of that tribal government to meet the needs of tribal citizens.
A Tribe can compact all programs or certain ones and may compact and contract with the Indian Health Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs, or one or the other, and may compact with other Federal agencies and departments such as Health and Human Services childcare, Department of Labor employment and training, and Federal Land Highways for road and bridge construction, to name some big ones.
Some Tribes prefer to accept direct services from the Federal Government rather than provide services themselves.
The Federal grants, compacts, and contracts listed in each Tribal Profile show the annual allocation the Tribe expects to receive for recurring programs.
Carry-over years are not included unless a Tribe has stockpiled allocations rather than spending them down.
This has an impact on tribal citizens getting help. Carryover is unspent annual federal funding that a Tribe may carry over until spent. If money is carried over in one year, the needs go unmet.
Some Tribes self-fund programs. Also, federal grants start and end at different times. Some years, when the Federal government is under a Continuing Resolution to keep America operating, Tribes are the last to receive their annual funding. Tribes must then rely on their general accounts, taxes, and enterprise income to provide public services for all eligible Indians in their service area.
Tribal Single Audits of Federal Expenditures and Awards are only required when a Tribe spends over $750,000 in a fiscal year. Federal funding is public information.
OKNN Tribal Profiles only show what Tribes reported in their last federal (grants, contracts, and compacts) audit.
Compacted funds and funds that are clustered may be reprogrammed by the Tribe. Without seeing a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for a Tribal Nation, tribal members and OKNN do not know the actual dollar amounts spent in the needs categories. When Tribes do not disclose audits to tribal members, it causes strife between leadership and citizens. Some Tribes do not let their members see any financial data, even though Tribes are communally owned entities.
It would be like the United States President or Congress not disclosing to the American public America’s annual budget or comprehensive audit of spending. Tribes do not have a Government Accountability Office (GAO) to publish what is working and what is not.
No. The OKNN Tribal Profile data does not include COVID or the American Rescue Plan Act funding for the Tribes, except for emergency housing assistance.
Tribes self-fund many of their own programs and create new ones to improve the lives of their tribal citizens.
Competitive grants are very hard to get for Tribes.
Please check with the Tribe in your area to see what services they have to meet your needs.
