Amelia Schafer
ICT
Only five days remain before the current 2025 shutdown becomes the longest in history, and tribes, especially those in Alaska, are feeling the burden of ignored trust and treaty obligations, leaders testified during a United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing Wednesday afternoon.
The committee heard testimony on how early retirement offers from the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency issued earlier this year have dramatically reduced the number of federal employees serving Indian Country in crucial areas like the Indian Health Service, and what tribes are facing as the shutdown reaches the 30-day mark.
Experts also testified as to how the shutdown will be especially devastating for Alaska Native communities along the Yukon-Kuskokim Delta in western Alaska who are recovering from Typhoon Halong in mid-October.
Since the shutdown began on Oct. 1, tribal governments have had to rely on their reserve funding, but on the 29th day of the shutdown that funding is running dry, said Sarah Harris, Mohegan and the secretary of the United South and Eastern Tribes – an intertribal organization representing 33 federally recognized tribes along the eastern seaboard.
“Some tribal nations are being forced to consider taking out lines of credit to continue providing services to their citizens and communities,” Harris said. “The longer the shutdown continues, the greater the likelihood of compounding impacts to essential services in Indian Country, those that are the responsibility of the federal government.”
Several tribes including the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe and Blackfeet Nation have declared State of Emergencies resulting from the ongoing shutdown.
Alaska Native communities face uncertainty in typhoon recovery amidst shutdown
On Oct. 10, all Community Development Financial Institutions received reduction-in-force notices, laying off all employees and cutting off funding to the program. The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund is a program under the U.S. Treasury.
This community finance program provides lending and mortgages in rural, tribal areas, meaning their loss will be felt by Alaska Native families looking to rebuild homes lost in the typhoon, said Pete Upton, Ponca and the chief executive officer of the Native CDFI Network. The network is an organization that advocates for and promotes Native community development financial institutions across the country.
Additionally, the loss of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits on Nov. 1 will be felt hard in Alaska, where food stored for the upcoming winter was wiped out by the typhoon for many families. And in several states across the country, funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program may run out.
The energy assistance program provides funding for heating and cooling in homes, and with funding running out as temperatures drop across the U.S. Tribes are scared, which factored into the Spirit Lake Oyate’s decision to issue a state of emergency in late October.
“It’s going to get colder, without [the energy assistance program] and SNAP our communities are going to have to choose between food and fuel,” said Ben Mallott, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives. “Especially our elders… in some of our communities elders are alone and may not have family to help them with food insecurity.”
As of Nov. 1, that funding may not happen for tribes just like SNAP funding.
“A lot of our communities don’t have local food banks,” Mallott said. “There’s no guarantee when they’re going to get that funding so it’s going to be a crunch.”
And food in Alaska is historically more expensive than the lower 48 states. Mallott said right now in Kotzebue, Alaska a gallon of milk is $12.99, a dozen eggs are $14.99 and a four pack of single ply bathroom tissue is $8.
States are scrambling to help SNAP recipients. Some states are looking to backfile SNAP funds but don’t have ways to do it yet like Alaska and North Dakota while other states, like Minnesota and California, are increasing food bank funding.
New Mexico’s governor announced Wednesday afternoon that state funds will go toward SNAP through Nov. 10.
During the pandemic the Federal Subsistence Board offered loosened hunting regulations to permit mercy hunts, allowing families to gather more moose meat, but during the government shutdown that department can’t meet to pass similar opportunities.
Fortunately, this shutdown was the first in history where IHS continued to operate without furloughs or funding lapses due to advance appropriations guaranteed in 2023.
Advanced IHS funding was crucial in storm response, Mallott said, as community members impacted by the storm were able to be serviced regardless of the federal shutdown.
These advanced appropriations provided immense relief to Alaska Native communities following the typhoon, and could be a model for all programs serving Indian Country.
A potential avenue for change
On Sept. 11, New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat, introduced the Indian Programs Advance Appropriations Act of 2025, a bill that provides advanced appropriations for other programs serving Indian Country such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education within the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The bill was read twice before being referred to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in September prior to the government shutdown.
“This could be the kick in the fanny that we need to look a little more critically at that,” said Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, in reference to how the government can uphold its treaty obligations to tribes.
Experts like Kerry Bird, Sisseton Wahpeton and Lumbee and the director of the National Indian Education Association urged support for the bill following the devastation of the 2025 shutdown on tribes.
“When our ancestors signed treaties with the United States they did so in exchange for certain guarantees,” Bird said. “One of these was that our children and our children’s children would be educated. This obligation is not a discretionary choice, it’s a payment on a debt owned. These promises are what every parent holds onto when they send their children to school every morning. It's what keeps a principal in Shiprock, New Mexico, and a head start worker in Sisseton, South Dakota, showing up even when the federal government is not.”
But during the shutdown, essential payments have not gone out to schools in South Dakota, Montana and New Mexico.
On top of that, many Head Start programs are now at risk of a lack of funding.
Beginning on Nov. 1, 12 Head Start programs serving more than 2,500 American Indian and Alaska Native children will lose funding.
“Smaller tribes across the country may not have the reserves,” Bird said. “They are being forced to decide between keeping their early childhood classrooms open or feeding their communities as SNAP and nutrition programs also face funding gaps. This is not a choice a tribal nation should ever have to make.”
BIE offices and schools have stayed open with all employees present, Bird said, as they were deemed exempt from furloughs during the shutdown due to their unique responsibilities. However, students in public schools haven’t had that same experience.
Additionally, funding has been delayed to Title VI, Impact Aid and Johnson O’Malley programs serving American Indian and Alaska Native children in public schools, many of which are stationed right outside of tribal lands. Without this funding, tutoring stops after school, Bird said. More than 90 percent of Native children attend public schools.
If passed, the Indian Appropriations Act would prevent this from happening again in the event of a shutdown, Bird said.
Reductions in force during the shutdown hit Indian Country
This shutdown is also on track to be the most damaging to federal workers, said Hawai’i Sen. Brian Schatz, Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, during the Oct. 29 hearing.
Leaders are also asking that all Indian Country that have been issued reduction-in-force notices during the shutdown be reinstated – which 13 different tribal organizations outlined in a letter to the Office of Management and Budget on Oct 13.
More than 32,000 federal employees have been issued reduction-in-force notices during the shutdown, Schatz said, which includes the entire staff from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund – a crucial program that provides lending services on tribal lands across the country.
Harris and others urged that tribal serving administrations should be exempt from reduction-in-force notices and funding cuts.
Earlier this year, the Department of Government Efficiency sent a memo titled “Fork in the Road” to all federal employees. The memo presented federal workers with the opportunity to leave the workforce with severance pay or accept early retirement in an effort to drastically reduce the workforce.
IHS more than 1,000 workers following these reduction efforts, said A.C. Locklear, Lumbee and the chief executive officer for the National Indian Health Board, a national tribal health organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to advancing the health of all tribal citizens.
And during the shutdown despite staying open with advance appropriations, IHS can’t hire any new employees, Locklear said.
While more than 500 positions have been filled, IHS faces the lowest offer acceptance rate in history and a 30 percent overall vacancy rate, Locklear said. Roughly 43 percent of IHS facilities are so thinly staffed that if even one physician leaves they could face closure.
“These losses translate into preventable deaths in tribal communities across the rest of [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services],” Locklear said. IHS falls under the health and human services department. “And hiring freezes have further reduced the workforce the tribes rely on for grant management and critical technical assistance at the community.”
Only time will tell the full impact of the shutdown on tribal nations, as many worry that once the government reopens they’ll be met with delays in funding, Mallott said.
“Shutdowns and risks are not just fiscal events,” Locklear said. “They directly weaken the government's capacity to meet its trust and treaty obligations as Native communities confront the nation's most severe health disparities. We need to strengthen not weaken the federal health infrastructure that underpins tribal self-determination and the well being of our people.”
This story has been updated with the New Mexico state government's announcement of funding SNAP.
