Stalled BIA payments leave many hurting
The Daily Oklahoman
By: Ed Godfrey
Staff Writer
February 20, 2002
CONCHO – With seven grandchildren to raise, June Black of El Reno needs the $100 to $300 she receives every month in oil and gas royalties. But for the last three months, Black and thousands of other tribal members in Oklahoma and other states haven’t received their money the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs manages.
Royalty payments from individual American Indian trust accounts have been stopped by a federal judge’s order in a class-action lawsuit in Washington.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Department of Interior in December to shut down all computer communications after hackers – with the court’s secret permission – penetrated the system. The judge ordered the shut-down until security problems were fixed. The computer systems house individual Indian trust accounts managed by the agency.
As a result, Indian trust beneficiaries haven’t received a royalty payment for three months. Many people, like Black, depend on the money to live. A member of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribe, Black said she has a cut-off notice from her electric company because she can’t pay her bill. She isn’t alone.
Dozens of frustrated and angry tribal members complained of financial hardships at a meeting at Cheyenne-Arapaho headquarters. “A lot of people depend on this money for basic living needs,” said Annette LeGarde of Canton. “Why is Enron such a big deal when people are basically going hungry over this?”
Neal McCaleb, head of the BIA, said Tuesday he realizes the situation is desperate for many people.
“We are trying everything we can to get the money flowing on mineral management payments,” McCaleb said.
The BIA is asking Congress to approve a one-time payment to tribal members until the judge approves the new security system. That payment would be half of a three-month total, McCaleb said.
“We’re trying to get something in their hands,” he said. It is unknown when those checks will be issued, McCaleb said. The agency is bringing its computer systems online incrementally and have some working, he said.
The system that controls the mineral management payments should be online soon but has not been approved yet by the court, McCaleb said. In the meantime, McCaleb said the agency hasn’t been able to issue millions of dollars in oil and gas royalty checks that it normally does each month to thousands of tribal members. Much of that money goes to Oklahoma, he said.
“It’s a big deal in Oklahoma,” said McCaleb, an Oklahoma native. “We have a lot of oil and gas.”
The Anadarko agency of the BIA alone disburses 1,600 royalty checks each month totaling $880,000, said Gary McAdams, president of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes.
McAdams serves on a national task force of tribal officials working to reform the trust system. He met Tuesday with Cheyenne-Arapaho tribal members.
Ida Hoffman said her 85-year-old mother, Kathryn Hoffman, had been able to afford luxuries because of her royalty checks.
But now they have canceled the satellite TV service and their car might be repossessed, she said. They have borrowed against their land leases and her mother is down to five days of medication, she said.
“All she does is worry how we are going to get our bills paid,” said Hoffman, who lives near Hammon in far western Oklahoma.
LeGarde said producers are still taking gas from her well, even though she hasn’t seen a dime in three months.
“We’re getting ready to go put our own padlocks on it,” she said. Zelda Pekah of Geary, who is helping raise her five grandchildren, said she doesn’t know what she will do if the $600 to $800 she normally receives each month doesn’t come soon.
Pekah said she can’t qualify for state or tribal assistance because of the royalty income she is supposed to be getting.
Black said she is in the same situation. “We just do the best we can and always keep in prayer,” she said. McCaleb promises the money will be delivered “as soon as legally possible.”
“It’s their money,” he said. “We owe them.”
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