Puyallups seeking funds for new jail

WASHINGTON — Three months ago, an inmate in the Puyallup tribal jail cut a hole in the floor of his cell, crawled out and walked to a nearby bar. It's not hard to do when the jail consists of three connected double-wide trailers.

"He got totally blitzed," Roleen Hargrove, an administrator for the Puyallup Tribe, told the members of a U.S. House subcommittee during a recent visit to Washington, D.C.

The inmate then staggered back, crawled back through the hole and fell asleep, according to Hargrove.

A guard discovered the opening the next morning when he nearly slipped through it, Hargrove said.

"Our guys are trying to function out of modular units, and you know how flimsy they are," Hargrove said of the tribe's 40 police officers.

Hargrove and Tribal Council Chairman Herman Dillon Sr. recently traveled to Washington to lobby Congress for federal money to help build a new jail. They were among more than 50 representatives from tribes across the country who testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee last month. Eleven were from Washington state.

The tribal witnesses had specific concerns. But they were united in their belief that President Bush's 2007 budget doesn't provide enough money for crucial programs such as law enforcement, education, fisheries management and Indian Health Services.

The 561 federally recognized tribes get financial aid from the federal government because of treaties exchanging tribal land for promises of government funds and respect for the tribes' sovereignty.

Bush has proposed a $2.2 billion budget for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, about $52.4 million less than the current budget, according to the National Congress of American Indians.

The budget would increase spending to operate Indian health clinics on reservations and in rural areas but would eliminate funds for urban clinics. It also would cut in half money for building new Indian health facilities, the Indian organization said.

The Indian congress said the proposed budget also would reduce payments for welfare and school construction. The budget would increase money for some public-safety programs but would reduce spending for training for tribal-court personnel, the Indian organization said.

Senators concerned

The tribes aren't the only ones with worries about Bush's spending plan. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs sent a letter to Senate budget writers, urging them to restore much of the money that Bush wants to cut.

In the letter, Indian-affairs committee members pointed to the many problems facing Indian country, including rates of poverty, alcoholism, tuberculosis and diabetes that exceed the national average.

Each tribe also wants federal assistance for its individual needs. Members of Congress, if they choose, can attempt to "earmark" money in a budget for a designated project, often a construction job.

Addie Rolnick, a Washington, D.C., attorney, representing the Puyallup and Nisqually tribes, said nothing is guaranteed unless money is set aside — or earmarked — for a particular project.

George Behan, spokesman for Rep. Norm Dicks, said the tribes' most pressing needs — health clinics and economic development — will get the attention of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior. Dicks, D-Bremerton, is the panel's top-ranking Democrat.

But all the requests bump up against a budgetary problem: Since 2001, spending on the military and homeland security has gone up while outlays for domestic programs, including the Bureau of Indians Affairs, have remained flat.

Quake damages

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the Interior Department's budget, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, next month.

Dicks said the amount of spending authorized by Congress for the department has fallen by more than 1 percent between 2001 and the 2007 proposal.

To make matters worse, Dicks said, a long-running lawsuit brought by Indians against the Bureau of Indian Affairs over alleged mismanagement of tribal trust funds has cost the government millions of dollars — reducing the money available to the tribes.

On the Puyallup reservation, things haven't been the same since the Nisqually earthquake in February 2001. The quake destroyed a former Indian hospital that housed the tribal administration offices and the jail. Now, tribal employees and inmates are scattered across the 18,000-acre reservation in trailers, said Hargrove, the tribal administrator.

The Puyallups have requested $6.5 million to help build a jail and juvenile-detention center. The tribe hasn't yet identified all the sources of money for the center, but Hargrove said the tribe would provide land for the project.

The Puyallups have an agreement to house some of their inmates at the Nisqually tribe's 45-bed jail in Olympia. But the Nisqually tribe also is facing money problems.

If Congress doesn't provide money for staff and maintenance, Nisqually tribal members said, the tribe's jail may have to close.