By Megan Taros
A bill proposal to create a tribal education trust fund to support education infrastructure in tribal communities in New Mexico is facing pressure on multiple fronts from stakeholders and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
House Bill 134, introduced by Rep. Derrick Lente (D-Sandia Pueblo), would create the tribal education trust fund and distribute 5% of the average year-end market values of the trust fund over the last five years to tribal education departments. The bill would create a task force that would determine how the funds would be given out between the 23 tribes, Pueblos and nations in the state.
The House budget recommends $50 million for the creation of the trust fund while the bill requests $100 million. Lente said prior to the session that he expects to get approval for the larger amount.
But concerns about the composition of the task force continued at the House Appropriations and Finance Committee on last Friday evening despite an amendment adopted in the House Education Committee that proposes to change the process of how it would be composed.
The Navajo Nation Council passed a resolution on January 31 walking back its support for the trust fund. While the Council said the fund was necessary, it said it would not support it unless concerns about equity were addressed. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren’s office also expressed opposition to the bill in its current form.
Setting aside this money will allow for more opportunities within our local communities to make decisions that we feel will be best in their educational journey.”
Andrea Thomas
The bill originally prescribed an eight-member task force with three Navajo, three Pueblo and two Apache representatives. The House Education Committee amendment removed the specific number of representatives and allowed all 23 tribes to come together and decide on the make-up of the task force, which the Navajo Nation Council also opposed.
An amendment on the bill by Rep. Anthony Allison (D-Fruitland), supported by the Navajo Nation government, that would have struck everything about the bill except for the creation of the trust fund did not get introduced after legislative analysts said the amendment needed more accountability measures.
Lente said it was now a matter of making the bill as amenable as possible without removing the necessary framework.
“I think we’re all saying the same thing, but our articulation is not consistent,” Lente said. “I’m trying to get to that point where we can say, ‘OK, let’s brainstorm a bit and try to move forward collectively.’”
At the same time, educators from the Navajo Nation voiced support for the trust fund at the committee hearing Friday evening.
“Setting aside this money will allow for more opportunities within our local communities to make decisions that we feel will be best in their educational journey,” said Andrea Thomas, a teacher serving the Navajo Nation in Shiprock. “When you think about us as Indigenous people I think that this is the right step to at least getting to make up for a lot of time where we did not have a seat at the table.”
The bill now heads to the House floor after a 13-2 vote, despite concerns of disunity from the committee.
Meanwhile, Lujan Grisham wrote a letter to the All Pueblo Council of Governors expressing concern that the trust fund comes at the expense of an annual tribal package that funds infrastructure projects on tribal lands.
“This year, similar to the previous five years, the governor proposed in the executive budget recommendation a $50 million tribal capital package, an investment that is not currently in the Legislature’s budget or capital outlay proposals,” the governor’s spokeswoman Maddy Hayden wrote in an email about the letter to Source New Mexico. “The Governor has sought input from sovereign nations to understand their priorities for this session.”
The letter, addressed to the newly-elected All Pueblo Council Chairman James Mountain, asked whether the members prioritized the tribal package, the education trust fund or both.
Mountain recently left his position as head of the Indian Affairs Department. Mountain’s tenure was marred by a past indictment for criminal sexual penetration, kidnapping and aggravated battery against a household member.
The case was dropped in 2010 due to insufficient evidence, but some tribal community leaders condemned his appointment.
The All Pueblo Council of Governors convened and responded to the governor saying that while they would not blame either party for the potential conflict, members were unhappy with the question.
“The Governors do not appreciate being placed in a position that forces us to have to choose between funding for our children’s education versus funding for critical infrastructure needs for our communities,” the Council’s response to Lujan Grisham’s letter read. “We believe this to be fundamentally wrong and adverse to the commitments of partnership that we have made with you and state legislative leadership.”
The funds for both projects aren’t necessarily in conflict. Capital outlay money comes from general obligation bonds, severance tax bonds, and nonrecurring general fund revenue, whereas the trust fund money will only come from the general fund.
The trust fund’s inclusion in the state budget also depends on passage of the bill. If the bill fails, the requested appropriation of $100 million will go back into New Mexico’s reserve funds.
The All Pueblo Council of Governors called on the governor to work with Lente and Legislative leadership to ensure both the tribal package and the tribal education trust fund each receive at least $50 million.
Lente said on Saturday that he has not met with Lujan Grisham to talk about how to create a path forward that is in line with both funding proposals, but Lente said he’s confident both can coexist. He said the trust fund is consistent with education initiatives the governor championed in the past, but it was his responsibility to see the bill through.
“At the end of the day it’s going to be incumbent upon me to shepherd this in the best path forward to make sure that all tribes are heard, from the largest to the smallest,” Lente said. “And that at the end of the day this is about building capacity, at the end of the day this is about having dollars and consideration we’ve never had before and at the end of the day knowing we do all this work on behalf of our children.”
Megan Taros is a freelance reporter for Source NM. This article is republished from Source New Mexico under a Creative Commons license.
