Over the past several weeks the tribal government of the Gila River Indian Community was forced to learn a lesson in basic economics that most of you in the community use every payday- we cannot spend more money than we earn.
The Gila River Community Council just approved a budget for the 2009 Fiscal Year. This should have been done before the end of September, but my office had to delay presenting a budget to the council because the many departments and programs, and even the districts that make up our tribal government, requested more money than could have been reasonably provided by our various income sources.
I must emphasize that what happened is not a financial crisis-our income sources are more or less stable-we just need to manage our money better. And that is what we did. The programs, departments, and districts were asked to rework their budgets so that our income can cover our expenses.
People expect many things from their government, whether it's the United States, state, or tribal government. Here in the Gila River Indian Community we are in a unique position because our tribal government provides services and benefits to members of the Community which they cannot get any where else. From our government programs we can get new homes for almost no cost, we can pursue a college education with tribal scholarship money, we can improve our health and physical condition using tribal recreation centers, our elders can get free and nutritious meals. The list goes on.
As with any government, our job is to find means to generate sources of income so we can continue to provide services and benefits to enrolled Community members. Federal and state governments for the most part do this by levying taxes on the income and property of their citizens. At Gila River we don't do that, we generate income for the Community from our various enterprises. Our farming operation has increasingly provided revenue to the Community for over many years. More recently the business parks started generating and adding to the revenue. In the recent decade, however, we've developed a gaming industry that generates a considerable amount of income for our Community. We have been fortunate in that the revenue we've been able to generate, particularly in the last ten years, has helped our tribal government provide services that we couldn't have dreamed of 20 and 30 years ago.
This growth of revenue allowed us to improve and expand our services to the Community, and to meet the increased demand for services and benefits we had to increase the size of our tribal government, both in structure and the number of employees. The problem we just faced these past several weeks with the budget is a result of this growth. Over the years that we have been growing we've had the money to support that growth. Tight management of our revenue took second place to increasing our capacity to provide more and better services to the Community, however, with the first distribution to enrolled members of tribal revenue on a per capita basis coming soon, and with a slight decrease in the growth of revenue from gaming, we must place greater emphasis on managing our money.
In the 2008 Fiscal Year, which ended Sept. 30, our tribal government operated on a total budget of $188 million. For the 2009 Fiscal Year tribal departments, programs, and districts submitted budgets requesting $207 million for the tribal government operations, which exceeds the amount of projected revenue from the tribe's gaming and enterprise industry. In other words, we would be spending more money than we would be generating. Through an assortment of actions, including a hiring freeze on new positions, elimination of Merit Pool funding for 2009, and asking departments, programs, and districts to revise their budgets to the 2008 funding levels, we were able to present to our legislative committees and Community Council a budget of $185 million for Fiscal Year 2009 that we can afford.
Most of the savings will be realized by putting a freeze on employee positions that were included in program and district budgets, but were never filled. The money, though not spent on these unfilled positions, must still be provided for in the budget. Last fiscal year the tribe had 2,412 budgeted positions, but 382 were unfilled for various reasons. In wages and benefits, the money needed is substantial.
This exercise in balancing the budget leads us to a Reorganization Project that is currently underway, and was undertaken to create an efficient and effective government. In its most basic form it is an assessment of our tribal government programs and staffing to make sure they can provide needed services with the right number of employees. Some programs may need more, some may need fewer employees. This is an effort to create the right-sized government to adequately provide services to the Community members. In recent years we have experienced much growth and we have all benefitted greatly. This Reorganization Project will provide us with good statistics and information so we can gauge that growth and mold our government structure adequately to meet the needs of the people. The people should create the government they need, but not more government than they need.
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