Tribal Leaders Statement
Implementation of Pub. L. 104-193, The Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996

Approved at the Conference "Partnerships for the Future: Promoting Self-Sufficiency for Tribal Nations and Native American Families" Seattle, Washington, October 29-31, 1996

The unique government-to-government relationship between American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and the United States government must not be compromised.   Implementation of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 must respect the sovereign rights of tribes arising from treaties, executive orders, and federal law and must ensure that the trust obligations of the United States to American Indian and Alaska Native governments and people are not diminished in any way.

Tribal governments promote personal responsibility and work opportunity for their members.  Their efforts have been hindered by:

• high rates of poverty and low health status of their members;
• discrimination against American Indians and Alaska Natives in non-tribal education and workplace settings;
• the lack of economic opportunity on reservations and in other Indian and Alaska Native communities;
• the inadequacy of support for infrastructure development;
• refusal by many state and local governments to respect the governmental status of tribes and to offer to tribal members the full benefits of their status as state citizens; and,
• decades of federal policies of paternalism in which tribal governments were inappropriately deprived of the opportunity to fully control all federal spending on behalf of tribal members.

Tribal governments strenuously object, however, to the means by which this "opportunity" is being provided. After decades of federal support for state-controlled "welfare" systems, with no meaningful consultation or negotiation with tribes and with no resources made available, tribal governments are faced with coping with the disruptions and dislocations of "welfare reform" legislation that even the President admits went too far and will be too harsh in its effect on the well-being of children.  Immediate and severe Impacts on tribal members and tribal governments clearly are going to occur and the means for tribal governments to intervene to mitigate the potential damage is not provided.

Tribal leaders expect the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), in its implementation of the provisions of the Personal Responsibility Act, to honor the government-to-government relationship of the United States to tribes and to fulfill the trust responsibility of the United States. This requires immediate action by DHHS to ensure resources and information are made available to tribes and to enforce the law so that tribal members truly have the benefit of their state citizenship where tribes cannot immediately take over management of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs.

Specifically, tribal leaders expect the Department of Health and Human Services to take the following steps:

Provide staff and financial resources for technical assistance and training for tribal governments regarding Implementation of the Personal Responsibility Act including:

• funding and participating in regional tribal meetings co-facilitated and co-organized by a national Indian organization;
• funding a tribal education center and clearinghouse to ensure that tribes have access to high quality, tribally appropriate information and training opportunities;
• assigning knowledgeable staff to attend meetings of individual tribes, groups of tribes or tribal organizations to explain the Personal Responsibility Act and offer technical assistance, as requested.

Provide meaningful review of the required State certifications that equitable access to State operated programs will be provided to tribal members (42 U.S.C.602(a)(5)), by finding plans incomplete unless the certification is supported by evidence

• that all tribes in the State have had opportunity for comment and review of the plan comparable to that provided to local governments and private sector organizations under 42 U.S.C. 602(a)(4), and
• that all tribes have been provided with data about expenditures for Indian families comparable to that provided for under 42 U.S.C. 612(a)(1)(B).

Ensure tribes have meaningful opportunity for review of State plans by making a copy of each State plan (and waivers that may currently be in effect) available to all tribes in the State Immediately or upon its submission by the State.

Assist tribes in their efforts to determine the feasibility of assuming responsibility for programs under the Personal Responsibility Act by making information available to each tribe, including:

• a detailed break-out of all funding received by the State for programs under the Personal Responsibility Act and for related programs that support implementation of the Act;
• a detailed break-out of all funds that would be available to the Tribe for comparable programs if the Tribe were to choose to administer them (or if unavailable to the Tribe, the amount that the State should be allocating to American Indians and Alaska Natives if they are to be served equitably).

Use negotiated rulemaking for any rulemaking carried out under the Personal Responsibility Act and include tribally designated members on any such Rulemaking Committees.

Provide resources for immediate assessment of the impact the loss of AFDC (or TANF) benefits by tribal members will have on other tribal programs and support for appropriations necessary to offset deleterious effects.

During the years in which tribes have been systematically excluded from meaningful participation in the administration of the AFDC program, DHHS approved waivers that permitted terminating benefits for failure to meet a variety of special conditions, including work participation requirements. Before tribes can assume responsibility for operation of assistance programs many tribal members already will have had state assistance benefits terminated. Impacts are anticipated in the tribal programs for General Assistance, child care, job training, housing (due to loss of housing in other areas or the means to pay for tribally provided housing), and child welfare (due to increased placement of children whose parents or other relative caregivers have lost the economic support necessary to allow them to provide care).

Provide resources for Immediate assessment of the administrative, data and other infra-structure development needs of tribes to enable them to successfully administer programs under the Personal Responsibility Act and support for the appropriations and other resources and collaborative agreements necessary to satisfy the unmet need.

States have had decades in which to develop the administrative infrastructure for assistance programs. States received multi-year Federal funding for the development of data systems to enable them to now be in a position to meet the requirements of the Personal Responsibility Act. Tribes cannot be expected to be successful without comparable support.

Provide resources for the assessment of the status of tribal economic development and the need for infrastructure development necessary to provide true employment opportunity for tribal families currently reliant on assistance and support for the appropriations and other resources and collaborative agreements necessary to satisfy the unmet need, including advocacy with other departments and agencies of the federal government to make their expertise and resources available to tribal governments.

Welfare reform cannot be successful unless every tribal member has the opportunity to be self-sufficient without having to leave their tribal community. Such opportunities do not exist on most Indian reservations or in other American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Providing such opportunities is the most fundamental element of the trust obligation the United States owes tribes and their members. It is exactly that opportunity that tribes had stripped from them in return for the treaties and executive orders they received in return for the loss of land and the loss of freedom from domination by the United States government.

Serve as a facilitator and mediator between tribal and state governments in meetings and negotiations regarding the Impact of State plans on tribal members and tribal government assumption of programs under the Personal Responsibility Act.

The unwarranted fear and hostility of state governments toward tribal governments is well-documented and played out over and over. States and tribes will to a certain extent be competing for the same resources under the Personal Responsibility Act.

Take steps necessary to assure that where tribes accept responsibility for assistance programs under the Personal Responsibility Act the State must collaborate with the Tribe to ensure that multiple applications are not necessary for families also eligible for Food Stamps and Medicaid.

To the extent that tribes have not been given the opportunity to administer eligibility determination for Food Stamps and Medicaid, there is a significant risk that tribal members living in an area served by the Tribe will be subject to onerous, degrading requirements that they submit to multiple application processes. Federal efforts to prevent this outcome are critical.

Propose and support rules and technical and substantive amendments necessary to make the Personal Responsibility Act conform to the obligations of the United States to Indian tribes and families.

Tribal leadership has already begun identifying the rules and technical and substantive amendments necessary to make implementation of the Personal Responsibility Act truly equitable to tribes and tribal families. These include:

• providing to tribes the total funding used by the states to provide services to Indian families who will now be served by a tribal program, not just the federal share;
• ensuring tribal access to funding equivalent to all funds available to states, including supplemental funding, contingency funds, and bonuses, and make all exemptions and other options available to the states available to tribes;
• extending application of the "disregard" provision of 42 U.S.C. 608(7)(D) to Oklahoma tribes and to all tribes with high unemployment without regard to population;
• for the purposes of the "disregard" provision of 42 US.C. 606(7)(D), defining "unemployed" to include people who have given up searching for work as well as the recently unemployed;
• extending to federally recognized tribes in Alaska the same rights under the Personal Responsibility Act that other tribes have;
• providing tribes the right to determine the appropriate level of payment under the Bureau of Indian Affairs General Assistance program; and
• ensuring adequate flexibility in the conditions for tribal TANF plans so that the tribe may provide tribal members, who have lost eligibility for assistance under State waivers and plans with the opportunity to benefit from a tribally administered program with culturally appropriate work participation opportunities before individual penalties are imposed.

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