Tribe rushes to beat use-or-lose deadline on COVID-19 relief funds
Monday, September 21, 2020
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – Spending $177 million may not seem like a problem, but it is a challenge for Navajo Nation leaders who could lose those funds if they don’t find projects that can be completed by the end of this year.
That funding is the last part of $714 million the Navajo got as their share of the $8 billion budgeted for tribes in the Coronavirus Assistance, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, that Congress passed earlier this year.
The Navajo Council debated several proposals last Thursday on how to spend the remaining funds – but all with an eye on the calendar. That’s a challenge, said one official, because many items the tribe has identified as “immediate” needs are infrastructure-heavy, like water and broadband projects.
“Those are all things that the council has identified as being immediate needs in response to COVID 19,” said Byron Shorty, a spokesman for the Navajo Council speaker’s office. “The Navajo Nation’s rates (of COVID-19 infection) were so high that we really cannot point to anything other than lack of water, lack of clean water, electrical infrastructure and coal.”

The tribe focused the first round of funding on fulfilling immediate needs, with $10 million set aside to fund care packages, food, water and PPE. After immediate needs were satisfied, the tribal government turned to projects that will provide citizens with improved access to water, electricity and the internet. Nez said each of the latest projects has been checked to make sure that they would meet the deadline – if only barely. A Navajo Tribal Utility Authority plan to improve broadband penetration on the reservation, for example, is scheduled to test stations by December 23. Besides broadband and Wi-Fi hotspots being installed in various communities, as well as upgrades to fiber-optic cables that could improve internet speed tenfold, the NTUA connected more than 100 homes to the electric grid, with plans to connect more before the deadline hits. The projects all comply with the law of CARES Act, but Ross Marchand, vice president of policy at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, wonders if they comply with the spirit. “I think the main question, and main issue, when you are talking about emergency relief legislation like the CARES Act, is how can we strike a balance towards helping people who are struggling right now, but not subsidizing wasteful operations that are tangential to this public health crisis we are facing right now,” Marchand said.Passage of the Navajo Nation CARES Act legislation is a victory for the Navajo People pic.twitter.com/6zWXVdCqRf
— Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez (@NNPrezNez) June 26, 2020
CENSUS OUTREACH & CARE PACKAGE DISTRIBUTION AT NORTHERN EDGE CASINO, FARMINGTON, NM.09.19.20
Posted by Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer on Saturday, September 19, 2020
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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