WASHINGTON — On Friday, June 12th, the Department of Treasury announced their second distribution formula for the remaining 40% of the $8 billion set aside for tribal governments in the Coronavirus Relief Fund.
Of the $8 billion allocated to tribal governments, 30% will be based on employment data and 10% will be based on expenditure data.
Allocation Formula
Employment:
The allocation based on employment data will result from Treasury taking the following steps:
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- Step 1. By Tribe, sum reported tribal employment and tribal entity employment for each quarter of 2019.
- Step 2. Calculate the non-zero annual average of the summed quarters one through four obtained in Step 1.
- Step 3. Calculate the pro-rata payment for each Tribal government, based on the annual employment averages obtained in step 2.
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Expenditures:
The allocation based will result from Treasury calculating the pro-rata payment for each Tribal government, based on 2019 tribal total government expenditures.
Reserved Funds:
Based on the frustrations over the initial 60% population distribution formula, Treasury is reserving $679 million from amounts that would otherwise be paid to Tribal governments. This represents an estimate of the difference in total payment amounts to Tribal governments if Treasury had made population-based payments based on tribal enrollment data provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, rather than the Census-based Indian Housing Block Grant data. These funds will be be used to resolve adverse litigation brought forth by tribes.