Wisconsin’s smallest tribe, the St. Croix Chippewa, has about 1,000 members; 735 of them live on the reservation near Hertel. The tribe operates St. Croix casinos in Turtle Lake, Hertel and Danbury. Based on a federal special prosecutor’s report in 2000, the tribe’s casino profits are an estimated million-plus annually from the Turtle Lake casino alone, which employs more than 1,000 people.
But little of the casino revenue appears to flow to tribal members. A Wisconsin Policy Research Institute study found although the St. Croix casinos generate millions, many tribal members live rundown trailers, eat at tribal nutrition centers and depend on monthly government checks and a meager $400 a month in casino payments, due to mismanagement and waste. However, tribes are sovereign nations, not subject to the same open government laws as other federal grant recipients, so taxpayers as well as tribal members do not know how the money is used and how decisions are made.
The St. Croix tribe is not alone. Each year HUD awards $660 million to 587 tribes to help low-income members find affordable housing. Much of those funds are misused and tribal officials are not held accountable.
Based on by WPRI’s findings, federal investigators are examining a 2015 audit, which found:
• The Housing Authority recorded $924,548 in rent money owed by tenants, but $776,292 was listed as “doubtful collection,” meaning tribal housing officials do not expect to be paid; however future HUD funding will continue.
• The Housing Authority awarded $308,000 in block grants to contractors but did not following the rules on selecting and evaluating vendors. In a 2014 audit, $444,929 was improperly awarded.
• The Housing Authority provided housing assistance totaling $24,000 to tribal members whose income may have been too high for subsidized housing.
• One-third of an $85,000 loan program to help the neediest tribal members buy houses went to loans that Housing Authority officials gave themselves.
Congressman Glenn Grothman, a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said, “It’s disturbing that a blatant misuse of federal funds is occurring with little to no oversight. And this is not a one-time issue. Taxpayers deserve to know that their money is being used in the manner for which it is designated. It’s a step in the right direction that audits into the housing funds of the St. Croix Chippewa tribe have occurred. However, to be the most effective they can be, the audits should be streamlined. Issues brought up in the 2015 audit should be resolved by the 2016 audit and so on.”
St. Croix officials have been in trouble before. A mid-1990s audit found the tribe spent thousands of dollars on restaurant tabs, gifts and bonuses, invested $660,000 of HUD funds in an unauthorized apartment project and placed almost a half-million dollars in an account that did not generate interest. Janelle Golden, the Housing Authority director at the time, wrote checks from the HUD account for personal use and was fired, sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to make $46,000 in restitution. Her predecessor, Catherine Sandstrom, also served two years in prison for embezzlement and misconduct.
Tribal members have said the five-member Tribal Council operates in secrecy with almost absolute power. The council decides who votes in tribal elections, who gets a job at a tribal business and even who is enrolled in the tribe and thus eligible for casino profits. Members who have spoken out said they’ve ended up on a “no hire” list. Some even have been disenrolled or removed from desirable jobs.
Grothman said, “Tribes are sovereign nations, which makes it difficult for the federal government to intervene in their legislative processes. However, it seems that HUD is making zero effort to follow up with tribal leaders to make sure that they are appropriately spending the millions in taxpayer dollars they receive from the federal government.”
