The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation has filed a motion in Washington D.C. to prevent the U.S. Treasury Department from distributing the rest of the $4.8 billion CARES Act funds to tribes, using a formula that the tribe considers to be flawed.
Under the formula, the tribe claims, its population was underestimated by up to 80 percent and the tribe was deprived of about $8 million.
About $3.2 billion of the funds remain to be distributed this week. The tribe seeks an injunction to delay those payments by three weeks until a more accurate accounting can be done.
Prairie Band Chairman Joseph Rupnick declared in a statement, “The tribal council and I are appalled that the Treasury Department wrote off a significant portion of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation’s membership when making the initial CARES Act distribution. This suit is intended to restore justice to our tribe and other similarly situated tribes.”
The tribe says that it has more than 4,500 members.
This is the latest of lawsuits that have been filed against the department claiming that its formula is flawed. Some lawsuits tried to stop payments to Alaska Native corporations.
