Processing Delays and Computer Glitches Block Alaska Natives From Receiving CARES Act Money, by Frank Hopper

After being held up in federal courts for over a year and a half, funds earmarked for members of two Southeast Alaska Native organizations were delayed even longer this week due to bad planning and computer glitches.

Sealaska, the state’s largest Alaska Native regional corporation, and the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (CCTHITA), both based in Juneau, recently made CARES Act money available to their shareholders and tribal citizens. But both organizations have made the application process difficult and frustrating, causing further delays in disbursing these much needed funds.

Processing delays and error messages

On August 16, CCTHITA announced its “Rescue Relief Household Program” that provides $1,000 to each tribal citizen impacted by the pandemic. Applications could be made online or by phone. The announcement specified eligible applicants would receive the money in two weeks. Then two weeks after that the estimate was changed to 40 days. Last Friday the tribe retracted that and refused to give a new estimate.

“We apologize the review process is taking longer than the 2 weeks we planned or the 40 days. Applications are being reviewed in the order of date received. We are unable to give date estimates on when the funding will be distributed,” read a private message sent by the tribe to one of its citizens.

The tribe says it was “blindsided” by the number of applications and announced it was hiring more processors. Many say moving the estimate from two weeks to 40 days and then to no estimate at all indicates a massive flaw in management.

“They had plenty of time to prepare,” shared one tribal citizen.

Sealaska, whose $500 per shareholder CARES Act fund began accepting applications on Monday, also had problems. Shareholders encountered error messages when they tried to submit their applications online. The system went down at least twice on its first day of operation. Although Sealaska addressed and corrected these issues within a few hours, a large number of shareholders grew confused and frustrated at their failed attempts to apply early.

Another source of frustration is Sealaska’s poorly worded requirement that applicants supply “documentation of financial obligations incurred as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic.” This instruction confused many. Some wondered if it meant the applicant needed to supply sales receipts for all the masks they bought, for example.

Sealaska also announced it was teaming up with CCTHITA to process the disbursement of funds. The tribe, which contributed $1.8 million to the Sealaska fund, is also processing Sealaska’s applications. This has many shareholders worried in light of CCTHITA’s current backlog in processing its own applications.

The Funds Were Already Late

The CARES Act was signed into law in March of 2020. But the money set aside for tribes in Alaska has been tied up in the federal court system due to a lawsuit filed by 17 tribal organizations.

The suit argues Alaska Native corporations, like Sealaska, are not federally recognized tribal governments. They are private, for-profit corporations, and as such are not entitled to CARES Act money, according to the suit.

The suit finally went to the Supreme Court and on June 25 the justices ruled in favor of the corporations. They determined the ANCs met the requirements of being a tribe according to the definition used in the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.

This decision allowed the funds to be released from legal limbo and the tribes and Native corporations in Alaska finally received their money.

Leaders of other Alaska Native corporations have made statements emphasizing the need to get the funds to Native people as quickly as possible.

“…let's make it as quickly as possible to distribute this money and get it into shareholder hands,” Goldbelt, Inc. president and CEO McHugh Pierre said in a recent KINY radio news story.

“We want to be able to get this money out to them as soon as possible,” The Kuskokwim Corporation president and CEO Andrea Gusty said recently to KYUK radio.

Bureaucracy, the Final Blow

Both Sealaska and CCTHITA function as hybrid entities, part company, part government. Both have several lucrative defense contracts generating millions of dollars in revenue every year. Both provide many different services to the Alaska Native people they represent.

But their focus seems to be on high-level deal making and not on servicing the needs of individual tribal members. The evidence of this is apparent in their frustrating and confusing process for disbursing already allocated assistance funds to their poor, desperate shareholders and tribal citizens.

In this way neither entity functions as a tribe in which there are true leaders. Instead there are only position holders who hide behind bureaucracy and pass the buck and blame the victims for their own shortcomings.

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska was contacted for a statement but did not respond by the time of publication

Frank Hopper, Tlingit, is a freelance journalist, an enrolled member of Tlingit and Haida, and a shareholder of Sealaska