Budget Stalemate Squeezes Tribal Colleges

Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 17:20:44 -0500

By PHILIP BRASHER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some of the nation's tribal colleges are in danger of closing
 because of the stalemate over the Interior Department budget that squeezed 
their major source of funding, college officials say.

Colleges report laying off staff and cutting courses to cope with the shortfall.
 The schools have received only 20 percent of their federal funding for the 
1995-96 school year even though it is halfway over.

``We are teetering on the brink of crisis and of actually closing,'' said Janine
 Pease-Pretty on Top, president of Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, Mont.

There are 29 tribally controlled colleges, including 15 in Montana, North Dakota
 and South Dakota.

They rely on federal funding for an estimated half to 90 percent of their 
budgets and typically have little cash reserve, college officials said at a news
 conference Wednesday.

Up to 25 percent of the colleges may not have the money to finish the school 
year, said Margaret Perez, president of the American Indian Higher Education 
Consortium.

Nebraska Indian Community College has laid off faculty. Fort Belknap College in 
Montana put non-faculty personnel on part-time status. Turtle Mountain Community
 College in North Dakota cut its course offerings.

Sisseton Wahpeton Community Community College in South Dakota is trying to get a
 loan to cover its shortfall, although banks frequently have refused to provide 
such loans, officials said.

Congress passed a $12 billion appropriations bill late last year for Interior 
and related agencies, but President Clinton vetoed the measure because of 
provisions he said would harm the environment. Among other things, the bill 
would allow increased logging in Alaska and ban new listings of endangered 
species.

The Interior Department includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which funds the 
tribal colleges.

Without the appropriations bill, the Interior Department is being funded through
 stopgap spending measures called ``continuing resolutions.'' The continuing 
resolutions have provided a portion of what the agencies would get through its 
appropriation bill. The current resolution expires in March.

The colleges wrote to Clinton in January requesting lump-sum payments for the 
rest of this year's appropriation.

AP-WS-01-31-96 1507EST