House Panel Cuts Funds For Indians In Public Schools $75 Million A Year Provides Counseling, Tutoring Services

The House Appropriations Committee voted Tuesday to cut off special federal funding for Native Americans in public schools.

By a voice vote, the committee voted to eliminate the 23-year-old Office of Indian Education, and with it some $75 million a year in federal spending.

There are nearly 20,000 Indian students in Washington state public schools, and nearly 2,000 in Idaho.

Though the budgeting process still has a long way to go, the possible cutback does not sit well with Indian advocacy groups or Inland Northwest educators.

“It’ll be a disaster,” said Ed Gaffney, director of special services for Spokane School District 81. “The bottom line is that a lot of Native American youngsters would be affected negatively if these programs were dropped.”

Lorraine Edmo, executive director of the National Indian Education Association, agrees with Gaffney.

“The students will be the primary ones affected because they’ll be losing counseling services, tutoring services, all of those types of services that would make a difference in their staying in school,” Edmo said.

The office, part of the Department of Education, was created in 1972 under the Nixon administration’s Indian Self Determination Act.

Last year’s budget of $75 million for the office was spent primarily on the approximately 410,000 Native American students nationwide attending public schools. Nearly 90 percent of Native American students attend public schools, according to Leland McGee, a legislative associate with the National Congress of American Indians.

Spokane schools stand to lose more than $375,000 a year. The money pays for District 81’s Native Life Center, an after-school program that recently won an award from the U.S. Department of Education. More than 125 students receive tutoring, counseling and lessons on Indian culture through the program.

Indian students are the district’s second-largest ethnic group, after blacks. There are 1,144 Indian students in Spokane schools, 3.6 percent of enrollment. They make up the largest percentage of dropouts, however.

The only other major source of federal money that targets Native American students is the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The bureau only funds reservation-based federal school students - about 8 percent of Indian students nationally.

Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Spokane, voted in favor of closing the office, even though public schools in his 5th Congressional District stand to lose $603,415. The first-term Republican is a member of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee where the office was first targeted for closure.

“He’s is supportive of Indian education,” said Nethercutt press secretary Ken Lisaius. “But he’s also been sent to this 104th Congress to be fiscally responsible.”

Following the subcommittee’s recommendation that the office be shut down, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., proposed unsuccessfully to restore about $60 million of the office’s current year budget allotment.

“It’s my view that helping to educate Native American children is a federal responsibility because of the trust status of the tribes,” said Obey. “Eliminating this funding is another part of the plan by Newt Gingrich and the Republican majority to shove financial responsibility onto local taxpayers.”

Nethercutt indicated that he might support a more-detailed amendment proposal.

“I want to do what’s right certainly for Indian children in the area of education, but I had to vote on what I was presented with,” he said.

Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, was the first to recommend the office closure, saying that such education programs are state and local responsibilities.

The recommendations of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee and the Appropriations Committee are expected to be considered by the full House today and Friday.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = David Pulizzi Staff writer Staff writer Carla K. Johnson contributed to this report.