PEMBROKE — Lumbee tribal members on Tuesday were presented two budgets for consideration, one totaling $10 million more than the other.
Councilman McDuffie Cummings, chairman of the Tribal Council’s Finance Committee, presented both the council’s proposed $24,891,303 budget and Chairman Paul Brooks’ $14,574,178 spending plan for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1. Currently, the tribal government is operating under a continuing resolution, which allows spending to continue at the same rate as in the past fiscal year until a new budget is passed.
Cummings attributed the extra money in the council’s budget as being U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds that have accumulated since 2006.
“This money was allocated in past budgets and never spent,” he said. “We are proposing to take this money and spend it on more programs and services.”
Although proposing a larger budget for some services, the council’s budget calls for eliminating the tribe’s four-member Public Affairs Department, which is funded in the chairman’s proposed budget. The council also wants no part of the creation of an Assets Management Department, which Brooks is seeking to fund in his budget proposal.
Several tribal members attending the budget hearing Tuesday in the council chambers of the tribe’s Housing Complex spoke out strongly against eliminating the Public Affairs Department. The department, they said, is necessary to ensure that tribal members are kept aware of tribal services and business, as well as to represent and provide a positive image of the tribe to the public.
“You can’t have a tribe this size and not have a Public Affairs Department,” said Cynthia Hunt, who was instrumental in the writing of the tribe’s constitution. “I’m also concerned about the substantial increase you are proposing for the council’s travel budget and professional development … . There’s a $145,000 stipend for the council.”
April Whittemore Locklear, an academic adviser at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, also urged the council to reconsider eliminating the Public Affairs Department. She said she had worked with the tribe from 2004 to 2007 and is familiar with the good work the department has done over the years in providing information to tribal members and the public.
The council’s budget allocations in a number of areas is higher than the chairman’s, including housing rehabilitation services, new construction, administration, and elder services, but Brooks continues to stand by his position that the council has created a budget that includes federal funds that the tribe doesn’t have.
“They don’t have that money,” Brooks told The Robesonian at the beginning of Tuesday’s hearing.
The council is offering a budget proposal that includes higher allocations than Brooks in areas that include housing rehabilitation services, new construction, administration and elder services.
During his presentation of the council’s budget, Cummings emphasized that the budget provides for paying off the $2.7 million still owed on the tribe’s Housing Complex located on N.C. 711 just outside of Pembroke. He said that will save the tribe about $5 million in interest.
“If we ever lose our federal funding we will own this building,” Cummings said.
Brooks reminded the council that during a retreat in April, they had agreed on what should be in the tribe’s current Indian Housing Plan, a plan that must be approved by HUD before it provides a tribe with its yearly allocation of funds.
“We were all in agreement,” he said. “That’s my budget.”
Cummings said that the council will consider the comments from the chairman and tribal members who spoke during the hearing. The budget is not final until a budget resolution is passed by the council, an action that could take place as early as the council’s regular monthly meeting on Feb. 21.
Under the tribe’s constitution, the council has the authority to establish the budget. Once it is approved, however, the chairman has the authority to carry out the budget as he deems appropriate, as long as he remains within budget guidelines.
Before attacking the tribal council and they do share much of the blame, let's take a close look at Chairman Brooks. First, he nominates a person to be Tribal Administrator and when he is not able to get him confirmed, he gets some advice from the tribal attorney, who is kin. " If you don't withdrawal your nomination, you don't have to nominate anyone else and you can be the administrator too. WOW!, talk about power grab!!!!!
So instead of nominating someone else, the Chairman has seized the position himself. Speak to anyone off the record that works in the administration and they will tell you Chairman Brooks/Administrator Brooks is running the show. He runs it how he wants and in most cases makes his own rules; he is a nothing dictator who wants his own way.
He may have been elected to be the chairman, but allow the adminsitrative staff to run the daily operations of the tribe and get out of the way. Want to prove you are an effective leader, start acting like it and surround yourself with people who are smarter than you in their respective fields and then listen to them.
Remember Chairman Brooks, great leaders present their vision to people, but it is the people who carry it out. A leader is as only good as the people around him. Chairman, you need better people starting with your Administrator and then your Housing Director. It is easy to make change when you never had quality in the positions in the first place.
Since I don't belong to this club, I want the money that is allocated to me and my family to be donated to a poor family who can't join your club.
I CHALLENGE ALL CHURCH FOLKS WHO BELONG TO THIS CLUB TO DO THE SAME, HAVE YOUR PART OF THE MONEY DONATED TO A POOR FAMILY WHO AREN'T ALLOWED TO JOIN THIS CLUB. What would Jesus do?
Hidden Money be for real, RealRObeson? have you ever been able to hide any money from the Federal Government!!! Outside audits and audits by HUD are done every year, if the tribe did not pass those audits they would have been pulled that money. The council needs to be cut to seven, 21 uneducated idots will never get anything right.
numbers were given to
council by HUD from previous audit reports.City
of Lumberton,Robeson County Public Relations Departments,can't find them the phone book.
ps. Littleman syndrome? I lift weights 5 days a week at Southeastern Fitness, I'm 6 ft 1, 293 pounds of solid muscle and can bench press my Harley...
These are real dollars here that need to be accounted for so I don't care if it's the Ayatollah who heads up the effort to find out whether illegal activities are going on or that our gov't is being the stewards of our money that we deserve them to be.
That we find out is what matters.
#202-208-3710
#202-208-7163
#202-208-5116
You do not have to belong to this club to call. Let them know you are one of the many who are funding this club and demand the breakup and return of all tax money back to us.
Then call our senators and congressman and let them know you are embarrassed by the actions of this club and want them to file papers to have this club dissolved.
If they want to start it up again, fine, but do it with their own money and not ours....
Why must you call me names? Someone sounds angry. I've done no wrong. Your anger is directed toward the wrong one... You should be angry at your club. Everybody else is laughing.
ps. And we'll shut up about it when you stop using our money to run it.
Either the Chairman OR the Council doesn't know what they're talking about.
Or
There is money somewhere that someone or some group wants to remain hidden.
After all the bickering it boils down to one or the other.
If an audit can't solve this then a Federal Investigation would be welcomed by me and scores of other Lumbees. A difference of a couple of dollars may not warrant much action but this much money in dispute has a foul odor to it.