October 25, 2022.
The Tribal Board moved $25 million in ARPA Funds committed to build and operate a 12-bed drug and alcohol addiction recovery center in Sault Ste Marie to other projects. It appeared that there was no one invited to the meeting to explain the previous budget, construction plans or operations plans for the treatment center prior to this vote. Without any real plans in place or thought to the work put in this plan for the treatment center the funds were diverted to spend $5 million upgrading the current medical services, $1 million added to traditional medicine, $10 million to casino maintenance, leaving $9 million in uncommitted ARPA Funding that most likely needs to be spent by June 2023.
This Board just gave the Chief Financial Officer $9 million of your money to spend any way he pleases as long as he spends it in increments of $49,999 or less or a total of $19 million of unsupervised spending if you count the $10 million for the casinos. Why do we say that? The Tribal Board not needing to approve purchases of less than $50,000 was a previous resolution passed in 2022 that gives the CFO this unsuperivsed spending power.
https://www.saulttribe.com/government/board-of-directors/board-download-files
