DEBT SUFFOCATING TRIBE

Chairman: More Police Needed To Fight Drugs

PIERRE - The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe is $30 million in the hole and
desperately in need of a cash infusion to beef up its anemic police
force in the face of a surge in drug-related crime, Chairman Lester
Thompson Jr. says.

Thompson, who took office in May, recently issued a report to tribal
members outlining the severity of the tribe's financial woes. It
included notice that the tribe owes the Internal Revenue Service
almost $4 million in unpaid taxes and penalty fees.

The Crow Creek reservation has consistently ranked among the top five
poorest areas in the United States. Unemployment tops 70 percent.
Alcohol and other drug abuse is rampant. Education is sorely lacking.
The tribe has long had money trouble as a result.

Thompson blamed the latest crisis, however, on the tribe's fiscal
ineptness."Our tribe is broke, due to excessive spending," he wrote
in the report dated July 16. "All together, the tribe as a whole owes
close to $30 million."

That's a problem Thompson and tribal council members must work
quickly to address, possibly by realigning or closing programs,
cutting payroll and getting a loan to pay off existing debt, the
chairman said. But he acknowledged that creditors are leery because
of the tribe's financial past.

He said his most immediate concern, though, is what he sees as a need
for more police officers and access to a jail.

"The jail has been shut down for quite a while, and there's no
communication with the tribe," Thompson said. "I'm chairman of a
tribe in the poorest county in America. We don't have the money to
operate it, and the Bureau (of Indian Affairs) apparently is unable to do it."

He said the BIA police department is down to two patrol officers,
"and that isn't enough to give us coverage for public safety,
especially when the officers sometimes must transport prisoners to
Eagle Butte or Chamberlain."

The federally funded BIA is in charge of law enforcement and other
services on Indian reservations.

In a letter to the BIA Washington office in late June, Thompson said,
"Crow Creek Agency being inadequately staffed subjects our community
to be treated less than other citizens of the state. We, too, are
entitled to live in safe communities."

Reliable crime statistics were not available, but tribal school
officials and drug treatment staffers have said that methamphetamine
is among major law enforcement problems on the reservation. Meth is a
highly addictive drug, and its users often turn to burglary and drug
dealing to feed their habits.