President Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget could lead to $1 billion or more of cuts to programs designed to help the country’s tribal nations.
The federal government recognizes 574 tribes and native villages, including in Alaska.
Those cuts could hit a wide variety of areas, including housing, education, utilities and, perhaps, software and other tools that help those nations with work such as governance and grant management.
That’s the concern, at least, acknowledged by Tom Amburgey, CEO of Euna Solutions, which sells software not only for grant management but other public-sector tasks including budgeting, payments and education.
Some of the tech challenges faced by tribal nations are common to all governments — cybersecurity, for instance, the strength of which can be boosted by federal grants.
Others are relatively unique. That includes connectivity, given that many of the nations “are pretty far out from any traditional U.S. city,” Amburgey told Government Technology. “Connectivity is really weak. There are still a lot of gaps in the system, but it’s getting better.”
Modernization — the catch-all term that accounts for so much new tech in the public sector — also stands as an enduring problem for tribal nations.
“It’s hard to justify too much modernization if residents can’t connect,” he said, adding that fixing the problem requires not only software but hardware and infrastructure.
Sales to tribal nations account for about 5 to 7 percent of Euna’s overall business — “not a huge part,” Amburgey said, “but an important part.”
And the business has generally continued to grow, though the proposed Trump budget could slow that down.
He said the company doesn’t expect to lose any tribal customers even with cuts; most of those customers use Euna’s grant management products.
But he said the growth of tribal business could slow, especially from tribal nations that don’t benefit from casino ownership.
That said, he also takes the view that necessity is the mother of invention when asked what happens if severe cuts to tribal programs do indeed go through.
“Even with a cut, [tribal nations] still have to manage,” he said.
As he sees it, that could inspire creative efforts to do more with less, and that means “you are going to have to get more efficient. And the only way to get more efficient is to modernize your software.”
