Confusion surrounds emergency budget amid inner squabbles between tribal lawmakers, Nygren-Montoya Administration

By Donovan Quintero
Special to the Times

WINDOW ROCK — Both commend one another the government is open for business for at least six more months.

That’s where the k’é stops.

In an ongoing feud between the 25th Navajo Nation Council and the Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President, they managed to avert mass layoffs from occurring when they passed a continuing resolution, Legislation CS-39-24 on Sept. 16.

President Buu Nygren received the legislation and signed it 10 days later but not before he took his red pen to line-item veto nearly $2.8 million from the continuing resolution.

For that, members of the 25th Navajo Nation Council are expressing strong disapproval of President Nygren’s recent use of line-item vetoes, which they say eliminated essential funding for the Legislative Branch.

Nygren said the Council lost sight of its role and was to prevent any more hindering that made progress harder for the Navajo Nation despite not directly serving the people.

“In analyzing the budget and expenditures, I found that the Council has lost sight of its role – the Navajo Nation Council are lawmakers, focusing on drafting legislation including budget legislation and updating the many outdated laws that are hindering progress for our Nation,” the President said.

The Executive Branch, according to the Nygren-Montoya Administration, including chapters, provides social services, educational services, and veteran services to our people, among others, while the Judicial Branch operates the courts that adjudicate claims being filed by and against our people.

The funding in question was part of a six-month Continuing Resolution, or CR, unanimously adopted by the Council on Sept. 16 to prevent employee layoffs and ensure the continuation of vital government operations through the new fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1.

Mathematical budget errors

The Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President, however, suggests the CR was confusing and was filled with mathematical budget errors. It also contended the CR contained a mix of numbers from a comprehensive budget the three branch chiefs — Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, Speaker Crystalyne Curley, and Navajo Nation Supreme Court Justice JoAnn Jayne — approved and signed on June 21.

The errors the OPVP budget team identified emphasize the importance of working toward a comprehensive budget, said OPVP Legal Counsel Candace Begody-Slim on Tuesday. The line-item veto aimed to fix those errors.

In addition, to ensure that a comprehensive budget was made a priority, President Nygren’s line-item vetoed the Council’s off-reservation travel budgets, Begody-Slim explained.

“The botched continuing resolution is just another example of the Council not doing its job,” said the OPVP legal counsel. “If the delegates were in Window Rock and made time to discuss the continuing resolution, I wouldn’t have had to make so many corrections to this continuing resolution.”

Continuing resolution, comprehensive budget

Instead, the OPVP stated it received what they described as “a confusing combination of both a continuing resolution and a comprehensive budget.”

However, the decision to cut large portions of the CR led to the Council pushing back, accusing the president of failing to work with them.

Nygren wrote in his nine-page to Speaker Curley that his budget team identified several errors that compelled him to line-item veto parts of the continuing resolution package the Council passed without debating on it during a special session on Sept. 16.

On Tuesday, Speaker Curley issued a press release questioning Nygren’s use of the line-item veto authority.

“President Nygren campaigned on working together with the Navajo Nation Council, but his recent line-item veto actions contradict his promises. Taking away critical funding for legislative attorneys, (legislative district assistants), and support for legislative staff does not reflect the concept of working together and it ultimately affects services that benefit the Navajo people. Despite these setbacks, the Council and the Legislative Branch employees will continue serving the Navajo people by addressing the lack of support being provided by the Office of the President,” Curley stated in her office’s press release.

Nygren’s staff also pushed back on this assertion.

“In reviewing the fiscal year 2024 comprehensive budget, I discovered that the Legislative Branch has far more funding resources than it is leading our people to believe. It has several buckets of funding to draw from that allows the Council to continue its operations and to fund personnel,” said President Nygren.

Disposal for six months

President’s memo went on to identify the Legislative Branch still had a significant amount of funding it had its disposal for the next six months.

The Nygren-Montoya Administration memo stated the Council’s full-time in-house attorney positions and other staff positions have been preserved.

Nygren did line-item veto items for the Office of Legislative Counsel, or OLC, specifically outside contract attorneys, outside consultants, and media. Additionally, OLC still has $831,634 to operate. In comparison, the OPVP legal office does not have its budget because it is included in the overall OPVP budget.

The administration’s memo went on to state that the Legislative Branch, the speaker still has over $4.4 million, even with the line-item veto.

“Despite the vetoes, the Council and the Legislative Branch employees will continue serving the Navajo people by addressing the lack of support being provided by the Office of the President,” Curley stated in her office’s press release.

Eliminating $1 million

According to the speaker, the president “zoned in on funding for the Legislative Branch by eliminating nearly $1 million that is used to fund attorney positions, support staff.”

She stated that Nygren also vetoed nearly $200,000 for legislative district assistants, who she said work directly with communities and constituents to provide services and to close communication gaps.

“Although President Nygren vetoed $2.7 million in funding for the Legislative Branch, he approved all funding for the Office of the President and the Executive Branch that was included in the Continuing Resolution,” her office’s press release read.

Perhaps, all of this could have been avoided. Her colleague, Delegate Shaandiin Parrish, the chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, on Aug. 14, said every budget and finance meeting, they invite a member of each of the branches to attend.

“Sometimes we get representation from the executive branch. We get representation from the legislative branch. I don’t recall the last time the judicial branch came over,” Parrish said on Aug. 14. “But our meetings are public. They’re open to everyone to listen to.”

Parrish said her committee started the planning in January.

“We do have the agenda to say this is what we’ve been talking about since the beginning of the year, and the Budget and Finance Committee has been ready to talk about the comprehensive budget since their projections came out. I think that if the three branch chiefs want to be a part of that discussion, then we were waiting,” Parrish said.

No discussion nor agreement

Despite beginning the budget process in January, Parrish said the committee didn’t receive any discussion or agreement from the three branch chiefs until June. When the executive and legislative branch chiefs began producing their budgets according to the Budget Instruction Manual, the Judicial Branch did not.

“I think that’s big. You got to wonder why the judicial branch didn’t want to follow the budget instruction,” Parrish said.

Parrish suggested that the branch chiefs should make the Navajo people their priority when it came to passing a comprehensive budget.

“I just hope that they take that as a priority for the Navajo Nation, whether they’re traveling. And I know that there are important federal issues, but at the same time, so is making sure that our senior centers are funded,” she said. “I find that it’s very important to discuss our comprehensive budget.”

Curley’s press release also questioned whether Nygren’s line-item veto was legal.

“Based on the law, line-item veto actions are not subject to override by the Council. However, Council members question the legality of President Nygren’s latest line-item vetoes — many of which were portrayed as corrections to the Continuing Resolution, including the editing and deletion of exhibits,” Speaker Curley’s statement read.

Base planning allocation

Delegate Carl Slater, the BFC vice chair, presented a critical analysis involving Attorney General Ethel Branch’s Aug. 7 opinion and its implications for budgetary allocations and potential legal disputes. In her opinion, Branch wrote that the B&F must consult with the three branch chiefs to establish a base planning allocation.

“The powers of the Branch chiefs to provide their recommendations to the BFC of their budgets and the restrictions on the BFC to change the Base Planning Allocations once established infers that there is, at a minimum, a need for the BFC to meaningfully consult with the Branch Chiefs to establish the Base Planning Allocations,” the Attorney General stated in her opinion.

Slater expressed his concern that the efforts of the three branch chiefs appear to be aimed at achieving a specific outcome regarding budget allocations, suggesting a lack of impartiality or fairness in the process, as it seems that the decision has already been made before any formal dispute or court proceedings.

“They had worked to get the Attorney General’s opinion — they’ve been working on that. And they had meetings on it between themselves and their staff and attorneys,” said Delegate Slater on Tuesday.

Slater conveyed apprehension about potential biases in the determination of budget allocations, the fairness of the process leading to possible court disputes, and the implications of such actions on trust in governmental or legal institutions.

“So, a repercussion to me is that they had a predetermined outcome they were seeking, which was the full allocation of the projected revenues in the three (branch chiefs) based planning allocations and in the Budget and Finance base planning allocations for the budget process,” he said. “You know that accompanies the budget instructions manual so that it seems like there would be a predetermined outcome if this ever was going to go to some sort of dispute before the courts.”

He added there was an underlying concern about trust in the processes being followed. If key decision-makers are perceived to have a predetermined agenda, it raises questions about the transparency and integrity of the decision-making process. Slater went on to say that the dynamics at play involve legal, financial, and political factors, suggesting that the situation is multifaceted and that various stakeholders may have conflicting interests.

This lack of clarity regarding the foundational planning amount has hindered efforts to establish a coherent budget framework, leaving many questions unanswered about the path forward. Compounding the issue, according to the Nygren-Montoya Administration, there has been significant pushback against the administration’s desire for a comprehensive budget, particularly from the Council and the BFC.

To date, the three branch chiefs have not gone back to the drawing board and begun establishing a comprehensive budget before March 2025 expires the continuing resolution.

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