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Gaming revenue from tribal casinos typically funds key reservation operations, such as health care. The survey included responses from over 457 tribal chairs and over 230 CEOs from tribal casinos. Tribal governments rely on casino revenue to generate vital funds for basic government services such as health care, education, elder programs, infrastructure and human services. Casino revenue also funds services necessary to address the COVID-19 virus. Tribes made the painstaking decisions to close casinos and many other business enterprises.
- But that doesn’t mean the millions started flowing overnight –setting up tribal casinos involves tribal compacts with the state, casino licensing, and most of all: lots of money. Barriers to Entry. There are 562 federally-recognized tribes in the U.S., but only 200 operate casinos.
- Tribal leaders said they needed the revenue from casinos to fund essential government functions and created strict policies to reopen early in the pandemic. But our partners at inewsource say some.
Friday, October 16, 2020
By Camille von Kaenel / inewsource, Jennifer Bowman / inewsource
Photo by Zoë Meyers / inewsource
Above: Two visitors wear face shields and masks while at a card table at the Sycuan Casino in East County, Aug. 14, 2020.
As many businesses remained under orders to stay closed during the coronavirus pandemic, tribes in San Diego County bucked recommendations from outside leaders and reopened their casinos with measures designed to limit the spread of illness.
It’s unclear if the gamble paid off.
Aired 10/16/20 on KPBS News
Listen to this story by Camille Von Kaenel of iNewsource.
Public health officials have confirmed that more than 300 of the county’s residents who contracted COVID-19 reported visiting a casino shortly before testing positive.
But the county won’t disclose whether any community outbreaks occurred at local casinos because they’re on tribal lands. The tribal governments have released little information and aren’t subject to federal and state disclosure laws as sovereign entities.
That means local outbreaks potentially are being left out of a metric the county considers in reopening decisions. Already, San Diego fails to stay under the threshold for outbreaks set by public health officials.
The casinos began reopening in May with new cleaning, social distancing and face covering policies, but some of their employees have raised concerns.
In late August, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration launched an investigation into Harrah’s Resort Southern California in Valley Center following a complaint. The case remains open and no further public details are available.
The casino also is involved in a lawsuit brought by its former general manager, who says he was so concerned about health risks from reopening that he had no choice but to quit. Casino ballroom catalina island.
Over the past two months, inewsource visited seven of the county’s nine tribal casinos. At each establishment, workers used handheld devices, thermal cameras or body scanners to check body temperatures of people entering the casinos.
Some casinos have disabled every other slot machine to enforce social distancing and have shut down some table games. Attendants at table games that remain open wear protective gear, and some casinos have installed plexiglass barriers.
Many, but not all, indoor restaurants and food courts have fully reopened. Guests are allowed to pull down their face coverings when drinking, eating or smoking.
Each business had varying levels of enforcement and open activities. Pala Casino Spa Resort in North County, for example, has reduced its transportation program but continues to bus in guests from throughout Southern California. Online it’s selling tickets to concerts.
Employees at three of the county’s casinos said the new protocols aren’t always followed. inewsource agreed not to name them because they feared losing their jobs.
Mask policies are difficult to enforce with guests, they said, and crowds can form around table games and slot machines despite social distancing efforts. Some said their management isn’t providing them any information about cases linked to their workplace.
One employee at the Sycuan Casino Resort in East County said she prays for her health before each shift.
“I cannot just let my job go because I’m scared,” she said. “I’m scared, but I’m there. I need the money. If I don’t have the job, I can’t afford my house. Then I’ll be living on the streets with my kids.”
With the exception of Sycuan, casino officials declined to comment for this story, did not respond or referred a reporter to safety policies posted online. In a May 8 letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, county Supervisor Greg Cox and other officials, eight of the gaming tribes explained their decision to reopen, saying they believed they could ensure the well being of guests and employees and scale back if needed.
They also reminded the officials that the casinos are a “lifeline” for funding essential tribal government operations including police, fire, healthcare, education, housing and environmental protections.
Juggling economic, safety concerns
In mid-August, when an inewsource reporter was invited to tour Sycuan with a casino official, once-furloughed employees rehired as “safety agents” walked the floor reminding guests to cover their faces and provided a mask if they didn’t have one.
Most complied. One maskless woman waved the offer away and kept walking, despite prodding.
It was the first day of a new self-imposed rule requiring robust masks following research suggesting bandanas, gaiters and coverings with valves were less effective at limiting the spread of coronavirus respiratory droplets. The Barona, Viejas and Valley View casinos have adopted similar policies.
Eddie Ilko, Sycuan’s safety manager, said the mask policies have been a “learning curve” for guests and employees. He said the casino has worked with tribal regulatory officials and leaders to adapt as the pandemic continues.
Ilko said he feels safe on the casino floor because of the measures.
“We're safer because a lot of the history Indian Country has had, so we've had to be above and beyond whatever the local and state regulations are,” he said.
Some of the casinos have posted online that they are hiring. In their letter to Newsom and other officials about reopening, the casinos said they support “tens of thousands” of San Diegans economically.
Tribal casinos generated $4.4 billion in direct and indirect economic spending in Southern California in 2014, according to the latest available report from the California Nations Indian Gaming Association. They directly employed 24,100 people.
The casinos’ financial losses from the roughly two months they were closed when Newsom ordered businesses to shut down aren’t publicly known.
But in California, preliminary figures show employment by gambling industries dropped 41% in the state from March through August. Employment by Indian tribes, including at casinos they manage directly, dropped by 14% during the same period.
Since the casinos reopened, county public health officials say 112 employees and 196 patrons
with confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses visited a local casino within 14 days of their illness. The 308 cases are as of Oct. 5 and include three people who died.
Ninety-one of the cases have been reported since Sept. 1.
County public health officials stress that a person’s presence at a casino during the potential exposure period does not mean that’s where they got the virus. Officials also haven’t made any definitive connections between a casino employee and a patron, county spokesperson Sarah Sweeney said.
Whether any of the cases amounted to a community outbreak is unknown.
Throughout the county, public health officials have identified 47 community outbreaks in the past week, with 17 of them reported on Wednesday. Since March 25, the county has recorded 406 outbreaks.
Tribal Casino Funds 2020
The state defines an outbreak at a workplace as three or more probable or confirmed COVID-19 cases that are linked but from different households. Outbreaks are one of 13 metrics local public health officials consider when setting reopening policies, along with case rates, hospitalizations, contact tracing and other factors.
County officials have generally refused to name any specific business or location when identifying community outbreaks, instead providing a running total and grouping them into categories such as restaurants, grocery stores and private residences. The Voice of San Diego, KPBS and The San Diego Union-Tribune have sued for the information.
In addition to excluding outbreaks on tribal lands, the county also excludes those on military land.
Even without counting any community outbreaks at casinos, the county for months has exceeded the threshold local public health officials set. They have said they could take action if more than seven new outbreaks occur within a week, regardless of other state metrics.
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Despite consistently failing to meet the outbreak metric, the county hasn’t scaled back reopening even as the number of community outbreaks spike. Officials instead are relying on what the state weighs in its criteria: case rate and test positivity.
Casino employees get few COVID-19 details
Casinos have varied in their decisions to share COVID-19 case numbers with workers.
Sycuan employees told inewsource they regularly receive reports about personnel who have tested positive and how many have recovered and returned to work. But employees at Harrah’s said they haven’t received any official communications and have only learned about possible cases through word of mouth or if a supervisor told them they had come into contact with someone who tested positive.
A Harrah’s worker said he spoke with his wife about how they would quarantine away from each other in case he contracted the virus after working a busy Labor Day weekend.
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“It’s not the kind of thing where I feel like I’m in immediate danger, but I definitely feel like my health has been compromised,” he said.
Tribes are generally protective of their data, including during the pandemic, said Vanesscia Cresci, research and public health director at the California Rural Indian Health Board.
She said she knows tribal members in other areas of the country who have received racist backlash from surrounding communities after their COVID-19 cases were publicized.
“We don't publicly report it either because we are also very respectful of tribal sovereignty, and if they choose to report it that's up to them,” Cresci said.
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In response to the pandemic, the county has signed memorandums of understanding with three of the region’s 17 tribal governments: Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, Pala Band of Mission Indians and Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians.
The three tribes and the county agreed to share information about infectious diseases and outbreaks. The agreements also name a public health officer for each tribe, one of whom is a fire chief, another a risk management director and another a tribal chairman.
A county spokesperson said officials expect to finalize agreements with all of the tribes.
inewsource is an independent investigative journalism organization embedded in the KPBS newsroom. It is a nonprofit 501(c)3 supported by foundations, philanthropists and its own separate membership base.
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- By Levi Rickert
Accessing relief funds will be a “scramble” as national organizations sort through details
WASHINGTON — Financial help is on the way for tribal casinos and, by extension, tribal governments that rely on gaming to finance many essential services throughout Indian Country.
Senate passage of a historic $2 trillion economic rescue plan includes billions in funding that tribes and tribal casinos can access. But obtaining those funds is going to be “a scramble,” according to one expert, even as national Native American organizations work furiously to sort through details and help tribes navigate governmental regulations and processes.
The funding can’t come quickly enough for American Indian and Alaska Native communities, which are suffering significant financial shortfalls due to closure of tribal casinos across Indian Country.
Late Wednesday night, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a $2 trillion economic rescue plan called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, that offers relief to individual Americans and businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Act on today, and President Trump has indicated he will sign the bill immediately.
Several key funding provisions of the CARES Act could provide relief to tribes that are suffering from the loss of revenues from casino closures, including the following:
U.S. Dept. of Treasury Tribal Stabilization Fund—Section 601 provides $8 billion in emergency relief funds to Indian Tribes. These funds will be available to tribal governments who certify that the funds will be used to offset expenditures incurred due to the COVID-19 outbreak. In consultation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, these funds will be disbursed by the Secretary of Treasury.
U.S. Dept. of Treasury’s Loans and Guarantee Loans—Section 4002 makes Indian Tribes, and their businesses, eligible for the $454 billion loan guarantee fund.
While there are billions in funds accessible through the CARES Act, one source of aid is off limits at present. Tribal casinos will not be able to access more than $350 billion in emergency loans available through the U.S. Small Business Association, which is prohibited from lending money to casinos or gaming operations by federal law, according to an SBA official. However, non-gaming tribal enterprises with fewer than 500 employees will be able to access the SBA funding.
On Thursday afternoon more than a thousand tribal leaders participated on a virtual town hall hosted by several national American Indian organizations that included: the Native American Finance Officers Association (NAFOA); National Congress of American Indians (NCAI); National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA); National Indian Health Board (NIHB); National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH);National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC); National Indian Education Association (NIEA); and Native American Contractors Association (NACA).
Leaders from all the organizations are committed to working collaboratively to assist tribes in navigating the process as funds are released by the Treasury Dept. On the town hall call Thursday, NCAI CEO Kevin Allis said the organizations are working to build a strategy 'that will ensure that everything Congress intended in this legislation is properly implemented and distributed out to Indian Country.'
'Just as we had a strategic approach to get stuff in the bill — and in future bills — we're going to have a very focused and comprehensive strategic approach that now focuses on the [Trump] administration, to make sure they do what they've been asked to do,' Allis said.
One centerpiece of the Act for Indian Country is the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CVF).The “use of funds” provision the Act states that CVF payments to tribal, state and local government can cover only those costs that: (1) are necessary expenditures due to COVID-19; (2) were not accounted for in the most recently approved tribal government budget; and (3) were incurred between March 1 - December 30, 2020.
“The most important things I am to tell you on this call is at the National Indian Gaming Association is we are currently working to providing tribes with guidance on how to structure tribes with a programs—or programs—so that they can meet the criteria of this coronavirus relief fund,” Jason Giles (Muscogee Creek), executive director, NIGA said during the virtual town hall.
Giles called the insertion of the $8 billion tribal stabilization fund “historic.” He said tribes were left out of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and the tax bill in 2017.
The tribal stabilization fund will allow tribes to keep employees paid during the closures.
“Tribes will be able tell their employees, ‘We’re not going to ditch you like Marriott, Hilton and all these big guys that are already cutting tens of thousand employees. We’re trying to hold on to our employees’,” Giles said.
“We are going to be leaning on a lot of folks, and this is going to have to happen in the next 30 days or whenever the Treasury Department gets the regulations out. We don’t know exactly when the clock will begin clicking,” Giles said. “It’s going to be a scramble.”
On Thursday, tribal leaders working through their Indian gaming associations, were reviewing the CARES Act that builds on the two previously approved pieces of Congressional bills to reduce the negative impact of COVID-19.
“Tribal leadership is carefully evaluating each proposed item within the CARES Act, and its precursors,” Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association Chairman Matthew Morgan (Chickasaw Nation) said. “Tribal Nations are in the process of identifying and determining how best to utilize these relief packages to care for their citizens, the public health and safety needs within their jurisdictions and their tribal economies, which include but are not limited to tribal governmental gaming operations and associated entertainment amenities,”
The California Indian Gaming Association (CNIGA) says voluntarily shutting down its tribal gaming facilities was the responsible decision to make, however, the decision to close resulted in tribal governments revenue streams being reduced to zero overnight, which losses come with an enormous cost to its tribal citizens and local communities where they are located.
“Specifically, funding will be made available to tribal governments in the form of a mix of federal loan guarantees, direct funding and unemployment insurance assistance, relief for health initiatives, including special diabetes programs, and housing programs. The devil, as usual, is in the details as to how tribes will be able to assess and utilize the fund,” CNIGA Chairman James Siva (Morongo Band of Mission Indians) told Native News Online on Thursday night. “While $8 billion certainly provides some relief, the figure is certainly short of what is ultimately needed.”
The CARES Act was the third phase of relief for the COVID-19 pandemic by Congress. Tribal leaders who participated in the town hall call say more funds may be needed because it is still unclear how long tribal casinos may remain shuttered due to the public health threat.
Congressional representatives and Indian Country leaders on the town hall call said they’re already looking to a fourth funding package to combat coronavirus.
“The work is not done for us,” NCAI CEO Allis said.
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