A review requested by the U.S. Department of the Treasury has alleged the previous administration of the Kiowa Tribe improperly spent several million dollars in COVID-19 relief funding between 2020 and 2022.
The findings likely come as no surprise for the many Kiowa citizens who lambasted previous Chairman Matthew Komalty during ultimately unsuccessful recall and impeachment attempts. According to the federal review, the majority of the questioned funds came from real estate and legal contracts, while the remainder stems from questionable payments to individuals, mostly through the tribe’s hardship programs.
Meanwhile, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians has gained approval from the National Indian Gaming Commission, the next step in the tribe’s quest to return to running gambling operations. While that decision comes as a victory, the UKB is simultaneously under fire from the Indigenous Journalists Association for allegedly censoring an op-ed and taking editorial control of the Giduwa Cherokee News, a monthly newspaper.
Learn about those happenings, along with information on the Choctaw Nation’s election cycle and the latest national discourse regarding Indigenous people and jus soli, in this tribal roundup.
U.S. Treasury-requested review alleges Kiowa Tribe misspent $8.5 million
The Kiowa Tribe is facing federal scrutiny over its handling of COVID-19 relief funds to the tune of $8.5 million in “unsupported and ineligible questioned costs.”
The Department of the Treasury monitored a desk review performed by Castro and Company, LLC, a public accounting firm. In its 36-page report, the firm found the Kiowa Tribe allocated Coronavirus Relief Fund dollars in a manner “questioned” to be inconsistent with the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act’s provisions on how such funding should be used.
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a questioned cost is a cost:
- “Which resulted from a violation or possible violation of a statute, regulation, or the terms and conditions of a federal award, including for funds used to match federal funds;
- Where the costs, at the time of the review, are not supported by adequate documentation; or
- Where the costs incurred appear unreasonable and do not reflect the actions a prudent person would take in the circumstances.”
Wayne Ference, the partner at Castro and Company who conducted the desk review, noted more than a dozen questioned payments. One supports longstanding suspicions among Kiowa citizens: that former Kiowa Tribe Chairman Matthew Komalty improperly used CARES funds to his own benefit. Komalty faced impeachment in July 2020 over suspected misuse of COVID-19 relief funding, along with four other charges, but a Bureau of Indian Affairs court judge ultimately halted the proceedings.
Ference reported $10,555 was given to Komalty in COVID-19 hazard pay without proper documentation as to why, noting the Treasury Department required agencies to track the specific amount of time employees spent dedicated to addressing the pandemic in granting hazard pay.
“The hazard pay timesheets provided did not include any details on the tasks performed and how they related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Castro requested activity logs and payroll generated timesheets elaborated on the tasks completed by the former chairman, to include descriptions of how those tasks related to COVID-19 and to verify compliance with Kiowa Tribe’s hazard pay requirements. We also requested earnings statements and a hazard pay justification,” Ference wrote. “Kiowa Tribe personnel responded that they had migrated to a new payroll system and no longer had access to the payroll system that was in place during the pandemic.”
In addition to the charges listed against Komalty in the 2020 impeachment proceedings, Kiowa citizens also turned over documents to the FBI accusing the former chairman of making inappropriate expenditures on Netflix, music services and male enhancement pills with the tribe’s money. Others accused him of making withdrawals from the tribe’s authority. Ference found the tribe used CARES funding to pay for legal services related to investigating and impeaching Komalty. While such funds were used to investigate potential wrongdoing brought about by the pandemic, they were not used to directly combat or address it, leading to Ference’s classification of the legal fees as questioned costs.
“Castro requested justification for how Kiowa Tribe personnel determined these legal fees to be eligible, but Kiowa Tribe did not sufficiently respond to our requests,” Ference wrote, one of several times he reported the tribe not sufficiently responding to the firm’s requests.
Of the legal fees, $124,535 were listed as ineligible, with an additional $62,744 listed as unsupported, as the tribe did not provide an invoice related to those fees.
Overall, Ference found $7.7 million in unsupported questioned costs — costs lacking justification as to how they were valid uses for CARES funding — and $780,595 in ineligible questioned costs, which Ference found to flout CARES requirements. The vast majority of the total questioned costs came from contracts, including the legal fees and five real estate agreements. One real estate contract was for a COVID-19 response center/senior center, and four were for operations buildings. Ference said the tribe failed to produce documentation as to if any other more cost-effective measures were considered, such as retrofitting buildings the tribe already had, and in the case of the operations buildings, there was not enough evidence they were needed for COVID-19 response.
Other questioned costs included a $1,832 disbursement to a tribal member to reimburse car payments. The cost came through the tribe’s General Assistance Program, which provides extra funding to those experiencing hardship. The review says at one point the tribe’s emergency assistance program typically only pays up to $250, and in another place that payments can be up to $1,000. The payment was also not filed as an aggregate payment to an individual. Several other payments that were properly filed as aggregate payments to individuals, however, also concerned Ference. Some emergency assistance program applications lacked documentation proving the recipient’s need, and several were over the $1,000 limit. Payments for other hardship programs, such as aid for utility bills, also had instances of poor documentation and breaking their typical cost limit.
The tribe also allegedly made per capita payments to citizens as part of its Elderly Emergency Assistance Program, meaning money was assigned without factoring in individual need as required for CARES funding. Instead, every citizen over the age of 62 was eligible to up to $900 without having to apply for assistance. Freida Satepeahtaw, whom Komalty placed in charge of the tribe’s COVID-19 response, acknowledged the elderly assistance program.
“The [Treasury Office of the Inspector General] kept calling it a per-cap,” Satepeahtaw told NonDoc in 2022, using the slang term for per capita payments. “They wanted to pin us down on that.”
All in all, Ference reported $41,022 in questioned costs related to aggregate payments to individuals.
The desk review represents the findings of Castro and Company, not the U.S. Treasury Department. However, the accounting firm offered a series recommendations to the federal agency:
- Follow up with the tribe regarding other legal fees incurred that were not tested within the desk review;
- Follow up with the tribe regarding its hardship programs to determine if there were other unsupported or ineligible use of funds;
- Determine the feasibility of conducting a formal audit; and
- Recoup any funds ultimately determined to be unsupported.
The scope of the desk review’s investigated costs ranged from March 2020 through September 2022. Since then, the Kiowa Tribe elected a new government, with Lawrence SpottedBird winning the chairman race. When he was sworn into office in July 2022, SpotteBird acknowledged the financial concerns of Komalty’s administration.
“I was tired of seeing our leaders leading in a way in a manner that they were leading,” SpottedBird said at the swearing-in ceremony. “And I want to bring in a drug and alcohol-free, a respectful lifestyle, to our leadership.”
UKB Gaming Code approved by National Indian Gaming Commission
The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians is one step closer to returning to the casino industry after the National Indian Gaming Commission approved the nation’s new 2025 gaming ordinance. While the UKB opened a bingo hall before the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, the nation’s gaming operations centered in Tahlequah closed in 2013 after a legal battle with the Cherokee Nation.
Before the passage of IGRA, tribes running bingo halls or other gaming operations faced legal battles over their rights to run those businesses. In October 1986, the UKB passed a law authorizing a bingo facility near Sperry, and within a year Tulsa County District Attorney David Moss — the namesake of the Tulsa County Jail — brought a case arguing the gaming facility was illegal, according to a 1987 Associated Press article. A year after the bingo facility was approved, U.S. District Judge James Ellison ordered its closure and noted “a regrettable system of patchwork jurisdiction” in the area of gaming that Congress should address.
In 1988, Congress did just that with the IGRA, and by 1991, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found the UKB could legally operate a gaming facility under the new federal law. The UKB reopened its bingo hall, this time in Tahlequah, and it grew into a casino until the closure in 2013.
Since then, the UKB has been working to reopen its gaming operations. On the last Friday of President Joe Biden’s presidency, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a memo finding the UKB was a “successor in interest” to the Cherokee Reservation, paving the way for the tribe to put land into trust for gaming purposes. The new approval of the nation’s gaming ordinance is another step toward the return of UKB gaming.
“This is a major step forward in our efforts to build economic opportunities for our Tribe and our surrounding community. Gaming is one of several economic development tools we’re pursuing to generate revenue and deliver critical services to our members,” said UKB Chief Jeff Wacoche. “While additional steps remain before UKB gaming operations resume, the NIGC’s decision affirms what decades of federal law have made clear: Indian Tribes have the right to regulate and conduct gaming on their lands. We commend the Commission and the Department of the Interior for recognizing and upholding that legal foundation.”
The Cherokee Nation continues to oppose the UKB’s establishment of a casino, however.
“The UKB has no legal authority to operate casinos within the Cherokee Nation Reservation. Dusting off their decades old ordinance, making some amendments without objection from NIGC changes nothing for UKB,” said Cherokee Nation Attorney General Chad Harsha.
Indigenous Journalists Association condemns UKB news takeover
The United Keetoowah Band’s government took editorial control of Giduwa Cherokee News sometime between February and March, according to a press release from the Indigenous Journalists Association. The release “condemns” the UKB “for targeting and censoring the Giduwa Cherokee News and asks United Keetoowah Band members to support an independent press free of government influence and censorship.”
The move appears to have come in retaliation for a now-removed op-ed, preserved by archive.org, penned by media director Troy Littledeer. The piece called for the federal government to honor its trust obligations with tribal governments and lightly criticized the uncertainty created in Indian Country by President Donald Trump’s funding cuts:
Tribes relinquished vast tracts of land — hundreds of millions of acres — in exchange for federal support, promised through treaties. Today, this support keeps clinics operational, schools open and roads serviceable in areas where economic opportunities are limited,” Littledeer wrote. “When funding is available, tribes can navigate their own paths. When it’s not, the consequences are immediate and harsh — hospitals shut down, housing projects are delayed and law enforcement diminishes. In the last month, the Trump administration has exacerbated this crisis. On Jan. 20, 2025, President Trump’s first day back in office, he signed executive orders that froze federal grants and loans, casting uncertainty over ‘638’ contracts — vital for tribes to manage their own programs under the Indian Self-Determination Act. A ‘638 contract’ lets Native American tribes manage their own federal programs, promoting self-determination. It’s key for tribal control over community services.
Although the administration later withdrew the initial memo due to legal challenges, the damage persisted. Tribes faced delays in funding for essential services like health and infrastructure as agencies struggled to adapt to the changing directives. Early February brought news of hundreds of layoffs at the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education, reducing the workforce responsible for processing funding and supporting tribal schools. Moreover, a sweeping $3 trillion funding freeze, although blocked by the courts, still disrupted grant timelines, leaving tribes in a chaotic policy battleground.
Littledeer’s op-ed was published in late February and removed later that month. UKB officials have since taken control of “social channels and websites” as well as “editorial review” for the tribe’s newspaper, according to the Indigenous Journalists Association.
UKB Chief Jeff Wacoche did not respond to a request for comment regarding the tribe’s newspaper and the IJA statement.
Ron Perry resigns from Choctaw Tribal Council
The Choctaw Tribal Council’s representative for District 5, Ron Perry, resigned on April 1. First elected in 2011, Perry was most recently reelected in 2023 without opposition.
Perry’s successor will be chosen in a special election this summer scheduled for Saturday, July 12, alongside the nation’s regularly scheduled elections for Districts 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12 of the Choctaw Nation Tribal Council. Candidates for the Choctaw Nation Tribal Council are constitutionally required to live in their district for one year preceding the election, be 21 years old or older, and be a quarter “Choctaw Indian by blood.”
Blood quanta are legal fictions created by federal agents during the creation of the Dawes Rolls that purported to measure the amount of Indian ancestry an individual possessed. The decendants of Dawes Rolls enrollees may apply for CDIB cards, or certificates of degree of Indian blood, from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and receive a card indicating the fraction of Indian ancestry they possess. The Choctaw Nation has more than 225,000 citizens, but there is no publicly available data on the number of citizens who meet the blood quantum requirement to serve on the council.
Candidate filing to succeed Perry is scheduled to conclude April 23 at the Choctaw Nation Headquarters in Durant. District 5 includes Haskell County.
Tribal birthright citizenship draws national attention, irks scholars
A little-known quirk of federal Indian law drew national attention after President Donald Trump’s administration cited the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship provisions’ inapplicability to Indians in a move to end jus soli in the United States. Since the adoption of the reconstruction amendments — which some scholars argue were so radical they are best understood as America’s second constitution — every person born within the U.S. has been an American citizen with two exceptions: Indians and the children of diplomats.
Indians were understood to be excluded from the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship because federal Indian law understood them as the subjects of domestic dependent nations. In order to become American citizens, Indians needed to be naturalized and sever ties with their former nation, according to a forthcoming article by professors Gregory Ablavsky and Bethany Berger. The U.S. Supreme Court clarified that principle in the 1884 case Elk v. Wilkins.
A decade later, the court rejected an argument that its precedent on Indian citizenship applied to the children of foreign-born migrants living in the U.S. in the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark. The Supreme Court found that Wong, the son of Chinese merchants living in San Francisco, was an American citizen by virtue of his birth in California.
Wong had traveled to his family’s hometown in China in 1889, married and conceived his first child before returning to California the following year. With his wife barred from entering the country by the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong returned to visit his family in China in 1894, but he was detained when he attempted to return to the U.S. in 1895. After a few years of legal woes, the nation’s highest court declared Wong legally a citizen in 1898.
Indian citizenship continued to be a legal issue into the 20th century when Congress granted all tribal members citizenship through statute. The 1887 General Allotment Act extended American citizenship to Indians who accepted allotments, and 1924 the Snyder Act extended American citizenship to any remaining Indians.
While most federal Indian law scholars are skeptical of the Trump administration’s invocation of federal Indian law in birthright citizenship litigation, the move has raised some interesting legal questions about whether modern day tribal citizens are birthright or naturalized citizens. The level of independence tribal nations possessed in 1884 far exceeds the independence of modern tribal governments, and professor Matthew L. M. Fletcher noted in his Turtle Talk blog that modern tribal citizens are typically born Americans and then apply for tribal citizenship, the reverse of the facts in the Elk case.
“Another reason Elk should be put to bed as irrelevant is that it makes a presumption that is simply no longer true — that Indian people are born to tribal membership. Whether they like it or not, all Indians born in the United States are American citizens,” Fletcher wrote. “Though I am not aware of any court that has held this, it appears that automatic American citizenship ended the notion of birthright citizenship into tribal nations; we all have to make a political choice to apply for enrollment with our tribes.”
The reality of tribal sovereignty has changed substantially since the 19th century and it is unclear if the rules of law — while never overturned and still technically “good law” — written more than a century ago still accurately summarize the basis of Indian citizenship.
(Update: This story was updated at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 23, to include comment from Cherokee Nation Attorney General Chad Harsha.)
