Tribes Clash with Countries Over Property Taxes
Native American tribes across the country are buying back land where their ancestors lived and putting it in federal trusts. It often makes that land exempt from local and state taxes. That's leading to tensions in the counties that suddenly experience budget shortfalls as revenue streams disappear.
Acres of softly rolling farmland scattered with pools of melted snow and thick mud seem like an unlikely place for a battle. But in Thurston County, Neb., the Winnebago tribe has bought nearly 4,000 acres land, which the tribe is trying to get off the tax rolls.
And that doesn't sit well with some of the locals.
Residents Butting Heads
Farmer Teri Lamplot and her husband Joel, who are members of the National Association of Counties, say they've spent years trying to get the federal government to provide tax credits to counties that have native land in trust.
"All of the burdens are still there when you remove that tax base," says Teri, a Thurston County supervisor, while she sips coffee at Popo's Drive-in restaurant in the county seat of Pender.
She adds, "And what ends up happening is everyone else that does not have the luxury of being able to just take their land off the tax roles and not pay taxes anymore, the rest of those people have to bear the burden, and it's not right."
"All of the burdens are still there when you remove that tax base," says county supervisor Teri Lamplot.
But tribal leaders disagree.
Tribes across the country have put upwards of a million acres in federal trust since 1998. Besides the Winnebago, the Pawnee tribe in Oklahoma has 1,600 acres of land in trust. Three tribes have bought land around Bear Butte in South Dakota's Black Hills.
Kenny Mallory, vice chairman for the Winnebago tribe, says thousands of acres of former tribal land are now providing taxes for the county. He says the land should have never been on the tax rolls in the first place because members of his tribe were tricked out of land ownership in the 1920s.
"A lot of times Indians owed their grocery bills -- they wouldn't pay their grocery bills. Guess what they used for collateral? Land!" he says. "And it was taken -- just like that."
He adds, "It never should have been the case, but we've had some bad agents through history. We've had bad Indian agents that were in cahoots with the farming community. We weren't educated then like we are today."
Getting Along
Leonard Peters heads the Thurston County Board of Supervisors. While three Native Americans serve on that board, Peters says it's especially difficult for them to serve both the county and their tribal governments.
"It's something that's really hard for them to do and hard for us to accept, I guess. Because whenever they put land up for trust, we oppose it for obvious reasons. We're going to lose tax revenue," Peters says.
Winnebago tribe member Danelle Smith is one of those Native Americans on the board. She's also a partner in a law firm handling Native American cases around the country, including the Winnebago's.
"There's a lot of biases and assumptions, I guess, about what one or the other will or won't do or whatever. And in my view, we're all neighbors," she says, laughing. "We all live there. Everybody has the same interests in having a good, safe, healthy community. We want economic development activities like anyone else wants for their hometown."
But when some neighbors pay taxes on their land and others don't, tensions arise -- especially when tribal issues come before the county board.
Smith says the tribal and county governments can work together to provide services to the county. And in some counties, the two governments work closely together to bolster economic development.
This scene is playing out across the country as municipalities worry about tax revenue, and Native Americans seek to reclaim their land.
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