Aanii. I hope this report finds you well. We have had another busy month. Our board of directors continues to work very closely with myself, our co-executive directors and casino management to further reduce our deficit.

We started 2008 with a $15 million deficit. As of today, with the changes we have made, we still face a $9.4 million deficit and we continue to work closely together to further reduce this number. We are not only looking for savings for today, but going into the next few years.

A question was asked whether funeral assistance benefits were going to be cut. We, the board of directors, have not discussed this item; however, administration is looking at every position and program that receives tribal support dollars. We are striving to maintain the same level of services for membership. Our goal is to balance the budget and get to the point where we are not spending more than we earn.

At this point in time, we know these things for certain: We can afford only the interest payment to our elders in January 2009. This payment is estimated to be $600-750. In previous years, our tribe has supplemented your annual payment in the amount of at least $2.6 million each year. This fluctuates based on the number of elders who receive the check. We recently announced at a meeting with managers, directors and supervisors that we will not be giving raises in 2009.

At the same meeting, we announced that we will not be providing the incentive checks to our employees. We still have a lot of work to do moving forward, but we are making progress. In fact, we recently held a program directors, managers and supervisors meeting to provide our employees with the updated picture (above) of our financial situation and to ask for their input on more ways we could reduce costs while maximizing our efficiencies. We have to improve the way we operate our businesses and casinos. The revenue from our enterprise operations aids us in providing many of our membership services. We cannot sustain what we currently have if we don’t start running them like businesses and stop allowing politics to guide our decisions.

The children’s Christmas party was also cut for this year along with the Christmas gift cards for tribal employees. We are now in a state where it’s time for all of us to work together in order to improve things in the long run.

We are making some progress with our 8(a) certification process. We recently applied for a limited liability corporation status. If we successfully obtain 8(a) status, we will be able to be given preference on government contracts and we’d be able to diversify our economy. The last 8-10 years have shown us that we cannot continue to rely on our casinos to provide the revenue to meet the needs of our members.

We have also kept our focus on our Greektown operations. As you know, we filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early June of this year. I have reviewed a lot of the documents, attended numerous meetings, and talked with all involved, and we are doing everything we can to work with the court, Michigan Gaming Control Board, and the City of Detroit to reach an outcome to the satisfaction of all parties. We will continue our good faith efforts in this very challenging endeavor. Our hope is to come out of bankruptcy in a stronger position. We will continue to provide updates on this through our tribal paper. 

Treaty Summit: what an honor and pleasure it was to be a part of this event as well as part of the border crossing.

Suicide prevention grant for $500,000: there have been a greater number of suicides in our communities in the past few years and we want to do something to prevent further tragedies of this nature.

The decisions that have been made, and those yet to be made, have not been easy for anyone involved. But, we see hope for our tribe. We do many good things for our membership and our communities. Please bear with us and know we are dedicated and committed to bringing our tribe to a bright future!

Please contact me with any questions or comments at jmccoy@saulttribe.net.

Miigwech,
Chairman Joe McCoy