From The Chairman’s Desk
Hello to the people of the Fort Peck Reservation. We had a full board meeting on Sept. 14, and on the agenda in New Business was discussion on my letter to the paper and contract change orders. The council members were upset with my letter because of the content, and questioned my reasoning, I responded “the people need to know what we are doing and to be truthful about it”.
Councilwoman Gourneau gave a handout to everyone which turned out to be a copy of the letter that I submitted to the paper, they were upset about me not confiding in them before I submitted my letter, no they should be doing their job. What I have figured out is the reason that they spend so much time micromanaging the programs, attacking the employees, and trying to do my job, is because it is easier for them to show their superiority and that they are the ultimate authority, and I don’t believe that they have the ability or knowledge to solve the major problems that we have on our reservation.
The council was upset that I called our reservation a ghetto and that it is a reflection of our tribal leadership, but it is the truth they should be working on the people’s problems that’s what you voted them in for. We also discussed the Poplar River Casino, and how it is a failing business, and it is not because of the management, it is because of the “business minds that thought this was good idea”. The discussion was that we should be paying the balance on their monthly bills, along with paying the lease on the gaming machines, and their $5 million loan that they haven’t paid a dime on yet. The balance on the monthly bills has been any where from $70,000-plus to $20,000 a month, and only reason that we had one month at $20,000 is because we gave the casino $50,000.00 from the signing bonus from Golden Route, and now the share that Golden Route has receive is $140,813.96 year to date. So with that if the balance on the bills for the casino are at an average between $70,000 and $60,000 a month for a year comes to between $840,000 and $720,000, approximately $780,000, plus add a year for the leased machines which would be $280,000 that the tribes would end up paying out $1,246,000 this without paying the loan payment.
The amount that the casino made from Jan. 1, 2026 to July 31, 2026 was $5,432,346. The prize pay out was $4,185,646.16 which leaves $1,060,00 total profit. Which is divided into three Portions – 60 percent is Tribal, 20 percent is Fort Peck Inc., and 20 percent is for the leased machines, which is $747,987.34 tribal, $357,844.29 (this includes tribal, and leased machines share) for Poplar River Casino, and leased machines $140,813.96. So at an average of $60,000 for seven months the tribes would have to pay Poplar River Casino $420,000 plus the leased machines at $140,813.96, and the gaming department expenses for seven months $373,333.33.
The tribes’ profit for seven months would be $233,840.05. With these Numbers, the projected profit for the tribes for this year would be $400,868.66, without the loan payment compared to 2025 profit $806,216.72 in which Tribal Express paid all of their own bills. This still wouldn’t make it a successful business because if the tribes paid for all of that it still wouldn’t break even.
These numbers were derived from the information I received from Fort Peck Inc. and the tribes’ internal auditor. Stealing from Peter to pay Paul will not make this casino a successful business. All the council is doing is taking your per capita payment to pay for the failing casino and trying to pull the wool over your eyes to make it look like the casino is successful to you. The council doesn’t seem to understand that the income for the casino comes from the amount of gamblers we have and that is a constant, and the only way they are going to make more income is if they can create more gamblers, it’s that simple. The only councilman that understands it is the finance committee chairman councilman Scott.
The issue with the change orders, which I explained, was that in order to do a change order according to our procurement policy is that a change order is used when construction has began and a problem is found with the specifications of the project or, a problem has surfaced with the construction that can’t be avoided. The issue with using an amendment to the contract is that it can only be used before the opening bid date, and that all the bidders have to have a chance to submit the amendment. This requires the bid opening date to be extended so that all the bidders have a chance to submit a competitive bid. What the engineer was doing was adding basically a whole new project to two different construction projects totaling over a million dollars, which I and our CFO feel would put us in jeopardy of getting a finding on our federal audit which I explained to them.
In previous years, I have had previous administrations go this route and not follow the policies and when the audit came around we had to pay back a quarter of a million tribal dollars back to each of these programs IRR program and also to our Fort Peck Housing program. I told them “you are going to do what you want, because you don’t care about breaking our policies, or jeopardizing our audit findings, but I do”.
We also discussed working together, but that discussion was not about working together it was about me not allowing them or the employees violating the laws and policies of the Fort Peck Tribes. These are all passed by resolution and are the law of the tribes according to our tribal constitution. All the executive board wants is a yes man, and that is not me. I feel that with the problems we have is what we should be working. Councilman Knowlton was upset that some employees were let go and some were terminated. The reason that they were let go is because the last administration hired them and that we were paying some of them more then three times as much as our IHS contract would allow, or our policies.
I and the HR office were asked to take care of it so we got with our attorneys and gave them a letter stating that we have to use what the market area wage scale is, and that we have to end their contract but allow them to work for the tribes as an employee otherwise their contract will be ended. So the decision to not work for the tribes were the employees’ decision, not mine. The other issue with me terminating employees was that we lost over a million dollars from the Head Start grant because of gross mismanagement, not following the grant requirements of enrollment which involved two Head Start Schools being eliminated, not having any bus drivers to pick up the children, and going over almost six million dollars on the original budget to build the new Head Start buildings.
We have some really good board members on the council but we have some which I consider bullies, and the others just fall in line. Why I don’t know, but I feel that some are freshman members, and are learning, some don’t want to make waves and some just want to be friends with everyone. I am not here to make friends and I have said that since the first time I was elected to a seat. The people didn’t put us in charge to make friends. We are elected to make change here, and we have not done anything yet, the Lord, the Great Spirit gave us this opportunity to make the lives of the people safer, to make their lives better for them and for the future of our people, and until your leaders understand that, we are going to go down this same path of self destruction.
Thank you for your time.
Floyd G. Azure
