CONCHO, Okla. — The Interior Board of Indian Appeals approved a motion Sept. 6 to authorize the Bureau of Indian Affairs to fund several government contracts awarded to an embattled Oklahoma tribe.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes have been embroiled in a leadership dispute for more than 18 months, prompting the First Bank and Trust in Clinton, Okla., to freeze one of the tribe’s accounts earlier this year.           

Last Thursday’s decision allows for Janice Prairie-Chief Boswell’s administration to complete draw downs on 11 contracts and one grant authorized under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. Leslie Wandrie-Harjo, who was initially sworn in as Boswell’s lieutenant governor in 2010, also claims to be the tribes’ legitimate governor and contested the initial motion that prompted the decision.

“Critically, Wandrie-Harjo’s opposition to the motion appears to simply assume that denying funding to the tribe for these contracts — as Wandrie-Harjo apparently urges — until the related appeals are decided would not adversely affect the public interest,” wrote IBIA Chief Administrative Judge Steven Linscheid. “The board is convinced that the opposite is true, and that it is in the public interest to place the decision into effect in order to allow the contracts to continue to be funded.”

The board also agreed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ regional office that there is not any proof that the tribes are failing to meet the contracts’ terms.

Wandrie-Harjo and her attorney, Jeremy Oliver, did not respond to requests for comment.

Last week’s decision comes just before a hearing in Custer County District Court in Arapaho, Okla., on an application from the First Bank and Trust in Clinton, Okla., to close the tribes’ accounts. The more than $6.4 million in frozen funds have been under the administration of a district court judge since June, prompting the Boswell administration to institute a 32-hour work week for its employees in early May and mandatory furlough days across its departments. As of Sept. 4, the abbreviated work week is still in place.

“Our employees are feeling the pinch,” said Lisa Liebl, a spokeswoman for Boswell’s administration. “Our programs are feeling the pinch. Our people are feeling the pinch.”

An employee in the Boswell administration said the programs were relying primarily on gaming revenue to stay afloat.

“In order to keep up with these (grant) guidelines, we have had to adjust and cut back on programs solely funded through our gaming funds to provide services for our grant-funded programs,” the employee said on the condition of anonymity. “Right now, we’re running on gaming revenue to keep open the programs that have to be open or we’d lose those grants.”

“It has taken its toll on the gaming programs,” the employee said. “We still have not been able to open up and provide assistance.”

The Cheyenne and Arapahos own and operate five Lucky Star casinos across its nine-county jurisdictional area in western Oklahoma.

Despite the frozen accounts, 16 job vacancies through the Concho complex were advertised in the Sept. 1 edition of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Tribune, including three teaching positions with the tribe’s Head Start centers in Canton, Okla.; Clinton, Okla.; and Concho, Okla., that require an associate’s degree or higher.

More than 12,000 people are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, including about 5,000 who live within the tribes’ jurisdictional area.