Tribal Budget Formulation Work Group Recommends $196.8 Million for Urban Indian Health in FY 22

NCUIH and UIO Leaders Attend FY 2022 IHS National Tribal Budget Work Session

On February 13 – 14, 2020, the Tribal Budget Formulation Work Group (TBFWG) convened in Arlington, Virginia to develop the National Tribal Budget Recommendation for fiscal year (FY) 2022. This is a two-day annual meeting where the two tribal representatives from each Indian Health Service (IHS) Area come together to review and consolidate all the Areas’ budget recommendations into a set of national health priorities and budget recommendations. During this year’s session, the TBFWG recommended a $90,900,000 increase to the Urban Indian Health budget line item from their FY 2021 recommendation made last year, which was approximately $105,900,000. This is a substantial increase from the recommendation in the FY 2021 President’s budget as the total TBFWG recommendation for Urban Indian Health, $196,800,000, nearly doubles the FY 2021 recommendation. The Urban Indian Health line item was listed as the 11th overall priority in the TBFWG’s National Tribal Budget Recommendation.

In addition, during this year’s session, the TBFWG recommended a $2,763,251,000 increase to the Program Expansion component of the FY 2022 IHS budget, which is a 30% increase over the FY 2021 budget recommendation. The National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH) Board members, staff, and other Urban Indian Organization (UIO) leaders were in attendance at the National Tribal Budget Work Session, although no Urban Indian representative sits on the TBFWG.  Reports from several Areas made clear that UIOs had engaged thoroughly in their Area budget formulation meetings, leading to the TBFWG recommendation.  In fact, the Bemidji, Billings, California, Great Plains, Oklahoma, Phoenix, Portland, and Tucson Areas recommended an increase to Urban Indian Health, as indicated in the chart below.

Although NCUIH did not have an opportunity to present at the session, NCUIH Director of Federal Relations, Julia Dreyer, presented UIO budget priorities during an IHS webinar on January 29, 2020.