Public Media for Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Negotiations Sour On Vital Tribal Child Welfare Agreement

Jeremy Hsieh
/
KTOO

Negotiations broke down Friday, May 20 over a compact between Alaska Native tribes, tribal organizations, and the state Department of Health and Social Services. That agreement is called the Alaska Tribal Child Welfare Compact, and was signed in 2017 by former Gov. Bill Walker’s administration.

Alaska Native children make up more than half of the children placed in foster care, even though they are only 20 percent of the children in Alaska. The problem is that the state does not have staffing in many rural communities to intervene in cases where children are at risk. Tribes are already in those communities and can step in to protect the children.

The compact gave tribes more control over their children’s welfare. Here’s Rep. Tiffany Zulkosky, a Bethel Democrat, who also heads the House’s special committee on tribal affairs:

"The biggest takeaway over around the concern about whether the child welfare compact continues is, this is the historic government-to-government agreement, the first of its kind in the country between the state and tribes in Alaska that is providing  support to help with overwhelming caseloads that the state is dealing with and to provide support to areas facing turnover rates of 50 to 80 percent," said Zulkosky.

The compact itself is complex. It gives tribes more resources and freedom to step in and do what the state has not had resources to do, and that is to take care of Alaska Native children that could be placed in foster care. For instance, the compact says that tribes can conduct their own investigations into child welfare cases and participate in picking families to care for the children. It also allows tribes to negotiate for state funding to provide those services.

But that funding is imperiled by Gov. Dunleavy's administration. The Association of Village Council Presidents is a non-profit that serves 56 recognized tribes. In a statement, it says that the negotiations got off to a rough start when the state changed some of its negotiating team at the last minute. The state also “refused to transfer funding for services that were already negotiated and agreed to in January 2019," according to the AVCP press release.

In a statement, a Dunleavy spokesman says that the negotiation broke down because of two issues: they expected that funding for next year would go toward "direct services and deliverables," and they expected tribes to come up with sufficent insurance to cover liabilities and risks on any work the state does. 

The Alaska Federation of Natives also called on Dunleavy to step in, but Dunleavy says that "I have full faith and confidence that my policy advisor, John Moller, can adequately represent me on these matters."