Navajos Nix Trust Fund Vote

The Navajo Nation Council last week rejected a call for a referendum to build jails and court facilities with money from a nearly $1 billion trust fund. The council defeated the proposal by Delegate Kee Allen Begay, 46 to 27, with 59 votes needed for passage. Begay wanted to give tribe members the chance to a vote on spending some of the principal in the tribe’s permanent fund on new criminal justice facilities on the sprawling reservation. The defeated measure would have appropriated $244,000 for a referendum asking voters whether $153 million from the principal of the fund should be spent to build additional jails and courts. Current tribal law limits the council to spending the interest on the fund, or about $17 million a year. The tribe has deposited 12% of annual revenues from taxes on energy, mineral, and timber production from Navajo lands into the fund since 1985.