Tribal Council approves grant application for salmon recovery, announces general welfare payment date

By Danielle Harrison

Smoke Signals editor

Tribal Council approved a grant application aimed at increasing the Tribe’s salmon recovery efforts during its Wednesday, Sept. 3, meeting.

In 2024, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board secured additional grant monies from the federal Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund specifically for Oregon’s nine federally recognized Tribes. Grand Ronde was allocated approximately $100,000 for salmon recovery and conservation planning efforts, which cannot be used for monitoring, restoration or acquisition.

During a Tuesday, Sept. 2, Legislative Action Committee meeting Tribal Fish & Wildlife Program Manager Kelly Dirksen said that if awarded, the Natural Resources Department would like to use the grant funds to support current and future consulting work by VandenHeuvel Strategies, which it has contracted with since 2022 for salmon recovery services.

“There are three main components under the grant that this would cover,” he said. “Basically, it’s administrative work under the salmon strength team. It does say that the money can’t be used for lobbying…so we might modify the grant and use of the funds to cover staff reaches. …It does have some complications but we think it would be really useful to supplement the existing grant to free up Tribal funds that are dedicated to the contract now.”

Specifically, grant funds would be used to coordinate the Tribal Salmon Strength Initiative, participate in the Willamette Valley environmental impact statement and provide technical help to implement the Willamette Basin biological opinion.  

In other action, Tribal Council:

• Approved a Tribal credit card authorization for Audit Manager Michael Langley with a $2,500 limit;
• And approved the enrollment of seven infants into the Tribe because they meet the requirements under the Tribal Constitution and Enrollment Ordinance.

In other news, the first payment date under the new General Welfare Ordinance was announced. It will be Friday, Sept. 12, and the amount will be $870 for all eligible Tribal members, including minor children. The payment will be tax-free and will not reduce other Supplemental Social Security payments to members who receive those benefits.

The payments will be made to members by direct deposit or check, whichever has been requested by the member. General welfare payments to minor children will be deposited into a new account.

The payments are calculated based on casino dividends, similar to per capita payments. Future program funding sources will be discussed by council for the 2026 budget.   

Members will not receive a per capita payment for September.

For more information, visit the Tribe’s website, scroll to the bottom of the page and view “September 2025 General Welfare Program Payment.”  

To watch the entire meeting, visit the Tribal government’s website at www.grandronde.org and click on the Videos tab.