Tribal Council approves 2026 spending plan

By Danielle Harrison

Smoke Signals editor

Tribal Council held its final meeting of 2025 on Wednesday, Dec. 31, and approved the 2026 budget.

The meeting was held at 10 a.m. instead of the usual 4 p.m. time, due to administrative leave that afternoon for the New Year’s Day holiday.

The Tribal spending plan is $357.1 million and includes a 11.7% increase from 2025.

During a Tuesday, Dec. 30, Legislative Action Committee meeting, Tribal Council members took an opportunity to thank the Tribe’s Finance Department for its work on the budget.

“Thank you for all the work you do with your staff, I know it gets hard on the eyes,” Tribal Council Chairwoman Cheryle A. Kennedy said. “But we got through it.”

Tribal Council member Kathleen George said she wanted to take an opportunity to, “echo some of the good words said earlier.”

“I want to thank (Finance Officer) Chris (Leno) and the whole team, and all of our department managers,” she said. “For all of our departments, these have been challenging budget evaluations the past couple years and for good reasons. We’ve seen tremendous growth in our Tribal government and the services we provide to our members and that’s the fruition of work and plans council set in motion in previous years. With that comes cost and, in some cases, new revenues as well. There have been a lot of conversations with council members and with Chris and his team about our need with this level of growth, to really take a good look at that and how we plan intentionally for that growth and manage it in upcoming years.”

The 2026 draft budget was mailed to Tribal members in early November in the Tilixam Wawa and Leno briefed the membership on its specifics in executive session during the November General Council meeting.

Adult Tribal members had until Thursday, Dec. 4, to comment on the draft spending plan.

During the Wednesday meeting, Tribal Council member Toby McClary spoke about the approved budget.

“A lot of hard work was put into this budget…and there is a lot of work to do in terms of managing the growth moving forward,” he said. “We realize there is going to be growth. But how we stay in front of that and how we manage that growth moving forward is also going to be very important. I believe we have the right team, both on Tribal Council and our executive leadership, to look at that with a magnifying glass and really work on providing the most benefits and services to the membership and yet maintaining benefits to the employees.”  

In other action, Tribal Council:

• Approved a limited waiver of sovereign immunity for Extended Care Professional software, which will be used by the Tribe’s Adult Foster Care lodges to replace paper charting;
• Approved agreements between the Great Circle Recovery Clinic pharmacy and pharmacy benefit management companies Humana, OptumRX and Prime Therapeutics, to bill the insurance plans of clients at the Great Circle Detox Center, which will open in January 2026;
• Approved a $225,000 professional services agreement with The Herald Group, a Washington D.C. based company that specializes in advocacy and public affairs campaigns. It replaces the agreement that the Tribe had with Gard Communications of Portland;
• And approved enrolling four infants into the Tribe because they meet the requirements under the Tribal Constitution and Enrollment Ordinance.

Tribal Council also set the agenda and time for the next General Council meeting. It will be held in Tribal Council Chambers at 11 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 4, in a hybrid format and feature a report in executive session from the Economic and Lands Department. 

To watch the entire meeting, visit www.grandronde.org and click on the Videos tab.