Close to 1,000 employees who had been on paid leave with the Navajo Nation’s gambling operation will stop getting paid after Monday. (August 3).
Some 900 workers started to get alerted about the salary stoppage this past weekend. An additional 125 workers will get their salary for one more week.
A handful of other workers will keep on getting salary if they handle security, human resources, management, and finance functions, according to the Associated Press.
It had been hoped the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise would keep paying its 1,180 workers their salaries and benefits. The tribal gaming operation had planned to reopen three casinos in New Mexico, and a resort casino near Flagstaff, Arizona. They closed on March 17 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tribe Depletes Cash Reserves, Paycheck Protection Program
But now the Navajo gaming enterprise has gone through cash reserves and cash from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, the AP said. It can no longer afford the salaries, the AP adds. But employees, even if they stop getting salaries, will continue to receive health insurance benefits.
In a statement to the AP, Brian Parrish, Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise interim chief executive officer, estimates that payrolls are some 70 percent of fixed costs for the Navajo gambling enterprise.
Nobody’s employment has been terminated. Nobody’s job has been eliminated. None of those things has occurred,” Parrish told the Farmington Daily Times, a New Mexico newspaper, on Wednesday (July 29).
Gaming revenue from tribal casinos also typically funds key reservation operations such as health care.
But in March, the American Gaming Association reported that at least 97 percent of the country’s 524 tribal gaming properties were closed because of the pandemic.
Earlier this year, Alan Meister, CEO and principal economist of Meister Economic Consulting, said tribal casino closures were “causing significant detriment to Native American tribes, many of which rely heavily on gaming related revenue to pay for tribal government operations, infrastructure, and social and economic programs and services for a Native American population that is already substantially disadvantaged.”
Tribal governments do not collect property taxes the way local governments do to fund local programs.
Coronavirus Outbreak Lessens in Navajo Nation
The financial challenges come after the Navajo Nation saw among the highest rates of COVID-19 in the US. More recently, the number of COVID-19 cases has somewhat fallen.
As of Sunday, there were 8,891 cases of coronavirus on the Navajo Nation reservation. There were 439 deaths linked to COVID-19. Some 6,547 on the reservation recovered from coronavirus.
The Navajo Nation is spread across a 27,000-square-mile reservation. It covers northeastern Arizona and areas in New Mexico and Utah.
Navajo Nation leaders continue to review how federal coronavirus relief money, received by the reservation, should be spent, the AP said. The Navajo-Hopi Observer reported the tribe could see a reopening in phases of the reservation. It could commence as early as this week.
The Navajo Nation is to keep in place a weekend lockdown for at least the next two weekends on the reservation, the AP said.
This week, tribal leaders may announce further details about reopening plans. Last week, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said in a virtual meeting, “We’ve got health care experts that are going to give us updates about what’s happening all around us, and we’re going to make an informed, data-driven decision.”
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