Oklahoma Indian tribes, the Citizen Pottawatomi Nation and the Osage tribe, are working on plans to offer welfare services to some Indian citizens. State officials aren't exactly welcoming the concept. While the federal welfare reform law allows for tribal welfare programs, it doesn't spell out how they are to be set up. That means that the state is back in the familiar and unenviable position of trying to work out with tribes arrangements that may or may not be in everyone's best interests.
Numerous obstacles are obvious.
It's not known if DHS can, or should, provide state money to the tribes for starting up the new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. The tribes also don't operate child support enforcement programs, which are necessary to help the state recoup funds when child support can be obtained from a delinquent parent. And there is the problem of information sharing, a critical welfare system component for learning if a recipient is receiving benefits from two different jurisdictions. One tribal spokesman said that some of the needs of tribal members are different from those of other welfare recipients. It's true, Indians in some cases are troubled by a particular combination of social ills.