Tribal Leader Roundtable

COVID-19 has impacted us financially, socially, physically, and emotionally. We have had the challenge of paying bills and taking care of our tribal members as well as employees, when no revenue was coming in due to business closures.

COVID-19 has had a reverberating effect on our tribe and community as a whole. The pandemic has changed the predictability of the workforce, supplies and resources. Operating hours and standard operating procedures have changed to keep our team members and community safe.

During this public health crisis, we worked tirelessly to communicate with both the tribal members and Rolling Hills Casino and Resort employees. Luckily, our planning processes considered such a disruption to our organizations, so we had virtual communications platforms already deployed allowing for operational continuity.

This crisis has brought our people together. We’re checking on our elders to ensure they stay home and are safe, and that those with underlying health conditions are not exposed. We’ve had people, even in the surrounding areas, make masks for us.

This crisis has impacted our tribe considerably. About 140 of our members are elders, and many of them rely on the income generated from our gaming enterprise.

COVID-19 has impacted all aspects of the Community – everything from economic activity, community activity, to managing the public health crisis. Overall, there have been 23 deaths and nearly 588 individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19.

We are a small community with a membership of a little over 1,300. We’ve had a number of members who have tested positive for the virus. Per capita-wise, we did encounter a high rate of the virus.

When the current coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. and the federal, state, and local governments began to shut down, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe passed a Resolution enacting a public health emergency, creating the Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s Incident Management Team (IMT).

The pandemic has impacted us immensely. Initially, not knowing the severity of COVID-19 and what came with it, sent the whole world into a different mind thought.

We’ve incurred financial losses in the millions of dollars; we’ve had to furlough and lay off hundreds of tribal government and business employees; we’ve had team members and customers who have lost loved ones; and we’ve been forced to conduct operations in a whole new way throughout our organization, etc.