Tribal Leader Roundtable

Tribes are making difficult and dramatic choices to protect our communities, tribal citizens and employees’ health and safety from the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.

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.

We practice all of the same protocols for COVID-19 health and safety as we did before. It's been challenging, but we've enjoyed good revenue so far this year.

Through courses with the Emergency Management Institute and other opportunities through FEMA, we’ve been able to lay down the groundwork to assist our members during the COVID-19 situation.

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.

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.

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.

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).