President Barack Obama's proposed 2011 budget includes increased funding for tribal health care and law enforcement, which are big initiatives of the local Potawatomi. But the head of local tribal government said it's too soon to tell how, if at all, the local tribe will benefit.

Obama's proposal presented earlier this month includes a $4.4 billion Indian Health Service budget -- an increase of 9 percent over the current fiscal year -- and adds hundreds of millions in new funds to help tribes fight crime, improve intergovernmental relationships and seek energy efficiency.

Congress still must approve the budget for the fiscal year which begins Oct. 1. According to the Office of Interior, the department which includes Indian Health Services, Congress approved the 2010 budget without amendment.

But even if the new budget goes through, there are 586 American Indian tribes competing for that funding through competitive grant processes, said Laura Spurr, Tribal Council chairwoman of Athens Township's Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi. It's not clear how much of that new funding will head to the tribe's Pine Creek Reservation.

Obama's budget "doesn't reflect money in the bank for any tribe," Spurr said.

The large tribal nations in the West -- whose reservations often cover many square miles, compared to the 122-acre Pine Creek in Athens Township -- usually receive the most federal funding, Spurr said.

While the tribe would not reveal its current budget, federal funding accounted for $3.8 million of the Huron Potawatomi's 2008 budget, according to a report from the tribe. That included nearly $1.6 million from Indian Health Service alone.

The tribe in August opened the $300 million FireKeepers Casino in Emmett Township, which is helping it become self-sufficient, Spurr said. However the tribe has $340 million in bonds it must repay, and that's keeping casino income low. Spurr said outside funding still will count for a hefty majority of the Huron Potawatomi's 2011 budget.

While Obama "has done more for Native Americans than any other president since 1776," Spurr said the total funding for tribes is a drop in the well of Obama's $3.8 trillion federal budget. Spurr was in Washington on Nov. 4 for a face-to-face meeting with the president, the first time the local tribe has met with a president in recent history.

In the Bemidji Area, the Midwest region of Indian Health Service that serves the Huron Potawatomi, funding per American Indian citizen is less than the funding per prison inmate, Spurr said. And Obama's budget lowers funding for the Indian Housing Block Grant. With housing as one of the local tribe's top priorities, "That doesn't look good for us," Spurr said.

All of this contrasts with the needs of American Indians, who generally exceed other ethnicities in poverty rates and in certain diseases such as diabetes.

Tribal funding "is way behind," Spurr said. "It would take a lifetime for somebody to restore those benefits that should have been there."