Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly. Photo by Rick Abasta/Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President

Leaders of the Navajo Nation are still deciding what to do with a $554 million trust fund settlement coming their way.

One idea was a per capita payment that would have come to around $3,000 per person while another called for distributing the funds equally to the 110 chapters on the reservation. But the Trust Mismanagement Litigation Taskforce is leaning towards a long-term investment and development plan.

"We definitely wanted to make sure those millions will be continually utilized by generations and generations of Navajos," Navajo Nation Council Delegate Russell Begaye, who serves on the task force, told The Farmington Daily Times.

The $554 million payout is the largest tribal settlement reached by the Obama administration. Begaye told the paper that the initial offer was "low" but he said the figure rose as negotiations continued.

Secretary Sally Jewell, the head of the Interior Department, and Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn, the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will be in Window Rock, Arizona, the tribe's capital, to sign the settlement with President Ben Shelly on Friday.

Get the Story:
U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to visit the Navajo Nation (The Farmington Daily Times 9/23)

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