Navajo Nation budget hearings set for St. Michael’s, Chinle stops

St. Michael’s and Chinle will get two of the Navajo Nation’s six FY2027 budget hearings, giving Apache County residents a direct shot at shaping what gets funded before the spending plan is finalized.

The Budget and Finance Committee announced the hearings on June 3, and every session is set for 10:00 a.m. local time with a Zoom livestream for people who cannot make it in person. The Apache County stops are June 24 at St. Michael’s Chapter House and July 1 at the NTUA Chinle District Office. The full schedule also includes June 5 at San Juan Chapter in Lower Waterflow, New Mexico; June 22 at Casamero Lake Chapter in Prewitt, New Mexico; June 29 at Tonalea Chapter; and June 30 at Goulding Lodge in Oljato-Monument Valley, Utah.

For residents who want to speak, the rules are tight and the leverage is real. Anyone who wants to testify must complete a Request to Speak form during registration, and each speaker gets five minutes. In-person attendees are given priority before online participants. People joining through Zoom must register and will be assigned a speaker number, while phone numbers and email addresses are collected to identify and label participants. Written comments may also be sent to Shural Notah at snotah@navajo-nsn.gov or Tatyana Billy at tatyana.billy@navajo-nsn.gov.

The hearings matter because they feed directly into the FY2027 Comprehensive Budget Report that goes to the full Navajo Nation Council for final consideration and approval. The committee’s budget framework, adopted April 30 through Resolution No. BFAP-09-26, was built from four years of expenditure data from FY2022 through FY2025, presented by Controller Sean McCabe. The planning base was set at $197 million, with $34,354,705 for fixed costs and $101,933,403 for executive branch funding, alongside other priorities such as chapter funding, information technology, probate quiet titles, chapter veterans funding, summer youth employment, auditor general training and a white-collar crime unit for the prosecutor’s office.

That structure puts mandatory costs first, including utilities, personnel, insurance and chapter funding, before unmet needs requests are considered. In practical terms, that means testimony in St. Michaels and Chinle could help sway which local needs rise above the rest, especially in a system where every dollar already has a job before the public finishes weighing in.

The budget process also comes after a contentious FY2026 cycle. In September 2025, the Navajo Nation Council approved a $694.5 million budget, underscoring how much money is at stake as the 2027 plan takes shape.

Apache County’s role is especially significant because the county had 66,021 residents in the 2020 Census, and American Indian and Alaska Native residents made up 72.6% of the population. In a largely rural county where travel and broadband access can be a barrier, the St. Michaels and Chinle hearings may be among the few places where residents can influence spending before it is locked in.