Open letter on Sault Tribe restructuring

NEWS RELEASE

SAULT STE. MARIE TRIBE OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS

************************* Manistique board meeting rescheduled to accommodate executive workshop on deficit

Open letter to tribal membership and employees

SAULT STE. MARIE, MI - The Board of directors and executive staff have been working diligently to reduce our projected deficit for 2008 and 2009.

To date, we have created $7.1 million in operational savings, bringing the 2008 projected deficit of $15 million to $7.9 million.

We are at a critical juncture in our restructuring efforts and are continuing to look for cost savings and opportunities to increase our revenues.

The chairman and board of directors have scheduled a three-day executive workshop September 15-17, 2008 in Sault Ste. Marie to bring together the casinos, governmental/membership services and internal services to continue our efforts on efficiently restructuring operations, eliminating our current deficit and balancing our 2009 budgets.

A summary report will be provided to our membership on changes that are being made, providing as much detail as possible.

In order to accommodate this necessary executive workshop, Tribal Chairman Darwin “Joe” McCoy has announced a change in the board of directors meeting schedule.

The meeting previously scheduled for Wednesday, September 17, 2008, to be held in Manistique, Michigan has been postponed to Tuesday, September 30, 2008.

This meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the Manistique Tribal Community Center, with Open Community Hour scheduled for 5 p.m.

Decisions that have been made, and that are yet to be made, are necessary for the continued operations of vital membership services and payroll processing.

A recent decision by the tribal board of directors to use our land claims fund as collateral for a $5 million line of credit was necessary to continue providing membership services and payroll to our employees.

This loan collateral arrangement is temporary, and we are working with the bank to replace the collateral with approximately $6 million in real estate.

Getting approval from the bank to utilize real estate as collateral is a lengthier process.

As soon as we are approved we will make the change and replace the collateralization of our land claims fund.

We want to stress to members and employees many of the changes that are being made we consider to be temporary in nature.

When we are able to balance our deficit, we will look at those services and benefits that have been eliminated to re-evaluate what we are able to re-institute, based on need and available resources.

Our focus must be on 2008-2009 budgets and bringing them in line with our actual available revenue.

This is our number 1 priority.

There is a possibility that we may be forced to shut down operations and services if we do not balance our budgets, and limit our spending to what we can afford.

We do see a light at the end of this tunnel, and it is our intent to get this balanced and begin our recovery phase early next year.

[Issued by] Sault Tribe Chairman Darwin “Joe” McCoy and board of directors.

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