Coeur D'alene Tribe

Coeur D'alene Tribe, a federally recognized Native American tribal government headquartered in Plummer, Idaho, operates as a prime recipient of federal grants and contracts across a diverse portfolio spanning employment rights compliance, transit operations, environmental protection, social services, child care, and cultural preservation. The Tribe competes predominantly full-and-open (not under set-asides) and acts as a direct federal grant recipient and as a subrecipient on pass-through grants from state and university partners; it also holds small definitive contracts with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO) services.

Recent award activity reflects sustained federal engagement. Over the past five years, the Tribe has received 139 awards (31 in 2022, 31 in 2023, 32 in 2024, 34 in 2025, and 11 in the first two months of 2026), with combined potential value across all 774 awards in the source portfolio totaling $7.6 million in potential value but $228.9 million in obligated dollars—a ratio indicating heavy reliance on formula grants with large draw-down commitments relative to stated ceilings. The top five funding agencies by award count—the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (74 awards), the General Services Administration Public Buildings Service Central Office (49 awards), the Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service (44 awards), the Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs (36 awards), and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (32 awards)—account for 30 percent of all awards and signal concentration in HHS programs (child care, family assistance, TANF, older Americans services), real estate leasing, and tribal administration support.

The Tribe's grant footprint spans HHS social services and family support programs (TANF, LIHEAP, Child Care and Development Block Grant, CCDF mandatory and matching, child support enforcement, Native Employment Works Program, Family Violence Prevention and Services); Department of Education grants for Indian education formula funding and youth STEM initiatives; Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration awards for operating assistance and preventive maintenance of the CityLink transit system serving rural Benewah and Kootenai Counties in Idaho (with multiple awards ranging from $869 thousand to $1 million per formula grant cycle); Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 cooperative agreements for pesticide enforcement, air quality monitoring, brownfields assessment and cleanup, and Inflation Reduction Act-funded air quality expansion; Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance grants for tribal healing-to-wellness courts (Adult Healing to Wellness Court, Qhest'n'pot—"Journey to Wellness," integrating evidence-based substance use treatment with traditional healing practices), tribal data expansion and case management systems, treatment court implementation, and community policing equipment; Department of Agriculture Forest Service grants for forest health and wildfire risk reduction on 34,602 acres of tribal fee lands, temporary bridge rental programs to support timber harvesting, and Hangman Creek Watershed restoration; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grants for salmon reintroduction feasibility studies in the Upper Columbia Basin; Department of Interior Bureau of Reclamation cooperative agreements for Phase II Implementation Plan studies on salmon reintroduction and water rights settlement consulting; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grants for waterfowl monitoring and habitat restoration; Department of the Interior National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund grants supporting tribal historic preservation office activities; Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration grants for the De Smet Water Supply System Improvement Project ($6.07 million, completed June 2027); Department of Energy home electrification rebate programs; Office of Head Start grants for Head Start and Early Head Start services ($1.46 million five-year award, October 2025–August 2031, with ultimate recipient designation to Coeur D'alene Tribal Housing Authority); and Institute of Museum and Library Services grants for Native American library services basics programs.

The Tribe's contract footprint, by contrast, is minimal and specialized. Four definitive firm fixed-price contracts with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for TERO services total $32,000 to $33,000 annually (October 2022–September 2026 cycle), representing the Tribe's only named contract prime awards in the source. The Tribe also holds two standing Basic Ordering Agreements under GSA Schedule GS10B06524 (86 task orders, $2 million combined potential value) and GS10B07182 (41 task orders, $3.1 million combined potential value), though specific task order scope is not detailed in the source.

On the sub-award side, the Tribe receives pass-through funding from state and university partners. Named sub-awards include Federal Transit Administration grants flowing through Kootenai County for fixed-route and paratransit preventive maintenance and operations support (multiple sub-awards dating October 2023–October 2025); National School Lunch Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Program sub-awards from the Idaho State Board of Education; University of Idaho sub-awards for the NSF-funded "Cultivating Relationships: Partnering Teachers, Tribes, and Landscapes for Sustaining STEM Education" project (in which the Tribe's Department of Education serves as co-PI delivering culture-based and land-based teacher professional development, 2022–2026); University of Idaho Climate-Smart Commodities subawards for demonstration site oversight and biochar production coordination (2023–2026); National Fish and Wildlife Foundation sub-award for Chinook salmon habitat restoration analysis in the Spokane River watershed (July 2024); and Philanthropy Northwest sub-award for community-based environmental justice projects (July 2026).

The Tribe's subsidiary Coeur D'alene Tribal Housing Authority appears on several grants as the ultimate recipient or parent organization, particularly in Head Start and transit-related awards, indicating structural alignment between housing authority operations and federal grant administration. A second subsidiary, Red-Spectrum Communications LLC, is identified as a tribally owned, Indian-owned, minority-owned small disadvantaged business organized as an LLC; no federal awards are attributed to it in the source. Twenty-five awards face recompete within the next twenty-four months, representing routine cycle turnover in formula grant renewals (TANF, LIHEAP, child care, TANF, family violence, older Americans, and pesticide enforcement programs).

The Tribe operates at the intersection of tribal self-governance, social service delivery, environmental stewardship, and community development, with federal funding concentrated in mandatory and formula grants tied to tribal population, reservation-based service delivery, and compliance with national social service and environmental programs rather than competitive contracting.