UKB Treasurer Suspended Without Pay as Impeachment Case Moves Forward
By Staff Reports
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Six tribal employees remained without placement the week the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma’s Tribal Council voted to suspend its Treasurer without pay.
The UKB Council voted 5-2 on July 15 to suspend the Band’s treasurer, Sonja Gourd, and cut off her access to the Band’s accounting records. Four were absent from the vote: UKB Assistant Chief Jeff Wacoche, Gourd herself, UKB Sequoyah Councilor Donald Adair and UKB Cooweescoowee Councilor Cliff Wofford.
The furloughs and the suspension trace to the same source. UKB Comptroller Meosha Rambo, hired April 13, told councilors the tribe is “grant rich” and “cash poor” — money owed on paper the tribe cannot yet convert to cash. For years, Rambo said, the UKB leaned on federal COVID relief funds to help cover payroll and other costs while awaiting separate federal grant payments. That relief money was never designed to last. When it ran out, the shortfall underneath it reached tribal paychecks.
Part of that shortfall is written into a federal calculation. The Band’s indirect cost rate — which allows it to recover money spent on office costs such as accounting and staffing — expired in 2023 and was extended into 2024. Since then it has operated at a fallback rate of 15%, according to Accounting Manager Jeff Stowers. Rambo said the Band cannot recover several million dollars it has already spent until a new rate is approved.
Rambo’s office also found roughly 10,000 accounting entries from the past three years that had never been properly recorded. As of the meeting, that number stood at 1,100.
Against that backdrop, Tribal Councilor Tishaleta Smith-Guevara, UKB Delaware District, filed Articles of Impeachment against Gourd on July 15. The Articles accuse her on five counts: misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, willful neglect of duty and corruption in office, each a term defined in the Band’s Impeachment and Removal Code. These are allegations. No hearing has occurred, and Gourd has not been found responsible for any of the five counts.
A hearing on the Articles is scheduled for Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. at the UKB Wellness Center in Tahlequah. Removing Gourd from office permanently requires a two-thirds vote of the full Council.
Wacoche has served as UKB Assistant Chief for the entirety of Gourd’s tenure as Treasurer. He did not say at the meeting why no action was taken against her sooner.
Gourd has not publicly commented.