PHOENIX—Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne met with tribal leaders and law enforcement officials from tribes in Arizona at the Heard Museum on Thursday, Feb. 22, to hold a press conference on the president’s budget proposals for Indian country.

Kempthorne met with tribal chairman and other leaders to get their input on education and law enforcement needs. The president has proposed a $16 million increase to fund the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Safe Indian Communities Initiative, which will strengthen law enforcement capabilities on tribal lands to help combat the epidemic of methamphetamine use.

To raise the level of student performance in Bureau of Indian Education schools, the president’s budget calls for an additional $15 million investment to improve Indian student academic achievement. The BIE system has 184 schools that educate about 50,000 students.