Report on Tribal Costs of Repatriation

The University of California (UC) provides the following report on Tribal repatriation costs as recommended by the California State Auditor (CSA) in its April 15, 2025 report on UC’s compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (CalNAGPRA). Specifically, Recommendation 19 of the CSA report states:

To ensure that all campuses provide adequate support to tribes for the expenses related to repatriation, the Office of the President should engage tribes to study the costs the tribes incur, and by January 2026, it should provide a report to the Legislature that includes at least the following information:

• A full list of the types of tribal costs for which the university proposes to provide funding and the total amount of funding that the university would need annually to pay for such costs.
• The total amount of funding required annually to compensate tribes for the time they spend in consultation.
• The total amount of funding required annually to compensate tribes for reburial costs.
• An accounting of the amount of funding the university has available to provide toward these costs and the amount of funding it needs, if any, from the Legislature.

At the suggestion of Tribes that participated in listening sessions organized by the UC Office of the President (UCOP), a draft of this report was sent to all California Indian Tribes on the Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC) contact list for a 60-day Tribal review period, which concludes on July 19, 2026. No concerns were raised regarding the report.