Washington, D.C ? Interior Department officials, ordered to pay $7 million to lawyers for American Indians suing the government over lost royalties, cut American Indian programs to find most of the money.

Jim Cason, associate deputy interior secretary, said the cuts would include $2 million from a fund for lawyers performing tribal work and $1 million from Bureau of Indian Affairs’ central and regional offices and some tribal programs. The decision won’t affect schools or public safety.

The plaintiffs called the decision a “devious and deceptive” attempt to punish American Indians for winning in court.

Indians accuse the government in a class-action lawsuit of mishandling more than $100 billion in lost oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties from their lands dating to 1887.