PROVIDENCE -- The Narragansett Indian tribe wants to collect about $1.4 million in gambling money from the state that it has refused to take for years, the tribe's leader said Friday.

Federal funding for the 2,700-member American Indian tribe has declined from a peak of roughly $7.5 million in 1997 to $5.5 million this year, Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas said. As a result, he said the Narragansett tribe would benefit from the promised state aid.

"We're facing economic hard times, just like everyone else," Thomas said.

Under a 2005 law, the Twin River video slot parlor in Lincoln must set aside some gambling revenue for the Narragansetts, but the tribe has refused to take it because Narragansett leaders were worried about restrictions placed on the money. The law limits the tribe to spending the funds on elderly housing, education, social welfare, child care, conservation and economic development projects.

The money cannot be used to pay the tribe's debts, including those owed to its business partners in failed efforts to build a casino in Rhode Island.

Thomas said the tribe's lawyers were seeking a meeting with Gov. Don Carcieri's office to discuss whether the money could be use for other purposes, such as funding the tribe's annual powwow in August.

Carcieri's staff have not scheduled the meeting, but the governor supports releasing the money to the Narragansetts, Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said.

Carcieri has tried before to use the money to patch up the state's rocky relationship with the tribe after its failed efforts to open a casino and a raid on a tribal smoke shop in July 2003.

Carcieri ordered state police to raid the shop on the tribe's land in Charlestown that was selling cigarettes without collecting state taxes. A federal appeals court later ruled the shop was operating illegally.

Last month, a jury convicted Thomas and two other tribe members of scuffling with police during the raid. They have not been sentenced.