That's the gotcha that goes with government funding unattached to any sort of guidelines or standards.

If the government had enacted standards for first nations education saying, for example, all grade 9 math textbooks must be updated to a text from list X, it would be trivial for first nation schools to collect that cash. They'd only have to buy the books and send the government the bill. "You said we had to do this and you'd pay for it. We did it. Pay up." Done.

Without standards or guidelines, everything is subject to the vagaries of government bureaucracy. "Oh... You want funding for new gym equipment? Well, what do you have now? Could you go do an inventory? Oh, you have? That's great. We'll send that to our budget group and they'll decide what sort of gym equipment your school should have and what it should cost... eventually. They're a little swamped right now. It might be a while. Is there anything else we can help you with?"

The AFN canned Alteo (the former AFN head) for working out a deal with the Conservatives that would have given First Nations schools a similar amount of funding, only with standards and guidelines attached. The AFN saw those as paternalistic, colonialist, federal interference, not the means by which they could actually get their money out of the government. They demanded money without the guidelines and standards. Trudeau has given them that, so now they'll have to wrestle for their money... and wait. There will probably be more waiting than wrestling actually. That's bureaucracy for you.