In an audit released yesterday, Higa said OHA officials need to address longstanding practices and problems that are eroding such relationships. The trustees bypass the administrator and deal directly with her staff, there is blurred authority over board expenditures, and the chairman defers committee matters before the full board for a decision.
"OHA's trustees and staff need to rise above internal discontent and discord that could compromise OHA's mission, and move ahead to meet challenges in program planning, monitoring, evaluation and budgeting ... ," Higa said yesterday.
Higa described the audit, conducted last year, as mixed. OHA was lasted audited by the state in December 1993 and February 1990.
Unlike recent audits of other state agencies, Higa had mainly good things to say about the agency's pocketbook, saying OHA - with an investment portfolio rocketing from $19 million in 1990 to $245 million today - has established a foundation of sound investment policy and management through its use of outside financial experts.
It is praise not lost on OHA Chairman Clayton Hee, who is glad the agency's top mission, the management of its assets for the betterment of Hawaiians, has earned state approval. Hee said Higa's comments confirm what OHA's external auditor, Deloitte & Touche, has said for the past 15 years: OHA's financial house is in order.
More importantly, Hee hopes it will shatter the public perception that OHA, and Hawaiians in general, don't know how to manage their money.
"Trust me," Hee said yesterday. "If we had funds that were unaccounted for, if we weren't following the procurement law, she would have said so. That's her job."
" ... I hope that the stereotype that Hawaiians don't know how to hold money, that they drink beer and spend all their money, will no longer be applied. That is a stereotype that is not fair, and it not true for OHA. It's racist," Hee said.
Hee said disagreement among trustees and the administrator are not unique to OHA, but simply democracy in action on any elected board.
"People are elected from different walks of life, different footsteps. And so their passions and opinions are different. No one was anointed to be right all the time."
The report recommends, among other things, that OHA:
Adopt time limits within which the chairman must place a committee's recommendation on the board's meeting agenda.
Create separate budget IDs for trustees and their staff, and the OHA administrator and her staff, to provide more accountability and lines of authority.
Update and adopt master and functional plans, as well as regular assessments of all programs and projects receiving OHA funds.
Develop a comprehensive strategic plan for the use of long-term investments; establish policies for reviewing the amount of funds kept in short-term investment accounts.