The state Office of Hawaiian Affairs board has approved a $16.2 million operational budget for 2003 that for the first time integrates OHA's spending plan with its strategic goals. Leadership changes
afoot at OHABy Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.comBut the more noticeable change facing the agency may be the growing division of the board that eventually may trigger another leadership shuffle.
After just five months as OHA chairwoman, Haunani Apoliona and three other members in leadership watched as the five remaining trustees, led by former Chairman Clayton Hee, approved a proviso to OHA's fiscal 2003 budget that extends board attorney Sherry Broder's $125,000-a-year contract for at least six weeks until OHA advertises for and hires a new lawyer.
"This is a deep-rooted issue for him," Apoliona said afterward of Hee's actions.
Broder's two-year contract expired Sunday and there was no board discussion in the last few months about extending it. The fiscal 2003 OHA budget, which began yesterday, set aside $125,000 for board legal services.
Apoliona wanted trustees to seek bids on a new attorney for $60,000 a year, noting that Broder remains under contract to represent OHA in the various lawsuits it faces.
But five trustees at a budget meeting yesterday -- Hee, Rowena Akana, Charles Ota, John D. Waihee IV and Donald Cataluna -- decided to amend the budget to extend Broder's contract until new legal counsel is hired. The full board approved the amendment at a meeting an hour later, but not before it touched off debate over whether such action was proper.
Budget Chairman Oz Stender had argued the contract extension was not on his committee agenda and the issue is something that needs to be taken up at the board level, not in his committee.
But Hee, a potential Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, countered that provisos are allowed in the budget and that this is just another.
"If you can read the English language ... you will see that I am in fact embracing the budget by saying, leave the $125,000 in there, provided the administrator ... sends out a notice for professional services," Hee said.
Waihee said the leadership's attempt to discontinue the work of the current board counsel was not what a majority of trustees wanted. So they rectified it.
"There was nothing done wrong by anybody," Waihee said.
The new budget groups all OHA advocacy efforts in one area, giving the agency more flexibility as to how to spend its money and putting it in line with the goals of a five-year strategic plan approved in April.
Cataluna is now the swing vote in any possible board reorganization. The OHA board must reorganize after November's general election and it's uncertain whether a leadership shift would occur before that.
