Ombudsman takes
public complaints

Answer: Contact the state Ombudsman's Office: Call 587-0770 (TTY 587-0774), fax 587-0773, e-mail complaints@ombudsman.hi.state.us or mail to Hawaii Office of the Ombudsman, Kekuanoa Building (Territorial Office Building), 4th Floor, 465 S. King St., Honolulu 96813.

In 1967, Hawaii became the first state to set up, by law, a state ombudsman's office.

Anyone -- government employee, private citizen, business -- can file a complaint.

"We're an independent investigative office," said ombudsman Robin Matsunaga. "It's not limited to who files a complaint."

Rather, the limitation is on who the complaint can be against.

The Ombudsman's Office does not investigate elected officials -- the governor or mayor, the state Legislature or county councils; the state Judiciary; or any private entity.

But it has investigative powers, including the power of subpoena, which allows it to conduct independent investigations of state and county agencies.

Because it is part of the state Legislature, the governor (or mayor) "cannot influence our findings" and "has no control over my budget or appointment," Matsunaga said.

The ombudsman cannot force agencies to do anything, but generally is able to persuade them to basically do the right thing.

"If we find the agency has made an error, we will work to get that error corrected," Matsunaga said. "But we don't have the power to compel the agency to make the changes. We can only do that basically through persuasion."

Asked about the office's success rate in resolving complaints, Matsunaga said sometimes it might be too late to do anything even if the office is able to substantiate a complaint.

"But where we could make a difference, where we could change the outcome, we've gotten almost a 100 percent success rate in getting an agency to reverse or amend the decision," he said.

The office generally averages between 4,000 and 4,500 complaints a year. More than 90 percent are against state agencies (many prison-related), the rest against county agencies.

There is no "typical" complaint, Matsunaga said, explaining that complaints are specific to an agency.

Many are simple and might take only a "couple of days" or less to resolve, and often are just "communication errors," he said.

However, other complaints could require time-consuming work, he said. Something like the denial of an appeal of a workers' compensation claim, for example, requires going through the entire lengthy record of a case.

There is no charge to file a complaint or have it investigated.

Matsunaga's office is made up of himself, a deputy, an administrative services officer, eight analysts and four intake workers.

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