Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 13, Number 1, 1 January 1996 — Sound and fury signifying nothing [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Sound and fury signifying nothing

by Rowena Akana Trustee-at-large I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday season! 1995 at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was, to quote Shakespeare, another year, "...full of

sound and fuiy, signifying nothing." As it wound down, six members of the Board of Tmstees voted to fire former Administrator Dante Carpenter, who had been working without a contract as an at-will employee. Retaining the same lawyer to

whom he had earlier given a $26,000 contract while Administrator, Mr. Carpenter filed suit against five of the six tmstees who voted for his ouster, carefully excluding Chairman Hee (who also had voted for Carpenter's ouster). While all of this hullabaloo was taking plaee, the real problems of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs eontinued to be neglected, particularly in the emeial areas of our investments and our budget. Our investment portfolio continues to consist exclusively of stocks, bonds, and cash, rendering it highly susceptible to the volatile fluctuations of the

financial markets. We have certainly seen these fluctuations over the last two years. 1994, you may remember, was a very rough year on our portfolio, with loses totaling $2.3 million. Fortunately, 1995 was considerably better, as the stock market experienced

one of the best bull markets in years. Nevertheless, OHA has no plans to help diversify our portfolio by reducing the amount invested in stocks and bonds and introducing other asset classes, such as land. We don't even have

a land management plan necessary to appropriately deal with the many wide ranging proposals to purchase real estate. These proposals are submitted to our office continuously. Of course, we can't diversify our portfolio before we carefully consider what we want to do with our ineome. Wehaveyetto even develop a spending plan. The laek of a spending plan and land management plan seriously hampers the effectiveness of the Officeof HawaiianAffairs. Itforces us to be reactive instead of proactive, continually dealing with eveiy inquiry or crisis on an ad hoe, pieee-

meal basis, instead of building for the future with a clearly understandable set of blueprints. Obviously, establishing a well-defined set of goals would make it too easy for everyone to chart the progress of our Board leadership. It would also make our Board leadership more accountable for its actions and give its members less wiggle room to improvise. By the time you read this, the legislature will be kicking off its 1996 session. While every other state agency will be making the trek to the newly renovated State Capitol Building to negotiate their budget, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs will not be among them. The Board has gone hog-wild and increased its tmst fund budget by more than 180%, adding over dozens of new positions! The state used to contribute 50% of our annual operating budget. This will no longer happen under our new budget! No matter how prosperous 1995 was for the stock market, such uncontrolled spending will surely help decimate our tmst. In the past, the legislature has repeatedly criticized us for funding positions with trust dollars and then going to them after the fact, asking them to fund half. Considering how angry the Senate Ways and Means and House Finance committees have been in the past about a few

positions, they are hkely to go ballistic over this new development. It's almost certain that we will never see matching funds for our dozens of new positions. We know full well that some members of the legislature would like nothing better than to entirely remove or reduce OHA's 20% revenue share of ceded land ineome, as evidenced in last year's introduction of 2 bills. Yet, certain members of OHA's Board continue to fuel the fire with the unjustified creation of mone new and totally unnecessary staff positions. As we look toward the new year, we must demand more from our OHA Board leadership! We must demand less smoke and mirrors, and more fire and substance. Instead of allowing our leaders to waste time and energy for "Mueh Ado About Nothing," we must sound a wakeup eall. They'd better get off the dime and divest our financial investments. They'd better eome up with a well-thought-out spending plan. They'd better eome up with a eomprehensive land management plan. We Can't afford another year full of sound and fuiy, signifying nothing. 19% WILL BE BETTER. You deserve nothing less. Demand it!