The court has ordered Gov. David Ige to increase funding to cover administrative costs for the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and this week he announced his plans to comply: An increase of $7.5 million is coming to finish out the current fiscal year, and the following year’s allotment would more than double current levels.
This is a significant increase, even if it’s not the amount DHHL has argued in court that it is owed. However, the agency owes something to the taxpaying public, as well — a plan for how it’ll make better use of its resources than has been its past practice.
On Monday, Ige said his proposed allotment represents “the highest level of funding” that the department has ever received from the state.
In fairness, that is damning it with faint praise. Hawaii does have a history of giving the agency short shrift.
Statehood for Hawaii brought with it the mandate to fulfill the requirements of the federal Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. As a result, the Hawaii Constitution stipulates that the state must provide sufficient funds for DHHL to operate.
That was the trigger for a legal challenge, which culminated four years ago, in a ruling favoring the plaintiffs, Native Hawaiian beneficiaries.
The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in favor of Native Hawaiian beneficiaries, represented by the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., finding that the state has “failed by any reasonable measure, under the undisputed facts, to provide sufficient funding to DHHL.”
The case was sent back to Circuit Court, where Judge Jeannette Castagnetti set the needed amount at $28.4 million. Castagnetti later deleted the dollar figure when Doug Chin, the state’s attorney general pressed for a reconsideration, arguing that the discretion to set a funding amount rests with the Legislature.
But it was plain how the judge was inclined, so Ige undoubtedly felt bound to make a good-faith effort to improve the deal for the agency.
And his offer does that: For the 2017 fiscal year,
Ige said he is seeking
$23.5 million for DHHL — up considerably from the
$9.6 million he initially budgeted.
The amount is meant to include enough funding to cover 28 civil service positions, the governor said, which should raise a concern for taxpayers. Civil service posts represent a long-term budgetary liability; how are these positions to be deployed?
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has for years now tracked sub-par administrative performance at DHHL, chronicling its lack of land-use expertise, fairness and oversight for its controversial revocable permitting system.
Critics also have cited shortcomings with the way DHHL manages its assets, given the persistent waiting list of beneficiaries. Whatever DHHL proposes to do with its new hires, that kind of staffing investment should be
repaid with more progress in whittling that overflow.
Before the Legislature approves a budget with the new amounts dedicated to DHHL, lawmakers should be persuaded that a reform program is in the works. Otherwise, they are likely to feel they are throwing good money after bad.
An increased allotment is a good thing, as long as those at the receiving end show they‘ve improved in knowing what they’re doing.
