The 2022 Legislature was offered a rare opportunity to catch up on some of the state’s shortfalls and duties, and lawmakers have seized it, big-time.

Hawaii, like all states, is awash in federal dollars for pandemic relief. The economy recovered far more quickly and fully than expected, leaving a fat budgetary surplus.

This was the best time for a major down payment on obligations and goals, and the planned $600 million infusion for Native Hawaiian homesteads checks both those boxes. Providing a significant number of homes to Hawaiians would be a step on the state’s road to close a gap in affordable housing.

The obligation part is the result of the century-old Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, which established a 203,000-acre land trust to provide homesteads for those with 50% or more Native Hawaiian blood.

In more recent years there have been efforts to provide service to beneficiaries through rentals and other means. But over the trust’s long history, delivery of lots for residential and other uses progressed at a snail’s pace, with more than 28,000 now on the waiting list.

This commitment for a major infusion of funds is rightly moving toward legislative passage. The vehicle, House Bill 2511, is in conference committee this week.

Further, the settlement of a decades-old court battle this week underscores the enormous cost of shrugging off this responsibility for so long.

Litigants in a class-action suit, Kalima v. State of Hawaii, have agreed on $328 million in compensation for the state’s breach of trust. The plaintiffs numbered 2,700 when the suit was filed in 1999; 953 have died since then.

Almost as appalling is the degree to which this outlay of taxpayer funds was larger than it needed to be.

Thirty-one years ago, the Legislature enacted a law that created an administrative process to adjudicate claims for homesteads that were filed by Aug. 31, 1995, over harm suffered between 1959 and 1988. The class of 2,700 met that deadline, but legislators didn’t meet theirs.

The 1999 deadline for lawmakers to approve adjudicated claims passed, and the lawsuit was the result, with the enormous payment now due. Putting an end to this is imperative — and Senate Bill 3041, which would fund the settlement, is now heading toward approval.

Even more so, the state has to redouble its efforts to see that taxpayer money is not wasted further. If a basic package of aid now defined in HB 2511 passes as it should, the best assurance to the public would be to provide serious oversight of new development.

The most recent version of HB 2511 does provide the framework for this, requiring the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to report to the Legislature before the session each year, detailing the progress on homesteading projects and the number of people taken off the waiting list.

The money is divided into two pots. The larger cache of more than $487 million is allotted for 17 projects: eight on Oahu (1,685 lots), four on Maui (627 lots), one on Molokai (58 lots), one on Kauai (75 lots) and three on Hawaii island (465 lots, plus a water system).

This distribution seems fair, roughly proportionate to the population. The greatest demand for homesteads is on Oahu, so significant development there makes sense, if the goal is to move people from the waiting list to houses.

The remaining $112,386,000 provides down payment and mortgage assistance to beneficiaries who opt out of their homesteading claim and decide to purchase homes elsewhere.

This $600 million framework provides significant funds and a rare opportunity; the state and DHHL cannot afford to squander either.

However the duty to beneficiaries is fulfilled, the time has come to move toward resolution, healing an old wound that has pained the Native Hawaiian community for a century. Delay is simply denial of that measure of justice.