Despite improvements in some areas, the state agency that protects Hawaii’s historic and cultural sites still is plagued by major shortcomings and continues to face the possibility of decertification and loss of federal funding, according to a recent assessment by the federal government.
The State Historic Preservation Division’s lack of progress in correcting certain key operational deficiencies identified by the National Park Service in 2010 has prompted federal officials to begin discussions on a contingency plan in case SHPD loses certification.
If that happens, the agency would lose a significant chunk of its budget, preservation oversight of development projects throughout the islands would be hampered and Hawaii would suffer the embarrassment of becoming the first state to fail to keep its certification.
But William Aila, director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which oversees the division, said the agency is on track to make the corrections and maintain the certification.
"We know what our shortfalls are," Aila said. "We’re very confident we’ll meet the requirements."
The Park Service took the unusual step of placing SHPD on "high-risk status" in March 2010 after identifying a variety of major and long-standing problems, mostly related to inadequate staffing; lack of a searchable, online database of historic and cultural sites; and failure to update its statewide historic preservation plan.
The lack of an online resource for searching SHPD records meant people had to physically go to its offices to review many of the documents.
The Park Service gave the agency two years to fix the flagged problems.
In an April 19 letter to SHPD Administrator Pua Aiu, Stephanie Toothman, an NPS associate director, lauded Aiu’s agency for progress in several areas, including its review and compliance program. She also commended the dedication and expertise of the SHPD staff.
But Toothman said the Park Service had "serious concerns that substantive progress has not been made" to hire adequate staff, develop the online database and improve SHPD’s survey and inventory program.
On the job front, significant recruitment and retention issues remain, according to Toothman, who noted 10 essential positions — more than a third of SHPD’s staff — are still to be filled. Among the 10 are lead archaeologists for Maui, Oahu and Hawaii island; assistant archaeologists on three islands; and a specialist in geographic information systems and information technology.
The last-mentioned position is key to completion of an online database system.
Aila said hiring adequate professional and administrative staff is the biggest challenge faced by SHPD, which has suffered turnover problems for years. He said the agency expects to hire the GIS specialist within two weeks, is actively recruiting for other positions and is seeking authority in some cases to increase salary ranges.
By February, Aila added, the division should be at or near compliance with all the actions required by the Park Service. NPS is scheduled to conduct a final compliance review in February.
An NPS representative could not be reached for comment.
Staffing shortages have led to large backlogs in SHPD’s review of development plans to ensure historic and cultural sites are protected. Inadequate staffing also has affected efforts to make more of the agency’s data readily available to the public.
An NPS document accompanying Toothman’s letter indicated that most of SHPD’s inventory records still are in paper form and that its geographic information system is marginally functional with limited capacity and data current only through 2005.
SHPD’s current budget totals $1.9 million, and slightly less than a third of that is federal funding that would be at risk if the agency loses certification, according to a DLNR spokeswoman.
Kiersten Faulkner, executive director of the nonprofit Historic Hawai‘i Foundation, said in a statement that Hawaii’s irreplaceable historic properties are at risk when a systematic failure to identify and plan for their protection exists.
While Historic Hawai‘i initially was encouraged by SHPD’s progress in making improvements, the foundation "is deeply concerned by the state’s lagging pace of hiring, training and retaining qualified preservation professionals to execute the critical functions of the preservation division," Faulkner wrote. "By falling short in this area, the state has been unable to keep pace with the demands of identifying important historic properties or of developing and implementing standardized programs to protect those sites. We have seen good results in several areas identified for remedial action, and we believe the state still has the ability and the time to meet the remaining requirements before next year’s final review."
The Park Service remains committed to the success of SHPD, Toothman wrote. But the lack of progress in attaining sufficient staff levels and developing an accessible state inventory prompted NPS to start discussions with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, another federal agency, on a contingency plan in case SHPD loses its certification.
"That would be unchartered territory," said Peter R. Mills, a University of Hawaii-Hilo anthropology professor and president of the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology. Mills said no state preservation agency has ever lost its federal certification.
Difficulties in finding and keeping qualified archaeologists likely will persist as long as SHPD doesn’t have adequate funding to pay competitive salaries and Hawaii lacks sufficient programs to train graduate students in local historic preservation, according to Mills.
"It will be a never-ending problem," he said.
