Posted on: Friday, June 29, 2001
OHA administrator post, budget in limbo
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs may soon find itself without a top manager or an approved operating budget.
OHA's board of trustees voted during a contentious meeting last week to offer the $85,000 administrator's position to veteran courts official Clyde Namu'o. But Namu'o said yesterday that he has yet to decide whether to accept the job.
"I'm just thinking about it," he said. "We're still talking about the terms."
OHA's contract with administrator Randall Ogata, who has run the agency since 1997, is set to expire tomorrow. The trustees had been scheduled to vote yesterday on whether to appoint OHA deputy administrator for operations Ronald Mun to fill in until a permanent administrator is hired. But the vote was postponed indefinitely because of lack of a quorum.
Also postponed was a vote on OHA's operating budgets for the next two fiscal years. The $18.3 million budget proposed for the fiscal year that begins Sunday includes $1.5 million for expenses related to the trustees, $4.2 million for OHA administration, and $11 million for programs to assist people of Hawai'ian ancestry.
OHA Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona was not immediately available for comment. Agency spokesman Ryan Mielke said neither the budget delay nor the vacant administrator position should have any immediate impact on OHA's operations.
"There's not an administrator, formally, until the board appoints one," he said. "But everything else continues to roll on."
Deputy administrators will continue to oversee their respective branches of the agency, and money is available to meet its payroll needs, Mielke said. A new meeting has not yet been scheduled.
The trustees split 5 to 2 over the selection of Namu'o last week. The losing side alleged that the vote had been secretly rigged, and the meeting ended amid bickering and profanity.
Trustee Clayton Hee had not yet arrived when the vote was taken, and trustee Rowena Akana had briefly stepped out of the room to accept a phone call from Hee. But Apoliona said the vote had been proper since no one had explicitly asked that it be postponed.
