Trust for orphans will cut 45 jobs
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Queen Lili'uokalani Trust that serves orphans and poor children will cut about 45 jobs and reduce services next year as it attempts to cope with investment losses and increasing costs.
Trust officials said the move is necessary after suffering about $3 million in investment losses over the past three years as the stock market declined. To do that, the trust hopes to transfer some services to other providers such as Kamehameha Schools, and will cut about one-fourth of its 182 positions statewide.
Trust executives said they also must find money to develop real-estate holdings in Kona, which they said offer the best long-term opportunity for the $360 million, land-based trust to increase its income.
"While it's painful for us to make these cuts, we're determined and bright about our future," said trust Chairman Thomas Kaulukukui Jr. after meeting yesterday with staff at the Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center in Hilo. "This will ensure the perpetuity of the trust."
Operations and the trust's children's centers this year cost $18.8 million, and expenses need to be cut by $3.6 million next year, said fiscal officer LeeAnn Crabbe.
Officials have been holding a series of meetings with staff on O'ahu and the Neighbor Islands, and will not announce which facilities will close until staff members have been notified.
Trust Administrator Robert Ozaki said all but one of the major trust operations will remain open, but some smaller satellite facilities may shut down. He declined to name the larger facility that may close, saying only that it would continue operations as a smaller unit.
The major Queen Lili'uokalani facilities on O'ahu are in Kane'ohe, Hau'ula, Waimanalo, 'Ewa, Wai'anae and Honolulu, and on the Neighbor Islands in Hilo, Kona, Lihu'e, Kahului and Moloka'i.
Ozaki said the trust is offering an early retirement program to ease the effects of the job cuts, and that some employees have offered to leave voluntarily.
Claire Asam, executive director of the Lili'uokalani Children's Center operated by the trust, said the center will probably be able to reach only about 7,000 youngsters next year, down from about 9,000 in 2001. She said the cutbacks will cause the center to focus more closely on the trust's primary mission of helping poor and orphaned children, with preference given to Hawaiians.
The center will continue individual counseling and support for families and "grief groups" to help children who have lost a parent, she said. The center also will continue support services for grandparents who are raising their grandchildren because the parents have died or are serving prison time or have other problems, she said.
However, the center plans to shift other cultural, leadership, health and educational services to organizations such as Kamehameha Schools, Asam said.
Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands, created the trust in her will to benefit orphans and "destitute" children. She died in 1917.
The trust's primary asset is land, including 6,294 acres on the Big Island, with most of that property in the Kona area. It also owns valuable parcels in Waikiki, including the land under the Marriott Waikiki Beach, the Pacific Beach and Radisson Prince Kuhio hotels.
Ozaki said the trust needs to spend money to prepare for development of some of its properties in Kona. Those projects include a road and other improvements for 100 acres at the Makalapua Business Center, and water for 315 acres mauka of the Makalapua shopping center.
The trust is planning a $2 million road at the business center next year, and "we've got to spend money there to make money," Ozaki said. "That's our only source of significant increases" in revenue.
Despite the problems, Ozaki said the Queen Lili'uokalani Trust is a stable trust with quality assets.
"The future is bright here," he said. "We need to take some painful steps in the short term to get more balance in terms of revenues and the programs they support."
