Posted on: Wednesday, July 3, 2002

OHA's budget down $3 million

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

Trustees for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs yesterday approved a lean $16 million operating budget for the 2002-03 fiscal year.

The budget is $3 million less than the $19.6 million budgeted last year.

"There's no more wiggle room," said trustee Colette Machado, vice chairwoman of OHA's Committee on Budget & Finance.

Trustee Oswald Stender, the committee's chairman, added: "In the past, we'd be spending money as fast as people walked through the door. A lot was wasted. There was no structure to providing for needs."

The money will be directly linked to OHA's Strategic Plan, which provides a detailed roadmap for expenditures. The recently approved "performance and program budgeting," approach, or PPB, is designed to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of OHA's objectives in meeting its five-year Strategic Plan goals.

"Every year, we'll review what was targeted and what was accomplished," Stender said. "It will provide better fiscal management and accountability."

The Strategic Plan identifies 10 areas of action: advocacy-native rights, culture, economic development, education, environmental-natural resources, nationhood, policy, social services, land and housing, and health.

The budget, approved one day after the July 1 start of the fiscal year, is for $16,283,679. OHA's $300 million investment portfolio contributed more than $12 million to the operating budget while the Legislature appropriated $2.5 million in program development funds. An additional $1 million is carry-over money.

No staff reductions or cuts in existing programs are planned, according to OHA Administrator Clyde Namu'o. "If there is a reduction in the work force, we'll do it by attrition," Namu'o said, noting that OHA employs about 100 people full-time. There are five vacancies, which include a position for deputy administrator.

Regarding existing programs, Stender said, "We're not cutting anything."

OHA was established by a 1978 state constitutional amendment for the betterment of Native Hawaiians.

Stender said cutbacks were made in "programs on the books that we didn't fund" and in grants for projects that never got off the ground.

Ni'ihau School, for example, was to receive $500,000 for a new building. Instead, no money will be allocated for a new location but the school will receive $100,000 to continue its program, Stender said.