Posted on: Wednesday, July 2, 2003
EDITORIAL
Audit repercussions beginning to sink in
As last week ended, the tourism industry was circling its wagons to protect the flow of dollars between the Hawai'i Tourism Authority and the Hawai'i Visitors and Convention Bureau from a brutal draft report by the state auditor.
The audit lists questionable spending, inadequate fiscal controls, conflicts of interest and a lack of focus. It suggests a culture where public money is diverted to personal use, public resources diverted to self-serving ends, and an atmosphere in which oversight by the Hawai'i Tourism Authority is lax or missing.
Suggestions that the audit is a minor matter to be corrected with a few "performance adjustments" have been cut short by Gov. Linda Lingle's announcement yesterday that the Attorney General's Office will be reviewing the audit, which she called "very serious."
Lingle also said there is a "high probability" that the tourism authority will award portions of its contract to an organization other than the HVCB.
With 14 bidders competing with HVCB for the state's business, why should that statement come as a surprise? Of course, it's because the HVCB always gets that business.
Lingle clearly was way out front of the Hawai'i Tourism Authority, whose job it is to award the contract for the job. As Advertiser business writer Kelly Yamanouchi reported yesterday, the authority admitted it was surprised by many of the audit's findings.
If the audit is right, of course, the HTA was surprised because it wasn't paying attention, as the audit charges. And it wasn't paying attention because most of its members belong to the same congenial fraternity as the folks at HVCB.
In a move that is sadly ironic, the HTA has enlisted the help of a local public relations firm that says it excels at "crisis management" to guide it though its response to the audit.
The purpose of the audit is to help HTA improve its performance by pointing out where change is required. That's a constructive function, not an attack against which a slick defense must be mounted.
In other words, HTA will be spending taxpayer dollars to prevent changes that the auditor says would save taxpayer dollars.
It's also strange, in an atmosphere charged with accusations of conflict of interest, that the HTA would choose a PR firm — Stryker, Weiner & Yokota — that was founded by one of its members. Sharon Weiner sold the firm four years ago, has no financial interest in and receives no compensation from the firm, but she's still fondly carried on the firm's Web site as "chair emerita" and she's still technically a member of the firm's board of directors.
Doesn't the appearance of conflict concern the HTA?
