Trustees were unavailable for comment after today’s hearing.

Judge Colleen Hirai rejected the proposal of the court-appointed Trustee Compensation Committee that the annual salary of each trustee rise to $180,000. But under the judge’s order, the chairman’s raise would be even higher than the panel’s recommended $207,000, up from $120,000 a year.

She also rejected the counterproposal by the state attorney general, who argued Kamehameha Schools could keep trustee pay where it is, which is already higher than what trustees earn at 98 percent of public charitable trusts.

Hirai instead decided to go with an alternative option presented by Martin L. Katz, an executive compensation consultant with Mercer Human Resources Consulting.

In this option, each of the trustees receives a $30,000 retainer. Additionally, the chairman is paid $2,000 per meeting and the remaining four trustees earn $1,500 per meeting. The number of meetings would be capped at 90 per year, double the number of meetings in the current pay structure.

Hugh Jones, the deputy attorney general who wrote the state’s proposal, said today that "the attorney general’s position is still that the trustees are reasonably compensated."

"If they are going to be paid per meeting, then the allowable meetings should be only official board meetings," he added.

Attorneys Michael Rawlins, Allen Hoe and David Fairbanks were on the court-appointed compensation committee. After the hearing, Hoe said the ruling "was better than what the state wanted: no compensation."

That was a reference to a 1999 position taken by the previous administration that has since been rescinded, Jones said.

This is the first raise for trustees since the reorganization of the $4.3 billion trust in 1999. Before that, trustee pay was based on a percentage of the estate’s gross receipts. For the fiscal year ending June 1998, the five trustees each received more than $1 million.

Nainoa Thompson is the current board chairperson. Other trustees are J. Douglas Ing, Constance Lau, Robert Kihune and Diane Plotts.

In its court filings, the compensation committee had maintained that "for the foreseeable next few years, being a Kamehameha Schools trustee is virtually a full-time job." But Jones argued that the workload being analyzed had been especially heavy because the trust lacked a chief operating officer. A chief operating officer has since been hired.

Hirai said that raising the number of paid meetings would allow for some flexibility in trustee compensation, with the new chief executive officer, Dee Jay Mailer, taking office this week.

According to the panel’s report, Mercer surveyed national data, interviewed the trustees, staff with the state attorney general’s office before submitting his report in November. The committeel decided that the compensation should be a "service-based" retainer fee, without regard to the number of meetings the trustees attend.

Jones’ objection cited other data in another report the state commissioned, one prepared by Guidestar.org.

Jones said the Guidestar report indicated the national average for compensation to boards on public charities is $6,190. The Kamehameha board already is paid more than 98 percent of public charities, he added.

Before the reorganization of the trust in 1999, trustee compensation had been based on a percentage of the estate’s gross receipts. For the fiscal year ending June 1998, the five trustees each received more than $1 million.

Under a 1999 state law, compensation of trustees of charitable trusts must be "reasonable." A three-member committee was established to come up with a compensation plan.