House committee OKs revenue share from ceded lands
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Staff Writer
The House Hawaiian Affairs Committee yesterday voted to back a temporary agreement reached by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Lingle administration on ceded-land revenues.
Under the agreement, the state would pay OHA, a state agency, $15.1 million annually as its share of revenues derived from ceded lands as well as a one-time $17.5 million sum in back payments. The annual payments are seen as an interim arrangement because members of Gov. Linda Lingle's administration and OHA leaders continue to negotiate over "disputed" ceded-land revenues.
OHA has been receiving about $10 million annually in recent years.
The proposed agreement, which was backed by OHA's board of trustees earlier this month, also must be approved by the Legislature.
House Bill 2204, which now needs to go through the House Finance Committee, is similar in language to Senate Bill 2948, which was approved by the Senate Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee on Monday. House Hawaiian Affairs chairman Scott Saiki, D-22nd (McCully, Pawa'a), inserted language into the House bill requiring the Department of Land and Natural Resources to provide an annual "accounting of all receipts" from ceded lands.
"Nobody really knows what amounts of revenues are being generated," Saiki said. "The information is dispersed throughout multiple agencies, and there isn't one central depository for that information. It's important for us to centralize the information so that parties won't be second-guessing the amounts that are being paid every year."
Two senators have maintained that the figures proposed are too low, but there was no dissent at yesterday's House hearing. Native Hawaiian agencies that benefit from OHA funding favor the agreement.
Ceded lands are former crown and Hawaiian kingdom government lands held in trust by the state. The state constitution requires earmarking a share of the revenues derived from those lands to benefit Native Hawaiians. The Legislature determines how much OHA should receive.
Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.
