Trustees at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs voted yesterday to approve a $41 million total budget in the upcoming fiscal year and $34 million the following year.

Those totals include a boost in the higher education scholarship program, which provides scholarships of up to $2,000 to college students with Native Hawaiian blood. The total amount to be awarded next year will be $1 million — up from the current $250,000 awarded annually, OHA administrator Clyde Namu'o said. Trustees set aside $750,000 for college scholarships the second year of the biennium.

The budget also includes $500,000 annually for private school scholarships. Details for the new secondary education scholarship program, set to kick off for the fall 2007 semester, have yet to be finalized.

In addition, the new budget resurrects OHA's consumer micro-loan program that provides individuals with loans of up to $7,500 for five years for education or emergency purposes such as medical costs, Namu'o said.

Namu'o said the budget is significantly higher in the first year of the biennium because it sets aside $3 million for planning and design of a new OHA headquarters as well as $2.25 million for an additional year of funding for Hawaiian-focused public charter schools.

Trustees have not yet decided whether to provide the Department of Education with additional funds for charter schools in the second year, Namu'o said.