A key Senate committee yesterday advanced a resolution urging state Auditor Marion Higa to conduct a financial and management audit of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, following more than three hours of testimony for and against the action.

OHA trustees and state Attorney General Mark Bennett said the sudden introduction of the resolution was punitive and tied to the critical comments they made after three Senate committees rejected a $200 million settlement of ceded land revenues last week.

They also pointed out that Higa is already scheduled to conduct an audit this year, under a statute that mandates such an audit of OHA every four years.

Senators said the suggestion for an audit came from growing calls from constituents who question OHA's expenditures and want more accountability from an agency established to benefit Native Hawaiians.

"This was brought to us by the beneficiaries," said Sen. Jill Tokuda, D-24th (Kane'ohe, Kailua), who chairs the Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs Committee that voted 4-0 in favor of the resolution. Looking at trustees sitting in the audience, she said: "Step back for a moment and think about who called for this."

Tokuda said senators are aware that an audit is supposed to be done next year and were told by OHA officials that Higa intends to begin in December. That might mean the Legislature might not receive the audit until the 2010 legislative session. The resolution "is the Legislature's way of saying we would like to see an audit completed on time" for the 2009 session, Tokuda said.

The resolution now goes before the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Bennett and several trustees pointed out inaccuracies in the wording of the resolution. For example, they said, it says lawmakers were unaware that negotiations over ceded land revenues were taking place when, in fact, the Senate last year passed a separate resolution calling for a settlement to be reached soon.

Tokuda responded that the original language of the audit resolution came from constituents. The incorrect language is being dropped, she said, and instead there will be language citing concerns raised by OHA critics about its expenditures, as well as other issues that came up in Higa's 2005 audit.

All references to the ceded lands revenues settlement are being deleted as well, she said. "We didn't want to have the two issues collide."

That a large chunk of the language was being gutted in favor of completely new wording that still calls for an audit further angered those who oppose the resolution, including Attorney General Bennett.

Bennett said it was too convenient to switch out the language.

"I am left with the unalterable impression that this is a punitive resolution, that this is a resolution that was intended to punish the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for taking public positions critical of the Hawai'i state Senate," he said. The message being sent to the public is that "criticize the Senate and you will be subject to an audit," he said.

Several OHA critics, however, suggested that OHA, as an agency, has been punitive and refused to offer funding to those who opposed OHA's views.

Other senators, among them Russell Kokubun, D-2nd (S. Hilo, Puna, Ka'u) and Sam Slom, R-8th (Kahala, Hawai'i Kai), also disputed the charge that the resolution is punitive.

"There were growing concerns about OHA's management, which were separate from ceded lands," Slom said.

Organizations and individuals spoke for and against the resolution, again magnifying a split in the community on OHA's standing.

The Sovereign Councils of the Hawaiian Homelands Assembly and Hui Pu, a coalition of Hawaiian sovereignty groups, supported the resolution. The Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs and Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. opposed it.