Hawaii State Salaries 2012: Office of Hawaiian Affairs
01/18/2012
Civil Beat
Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs saw their paychecks go up at the start of the current fiscal year — their third consecutive annual raise. That while most state government employees have seen their pay frozen or reduced during the same time period.
While trustees got a wage boost, pay for the state agency's senior executives remained unchanged from the year before, according to a Civil Beat analysis of salary data provided in response to an open-records request.
OHA is spending a total of $8.9 million on salaries for its 150 employees this year.
OHA's nine-member board of trustees, who are elected by Hawaii voters, saw their salaries increase 3.5 percent to $55,440 on July 1, the start of the 2012 fiscal year. The chairperson's salary also went up 3.5 percent to $63,204.
The scheduled increases had been recommended by a 2008 salary commission, whose members proposed annual 3.5 percent raises beginning in 2009 and ending this year.
The Legislature had set salaries in 1993 for OHA trustees at $32,000, and $37,000 for the chairperson. Previously, their salaries had increased just once before, in 2004. The salary commission is formed every four years, with commissioners being nominated by Native Hawaiian organizations and appointed by the governor.
While OHA's operating budget totals $41.8 million from all funding sources, it received just $2.44 million from the state's general fund. Most of its funding — about $34 million — came from ceded lands revenue through the Public Land Trust. By law, 20 percent of all funds derived from the public land trust is to be paid to OHA annually "for the betterment of conditions of Native Hawaiians."
