OHA committee approves FY26–FY27 budget realignment after public calls for staffing transparency

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs Committee on Budget and Finance on June 24 approved Budget Realignment Number Two (BF26-14/BR2) for fiscal years 2026–2027 after a presentation from administration and public testimony calling for greater transparency on staffing and overtime expenditures.

The committee voted by roll call to approve the corrected version of Attachment 1 (revised June 23, 2026) and related schedules supporting BR2. The administration said the realignment sets a fiscal 2027 spending limit of $74.5 million and a proposed FY27 operating budget of $69 million, leaving roughly $5.4 million in remaining funding capacity.

Why it matters: BR2 updates FY27 allocations to align resources with current operational priorities and project requirements, and it includes clarified personnel estimates and new line items intended to show recurring costs—such as overtime and vacation payouts—more transparently.

Jermaine Meyers, an OHA beneficiary from the Nanakuli Hawaiian Homestead, testified during the public-comment period in favor of aligning the budget to operational needs but pressed the board for details about two supplemental requests. "I am concerned about the proposed $500,000 allocation for temporary staffing services," Meyers said, asking which departments and how many temporary positions would be funded and whether the work reflected short-term needs or long-term vacancies. Meyers also raised the $225,000 overtime allocation and asked which departments and positions were generating overtime costs.

Administration officials responded that the move to show overtime and vacation payouts as explicit line items was intended to increase transparency rather than to increase total spending. Grace Chen, the budget chief, said the $225,000 overtime figure was a forecast placeholder based on fiscal 2026 experience and noted that prior practice sometimes treated overtime as part of surplus coverage rather than a discrete line item. "We thought it was fiscally prudent and a fiscally conservative approach quite frankly to make it explicit in this FY27 alignment," Chen said, adding that historical surpluses had previously covered these costs.

The presentation included corrected tables and formula updates to attachment spreadsheets. Chen highlighted a personnel cost projection of roughly $23.86 million for FY27 after vacancy savings and a proposed $400,000 allocation for merit-based salary adjustments. Administration staff said no new FTEs are requested in BR2; the authorized FTE count remains at 170 while filled positions were reported as 132 (May 29 data), with vacancies representing about $5 million in unspent salary funding that would be used if positions are filled.

Trustees also asked about specific grant and project funding. Chen noted that federal grant funding increases in the realignment include roughly $309,000 to activate EPA brownfields funding, with trustees asking for follow-up on which parcels (a trustee named Kaka Makai) will receive those funds.

A trustee noted recent state legislation appropriating $55 million to the agency; administration confirmed the appropriation is not included in BR2 and that the board will receive a separate proposal when administration brings that funding forward for direction.

The motion to approve BR2, including corrected attachments and supporting schedules, passed on a roll-call vote recorded as nine yes votes and no dissenting votes.

The committee adjourned following the vote. Administration and staff said they will return with any additional detail requested by trustees, including project-specific uses of grant funds and updated personnel actuals for the fiscal-year close.