OHA community engagement team seeks staff, equipment and funds for Hawaiian registry, grants and land-transfer outreach

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ Department of Community Engagement presented its FY26–27 budget priorities to the Budget and Finance Committee, asking to fill vacant positions, purchase new Hawaiian Registry Program (HRP) equipment, fund land-transfer community engagement and add trauma‑informed supports for community meetings.

Mahalo. As I have mentioned, the community engagement program, encompasses 2 separate ... beneficiary services and the grants program, Lisa said during the briefing. “The grants program is subject to HRS ten-seventeen and 10 h. We work very much in alignment with that as our North Star,” she added, describing program goals, staffing gaps and planned solicitations for FY26–27.

Why it matters: The presentation tied staffing and equipment needs directly to service delivery for Native Hawaiian beneficiaries statewide. Trustees pressed staff for more detail on how requested funds would be used, how many people benefit from specific line items and whether requested hires and contracts are sufficient to run on-site monitoring, community events and grant solicitations.

Key budget requests and program details

- Staffing: Lisa said the grants manager position would be filled on June 2 and that the department has extended an offer for a grants officer; a grants-systems administrator position is advertised and a FY26 request includes one additional grants officer. The beneficiary services team is island-specific and manager Ilima Kela oversees island agents named in the presentation.

- Hawaiian Registry Program (HRP): The department budgeted to buy five HRP machines (one per office) and materials and to make the application process fillable and submittable online. Staff requested $3,000 in FY26 for HRP document scanning to convert paper records during the transition to online processes.

- Grants, solicitations and core programs: The grants program supports Hawaii-based nonprofits aligned with OHA strategic outcomes. The presentation listed open competition grant categories (including an education focus area) and noted roughly $2.4 million of grants across the next two fiscal years for social services, economic stability and housing lines mentioned in the briefing.

- Land transfers and community engagement: The department proposed $40,000 to fund community-based facilitators and meetings tied to land‑transfer due diligence. Lisa said the budget assumed roughly five land-transfer efforts and used $8,000 per transfer as an estimate to cover multiple meetings and local facilitators.

- Trauma‑informed supports and a “lifeline”: The presentation proposed a culturally competent, trauma‑informed support role to be available at sensitive community meetings. The slide called out $4,800 in FY26 earmarked for a trauma‑informed specialist and included a FY27 line with a larger amount noted in the presentation; Lisa clarified the FY27 figure in the briefing as intended to cover that role and related supports.

- Events, travel and sponsorships: The department proposed travel funds to allow beneficiary-services agents to attend community events statewide (including CNHA and neighborhood board meetings) and consolidated several sponsorship and small-grant lines. The presentation showed a $3,000,000 annual, board‑directed allocation for Hawaiian‑focused charter schools distributed via a fiscal sponsor and listed 17 charter schools as recipients of that board-directed support.

Questions from trustees

Trustees sought more specificity about program outputs and line‑item recipients. Trustee Aquino asked how many families or scholarship recipients correspond to items labeled “Emergency financial assistance $830,000” and “Higher education scholarship $400,000,” and Lisa said staff would work with research to return with counts.

Trustee Acuffin raised security concerns for neighborhood and island community meetings and recommended budgeting for off‑duty officers or dedicated safety personnel; staff noted a FY27 special‑events line that could cover added security and said Royce, the safety and facilities officer, would oversee such arrangements.

Trustees also pushed for clearer linkage between the overview slides and budget tables (for example, where the $830,000 emergency assistance and other overview figures appear in the detailed budget) and requested a breakdown of the $3 million annual charter‑school payments by school.

Discussion vs. decisions

Committee members discussed staffing timelines, procurement of mobile HRP equipment, the scope and number of land‑transfer meetings, and whether to increase sponsorship totals. No formal vote or final decision was recorded in the transcript. Staff committed to returning with additional detail, applicant and award counts, and corrected budget line naming and placement as requested by trustees.

Ending

Staff said they will return at the next budget briefing with tightened budgets and follow‑up materials, including counts for scholarship and beneficiary aid lines, a detailed breakdown of charter‑school distributions, and clarification of community‑engagement contractor entries. The committee recessed and planned to resume the FY26–27 budget briefings the following day.