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Public comment at OHA meeting raises questions about budget process, staff pay and meeting procedure
Summary
A public commenter accused the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees of procedural violations and pay disparities in the biennium budget process; the board chair disputed several factual claims and said salary-setting and approvals followed human-resources and executive review.
Jermaine Myers, who identified himself as responsible for OHA's financial matters, used the public-comment period at the Board of Trustees meeting to challenge the biennium budget process and to highlight what he described as a pay disparity in senior staff salaries.
Myers asked, "Was the biennium budget process a collaboration or a collusion?" and defined “collaboration” as "work done transparently for the benefit of all the Lahui" and “collusion” as "work done in secrecy for the benefit of a few with self serving intentions," urging trustees to explain the process and the basis for leadership salaries.
Myers said the board’s chief of staff "was awarded a salary of $170,000" and that amount made the chief of staff the second-highest paid OHA employee, above the chief operating officer. He listed leadership salaries he said reflected the current and former leadership structure and said a motion to waive committee review of the budget on June 30 initially failed, with support from five trustees, when six votes were required. Myers told trustees he believed Robert’s Rules of Order procedures were not followed when the vote was later changed and urged the board to return the budget to the Budget and Finance Committee for proper review.
Chair Kahele disputed several of Myers’s statements during the same public-comment exchange. The chair said the chief of staff salary "was set by the Director of Human Resources" and "was acknowledged and approved by the chief executive officer." The chair also said the chief operating officer salary is $177,384 and characterized some of the earlier remarks as inaccurate. The chair additionally said the chief of staff "works for every single trustee" and does not report exclusively to the board chair.
The exchange included procedural disagreement: Myers said no motion to reconsider, unanimous consent, or an appropriately noticed motion to rescind had been used to change an earlier vote, and he asked that the budget be returned to committee. The chair countered by repeating the board’s understanding of how the chief-of-staff salary was set and defended the accuracy of the administration’s salary figures.
No formal board action on the budget or the salary claims occurred during the public-comment segment. The meeting later proceeded to routine announcements and was adjourned by a roll-call motion that the chair said carried with eight affirmative votes.
Because the matters raised—budget committee procedure, how votes are changed under Robert’s Rules, and specific salary figures—affect board governance and public trust, Myers urged trustees to provide the factual record to beneficiaries and called for transparency ahead of the next election year.
The board did not take additional public action on the allegations during the meeting. The chair announced upcoming community meetings on Kauai hosted by trustees and closed the meeting after the roll-call adjournment.
