Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the PLT Inventory And Audit Funding topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Public Land Trust Working Group eyes $1 million independent review, advances interim report to legislature
Summary
At its Nov. 20, 2024 meeting the Public Land Trust Working Group agreed to finalize a joint interim report for the legislature, debated whether to include DLNR's PLTIS disclaimers, and pressed for a $1,000,000 appropriation for an independent financial and inventory review; members set a follow-up meeting for Dec. 11.
The Public Land Trust Working Group on Nov. 20, 2024 agreed to finalize a joint interim report to the Legislature and pressed for a $1,000,000 appropriation to pay independent professionals to review the Public Land Trust Information System (PLTIS) and pro rata share accounting.
The request for the appropriation and the draft report were the central items discussed at the remote meeting, which members said they expect to send to the Legislature as an interim report prior to the 2025 session. Chair Hulu Lindsay and members asked state partners to pursue including the appropriation in the Governor's budget.
Members said a $1 million independent review is needed because current agency data in PLTIS is self-reported and may not be fully verifiable. Sherry Broder, a trustee and working-group member, argued the report should include DLNR's own cautions about PLTIS so the Legislature understands the potential limits of the existing inventory: "I do wanna continue to keep all the criticisms in because I just don't know how we're going to convince the legislature to provide us with a $1,000,000 to do a financial review or an audit..." Ryan Kanakaole (staff) and other state partners pushed to shorten or summarize long block quotations from the DLNR/PLTIS site and to link to the source instead of reproducing lengthy excerpts.
State partners at the meeting said the appropriation could be placed in the Governor's budget or routed through a department budget with OHA oversight. Stacy Ferreira, identified at the meeting as experienced in OHA budgeting and legislative processes, urged considering an appropriation to DLNR that OHA would extend for procurement: "we may want to consider Louis, if it could be an appropriation to DLNR, but extended by OHA because I just think that we would be able to procure much quicker..." Lewis (Luis) Salaveria said he would raise the request with the Governor during the budget review process.
Participants debated whether to reiterate last year's $500,000 request or explicitly request $1,000,000 in the interim report. The group agreed to include language stating that, "based on information received since the submission of SB 3336, the PLTWG believes that realistically the amount sought for independent professionals should be $1,000,000," and to put the final recommendation in the report text so it is clear to legislators.
Ryan Kanakaole said he had incorporated the working group's agreed edits and would distribute a clean copy after the meeting. The group set a final meeting to review edited drafts on Dec. 11, 2024, by videoconference, and members asked OHA to circulate its separate report draft for comment by the following Monday.
No public comments were recorded during the meeting.
Next steps: Ryan Kanakaole to circulate the finalized interim report; members to review the OHA supplemental report and provide comments; follow-up working-group meeting scheduled for Dec. 11, 2024, at 8:00 a.m. via Zoom.
