Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 7, 1 July 2006 — Trust lands revenue deal signed into law [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Trust lands revenue deal signed into law

By KWŪ staff While Gov. Linda Lingle was in Washington in lune trying to muster support for the Akaka Bill, Acting Gov. Georgina Kawamura, director of the state Department of Budget and Finance, signed into law the land-trust revenue agreement reached between OHA and the governor earlier this year. Passed by the Legislature in early May, the new law, Act 178, sets OHA's portion of state landtrust revenues at $15.1 million annually, retroactive to Iuly 1 of last year. Under the provisions of the measure, that amount is subject to future revision by state lawmakers as needed. In addition, the act provides a one-time payment of $17.5 million for undisputed additional rev-

enue owed to OHA for the four years between July 2001 and June 2005. The law took effect immediately, with all the funds due to be transferred to OHA before the end of July. Speaking on behalf of the governor, Kawamura said the revenue agreement was "long-overdue, and it is the right and fair thing to do for Native Hawaiians and for all the people of our state." The state constitution requires that OHA receive a portion of rents and other revenue that the state collects from commercial, agricultural and other uses of the approximately 1 .8-million-acre puhlie land trust under its control. (The land trust is often referred to as 'ceded' lands, because the vast majority of them are for-

mer Hawaiian kingdom lands that eame under U.S. control after annexation and then passed to the state government after it was established in 1959.) But the exact amount due to OHA has long been a matter of dispute. After the state Supreme Court invalidated a previous law used to calculate OHA's share, then-Gov. Ben Cayetano stopped all revenue payments to OHA in 2001. In 2003, soon after she took office, Lingle reinstated payments of around $10 million per year. After nearly a year of talks, OHA and Lingle announced in January that a proposed agreement on undisputed revenues had been reached. The Legislature then passed the law approving that deal, adding a provision that requires the state to provide an annual accounting of land trust revenues. "We have eome a long way from 'zero revenues' in 2001 to more than $15 million annually in 2005," said OHA

Chairperson Haunani Apoliona after Kawamura signed the law. "OHA and Native Hawaiians now benefit from this statute." Both sides acknowledge, however, that difficult revenue issues remain to be addressed in future negotiations, including disputed

revenue from trust lands in such areas as Honolulu International Airport and Hilo Hospital. "OHA's trustees will eontinue to work with the executive branch toward a successful agreement on such past-due payments," Apoliona said. E3

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The 1 .8 million acres of ceded lands include Honolulu Harbor. - Photo: Doug Peebles