Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 34, Number 1, 1 January 2017 — Budget bill top priority in OHA bill package [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Budget bill top priority in OHA bill package

By Office of Hawaiian Affairs Staff The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is heading into the 2017 legislative session with a bill package that includes a $3.52 million per year budget request, a measure calling for a study on charter school funding and a resolution supporting community-driven, place-based fishing management practices. In addition to supporting OHA's package throughout the session, the agency's Puhlie Policy staff will be reviewing more than a thousand other bills before the Legislature, highlighting measures that are relevant to the Native Hawaiian community

and identilying those that might require tracking and testimony. Advocating for beneficiary interests, one of the agency's responsibilities and priorities, calls for looking at bills that have a direct or disproportionate impact on beneficiaries, along with those that affect the broader community in areas like housing, health, education, job creation, land

use, traditional ane customary practices and sustainable

resource management. Ka Wai Ola will be providing updates throughout the legislative session, whieh opens

Jan. 18 and closes May 3. For more immediate updates

and calls for action, visit www.oha.org/ leaislation. In addi-

tion, onee OHA's bills have been submitted and numbered, they ean be tracked on the Legislature's website at capitol.hawaii.gov. Budget OHA is proposing to leverage $3.52 million in state general fund appropriations eaeh fiscal year to continue to invest in and help support progress being made to improve Native Hawaiian heahh, secure stable housing, attain educational goals and standards, move up the socioeconomic ladder, make ends meet and enforce their legal rights. Passing the budget bill would reaffirm the state's commitment to addressing the needs of Native Hawaiians by supporting programs and operations that directly benefit OHA beneficiaries.

Per-pupil Funding System Study for Public Charter Schools This bill asks the Legislative Reference Bureau to conduct a two-year study to deter-

mine whether the per-pupil funding system for puhlie charter schools ensures equal operational per-pupil funding between charter schools and conventional Department of Education puhlie schools, as required by statute. The study would identity the general fund costs and specific cost-categories that are considered - and not considered - when calculating charter schools' per-pupil allocations. The proposal calls for assistance from stakeholder agencies, including the state Department of Education and the Department of Budget and Finance, the Puhlie Charter School Commission, the Hawai'i Puhlie Charter School Network and the Hawai'i Educational Policy Center. Konohiki Fishing Rights Resolution This resolution seeks support for communitydriven fishery management proposals by drawing parallels between such proposals and the highly successful traditional konohiki fishery system. The resolution highlights

the historical success of the traditional, ahupua'a-based konohiki fish-

ing rights system, whieh relied upon eommunitie s '

i n t i m a t e knowledge of and connection

to their nearshore area to sustain

abundant resources and a thriving human population prior to Westem contact. It also chronicles the erosion and eventna1 aho1ishment of the

konohiki fishing rights system and laws, as well as the resulting impacts to nearshore resources and associated cultural lifestyles, traditions and values of ahupua'a tenants. In addition, the resolution urges the Department of Land and Natural Resources to support culturally-grounded and eom-

munity-driven fisheries management proposals and to enahle klpuka communities to onee again steward, restore and perpetuate the nearshore resources their cultural traditions and values they rely upon. ■

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LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW

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