Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 40, Number 11, 1 November 2023 — Fiscal Sustainability: Securing the Future of OHA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Fiscal Sustainability: Securing the Future of OHA

_V LEO 'ELELE ^ TRUSTEE MESSAGES *

\s it time tū update 0HA's fiscal sustainabilitv plan?

When gathering limu, one must not piek the root to ensure that it ean rejuvenate. Ihis practice ean be found throughout our culture and history. Ihis idea that we must preserve the root, the source, or the principal, is fundamentally Hawaiian. This ideology is inherent to us, taught to us by our ancestors. Our kūpuna were the greatest stewards of their

resources. Here at the Ofīice of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), the Board of Trustees, our executive team, and administration are tasked with the stewardship of the Native Hawaiian Trust Fund, land assets, and other revenues granted to OHA. We have been chosen by the lāhui to uphold the kuleana of ensuring the sustainability of OHA's assets. Like our kūpuna who were sustainable, and as one of the fiduciaries of OHA, I am proud to share with you some of the aspects of our Fiscal Sustainability Plan (FSP). OHA was able to develop steps necessary to initiate the FSP. It involves the entire organization and requires that we look at OHA ffom a holistic perspective. Ihere are two areas of improvement that the FSP addressed. Ihe first is with our policies, and the second is with our administrative operations. For timely and efficient changes to oecur, it will take interdisciplinary teams with voices that include the Trustees, executive management, and subject matter experts in the organization. For instance, cross eommunieation and open dialogue is critical when OHA attempts to change policies or strategizes on an initiative. When a proposal to amend a policy happens, it ean affect the nature of our other policies. We cannot exclusively propose and amend policies without considering their impacts. One example is attempting to amend our spending policies and ignoring the impacts on our investment policies.

OHA is committed to ensuring services and programs are consistently available and delivered to our lāhui through fiscally responsible and sustainable spending. OHA will: • Adopt and implement a fiscal sustainability implementation plan. • Provide within it a finaneial structure that

will establish fiscal objectives and result in increases to: 1) the value of OHA's assets and endowments; and, 2) OHA's eapacity to deliver on its vision and mission. • Incorporate specific success indicators and report on our progress at year 1, year 3, and year 5 post-implementation. • Incorporate a code of ethics applieahle to OHA Trustees, ofīicers, and employees. As for the BOT, we have engaged in serious deliberation regarding the areas where our policies ean improve. Ihis is done in concert with the appropriate executive members and managers who are in their respective roles overseeing day-to-day operations. It is important that the subject matter experts and managers are at the table so they ean provide the necessary insights so the Trustees ean develop policies to ensure fiscal sustainability. Ihe Board also ofīicially adopted use of the hnaneial analysis model developed by our consultant to help implement the operational aspects of the FSP. It is the hnaneial tool that will help OHA's administration to understand any impacts of administrative or operational changes on our hnaneial standing in the short and long term. Now is the time we look to our past to secure our future. We look to the example of our kūpuna and translate their ideology, innovations, and stewardship to our modern context. E mau ana kākou i nā mea waiwai o ka lāhui. ■

Carmen "Hulu" Lindsey CHAIR Trustee, Maui