Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 36, Number 1, 1 January 2019 — OHA'S 2019 LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA'S 2019 LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE

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By Office of Hawaiian Affairs Staff Every year, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, in its advocacy for Native Hawaiians, provides a package of legislative measures to the Hawai'i State Legislature. OHA's 2019 legislative package includes five measures covering a range of issue areas particularly relevant to the Native Hawaiian community. Two of the five proposed bills in OHA's package are familiar faces: the OHA Budget bill and a Public Land Trust (PLT) Accounting bill. This year's budget bill requests $3.98 million in state general funds for eaeh of the next two fiscal years, in support of social services, legal services, education and housing programs for Native Hawaiians. This measure would onee again reaffirm the long partnership between the State and OHA to address the needs of Native Hawaiians. The PLT bill seeks to codify Act 178's PLT accounting and reporting requirements, established over

a decade ago to better clarify Native Hawaiians' twenty percent share of PLT revenues. The current, $15.1 million "interim" amount transferred annually to OHA as Native Hawaiians' PLT share has not changed since 2006; accurate and consistent accounting pursuant to Act 178 is critical to informing a long-overdue update to this amount. Toward this end, OHA's bill would set in statute the accounting and reporting responsibilities of state agencies; clarify the need for all state entities to report on all revenues generated from all PLT lands; and require an explanation when less than twenty percent is not transferred to OHA. OHA's 2019 legislative package also includes three measures exploring specific needs of the Native Hawaiian community. First, a Charter School Facilities Funding resolution seeks to follow up on a nearly four-year-old law, whieh requires the legislature to consider providing facilities funding to public charter

schools - nearly half of whieh are Hawaiian-focused - and requires the Public Charter School Commission and a Facilities Funding Working Group to develop criteria for funding alloeahon and a recommendation for funding prioritization, respectively. Facilities funding remains one of the most pressing and longstanding issues. OFIA's resolution would ask for a report on the funding alloeahon criteria and prioritization recommendation required by the law, to support legislative appropriation in support of our charter schools and shidents. Second, OHA's package includes a bill to address the disparate mental heahh outcomes of the Native Hawaiian community.

For many Native Hawaiians with mental heahh challenges, healing and rehabilitation may require treatment approaches rooted in cultural values and understandings. However, Hawai'i's mental heahh infrastructure often fails to offer such culturally grounded treatment opportunities. The bill would require three of the 21 members of the Hawai'i State Mental Heahh Council to have demonstrated knowledge or work experience involving Native Hawaiian concepts of well-being, culturally grounded mental heahh methodologies, or traditional healing or heahh practices. These members would help the eouneil ensure that our mental heahh programs and policies more consistently promote culturally grounded treatment approaches. Finally, OHA's Unsecured Bail bill seeks to reduce the disproportionate impacts of the criminal justice system on Native Hawaiians and poor communities, while ensuring that our detention facilities and funds ean be focused on those who pose an actual flight risk or potential threat to community safety - rather than on poor individuals

who simply cannot afford to post bail. The current cash bail system, whieh requires jailed individuals to surrender cash or property to be released in the weeks or months before trial, essentially forces those suffering eeonomie hardship to remain in jail, at the mercy of an unknown hearing date, OHA's Unsecured Bail bill allows judges to offer poor defendants awaiting trial to post all or part of their bail with a promissory note rather than cash. In other states, such an alternative bail option has been shown to mitigate the impacts of the cash bail system on poor individuals and their families, and provide significant relief to overcrowded jails, without eompromising public safety or trial appearance rates. Big things are definitely popping in 2019, and history has shown that when Native Hawaiians engage politically in large numbers, our amplified voices are undoubtedly heard. For information on how you ean help support these measures and take collective action at the 2019 legislature, visit OHA's legislative advocacy website at www. oha.org/legislation. ■

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LEGISLATIVE SESSIDN