After Long Stalemate, Hawaii Lawmakers Crack Open $55 Million OHA Cash Stash

After months of meetings that went nowhere, state lawmakers have jump-started a long-running effort to tally Hawaii’s ceded lands and figure out exactly what the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is owed. A conference draft of Senate Bill 903 would bring the public-land trust working group back to life and unlock $55 million for Native Hawaiian programs, signaling a new attempt to tackle decades of murky accounting and stalled negotiations.

Under the conference version of the bill, SB 903 CD1, the Legislature would move $55 million out of the Carry-Forward Trust Holding Account and over to OHA for short-term education, health, economic and community programs, while explicitly blocking the money from being used to plan, develop or build any residential or mixed-use projects, according to Hawaii News Now. The measure keeps in place an interim annual payment of $21.5 million to OHA and is pitched by supporters as a bridge while federal funding remains uncertain. Skeptics counter that the real measure of success will be whether the bill’s inventory and accounting work actually gets finished this time.

What’s in SB 903

The bill would expand the Public Land Trust Working Group, require outside professionals to verify parcels and revenues, and set aside money to pay for that outside review, Spectrum reported. OHA Interim Chief Administrator Summer Sylva called the $55 million transfer “critical,” saying it represents resources already owed to Native Hawaiians and helps shield programs from outside political and economic pressures. OHA has also emphasized that SB 903 does not force a master settlement or chip away at the agency’s autonomy.

Timeline and who will decide

The conference draft lays out a multi-stage schedule across 2027 and 2028. Lawmakers want interim accounting and inventory reports in 2027, a preliminary draft settlement by June 1, 2028, and a final report with proposed legislation on the table by Oct. 1, 2028, according to Civil Beat and legislative summaries. The measure instructs the Legislative Reference Bureau to hire independent third-party professionals to verify which parcels are in the trust, what encumbrances they carry and what revenue streams they actually generate. Legislators say that kind of outside verification is necessary because earlier accounting leaned heavily on agency self-reporting and left some glaring gaps.

Numbers and backstory

At the heart of the debate are some big, long-disputed numbers. Roughly 1.4 million acres went into the public-land trust at statehood, and OHA’s prior work has pointed to a pro-rata annual share in the tens of millions of dollars, figures lawmakers cite as justification for a full-blown audit. Rep. Kirstin Kahaloa has called SB 903 “a necessary bridge,” and Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole says the bill is intended to repair “gaps in how public trust lands and revenues owed to Native Hawaiians are tracked,” as reported by Hawaii News Now. In 2012 the state handed over about 29 acres in Kakaʻako Makai to OHA as a partial settlement valued at roughly $200 million, a transfer that still looms large in the broader conversation about what is owed, according to OHA.

What this means legally

Legally, SB 903 sets up a more structured route toward possible reconciliation without dictating a single end result. It requires audited inventories, independent review and defined negotiation windows, while again drawing a hard line that the one-time $55 million cannot be used for residential or mixed-use development. The bill also includes appropriations and matching-fund requirements to bring in experts and instructs state agencies to cooperate with the working group’s fact-finding. Legal observers say rules for valuing the land, how mixed-use parcels are treated and how accurately historical revenues are reconstructed will make or break any lasting settlement.

The bill now heads to the governor. If it is signed, lawmakers and negotiators will expect the working group to deliver a final settlement draft by Oct. 1, 2028, and to move into formal talks after that. OHA and beneficiary groups say the short-term funding will keep existing programs afloat while the number-crunching unfolds, but the tougher fights over valuation and the future use of trust assets are unlikely to disappear. For more background and a detailed timeline, see Civil Beat.