State energy office’s mission, priorities unclear
HONOLULU (AP) — A state auditor could not figure out the Hawaii State Energy Office’s purpose or how well it does its job, he said in a report.
The energy office could not tell State Auditor Les Kondo how it has directly or indirectly contributed to the state’s clean energy goals, he said.
The state agency is tasked with weaning Hawaii off fossil fuels by 2045.
While progress on this goal is being made, Kondo said he is unsure if any of the credit can go to the office.
The office provided documentation of its contributions to the state auditor that was not acknowledged in the report, said Mary Alice Evans, deputy director for the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, in a reply to the audit.
The audit released Wednesday had other findings:
The office awarded a $250,000 contract to plan for a “state-of-the-art” energy innovation center seven months before asking a consultant to determine whether the center was needed.
It also found personnel costs make up 90 percent of the office’s expenses.
The office is “spending $600,000 more than their current revenues,” Kondo said. “At their current level of spending, they will eat through the energy security fund, which is their primary source of funding, by fiscal year 2019.”
The office cut back its costs by delaying hiring, closing out contracts and limiting travel and training among other steps, Evans said.
New charges in Honolulu corruption case
HONOLULU (AP) — The deputy city prosecutor wife of a Honolulu police chief convinced a man whose trust she allegedly stole from when he was a child to lie for her before a grand jury looking into corruption allegations against the couple, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
The documents charge Ransen Taito with conspiracy, alleging that he lied to a grand jury about what happened to this trust fund.
A grand jury indicted Louis and Katherine Kealoha in October, accusing them and current and former police officers of framing her uncle to discredit him in a family financial dispute. The indictment also included allegations that while Katherine Kealoha was in private practice, she stole $150,000 from trusts of two children under her guardianship.
She was court-appointed in 2004 as trustee and guardian for the children, then 12 and 10. The siblings’ father received money in a medical malpractice settlement before he died, their grandmother, Marlene Drew, told the Associated Press.
Taito is one of the children.
Taito and his sister didn’t know Kealoha was stealing from them, especially because she would give them some money here and there, Drew said.
According to the charging documents against Taito, Kealoha threatened that if he didn’t lie and say he received all of his money, then his mother would go to jail. Taito lied to the grand jury in April 2016 and said he received all of his money from Kealoha, the documents said.
The indictment against the Kealohas said Katherine depleted the trust accounts through time, spending the money on her personal expenses. She tried to hide her deception by forging documents and creating a fictional assistant named “Alison Lee Wong,” when other attorneys questioned what happened to the trusts, prosecutors said.
The Kealohas and the others charged in their case pleaded not guilty.
