State Rep. Rida Cabanilla said Thursday that she hopes her close ties to a nonprofit that received a $100,000 grant from the state Legislature do not jeopardize the release of the money, which would be used for the upkeep of the Ewa Plantation Cemetery.

House and Senate leaders said they expect the Abercrombie administration to take a close look at the grant to the Ewa Historical Society after discovering that Cabanilla essentially controls the nonprofit.

The $100,000 grant was part of $10 million worth of grants approved Tuesday with the state budget. The grant application from the Ewa Historical Society listed Cabanilla’s son who is also her office manager as vice president and Cabanilla and two of her legislative aides among the four members of the board of directors.

House leaders have said Cabanilla should distance herself from the nonprofit. She said she is looking for others to get involved.

"So I’m looking forward, and I hope that all this hoopla about this nonprofit doesn’t deter the release of the money, because the community needs that money," Cabanilla (D, Ewa Beach-West Loch Estates) told reporters.

But the representative had to contend with new questions Thursday about the nonprofit.

The Ewa Historical Society’s federal tax-exempt status was automatically revoked in May 2013 for a failure to file tax returns for three consecutive years.

Cabanilla told reporters that she has sought to have the nonprofit tax status reinstated by the Internal Revenue Service. She showed the Honolulu Star-Advertiser what appeared to be a communication with the IRS that indicated her request is pending.

Cabanilla had signed the last tax filing for the nonprofit in 2010, which covered the 2009 tax year.

The grant is intended to provide money for landscapers and groundskeepers for the Ewa Plantation Cemetery, which closed for burials in 1976 and has fallen into disrepair. The cemetery had been maintained mostly by volunteers.

But after complaints from residents and news media attention last year about the cemetery’s condition, the city added the cemetery to its groundskeeping services. Jesse Broder Van Dyke, a city spokesman, said the city expanded a contract with Y2Kleaning in July 2013 to cover the Ewa Plantation Cemetery. He said city upkeep to the cemetery started in August.

Cabanilla said she passes by the cemetery regularly.

"To say that the city is taking care of it is subject to interpretation, or a standard," she said.

Matt LoPresti, a Hawaii Pacific University philosophy professor who is running against Cabanilla in the Democratic primary, has asked the state attorney general’s office to investigate the grant. He told the state that "$100,000 of taxpayer money must not be released to this fake organization."

Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom (R, Diamond Head-Kahala-Hawaii Kai) cited the grant, which he called a "clear, clear conflict of interest," in a warning to senators about reading bills and grant requests more closely. "We need to do a better job. We need to read the bills and understand and listen to the criticism before we vote, and then we shouldn’t be afraid to vote in opposition to something that clearly raises red flags."

Star-Advertiser reporter Sarah Zoellick contributed to this report.