ASB gives more than $450,000 to nonprofits

American Savings Bank has donated more than $450,000 to Hawaii nonprofits through its Kahiau employee-giving campaign, ASB direct corporate support and the Hawaiian Electric Industries Charitable Foundation.

In its fifth year, ASB’s Kahiau Giving Campaign provides an opportunity for employees to donate to any of ASB’s nonprofit community partners. ASB matches each employee donation up to $100,000. ASB’s Kahiau campaign raised the highest amount in the campaign’s history, with nonprofit community partners receiving $246,000 for 2016. Through ASB’s direct corporate support, nonprofit organizations across the state received just more than $80,000 in sponsorships and donations.

ASB contributed more than $124,000 to 11 local organizations through the HEI foundation, including $15,000 to support the Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Science Day and $25,000 for Waimanalo Health Center to construct a new medical facility.

Pono Home offering free efficiency upgrades

Pono Home, a Honolulu-based home-efficiency company, said Tuesday it is providing free efficiency upgrades to help residents save money on their utility bills.

Pono Home will install LED lighting and other high-efficiency fixtures, including plumbing fixtures and timers. Pono Home said it will optimize and maintain appliances, and provide tips about sustainability and efficiency measures.

Pono Home said home-efficiency services will be completely free for residents who meet certain criteria. The program focuses on renters and low-income families. Hawaii residents can find out whether they qualify for the free service by filling out a survey at bit.ly/1Qw6P4d.

New-home sales in U.S. rose in February

WASHINGTON >> U.S. homebuyers in the West accounted for all of February’s increase in sales of new houses, possibly signaling uncertain growth prospects for the broader real estate market heading into the spring buying season.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new-home sales rose 2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 512,000. All of the increase came from a 38.5 percent surge in purchases in the West, which reversed a stiff 32.7 percent decline in January that had cut into overall sales.

American to introduce profit sharing

DALLAS >> Coming off record earnings, American Airlines says it will make profit-sharing payments to employees.

American said Wednesday that it will share 5 percent of its pretax earnings with all employees, excluding top management, starting in early 2017 based on 2016 results. Including its regional-flying subsidiaries, American has about 118,000 employees.

Some of its employees have complained that they don’t get profit sharing like counterparts at other airlines. Delta paid out $1.5 billion last year, United shared $698 million with employees, and Southwest paid out $620 million. At last year’s pretax profit, American would have paid about $315 million.

American says its profit-sharing rate will be lower than other airlines, but added that it plans to offer higher hourly pay rates once it finishes renegotiating union contracts. Unions, which traded profit sharing for higher base pay in leaner years, would need to approve the profit sharing.

The company also said it will speed up a 6 percent raise for flight attendants to April 1. The raises were to follow expected increases at United, but bargaining on a new contract at United is still going on.

Obamacare website has security flaws

WASHINGTON >> The web portal used by millions of consumers to get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act has logged more than 300 cybersecurity incidents and remains vulnerable to hackers, nonpartisan congressional investigators said Wednesday.

The Government Accountability Office said none of the 316 security incidents appeared to have led to the release of sensitive data on HealthCare.gov. Most of the incidents over nearly 18 months seemed to have involved electronic probing by hackers.

Although GAO said the administration is making progress, its report concluded that security flaws “will likely continue to jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity and availability of HealthCare.gov.”

On the Move

Hawaiian Properties has announced three new additions to its community management team:

>> Kanani Kaopua is vice president and senior property manager. She has an extensive background in managing large-scale and developing communities.

>> Kirsti Hirota-Schmidt is vice president of business development. She has 10 years of professional and volunteer experience in the real estate and property management industry. Hirota-Schmidt is also president of the West Oahu Economic Development Association and vice president of membership for the Institute of Real Estate Management.

>> Al Denys is vice president of government affairs and senior property manager. He has more than 20 years of association management experience, including having trained and developed numerous property managers as well as serving as a lecturer on topics related to effective community association management.