The Hawaii Tourism Authority is holding its spending information too close to the vest.
Amid ongoing criticism from state lawmakers and others that HTA’s disclosure policies and reliance on lengthy behind-closed-doors sessions make it impossible to evaluate public spending, the agency is considering a move to step up transparency. HTA Board Chairman Rick Fried said Thursday that the agency may adopt a new policy to require board approval for expenditures over $250,000. It also could establish a marketing advisory committee to provide more oversight of staff marketing decisions.
Those are steps in the right direction — but fall short of a satisfactory correction for an agency that gets an annual $82 million in transient accommodation taxes for marketing and operations, and another $26.5 million for the Hawai‘i Convention Center.
Certainly there’s a need to protect “proprietary information” and “competitive advantage” while various contract deals are in the works. But as state Sen. Glenn Wakai (D, Kalihi-Salt Lake), chairman of the Economic Development, Tourism and Technology Committee, said last week: “The public has a right to know what’s been spent. Once the deal is inked, it should be disclosed.”
HTA is spending taxpayer dollars, and transparency is absolutely necessary for the sake of accountability.
Wakai said the HTA, which recently took more than five weeks to provide him with a detailed budget, is abusing its exemption to the state’s “Sunshine Law” that prohibits unofficial or private meetings where more than two members of a government panel attend and discuss official business. HTA’s exemption requires the agency to hand over information requested by a lawmaker, and if it’s labeled as proprietary, there’s a duty to keep it private.
Wakai rightly introduced a bill that would scrap the 2010 law allowing HTA to discuss “competitively sensitive” information behind closed doors. The bill also would mandate that HTA provide unredacted budgets to the leaders of the legislative tourism and finance committees.
Such transparency seems necessary — otherwise, how else could legislators allocating money for HTA’s budget hold the agency responsible for its spending? A budget that doesn’t include breakdowns for individual programs under each line item will only leave legislators and the rest of us wondering whether HTA is hiding something.
Wakai’s proposal would make assessing tourism spending a less-cryptic exercise at the state Capitol. Earlier this month, for example, members of the Ways and Means Committee questioned why HTA spending exceeded its state-allotted tourism special fund by more than $11 million during 2016’s strong visitor market. The fund pays for marketing and operations. Having to ask such a question due to redacted spending information is alarming.
HTA maintains that its actions meet the exemption requirement in the state’s open-records and sunshine laws. And, what may be perceived as puzzling is simply the agency’s efforts to balance the public’s “intrinsic right to know how its money is being spent against the unintended and potentially disastrous consequences of letting certain sensitive information fall into competitors’ hands.” HTA officials cite that as an apparent risk to ending the agency’s sunshine exemption — but with so much public money at stake, it’s a risk worth taking for greater accountability.
During 2015, the average daily visitor count in the islands was nearly 214,470, with tourists collectively spending an average of more than $41 million a day, according to HTA. Clearly, tourism is both a thriving private-sector industry and a vital contributor to the state’s economy. Taxpayers are key to maintaining that successful balance — and deserve to know how their money is being spent.
