Doing the right thing, often, is easier said than done. And when it comes to doing right by Native Hawaiians — legally, monetarily, morally — things are complex and, indeed, difficult.

Under House Bill 402 and companion Senate Bill 1363, doing the right thing would mean transferring $35 million annually from state coffers to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, double the current $15.1 million yearly — plus, about another $139 million in lump sum for underpayment of public land trust revenues since 2012.

Those substantial sums, alone, are enough to give pause. But the real hesitancy is due to OHA’s checkered history of financial mismanagement and public disputes. Giving so much more money to OHA without confidence in the quasi-state agency’s efficiency seems folly; there must be safeguards that OHA will manage and spend its money with discipline and transparency.

Unfortunately, OHA’s financial history includes a number of critical audits.

The most recent, a state auditor’s report last February, found that in fiscal years 2015 and 2016, OHA spent $14 million on “discretionary” disbursements, nearly double the $7.7 million it spent on planned, budgeted and properly publicized, vetted and monitored grants.

“We found that OHA has spent with little restraint, using Native Hawaiian Trust Fund moneys to pay for such things as the retirement benefits for a former trustee ($56,300), political donations, an international conservation convention ($500,000), as well as a beneficiary’s rent ($1,000), another beneficiary’s funeral-related clothing expenses ($1,000), and a trustee’s personal legal expenses ($1,500),” the audit said.

OHA’s chairwoman said in response: “We fully understand that the daunting challenges our beneficiaries face — as well as our sweeping mandate — require our commitment to continuous improvement and progress. We know we must do better.”

Whether things have improved, though, remains a troubling question. On the heels of that audit, reports swirled about state attorney general and federal inquiries into OHA. And still ongoing is a $500,000 independent audit that OHA commissioned into its own operations and subsidiary LLCs. First approved in 2017, the audit is finally underway, and in the interest of informing decisions, OHA must adhere to its targeted April completion.

There’s little doubt that there is a standing obligation for redress to Native Hawaiians. Legally, aspects of the Hawaii Admission Act of 1959 and the Hawaii Constitution established the public land trust (PLT) to better the conditions of Native Hawaiians and the general public. The PLT comprises more than 1 million acres of former government and crown land seized in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

OHA is mandated to receive 20 percent of PLT revenues — which was tagged at the interim $15.1 million yearly as part of a global ceded lands settlement struck in 2012. Over the past seven years, that figure was known to be low, but attempts over the last three years to derive a truer amount failed.

HB 402 passed a House committee last week, and a hearing on SB 1363 is set for today. This might well be the year to increase and right-size the annual payments.

In testimony supporting HB 402, Kamehameha Schools noted that in fiscal years 2011 to 2018, OHA awarded over $110 million in funding and grants that address critical issues, such as environmental stewardship, food security, housing and homelessness and health care; of that total, $30 million went to educational purposes.

Many dismal statistics plague Native Hawaiians — ranging from health challenges to poverty to disproportionately high incarceration rates — so the mission carved out for OHA to improve the lives and lot of Hawaii’s indigenous people is as necessary as it is daunting. For the sake of its beneficiaries, OHA must get its house in order, to prove to all that it can, and should, be entrusted with so many more millions of dollars.