HONOLULU — Like the construction of the nearly $10 billion Skyline project, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s Executive Director and CEO Lori Kahikina said negotiations over her future work contract with the rail agency are moving along, albeit slowly.
But Kahikina said details of her next contract might soon be ironed out.
“It was a little slow going at first,” she told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “But I am hopeful … (and) we’re still negotiating all of the terms.”
To that end, Kahikina said she and her attorney on Wednesday met with the rail agency’s permitted interaction group, or PIG, formed to investigate and then recommend terms of the CEO’s negotiated work agreement to the full HART board of directors.
“We made a lot of progress,” she said, “so we’re hoping to wrap this up shortly.”
Named HART’s permanent CEO in 2022, Kahikina’s annual $275,000 contract is set to expire Dec. 31.
Her next contract, if adopted, would start Jan. 1.
Following months of delays and internal debate, HART’s board voted June 28 to provisionally grant Kahikina a new multiyear contract, with a minimum of three years, subject to terms and conditions to be negotiated, including her future salary.
That vote was prefaced with testimony — written and oral — largely in support of Kahikina’s leadership. HART, however, has come under some criticism over personnel issues, including the loss of key employees in recent months.
The board’s vote also came as the Federal Transit Administration, which in 2023 released $125 million in federal funds to HART for the first time since 2017, raised concerns over the uncertainty of the rail agency’s leadership.
Despite its tentative approval, Kahikina’s work agreement also had to undergo further scrutiny.
During a special HART board of directors meeting July 11, the panel voted to establish the PIG to consider Kahikina’s contract.
At that meeting, HART board Chair Colleen Hanabusa chose five board members to comprise the subcommittee: Michele Chun Brunngraber, its chair; Anthony Aalto, its vice chair; Roger Morton; Arthur Tolentino; and Kika Bukoski.
“The PIG’s scope is to investigate the executive director and CEO’s employment agreement,” Hanabusa said before the vote. “It is going to be the duty of the PIG to negotiate the terms of the contract with Lori and her attorney.”
She said, “It is anticipated … that this will be a multiyear contract, with terms or benchmarks or whatever all of you on the PIG agree to as well as with Lori’s attorney, and we’re hoping that we’ll be able to get to some agreement very shortly.”
Kahikina’s finalized contract, according to Hanabusa, was to be completed by the end of August.
According to Kahikina, the HART board is scheduled to review her employment agreement when it convenes Friday.
“But I think the PIG will have to give their report, dissolve, and then maybe there’s going to be another meeting to actually approve the contract, what we negotiated with the PIG,” she told the Star-Advertiser. “I don’t think anything will be decided next week.”
Meanwhile, at the same board meeting Friday, the agenda highlights another item: the “dissolution and reconstitution” of the PIG “to investigate completion of the Honolulu Rail Transit Project to the Ala Moana Station and beyond.”
Under the Blangiardi administration, the city in 2022 postponed the last 1.25 miles of guideway and the final two stations — at Kakaako, near Ward Avenue, and Ala Moana Center — to reduce the project’s expenses from over $12.45 billion for a 20-mile route and 21 stations, down to a $9.93 billion, 18.9-mile rail line project and 19 stations.
The board’s pending discussion on extending Skyline farther east follows HART’s awarding of a $1.66 billion contract Thursday to Los Angeles-based Tutor Perini Corp. to design and build the line’s last 3-mile segment, the City Center Guideway and Stations project, to Halekauwila and South streets.
The estimated cost to build the CCGS project had been $1.3 billion, but Tutor Perini’s bid increased by about $360 million over what HART had estimated.
