An advisory panel is recommending that members of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs board of trustees receive significant raises this year.

If approved by the state Legislature, the raises would be the first for trustees since 2004.

Under the draft plan, trustees would see their annual salary go to $50,000, up about 22 percent from the current $41,000, as early as next month. The chairman's salary would go to $57,000, up about 21 percent, from the current $47,000.

Additionally, the OHA Salary Commission recommended that the trustees receive annual cost-of-living increases of 3.5 percent in 2009, 2010 and 2011. At the end of 2011, trustees would be making $55,436 while the chairman would be making $63,197.

The commission's recommendations are required to be forwarded to state lawmakers, who have final say over trustee pay, within 20 days of the opening of a legislative session. Opening Day this year is Jan. 16.

Before finalizing the recommendations, however, the panel is asking for public input. Testimony will be taken at the commission's Jan. 29 meeting. Written testimony is also being accepted.

Commission chairwoman Dale Bachman said the panel is recommending what it thought is fair and equitable to trustees and reflective of their fiduciary duties. The commission reviewed the salaries of state lawmakers and county councils across the state. The recommendations, she said, would put OHA trustees "on the lower end" in a side-by-side comparison with legislators and County Council members.

Bachman said she and colleagues felt that step increases are in order to account for cost-of-living increases.

"I think we came up with something fairly fair," she said. "We just felt that their salaries hadn't been raised in four years, and we thought it ought to keep up with the cost-of-living allowances."

OHA board members are tasked with, among other things, managing the income and proceeds from the pro-rata portion of the Public Land Trust, controlling the property held by OHA, formulating policies relating to Hawaiians, assisting state and county agencies in their plans for Native Hawaiian programs and services, and promoting and assisting in the establishment of agencies to serve Native Hawaiians and others in Hawai'i.

OHA has about $480 million in assets and an annual budget of about $40 million.

About $15.1 million is received annually from the ceded-land revenue funds, and an additional $2 million comes from state general funds, said Oswald Stender, chairman of the OHA board's Assets and Resource Management Committee. The rest of the money used annually comes from investment revenue.

The nine members of the board are elected to four-year terms. Election of OHA board members was opened to all Hawai'i voters beginning in 2000 after the Rice v. Cayetano lawsuit. Before, only those showing proof of Hawaiian ancestry were eligible.

Bachman urged beneficiaries and the public to give their opinion if they wish. "It's important for the public and the people who are interested to be able to respond to (the recommendations)," she said. "We're not operating in a vacuum."

Comments can be submitted to 2008 Salary Commission, P.O. Box 2433, 'Ewa Beach, HI, 96706 or e-mail oha.salary.commission@gmail.com.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.