Delegates to the Na‘i Aupuni Hawaiian constitutional convention, or Aha, set to convene in less than three weeks, must return any per diem payments or be taxed on the amount received if they fail to attend 80% of the daily sessions, according to an email sent last month to convention participants.

The email from Louis F. Perez III, chairman of the Akamai Foundation, which is processing the grant money that is paying for the convention, laid out the schedule of payments to delegates.

A total of 154 delegates are expected to participate in the convention, scheduled to begin on Monday, February 1. Those from Oahu will receive a total of $1,000 in per diem payments, while neighbor island delegates will get $4,000, and those coming from outside of the state will receive $5,000.

Per diem amounts will be paid in four equal increments. An advance of one-quarter of the total amount was to be delivered by mail at the beginning of January, with additional advances scheduled to be made once the Aha begins, with payments distributed in person on February 1, February 15, and February 29.

Delegates were advised that they must attend in order to avoid being taxed on the payments received.

Advances of per diem are considered “earned” by participation in the ‘Aha as documented by each delegate signing-in and signing out on the Delegate Attendance Roster at the start and end times for each day of the ‘Aha. The minimum attendance necessary for advances to be considered “earned” is 80%.

At the conclusion of the delegate training, per diem disbursements will be reconciled against the Delegate Attendance Roster to determine the amount of per diem advanced that was actually “earned”. An IRS Form 1099MISC will be issued to each delegate for the total amount of unearned per diem not returned to Na’i Aupuni.

The first week of the convention will be devoted to education on key areas of interest, including discussions of governance in the Hawaiian Kingdom, to the issue of ceded lands, and issues surrounding tribal sovereignty and international law.

The written background materials are publicly available in pdf format on the Na‘i Aupuni website. For those who are interested, there’s a lot of substantive material here.