Honolulu rail authority directors were told Friday that delays in deciding whether Executive Director Lori Kahikina will continue to lead the rail project are causing recruitment problems for the authority.

Kahikina’s contract with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation expires at the end of the year, and Kahikina said Friday that uncertainty surrounding her future with the project has already caused problems with efforts to recruit candidates for two top rail finance positions.

Questions about Kahikina’s status emerged after some harsh words directed toward her last month over issues related to staff retention, and after her annual evaluation by the board included significant criticisms of her performance.

Problem areas cited in the evaluation included an alleged lack of transparency with the board and delays in recruiting for key positions. The board on Friday deferred discussion of Kahikina’s contract to an unspecified date.

Meanwhile, a federal consultant who monitors the rail project for the Federal Transit Administration has flagged HART’s overall employee vacancy rate and key positions that remain vacant as a “major issue” for the $10 billion project.

The most recent report by consultant Hill International Inc. noted HART recently recruited a new director and deputy director of project controls as well as a new director of planning, but remaining vacancies include the procurement and contracts manager and the director of finance.

The deputy director of finance and the business systems manager also recently left the project, according to the report, and the HART board was openly alarmed last month at the abrupt departure of Project Director Nate Meddings. Meddings was immediately replaced by his deputy, Vance Tsuda.

Kahikina told the HART Human Resources Committee on Friday that questions about her status recently prompted a “very strong” candidate for HART deputy executive director and chief financial officer to decline the job. The current CFO, Rick Keene, has been planning for some time to retire.

“It’s very public what’s happening here, and that question did come up, what’s happening with the CEO.”

Lori Kahikina

Kahikina said the unnamed candidate “is willing to come over right now and replace Rick, but I told him, ‘I really don’t know what’s happening with my contract. I may be gone next year.’ He says, ‘Then I’m not coming.'”

Another promising mainland recruit for the position of director of finance asked to put the hiring process on hold for at least a month for similar reasons, board members were told.

“It’s very public what’s happening here, and that question did come up, what’s happening with the CEO,” Kahikina said. That potential hire “doesn’t want to continue discussions until she understands what’s the status of my contract.”

Michele Chun Brunngraber, chairwoman of the Human Resources Committee, asked if HART staff are continuing to seek out other potential candidates for the director of finance job.

“I think you’re going to find that in most of the high-level manager positions — in fact I have a very good candidate, I know we’re going to talk about succession planning on the project director and the deputy director — at that level they’re going to be dealing with the CEO, so it’s very difficult to recruit somebody who is unsure of who their boss is going to be,” Kahikina said.

Several HART employees attended the board meeting to testify publicly in support of Kahikina, but Chun Brunngraber deferred the committee’s discussion of the CEO’s contract.

Chun Brunngraber said she hopes to work with Board Chairwoman Colleen Hanabusa on issues surrounding the contract and then bring a proposal back to the full board.

But she did not say when that would happen, and HART Board Vice Chairman Kika Bukoski said he is concerned that further delay may affect recruitment and have “an impact on the progress of the project.”

“We’ve deferred this issue I think the last several months, and the longer we delay in deciding on the CEO’s contract, the further down the road we get, the more difficult it’s going to become,” he said.

Kahikina is paid $275,000 per year, and officially became the HART CEO in late 2021 after serving as interim CEO for almost a year.

Sandra Aguilar, human resources specialist for HART, said the rail authority is now staffed with 39 city employees and contract hires, and has 33 vacant funded positions. HART is now recruiting for 14 positions, she said, and the rail authority also supplements its staffing with consultants.