The state auditor has delivered a sharp rebuke to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that surely stings staffers and elected trustees who worked in recent years to make the agency more professional than it once was.

It's unfortunate that the upbraiding comes now, after OHA has largely overcome its reputation for public dysfunction. But rather than spend time licking its wounds, the most prudent course now is to absorb and adopt the sound advice contained in the 44-page report.

Most important is the call for a more systematic means of evaluating the investment management advisers OHA has hired to guide the growth of its beneficiaries' primary asset: the $350 million Native Hawaiian Trust Fund.
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The agency has the limelight now, as a chief proponent of the Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill that awaits a Senate vote; it should do all it can to be fiscally prudent.