The Office of Hawaiian Affairs will eliminate 28 of its 178 positions as part of a new strategic plan outlined yesterday.

The layoffs are expected to save OHA from $500,000 to $750,000 and are part of a shift to a more "results-based" strategy.

OHA plans to set specific goals, such as raising the level of Native Hawaiian incomes to meet or exceed non-Hawaiian incomes in the Islands.

The plan also calls for turning over OHA assets to a new Hawaiian government that could result from passage of the so-called Akaka bill in Congress, which would grant federal recognition to Native Hawaiians.

"That's fairly controversial," OHA administrator Clyde Namu'o said yesterday. OHA's trustees "see OHA as eventually going out of existence and being taken over, if you will, by this Native Hawaiian entity. ... That is a strong statement about how the trustees view the future for Native Hawaiians."