text: If one wants to learn more about how our state government works and has worked in the past a good read is Land & Power in Hawaii.  Is was published in 1985.  I think it is still used in some political science classes at UH.  Broken Trust is another one too.  In one of these books, Hawaii's government procurement system is rated as one of the worst in the nation.  Legislators are able to earmark/hide funds from the general fund so it looks like there is no money in the general fund.   Thanks to investigative reporting by Civil Beat, things might become more transparent.