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If one seeks to influence the day-to-day workings of state government — its expenditure of monies, its contracts with businesses, its policies and practices — the most efficient and logical place to exert that influence is through the executive branch.

Sure, a potential influencer could pressure legislators. But there are 76 senators and representatives, each with her or his own point of view and vote. In the end, they make the laws and appropriate the funds that bankroll the government, but it is the staff within each state agency that is ultimately responsible for implementing the laws and spending most of the money.

That’s why the law intended to bring transparency and accountability to lobbyists’ actions is so woefully inadequate. As Civil Beat columnist Ian Lind pointed out recently, the law only pertains to lobbying the Legislature. Would-be influencers are free to lobby the executive branch as aggressively as they might wish — no disclosures required.

Lind documented the case of Ciber Inc., which is being sued by the state on multiple issues related to a contract the company won to create a new accounting system for the Department of Transportation. Though it failed terribly on its contractual obligations, Ciber was remarkably effective in its efforts to influence the administration of former Gov. Neil Abercrombie.

The company hired Hawaii’s leading lobbyist, John Radcliffe, to press the Abercrombie administration for help in overcoming objections within the DOT to its utter failure under the terms of its contract. Radcliffe’s efforts paid off: Abercrombie’s staff moved one critic out of the DOT entirely, placing him at another state agency. He was replaced with an appointee with no experience in IT or financial management, who allegedly deferred to the governor’s chief of staff, Bruce Coppa, on key decisions.

Months later, Coppa went to work for Radcliffe’s firm, and Ciber wound up pocketing $8 million in fees, courtesy of Hawaii taxpayers.

Few of the details regarding Ciber’s lobbying on this matter are known — how much it spent, who else was involved in the work, how much the lobbyists were paid — because such details didn’t have to be disclosed. The lobbyists representing Ciber didn’t even have to register over their work with the administration.

And it was all perfectly legal.

Let’s be clear: No lobbying reform effort would be complete without new, meaningful requirements for engaging the executive branch of state government.

Three years ago, a national study led by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity gave Hawaii a grade of C for our level of government transparency and efficacy of policies to deter corruption and a D- in lobbying disclosure. A group of about 20 leading lawmakers, lobbyists, watchdog group principals, journalists came together following that report to focus on what could be done to improve the environment for such issues in Hawaii.

After meeting for about a year, funded in part by the Hawaii Community Foundation, the group finally issued a milquetoast report last year documenting a list of “ideas for future discussion.”

The group went to pains to avoid referring to any of its “thoughts for further exploration” as “recommendations,” explaining that it could not come to a consensus that would support that.

The “ideas” were hardly revolutionary. “Improve electronic databases” for lobbying filings to make them more “user friendly,” require lobbyists to disclose campaign contributions, make legislators’ calendars public record and the like.

Routine, at best, and nothing at all to suggest changes around lobbying the executive branch.

One doesn’t need to look far to see why even this group failed at reform recommendations: Two participating lobbyists wrote a dissenting opinion to make it clear they didn’t agree with all the ideas represented in the document. The fox rarely supports any move to strengthen the door of the hen house.

There’s been precious little action, in fact, on any of the ideas expressed in the report, all of which point to inadequacies in current law and practice and still deserve the attention of the Legislature when it convenes in January.

But let’s be clear: No lobbying reform effort would be complete without new, meaningful requirements for engaging the executive branch of state government. The Ciber case study hardly represents the beginning and end of this issue; efforts to influence the actions of the executive branch are legion, and it is only the rare matter that gets dragged into court or finds its way into media coverage that gives us some sense of the magnitude of the problem.

Gov. David Ige’s administration is now working to clean up the Ciber mess. It is his attorney general who filed the case.

Now, he needs to take the lead to get lobbying reform through the Legislature in 2016 — particularly provisions that bring accountability to those who seek to influence the executive branch.