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Merit Appeals Board November 19, 2021 <br />MR. BENNER: Okay. <br />CHR. CABANAS: because I lived and worked through it. <br />MR. BENNER: Sure. <br />CHR. CABANAS: And so, let me ask you my first question. This hotline is only for employees <br />or <br />MR. BENNER: No. <br />CHR. CABANAS: is it also for members of the public? <br />MR. BENNER: Members of the public can call in as well. <br />CHR. CABANAS: Okay. And howI know Ms. Mathews, kind of, touched upon it but <br />Ms. Nims in her audit report to the Executive Branch several years ago, emphasized the <br />whistleblower hotline be anonymous. Although, this is the Big Island it's still community. The <br />audit report cited that employees were fearful of retaliation because of what was going on. <br />That's what the audit report concluded <br />MR. BENNER: Right. <br />CHR. CABANAS: —after all the interviews were done. So, how does this hotline address the <br />anonymity of someone wanting to call the hotline for something that's illegal, fraudulent, or <br />abusive. This is not about potholes, this is not about traffic lights this is about illegal activity <br />embezzlement, theft, etcetera. <br />MR. BENNER: Right. So, I would also just mention that we are going to be standing up at the <br />same time that we deploy this line waste and fraud abuse line that will be separate from that. So, <br />this will somewhat break out those two issues. <br />And I know that you this body is focused on a particular subset of complaints that might come <br />in. But in looking at the total reasons that people call in and complain on these lines—cataloged <br />about 790 total reasons why people call in this is going to be wide-ranging and it's going to <br />affect much more than just this department. <br />And so, it's hard for me to speak to a specific issue, but I would just have to reiterate that we <br />aren't collecting personal data from anybody. In fact, yesterday, we were having the discussion <br />in our office about how we're going to go about anonymizing any inbound phone calls <br />associated with that. <br />So, we can't even see caller ID information. It's about—it's really about standing up a structure <br />around the "w's" and "h" the who, what, why, where, and when—what has been done, what <br />Page 19 <br />