2022-04-08 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board April 8, 2022 We need to hold government officials and employees who might be misaligned and doing such things. We need to hold them accountable. So, I'm grateful that you—I know you're new and you started off really quickly with this. So, I really want to thank you, Mr. Benner. MR. BENNER: Well, thank you very much. And the tips that we've received have largely echoed that sentiment. So, I know that it's a hopeful value on this side and it's showing itself to be a perceived value on the other side So, thank you. CHR. CABANAS: Because it only—if—when it works well as it's intended to, then individuals, members of the public, hopefully, will trust government more. And we want to always have a safe and healthy environment for our employees. And so, I think this is a great start. So, with that statement, I just want to ask just a few more questions. So, I see that there's brochures, there's the HR Quarterly Workshop next week, new hires are being oriented about the fraud, waste, and abuse program which is great. Are the brochures enough to educate the existing employees? Not the new hires. The employees that are—have been working in the County, is that sufficient or are you going to have more training sessions for them? How will you address that? Waylen, how will you address that? MR. LEOPOLDINO: There are other opportunities that we can reach our current employees. One of them, we could do like a payroll stuffer. We could also do training, as you mentioned. We also have—we could also put the information on our County's Intranet. So, yes, there are opportunities. I also wanted to add that we're working closely with the Office of the County Auditor's on this program and, kind of, supporting them on things that they need. So, the communication and the PR piece, we can definitely continue our partnership and I'd be happy to explore other opportunities to do that. So, thank you. CHR. CABANAS: I think that's a good idea and if you can do that. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Sure. MR. BENNER: If I may, I would say that for our side of things, we're trying to improve the ease of access to that. So, if you go to the hawai i county. gov website, the inquiries and complaints is actually right on the top bar of the hawaiicounty. gov. It's not buried within a department. That will take you then, to our directory where they can navigate those myriad of different complaint avenues. So, we're just doing the little things that we can to try to just push it slightly out in front. CHR. CABANAS: Right. That's good. I'm glad that you're doing that because for other jurisdictions, when I was working and I had to research it—some websites, their websites—it was very difficult to find. It's like it's hidden. It shouldn't be hidden. If we want individuals to use this mechanism, the hotline, then it should be easily visible for the employees. It should be Page 21