2025-09-24 Salary Commission Minutes

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Salary Commission September 24, 2025 ʻAUHAUʻauhau. MS. KAWA: Commissioner KawaI was the type to close my eyes, listening to the sentence to see if it read all right—and it sounds okay, but I was thinking about adding “further” back in. But then, “further” refers to salary adjustments and we changed it to another word in the beginning. So, “further salary adjustments” insinuates previous salary adjustments, and then— MS. NAMAHOE: Which is what a pay increase was (inaudible), it’s— MS. KAWAʻAUHAU: Yeah. MS. NAMAHOE: —(inaudible) salary adjustment is a descriptive. MS. KAWAʻAUHAU: Right. But then, if we use it—so it may just depend on how comfortable we feel with saying “further adjustments” when “adjustments” was just if we use it as a proper noun—whatever, you know what I mean? MS. NAMAHOE: Yeah, (inaudible). MR. NELSON: “Further” was taken out because we deleted it entirely. But now that we’ve put it in, we could put “further” back. MS. KAWAʻAUHAU: If you’re okay—like, the only thing I—if you’re okay with having “adjustments” after “further” that’s all I care about, ‘cause you had that word— MS. FRENZ: Let me just throw out an idea. It could say, “After its July 2024 5% pay increase, the County of Hawaiʻi Salary Commission deferred further salary increases to afford the collective bargaining units to negotiate contracts.” CHR. PAVAO: Yeah, “increases” is more appropriate I think. ʻAUHAU MS. KAWA: I’m okay—I mean, I’m okay with “adjustments” or “increases” as long as everybody is okay with it. MS. NAMAHOE: The English nerd in me doesn’t want two big words in the same sentence twice—that’s all. So, but I stand down. CHR. PAVAO: Yeah, get the word “adjustments” twice in the same sentence. MS. NAMAHOE: I want synonyms. CHR. PAVAO: I like “increases.” MS. NAMAHOE: Okay, moving on. Moving on. MS. FRENZ: So, are we using “adjustment” or “increase?” Page 21