2025-11-17 Salary Commission Public Hearing Minutes

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Salary Commission November 17, 2025 MS. OTSUKA: Okay, unless anybody else wants to go before me, I can wait. CHR PAVAO: Okay. MS. OTSUKA: Thank you—and I’m nervous. The repeated reference to private and sector comparisons lacks clarity and transparency. I haven’t read everything that you’ve provided, so I don’t know if you’ve already done that. So without identifying which companies, what positions, and what data was used for your Finding—comparisons between public leadership and private business executives become not only meaningless, but misleading. And in comparison to other jurisdictions, 33 of the 42 Hawaiʻi County officials make more than the Maui County, except for the mayor, county clerk, and deputy county clerk—and very little are—under the Oʻahu officials. And I got this off of—you have a copy, the “Executive Salary Jurisdiction Comparison.” So, of Hawaiʻi’s four counties, Hawaiʻi County is considered the poorest. When referencing living wages—$28.93 for a single adult; a family, two households working with two children, $58.56 an hour. It’s hard to read and acknowledge the amount that we want to give, ʻcause right now, they total over six million, the raises will be over a million—and then theyʻll end up in four years at seven million. I don’t see how we can sustain the raises. I’m not saying they’re not—you’re not—they’re not deserving. I’m not saying that. But these are not the kind of times we’re going to make advanced offers for that kind—’cause we don’t know what’s going to happen. And for like the HR, I’m—because I was on the Environmental Commission, I questioned a lot about that staffing because the critical services that we all provide, the departments that have the critical 365 day-a-year, 24 hours, seven days-a-week departments—they’re the ones with the highest vacancies. And it’s not all HR’s I think—every department head needs to deal with their own department and look for ways to make it better. Because if we do this, I don’t see how we can sustain these raises because you’re either going to raise the taxes or you’re going to cut the services. So, I don’t—I can’t fathom that. And of the 68 job postings that I saw recently, 18 of them are below living wages—and this is with the County. So, of all your 3,000 employees, how many of them are just making barely below the minimum wage. So, when we’re looking at the optics on giving these raises to officials who already make a lot in our County and in the State—there has to be a balance for those who are actually out there every day, doing their job, holding the County together, and just getting by. And a lot of it, I think, the vacancies—I’m told all the time that people transfer out or they leave. They don’t tell us where they left to or where they transferred out to, but that would be another Page 5