2025-11-17 Salary Commission Public Hearing Minutes

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Salary Commission November 17, 2025 And when you have—I noticed Number 9 in your proposed Findings of Fact—“To keep pace with CPI inflation rates, pay increases granted to BU 13 employees”—well, Police has Unit 12, the SHOPO contract, which is in arbitration or going to arbitration. And Fire has the contract BU11, which is also going through arbitration. So, those numbers are not definite at this time— hard for you to do something when we don’t know what it is. However, I feel instead of considering the BU13, which is HGEA—and Police and Fire have HGEA employees, but they have SHOPO, they have the police officers whose salary schedule is very different from BU13—very different. And then, Fire same thing—the fire fighters—their salary schedule is very different from BU13. So, I ask, somehow, if you can consider that, if you can. I’m not telling you what to do, but if you can consider it. And, perhaps, our HR director can be of some assistance to all of you as she would—you would be getting more info. as time progresses. So, I just wanted to state that. It’s the scope of their work. You can put the Island of Oʻahu, the size of it, in the Puna District. What does that tell all of us—that our directors for these two departments—Police Chief with the Deputy, Fire Chief with the Deputy—that’s what they have to work with. And so, I would ask that you give some consideration to their salaries and, perhaps, not follow the BU13—follow their respective contracts because Police and Fire, they’re getting more than BU13—that’s a general statement, ‘cause I don’t have the figures in front of me—but you can get that through the Department of Human Resources. So, that’s what I wanted to say about that. The next thing that I want to—can I just continue a little bit more, Chair? I’ll wrap it up, but it’s about two positions—well, actually, four because it’s the director and the deputy, the director and the deputy for Environmental Management and Public Works. CHR. PAVAO: You’re testifying on behalf of yourself and also the Merit Appeals Board? MS. CABANAS: No, no, I’m testifying right now for myself. CHR. PAVAO: Okay. MS. CABANAS: Based on what I have read, based on my HR experience—okay. I’m not representing MAB, yet. I will identify when I do. So, for Environmental Management and Public Works—these are engineering departments. When I first started with the County, I started at Public Works—and then I took a promotion to the Personnel Department. It was known as “Civil Service” back then—and then the name got changed through a Charter amendment to “Human Resources.” But there are engineers out there. Are we paying them the industry standard? Public Works and Environmental Management, they have very huge—and I’m going to put that in caps.—HUGE Page 8