2025-11-17 Salary Commission Public Hearing Minutes

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Salary Commission November 17, 2025 matters to deal with. And to say that there are no engineers—there are engineers, but we need to pay them fairly, equitably, and logically—in order for them to lead those two departments. Let me give you a real quick example and then I’m going to close. And this example was—years back I was already with Human Resources and the State decided—because they were having difficulty hiring civil engineers, they decided to declare a Shortage Category, which would give civil engineers a differential amount, in addition to their base pay. Well, what happened? We had some of our engineers from Public Works leave to go work for the State because now, they were going to get their shortage differential. No other—excuse me—no other island had a shortage differential. So, when that happened, we talked internally in our department, we secured the approval of the mayor—it was Stephen Yamashiro back at that time—that’s how way back it goes. And then, we decided, “You know what, we’re going to declare a shortage differential” because it became a recruiting matter. It has always been a recruiting issue for civil engineers—even today. It’s still on continuous recruitment, right, Sommer? Is that correct? MS. TOKIHIRO: That’s correct. MS. CABANAS: Yeah. So, even today it’s still a recruiting issue, but that shortage differential helps to attract the applicants. So, when we did that, then later Maui and Kauaʻi Islands also declared shortages. The idea is, we want to pay them what’s logically right to also keep them— otherwise, we would have had musical chairs with more engineers leaving to go work for the State. And I believe you all know, you were the Chief Engineer at State Highways—and he was getting our engineers—and we don’t want to lose our engineers. So, no offense. MR. ONO: Yeah, I’m okay with it. MS. CABANAS: The word is “competitive”—we need to be competitive. We need to be proactive when you ascertain the salaries, especially for those two departments because they are engineering departments. And to be a good leader, you need to know what you’re talking about—you don’t want a leader who knows apples and you’re dealing with oranges. You need a leader who knows design and semantics and all of that detailed lingo, so that you can have a thorough conversation with your managers, with the subordinates—everyone understands. Historically, the department head for Public Works has always been an engineer—a licensed engineer—that’s historically. So, in closing, I just want to ask if you could please give some consideration to those two department heads and their respective deputies. And so, I want to thank all of you for listening to me. I know I went over time—but I wanted to share my manaʻo and ask for your consideration. So, mahalo, you have a very difficult job. CHR. PAVAO: Thank you. So, you were also going to testify on the Merit Appeals Board? Yeah. Page 9