2025-12-22 Salary Commission Minutes

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Salary Commission December 22, 2025 late but—‘cause it’s really important. Three-minutes is not enough for anyone to put any compelling justifications to topics that come up that we need (inaudible). So— CHR. PAVAO: We have your written testimony, so try to summarize it as best as you can in three-minutes. MS. OTSUKA: Okay. CHR. PAVAO: Thank you. MS. OTSUKA: Thank you. Dell Otsuka—I live in District 3. Okay. Since you do have it— and I did submit two testimonies—one is a supplemental that covers more specific—the Findings of Fact. But I also wanted to touch on the Charter process and the voting thresholds. And, as you know, the Charter—both Sections 13-4 and 13-28, both require majority of the entire membership. So, with that being said, I hope you take it to heart. But I do want to talk about the workforce pipeline and recruitment realities because last month’s meeting, HR said that they were—well, she didn’t say it, but the report showed 693 vacancies— of which 472 belong to the emergency service departments. So, it’s just hard to understand that at this time when all these realities are happening, we’re looking to give raises—right across-the- board. No justification. So—and I come from public sector—in the federal public sector, and there was no time where people expected raises just to get it. It was based on performance. And so, when I see or have seen these last two months is, there is—I don’t know, there’s no comparisons of verifiable information that I can see that substantiates this proposal for the raise. Did you get to read my testimony? CHR. PAVAO: Yes. MS. OTSUKA: Okay. And the reason I want to say that, too, is because I know a lot of County workers and they are struggling, but they love their jobs because it provides them stability—and a lot of people want that—and they can’t get it because getting into the County is very difficult. And as a Commissioner for the Department of the Environmental Management for three years, that was a topic I brought every month because I saw no reason that they couldn’t fill any of the level-entry positions. I visited all the transfer stations on this island. I visited at least three of the wastewater facilities—and it’s bad. So, to just across-the-board give raises when there’s no measure of performance or success in the departments is—I can’t fathom that. So, like I said, if you saw the picture—I mean, the (inaudible) I said about the park caretaker—I think, in part—it just jumped out at me because so Page 3