Comm. No. 25-05.08 From Del H. Otsuka in Opposition of the Proposed Salary Increases and Commenting on the Proposed Findings of Fact

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From discussions with Alu Like, I was made aware of two individuals (although there are more) who applied for County employment for eight and ten years. One individual applied 21 times! Was hired only for a short-term (five months) or provisional basis. Another individual commutes over 200 miles a day for work in Kona if doing a round trip. If not round trip, then having to sleep in their car, resulting in extreme commuting burdens and personal hardship; and has been doing this for over two years! These experiences underscore the absence of geographic and housing considerations within current hiring frameworks. Such patterns raise many questions about whether existing hiring structures unintentionally discourage long-term retention, or maybe arbitrarily conducted. I have also spoken with representatives of ALTRES, a local staffing and workforce solutions firm, and was informed that the County previously had a contractual relationship with that organization to support recruitment efforts. To my knowledge, that relationship is no longer in place. I have raised this in discussions with the Department of Environmental Management (as a commissioner), as it appears to be an example of an established recruitment pipeline that could be revisited. Why County Employment Still Matters to Our People It is also important to acknowledge why County employment continues to be sought after by many local residents, even when wages may fall below a true living wage for Hawai'i County. For many families, a County job represents stability and security-access to medical care, basic benefits, and a measure of predictability that is increasingly rare these days. • This is particularly true for working parents and multigenerational households who may accept wages at or only slightly above the federal poverty level because the alternative is no medical coverage at all. The willingness of individuals to apply repeatedly, commute long distances, or endure provisional employment underscores not a lack of interest, but a deep commitment to public service and economic survival.