2011-06-24 Cost of Government Draft Report

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INTRODUCTION As stated in the Hawai‘i County Charter, Section 5-2.1, the policy of the County is to promote economy, efficiency and improved service in the transaction of the public business in the legislative and executive branches of the County by: 1. Limiting expenditures to the lowest amount consistent with the efficient performance of essential services, activities, and functions. 2. Eliminating duplication and overlapping of services, activities, and functions. 3. Consolidating services, activities, and functions of a similar nature. 4. Abolishing services, activities, and functions not necessary to the efficient conduct of government. The Cost of Government Commission (COGC) is mandated by the County of Hawaii to be convened every four years and whose term is for eleven months. The 2010-2011 COGC met for the first time on July 30, 2010. The COGC is designated to include one representative from each Council district, for a total of nine members (plus the Managing Director as an ex-officio member). A lack of willing and qualified volunteers left the 2010-2011 Cost of Government Commission with only six members, none of whom represented the Leeward side of the island. Although it is impossible to say how this lack of representation may have affected the findings and recommendations in this report, we can say that it did hamper the COGC’s ability to gather a quorum for its bi-monthly meetings. Despite this, the COGC met regularly throughout the past eleven months to arrive at the report you have before you. The report itself is organized with an Executive Summary and three (3) main parts. The Executive Summary precedes the body of the report and provides a comprehensive discussion on the COGC’s top priority recommendations and justifications for taking those actions. Part 1 provides a discussion on the overarching costs and revenue concerns for the County of Hawai`i. In that section the commissioners discuss the need for a change in how government approaches the tasks of providing services. The process and procedures followed by this commission in developing the report are explained in this section which ends with a discussion of what essential services our County should and does provide to the public. In Part 2 we provide specific recommendations on measures that could save the County considerable costs and/or provide additional sources of revenues, Part 2 is broken down into two sections; the first describes County wide recommendations and the second provides department specific recommendations. Part 3 provides a general discussion on the potential outcomes of adopting all, or some, of these recommendations, and includes the commissioners’ concluding remarks. Although his remarks came late in the process, Mayor Billy Kenoi appeared before the commission to answer questions and give us a status report on County funding issues. At that time, he remarked: Government of tomorrow is not going to look like the government of yesterday. Government is going to be very different going forward. We have to recognize that. 1