2011-04-27 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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continue to have a conversation leadership about cutting programs and services and raising taxes and revenues. All you hear at the State Leg is what are we going to cut and what we’re going to raise. But this year there’s no taxes. People say, oh yeah, but you’re deferring GASB 45. Absolutely. State has never made that inaudible. We made it for four years in a row. Cause we’ve honored it. Are we deferring retirement benefits? Absolutely not. We’re paying $28.8 million in this year’s budget to meet all of our health care and retirement pension obligations. That’s an additional voluntary payment. If we don’t want to defer that then please by all means come up with an alternative. I don’t believe raising taxes in a third year of the great recession is very smart. So, without revenue and without budget cuts, that’s a deficit conversation. We’ve got to start talking about our assets. How we grow our economy. What are the assets we have? We have two international airports, two deep draft harbors. We’ve got land to feed ourselves, the energy to power ourselves. What are the assets we have? We have a $1.3 billion telescope coming in that will create a new scientific technology sector. We’re 32% renewable right now with geothermal, solar, and wind. Potential ocean thermal energy. We have a partnership with Japan, Kumujima Island. We’re trying to encourage further OPEC development. We want to maximize our geothermal energy. We have a geothermal work group chaired by Richard Ha. And we know that we have a drill in West Hawai‘i. And if we can hit geothermal in West Hawai‘i, it changes the quality of life for all of us in spite of the rising fuel costs. You know, Water is the largest user of the electrical grid, County of Hawai‘i. It’s the largest user within the County of Hawai‘i –Department of Water Supply. The water is free, but you have to pay for the electricity to get from where it is to where you need it. But if you can get renewable energy, increase our base line, Jim Kauahikaua at Hawai‘i Volcano National Park said you’re sitting on 500,000 years of geothermal. We’ve got to invest in that. Got to stop talking about it. And that costs money. And we have to encourage and incentivize that investment. Government cannot continue to put out dollars to provide services. We have to create public/private partnerships. So when I think about the College of Pharmacy, Dean John Pezzuto came here four years ago, no campus. Dean John Pezzuto came from a third rank college of pharmacy in the country, Purdue. He comes over here, people tell him, you’re crazy, what are you doing going? Do you have a campus? No. Do you have a building? Do you have a school? No. I’m going to start one. Takes 90 students his first year. Took 90 students the past four years. Graduates his first class this May. Can have accreditation team right here, right now. That’s 360 students, 50 of the top researchers faculty came here in Hilo, generating $50 to 70 million a year, just the School of Pharmacy. The only College of Pharmacy in the Pacific basin. Starting salary for one of those students, $104,000, $106,000 a year starting. And we have the capacity to take 48 of those graduates a year. I mean that’s capacity building. They said that, you know since I’m thinking astronomy, renewable energy, higher education, got an initiative right now, the head coming from Washington, D.C. broadband technology. That is with Senator Daniel K. Inouye, has committed to us to allow us to st provide the infrastructure so that our kids, our community can be part of this 21century knowledge based economy that we’re transforming to. Wecannot continue to be dependent on tourism structure on our islands and military spending. It’s a boom and bust cycle. But with higher education and renewable energy, and science and technology, and broadband technology, the chairman of the Federal Communication Commission, Julius Genachowski, was here on island to come around to show the 10