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Mr. Kurohara: First off,/ want to thank all of you for again, for your time and
<br />service, Glen, it's your second time, but thank you again, Doug, Rusty and for those in
<br />Kona, John and Linda. Anyways, before 1 get started with that, 1 just want to say this, 1
<br />mean, the work that you do is really important and 1 know that often times, at this point
<br />of the process, looking at all that you have to do within a short period of time seems
<br />very daunting. Glen, you've been through this process before, all l can say is that it is
<br />very important work, the recommendations put forth last time, which we have a
<br />response, if you folks all have, if you look at it, a lot of them are being worked or have
<br />been implemented, were possible, so you know, there's some areas where obviously
<br />from a County perspective, we don't have the jurisdiction or ability to implement some of
<br />those, but where we could, we have, in some cases where it wasn't something we could
<br />do right then but we're moving towards it, so we're in the process, if not, already doing
<br />most of what was recommended, so again, the work is important and we really
<br />appreciate it. So things to know too is that, we've been through several years of really
<br />tough economy and when you look at the budgets and what the Mayor has asked of
<br />every department, is that outside of your payroll and salaries, those other expenses
<br />which is your travel, office supplies, equipment costs, things of that nature, we've had
<br />to, every department has had to cut every year, you know, 5 %, 10 %, you know, so
<br />every year we've had to trim those areas, so we've been running really lean out of those
<br />areas, so in regards to some of the things like travel, and those kind of expenses, 1 think
<br />every department shown cuts throughout the past few years. One of the things 1
<br />wanted to address here today that's not in our response here, is that a lot of areas
<br />where we've had to cut or we had to defer may be popping up, so like in areas such as
<br />(inaudible), you know, the purchase of any vehicles for many years, we've held you
<br />know, a lot of agencies haven't purchased a lot of office equipment and things of that
<br />nature that have been breaking down so we may see some of those areas having to be
<br />addressed, again, it's been several years of pushing these costs to the next year or the
<br />following year, not doing sort of the maintenance and the replacement, things that we
<br />should be, so that being said, 1 kind of wanted to share with you going forward so when
<br />you look at, when you talk to the different departments this year, you may see the need
<br />for some of those things having to be addressed. In terms of the report that Wally had
<br />submitted, it's all pretty much in writing but do you folks have any questions on that?
<br />I'm pretty sure it's pretty self explanatory about that response, you know 1 can always
<br />come back if you do have specific questions on any one of those. What 1 would like to
<br />say also is that 1 think from my perspective when 1 think about cost of government, it's
<br />the cost of delivering a certain level of service, what is the cost associated with that
<br />level of service and as a County government we've been asked to deliver more services
<br />cause again we have a growing community with a lot of needs, transportation to roads,
<br />parks, gyms, we've actually in the last years, you know, actually done a lot more with
<br />less but at some point in time, the upkeep and maintenance of a lot of these, added
<br />roads, added facilities, added parks, things of that nature may be something that you
<br />may need look at because, again, we cannot keep going along trying to cut, cut, cut but
<br />yet, trying to also at the same, trying to do more, more, more too, so 1 think in some
<br />cases we need to find some kind of balance in all of that but when it comes to travel,
<br />cost of meetings, maybe, just thinking off the top of my head, but some areas may be
<br />use of overtime, expenses, things of that nature, these are areas where 1 think we
<br />should be able to really look further at, how we can better manage these costs, but then
<br />again, you'll see that every department had made cuts every year.
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