2014-07-17 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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Ms. Maddox thinks they are trying to verify those people who are receiving exemptions that are not entitled to them. She stated that in terms of lots zoned agricultural decades ago may or may not be actively in Ag today, they may have houses and other things on the property but that exemption has continued to follow the land unless someone steps forward and asked why I have this exemption when they are not farming. Mr. Mitchell stated that it could be if the person who owns the property has been dead for a while and nothing has changed, the people are still getting the exemptions and they might be doing different things with that property. Ms. Kelly clarified that it may not have been conveyed to a new owner but within the family it passed on and the people presently managing the property are still benefiting from the exemption of the parent. Mr. Mitchell replied yes. Ms. Kierkiewicz asked if these records are maintained in a paper system or scanned into forms and able to use technology to streamline the process. Mr. Mitchell replied they are going to electronic files. He thinks as they are going through the files, they often see nothing has changed in 15 years on the property and still getting the tax exemption; at some point all the files will be electronic with a hard copy backup. Mr. Mitchell stated it’s the first time the group is able to go through this and see how far they can take it, how much can be addressed and talking about things the public can be a party of. He stated that going back to Ms. Kelly’s comment about covering technology and energy, he covered all those areas. When interviewing the departments, he wants to be very transparent and wants them to know exactly what he’s going to ask. Ms. Kierkiewicz reported the following regarding the Mayor’s Office: · Ms. Kierkiewicz and Ms. Maddox met with Wally Lau and Randy Kurohara on June 12, 2014. Mr. Lau and Mr. Kurohara explained that running the County is like running a business, there are stakeholders relationships to maintain. · The most expensive cost for the County is labor so they need to prioritize projects with that in mind. · This year they asked each department head when submitting their budget for next fiscal year to reduce their budget by 5%. · The Building Department experienced a severe backlog in terms of building permits. In order to alleviate the backlog from a system that is bogged down by lots of paper work to use technology to their advantage. The Planning Department is working with IT to restructure the permit process and have everything online so the public can track the progress. Mr. Kurohara also talked about having different tracks depending on how big a project is, that way smaller project don’t have to wait behind the large projects in terms of getting reviewed. · Ms. Maddox stated Mr. Kurohara commented generally about it being very complicated in trying to find a common platform for technology because each department has such different needs. She stated that looking across all departments, which are all very independent, and to 5