2017-03 Performance Audit Report: County of Hawai'i's Department of Human Resources Hiring Practices

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Marry Kim a , w , Coun of Hawai"i Finance Department 25 Aupuni street, Suite 2103 • Hilo, Hawaii 9671-10 (808) 961-8234 a Fax X808} 961-8559 TO. Bonnie Nims, Legislative auditor V FROM: Deanna Salo, Deputy Finance Director !'ATF: August 30, 201. SUBJECT- Response to C'ounlj, aiva `i 's Department of Human Resources Hiring r actice , .depart No. 2017-03, Septeinber 2017 Collins Tomei Direelor Deanna S. Sakti L)eputy Director Thank you for the opportwi ty to respond to the Legislative Audit Deport, C`oun y off Haivai `i's De a-tinent of Huinan Resources 1irin Practices , Report No. 2017-03, Seplemher 2017., I also appreciate the opportunity to meet. twice with your staff to express my eoneems. This is a unusual response for nye to prepare, since normally I would go through each recommendation and provide a response, however, this is an unusual audit report. All of the recommendations are related to the Department of Hunan Resources, yet all the findings are related to work performed by the departments. I would life to provide the following comments. - 1. . To help put things in perspective: Tuning calendar year 201 6., the Finance depr-ulment conducted 33 recruitments, 18 of which utilized the Clerk III list. Our 33 recruitments represent approximately % of the total recruitments for the County in calendar year 2016. The Finance department has 126 employees or about % of the County's employees, yet the auditor selected all 18 Clerk III positions for Finance which is 390 of the sarnple. The sample method seems a little skewed, .. Of the 18 selections, all are in the findings section because we used a r,-uidorn nwnber generator to narrow down the more than Zoo names provided by the Department of Fluinan Rcsource . See nay recommendation below. We used the random number generator as a measure to be fair to all applicants, so that each applicant had ars equal chance of being selected. We applied the shill set to the smaller pool. Note: This relates to the first three bullet points in the first finding, 3.Of the same 18 selections, 12 were included in the first finding, last bullet point, because we excluded mainland addresses. This was a result of years of experiencing denials when mainland applicants were called for interviews and declined when told the salary was $2!A00 per month. We have changed our practice and now call each mainland applicant and record their denial. The outcome continues to be that they turn do wn the interview opportunity. This finding only applies to our Clerk III recruitments, since the pair scale is so to — this was not used for our other classes of work. Haw ail' County is ars Equal Opportunity Employer and Provider Department's Comments 26 1 P a g e