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minutes 03-11-00Page 5 of 17
<br />Water Commission. A couple of changes here. Right now, there’s a kind of a broad geographical requirement in terms of the
<br />representation of the Commission members, and what that allows, as in our existing Police Commission, is to have the
<br />number of Commissioners heavily weighted towards one side of the island vs. the other. So this would require that the
<br />residents come from each Council district. And that brings up an interesting discussion. What happens if we eliminate the
<br />nine Council districts. And at first, we thought that that meant that we might have to eliminate the Boards or Commissions
<br />attached to those districts, but I think we’ve figured out a way to still keep those functioning with those geographical
<br />descriptions, and just get around it by referring to - If those districts were eliminated, the districts as existed in the year so and
<br />so, or whatever, but not go to a 6-3 or a change from the geographic residency requirement for those Boards and
<br />Commissions. So, the Department of Water Supply nine members would be tied to the nine Council Districts. And as I
<br />mentioned earlier, the Head of the Water Department would also - This is separate but the same department, not be required
<br />to be a registered engineer and that is a transition -
<br />BOWLES: May I ask a question, John, just on consistency? In that second paragraph there, in referring to the Commission, it
<br />talks about the Chief Engineer, in the first paragraph there.
<br />RAY: Yes, right, so that would have to be changed. That’s good.
<br />BOWLES: So in the consistency of the language change, that would also be altered to the manager of the department?
<br />RAY: Right.
<br />BESS: Thanks, Steve.
<br />HENRY: Could we get him to give us his name for the record?
<br />RAY: That’s Steve Bowles, Waimea Water Services. Yes, that would have to change. So, in other words, if the requirement
<br />that the Head of Public Works not be a registered engineer, part of that section is that you change that around so there is no
<br />longer a Chief Engineer. So, what Steve is saying is, so you’d still have the head of Public Works probably participating in
<br />the Water Commission, but they wouldn’t be titled the Chief Engineer, so we need to figure out how to do that.
<br />Salary Commission. We are recommending that the Salary Commission have the authority to set all the Department and
<br />Deputy Department Head positions. Right now, that’s subject to County ordinance, and it’s a very political process, and it’s
<br />created lots of problems, this is my opinion, in the past in terms of raises being able to keep up, not only with the private
<br />sector, but the public sector as well. You have Civil Service raises going up continually and positions in the departments
<br />where Civil Service employees are being paid considerably more than the Department Heads. So, it’s a real disincentive for
<br />somebody being a Department Head or a Deputy when they have to take a pay cut. And Maui County implemented this in
<br />1994, and I’ve talked to them, staff and Administration people, former Mayor Lingle, and it seems to have worked out really
<br />well over there. We did put some language in there, at the end, that the ‘total salaries and benefits have a reasonable
<br />relationship to compensation in the public and private sectors’, so hopefully that would be the criteria for setting these. And
<br />we also made a strong point that we felt very strongly that the Salary Commission should very independently assess the job
<br />requirements, duties of these different departments, and set the salaries accordingly. In other words, right now, pretty much
<br />all Department Heads and Deputy Department Heads get paid the same, no matter what the size and function of the
<br />department, and that seems entirely inappropriate, but this doesn’t require that. There’s no way you can really require that.
<br />You can just encourage that.
<br />And the last one is what’s called a Cost-of-Government Commission. There again, this is something that we lifted out of
<br />Maui County. Every other year, a Commission would be put together to review the cost-of-government to promote economy,
<br />efficiency, and improve service, and make recommendations to the County.
<br />So those are what’s on deck right now, those 19, and we have four public hearings scheduled. We’ve just gotten all this
<br />information out to all the County Departments and as far as our mailing list, I think 280 organizations on the island were
<br />mailed a week ago, all of this information, encouraged to come to public hearings, encouraged to get us back input in writing.
<br />So, it’s a pretty comprehensive and up-to-date list of civic organizations, community organizations, business organizations.
<br />We’ve been meeting for over a year, had 24 meetings to date. All the meetings have been well publicized and in all the
<br />newspapers, there’ve been quite a few articles this past year in terms of what’s going on in the Charter Commission. And, as
<br />well, we’ve been the only County department, Commission, Board, whatever, to be totally on line for sometime, so we’ve
<br />had total computer access to all of our minutes, agendas, have all been available to the general public from that standpoint. So
<br />we feel comfortable that we’ve done everything reasonable to engage the public and encourage them to come forth.
<br />Unfortunately, there’s been very little participation by the public, and by the County, the Administration. We had a good
<br />file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 03-11-00.html7/1/2011
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