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ALONZO: What about Parks and Recreation? <br />• TAKAHASHI: Parks and Recreation, they do their own collections because it's <br />very difficult for the people to come all the way to Hilo, or all the way to Kona. I think <br />they have different means of doing their collections. In fact, right now one agency has <br />started taking credit cards because of the difficulty in collections, so if that is <br />successful, we may expand that so collectionsmight be easier. Reservations may be <br />easier, but we are also looking at fee structures too. <br />RAY: Gary. <br />YOSHIYAMA: Following up on Eddie's question, Harry. Any consideration to <br />wastewater, water bills. You know we're talking about one stop permitting, how <br />about one stop payments? <br />TAKAHASHI: Right now we are looking at a whole new computer system for Real <br />Property. We are sort of piggybacking off of Honolulu. Honolulu is the lead <br />procurement agency and the neighbor island counties are piggybacking on that, and <br />part of that system is a collection system. All of the counties recognize that we need a <br />collection system that can do more than just Real Property Tax bills, so we are looking <br />at that. <br />® YOSHIYAMA: You talk about General Services Agency, but Harry, no more <br />money you said. <br />TAKAHASHI: I'm not sure whether sitting up a General Services Agency, except <br />for a Director, would require much funds because what we would be doing is just <br />relocating some of the services right now, to have somebody responsible for it because <br />a lot of these programs that don't necessarily fit, don't get the proper attention. Good <br />example, I get accused of not properly administering or enforcing the Animal Control <br />Program in this county. What does animal control have to do with Finance? Now, I <br />am also charged, by State law, to being the Chief Procurement Officer. Any protest, I <br />need to conduct an investigation to see whether the procurement process has been <br />properly administered, so what I've tried to do, I've tried to divorce myself from many of <br />the procurement by placing the procurements we once did under a division of mine, so <br />that there is this separation, but still people accuse me because the County Code says <br />Finance Director, Finance Director shall administer. But yet the State law designates <br />me as the Chief Procurement Officer for the County. To give people a fair review, I <br />try to divorce myself from the actual procurement. While my signature does appear <br />though, on a lot of the awards, but I'm not actively involved in it. So there is this conflict <br />because when people create laws, pick a number, put it in Finance. But, we can <br />understand it. It's not that simple when the Legislators meet in such a short, brief <br />period that they need to assign the task to somebody. <br />40 <br />