|
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
<br />have to change. So, in other words, if the requirement that the Head of Public Works
<br />not be a registered engineer, part of that section is that you change that around so
<br />there is no longer a Chief Engineer. So, what Steve is saying is, so you'd still have the
<br />head of Public Works probably participating in the Water Commission, but they
<br />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
<br />authority to set all the Department and Deputy Department Head positions. Right now,
<br />that's subject to County ordinance, and it's a very political process, and it's created Tots
<br />of problems, this is my opinion, in the past in terms of raises being able to keep up, not
<br />only with the private sector, but the public sector as well. You have Civil Service raises
<br />going up continually and positions in the departments where Civil Service employees
<br />are being paid considerably more than the Department Heads. So, it's a real
<br />disincentive for somebody being a Department Head or a Deputy when they have to
<br />take a pay cut. And Maui County implemented this in 1994, and I've talked to them,
<br />staff and Administration people, former Mayor Lingle, and it seems to have worked out
<br />really well over there. We did put some language in there, at the end, that the 'total
<br />salaries and benefits have a reasonable relationship to compensation in the public and
<br />private sectors', so hopefully that would be the criteria for setting these. And we also
<br />made a strong point that we felt very strongly that the Salary Commission should very
<br />independently assess the job requirements, duties of these different departments, and
<br />set the salaries accordingly. In other words, right now, pretty much all Department
<br />Heads and Deputy Department Heads get paid the same, no matter what the size and
<br />function of the department, and that seems entirely inappropriate, but this doesn't
<br />require that. There's no way you can really require that. You can just encourage that.
<br />And the last one is what's called a Cost -of -Government Commission. There again,
<br />this is something that we lifted out of Maui County. Every other year, a Commission
<br />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
<br />scheduled. We've just gotten all this information out to all the County Departments and
<br />as far as our mailing list, I think 280 organizations on the island were mailed a week
<br />ago, all of this information, encouraged to come to public hearings, encouraged to get
<br />us back input in writing. So, it's a pretty comprehensive and up-to-date list of civic
<br />organizations, community organizations, business organizations. We've been meeting
<br />for over a year, had 24 meetings to date. All the meetings have been well publicized
<br />and in all the newspapers, there've been quite a few articles this past year in terms of
<br />8
<br />
|