MIN CHARTER 2018-08-10 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 could perhaps write up some recommendations on different options, because you did give us various options that we could use. The other issue I think that carne up recently was, you know, you were in the middle of buying for $2.75 million land that ended up under lava. It was unclear whether you guys could stop. MS. SAKO: Yeah. In the end we did, yes. MS. TODD: Because it had been an acquisition that was approved by the Council, and there was a question under the Charter and under the Code whether you had the ability to terminate that purchase once it had been initiated. Instead you were lucky, the State decided not to give the matching. But that would have been kind of an unfortunate result that, you know, the land was going to be purchased for a specific reason, then that reason no longer existed after the lava inundated it. So I agree with you that there probably needs to be some flexibility. If nothing else to allow you to, in the situation when an intervening disaster or act of nature occurs, that you can withdraw from contracts as a result of that. That ought to be at least in the DROA (Deposit, Receipt, Offer and Acceptance). CHR. ADAMS: Thanks, Commissioner Todd. I would ask Mr. Henricks, you captured what Commissioner Todd was talking about? Because that becomes part of whatever letter we're going to send to Director of Finance. We want to make sure we're gathering that. Because I was also going to ask Commissioner Todd, the items that you talked about, giving us a little bit on that in writing, would be great. But then also the things that she was talking about. Okay, great. Are there any other questions or comments for the Director? I do have one which I'm sure comes up occasionally. Would it be why do we have an annual budget versus a biennial budget? MS. SAKO: I think a lot of has to do with setting the real property tax values. We do that on an annual basis. While they're somewhat predictable, they're not exactly predictable. I think they vary. I know the State has a biennium budget. I think their revenue sources are a little easier. They then in exchange have the Council on Revenues, you know, to make sure they're on track. So for us, doing one year at a time works well. It matches up with our real property tax cycle. I'm not sure what the impacts would be if we continue to do it on an annual basis or not, but real property tax can be subject to the economy. So having them set at that January lst date, that part works well for us. I think doing budgets one year at a time also works okay. I'm not opposed to looking at two years, but we haven't checked to see what the HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes) says. That was the one area we were going to check into to see if that is restrictive as to annual or now. Page 20