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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN FC 2022/04/12, 13 and 14 Budget Review - Complete Committee on Finance 32nd Session Special Meeting Departmental Budget and Program Reviews Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii April 12, 2022 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Finance was called to order at ORDER: 9:00 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Mr. Matt Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Matt Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, Chair Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards III, Member Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: The Chair called Miles Yoshioka, who registered to speak regarding Bill 126 (Comm. 645) and came forward when called. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mr. Clerk, if you could read us in the first order of business. BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Bills ORDINANCES: for Ordinances. FC-32 April 12,2022 Bill 126: ESTABLISHES AN OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAII FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2022, TO JUNE 30, 2023 From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated March 1, 2022, transmitting for consideration the proposed Operating Budget for the County of Hawaii for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2023. This balanced budget includes estimated revenues and appropriations of$689,903,974, which represents a proposed 13.1 percent increase compared to the Fiscal Year 2021-22 Operating Budget. Reference: Comm. 645 Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder(B/R) and Comm. 645.1: From Finance Director Deanna S. Sako, dated March 1, 2022, transmitting reports entitled, Departmental& Agencies'Six Month Progress Report on Program Objectives for Fiscal Year 2021-2022 and Final Status Report on Program Objectives for Fiscal Year 2020-2021. Bill 127: RELATES TO PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2022, TO JUNE 30, 2023 From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated March 1, 2022, transmitting the proposed Capital Budget for FY 2022-2023 and the Capital Improvements Program for the next six years from Fiscal Year 2022-2023 to 2027-2028, which includes 85 projects requiring a total appropriation of$365,225,000 of which $257,275,000 are intended to be funded in whole or part by bonds, $56,999,000 million to be funded by Federal Grants, $48,750,000 to be funded by the State Revolving Loan Fund or State Capital Improvement Projects, and $2,201,000 to be funded by General Excise Tax. Reference: Comm. 663 Intr. by: Mr. Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder(B/R) Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend passage of Bill 126 on first reading. Seconded by Ms. David. Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend passage of Bill 127 on first reading. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy. CHR KANEALII-KLEINFELDER: I'd like to make a note just for the record that the title of Bill 127 incorrectly indicates the current fiscal year rather than the next fiscal year. And just for everyone's information, this will be corrected when the administration submits Draft 2 of Bill 127 on May 5. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Let's get started. I believe our Mayor is out of the State currently at a meeting, and we do have Mr. Lord here to represent the Mayor's Office in getting us started. Page 2 FC-32 April 12,2022 DEPARTMENTAL The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business PROGRAM Departmental Budget and Program Reviews. AND BUDGET REVIEWS: (1) Mayor—Overview of the Operating and Capital Budgets and Programs: CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Please introduce yourself and go ahead. (Note: At this time, Managing Director Lee Lord came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. LORD: Aloha kakahiaka, Council Members. I'm Lee Lord, the Managing Director, sitting in for Mayor Roth who cannot be here today as he was invited to speak at the Our Ocean Conference representing our County on a global scale as we have created a great response in our County addressing sustainability, ecological responsibility, and avenues for the positive future of our island and future generations that are seen as an example for the world. His attendance will shine the light on our current future accomplishments and provide resources to continue the goals and efforts that Mayor Roth and the Administration are working hard on. I'm here to provide additional information regarding our budget and fiscal outlook for the County that was not included in the budget message to the Council when the budget was submitted. It is true that the income for the County General Fund has increased this year by 13.1 percent, which has not been the case for many years. This increase is largely due to the values of real estate increasing. There has been a decade or more where departments were asked to provide status quo or reduced budgets each year. Many expenses, repairs, and maintenance were not done. On top of that, this past year we were able to continue assessing the County's infrastructure status. And there is a great need to update and replace much of the County's infrastructure as all of you know. There are hundreds of millions of dollars needed to repair and replace wastewater treatment plants alone, to ensure safety, and avoid an environmental disaster. Although there is a small, predicted increase in the availability of General Funds for the coming year, there have also been many factors that have affected our budget and will affect our expenses. The need to address affordable housing has become an even greater priority as our children continue to move away and cannot find employment on the island. With the attack on Ukraine, the U.S. and Hawaii are now competing for fuel that comes from other sources that we used to get from Russia, thereby driving up the cost for the County and for the citizens. Page 3 FC-32 April 12,2022 During the last two years, there have been record numbers of staff shortages in the County, possibly due to the pandemic and its effects. The hiring and available applicants for jobs in the County is still recovering. We still are short seven employees in our Driver License Section in Kona alone. And there are vacancies across the County that we are trying desperately to fill. And we are looking outside the box of our normal recruitment activities. I'd like to send a mahalo to those in the offices doing the work under those conditions. Again, we had to prioritize the use of our funds and resources. Currently there are 47 active recruitments; 40 are open on a continuous basis. Keep in mind that some of the recruitments are for multiple vacancies in the same job class. Other staff has had to cover the work needing to be done. This costs money in overtime payments. We certainly appreciate those workers, and as I said, say mahalo, but it all costs money. The staff in the Planning Department and Building Division in the Public Works are issuing twice as many building permits per month as they did two years ago with half the staff they had two years ago. Mahalo to this staff for this massive accomplishment. Approved permits translate into increased tax collections for the County, and places where people can live. Part of the difficulty of hiring enough staff is that citizens cannot afford housing in many areas of our County. Susan Kunz at the Office of Housing and Community Development has moved the gage from 1,250 affordable units in the pipeline to having 5,559 units in the pipeline during this past year and a half, through collaboration and planning. Every department has been looking hard for grants and available funding. Mass Transit Administrator John Andoh and the Mass Transit staff have been successful landing five grants in the last six months and continue to pursue more. They have revised bus schedules, received grants, and made a plan to build and replace covered bus stops across the island, bought and are buying new energy efficient buses, have collaborated to run the trolley services in Kona and Waikoloa so as to integrate them into our current bus schedules. Mass Transit Administration received a grant to provide no-fare bus rides to assist in helping citizens get to work and complete daily tasks with a lower carbon footprint. John will of course report in detail on that. The great news is that the directors of the departments and all of the staff of the departments have stepped up to move the County forward with the needs of the infrastructure and the needs of our citizens. We have funded assistance with grant writers at$500,000 to aggressively go after federal infrastructure grants, capitalizing on the Biden infrastructure package. Research and Development is currently a finalist with their Build Back Better grant submission totaling $100 million for agriculture initiatives to increase our island's sustainability. Research and Development also assists all the departments in the search for grants and funds. Page 4 FC-32 April 12,2022 Parks and Recreation is making strides to improve infrastructure across the island. You will see in the budget that we have increased the repair and maintenance from $450,000 to $1 million to assist with that. Although some may see that as a big amount, it is a small percentage of the funds needed for all of the repairs to our 300 facilities that the Parks has across the island. Even with all these efforts, we're not out of the woods. We're actually far from it. The Administration and the departments are taking initiatives to do things needing to be done to serve the citizens of the County with facilities and services they need and deserve. Far too long, repairs and maintenance have taken a back burner. I meet with the Mayor and all of you Council Members, but I also meet more often with the Directors of the departments as well as traveling around the County to meet with individual employees. I want to tell you about my time at the fire stations. I'd heard that there were infrastructure issues. But until you've spent a day, or 24 hours, seeing how hard the men and women in the Fire Department work to save lives on ambulance calls, and then protect our families and homes when fires happen, and then see the condition of some of the fire stations, it's actually embarrassing. We are asking them to spend two, three and sometimes more 24-hour shifts in buildings where ceilings are falling, sinks spigots are not working, roofs are literally falling off, toilets are broken; conditions are sad. This Administration is taking responsibility and has been working diligently to address these issues in the County, but funds and resources are limited as they were for past administrations. Mayor Roth's verbalized mission and goal is to change the culture of the County so as to help the citizens thrive and succeed. We have been making progress on that even with staff shortages. It doesn't take a great deal of funds to change attitudes and encourage staff. We have also been successful with making the County a place where citizens can get their County business done, and also create a County where the next generations will be able to live on their home island they can be proud of and can afford. We have a mandate to have a balanced budget. A plan to spend no more than expected amounts of funds that we will have for the fiscal year. There is no fluff in this budget. There have been hundreds of hours meeting with key staff from each department, and some of you were able to sit in on the budget reviews, and that was greatly appreciated. Sometimes we meant with department staff several times, and we at times repeated requests for prioritization of their funding needs. It was not an easy process. We also did not have the funds to satisfy everyone's or any department's total needs. But we looked at every aspect and angle and prioritized across the County. It is not easy prioritizing when you are seeing a Page 55 FC-32 April 12,2022 whole canoe that needs repairs, maintenance and replacement, and you only have enough resources to address one square foot of it. We have listened and responded to the complaints that come to the departments and the Mayor's Office. We had to put resources in to addressing the issue with animals in our County. We have a solution and a facility identified. Instead of contracting it out, we are planning to keep oversight and staffing of it in the County for now. It will be a result in progress, but when the new facility and staff are in place, we'll be better able to address the animal issues in our County. Regarding the salary budgets, while we have included an estimated for expected raises for Fiscal Year 2023, the employees continue to bargain with the collective bargaining units and not all units have finalized their negotiations yet. We continue to monitor the progress and refine our salary cost estimates. Regarding real property taxes, real property tax values have increased significantly from last year, and we are currently monitoring the number of appeals. Once we have final real property tax numbers, we will be better able to determine if any modifications are needed on the real property tax rates. Mahalo for your time, mahalo for all the work that each and every one of you do for our County and for our citizens. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Mr. Lord. Appreciate that overview. Alright, thank you, sir. With that, our first department review today is going to be the Department of Finance. Ms. Sako, if you would— we'll ouldwe'll start off with the easy one. MS. SAKO: So thank you, everyone, for looking at the budget this week. So we have Point of Order: MR. INABA: Chair, excuse me. Point of order. I'm a little confused. I do understand that Managing Director Lord provided us an overview of the programs, is there an opportunity to ask questions about that specific area of the budget, or are weI'm sorry, things moved quickly and it seems we're in Finance and passed on now through that first section of the budget. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, I apologize. We could ask questions of Director Lord. That's just fine. It's up to the Council. MR. INABA: Okay. My apologies. I mean, Director Sako ? MS. SAKO: No problem. I can stop sharing. Page 6 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mr. Lord, I guess there are some questions from the Council Members for you, or for your office directly. Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: In terms of positions here,just looking at the first section of the budget, I know you folks have tried to pare things down. Could you share a little bit about those there's a few Executive Assistant positions funded and filled at this time, and just give us an idea about what each of those different positions are in charge of right now, and if there might be any changes moving forward in the upcoming fiscal year in terms of their kuleana. MR. LORD: So—and your speaking of the Executive Assistants in the Mayor's Office, correct? MR. INABA: Yes. MR. LORD: Okay. So we have five Executive Assistants in the Mayor's Office and each of them has the kuleana that relates to their strengths and abilities. We recently had Kate choose to move to a nice position outside of the County so currently we have one vacant position. Kate was in charge of sustainability efforts. And I will get you a list, as we have a list of what each executive assistant is responsible for because there are several different areas. But we are going to be starting interviews. There's been nine applicants for that position. Applicants are closed now, and we will be interviewing the week after next and making a decision early in May. We did make one change in that we have Cyrus Johnasen as our PIO (Public Information Officer), and we have changed that position to be an Executive Assistant at this point in time with PIO duties as well as some other duties. So that all EAs are kind of equal at this point in time, and the PIO is kind of rolled into one of those job duties, which Cyrus is remaining in that position. MR. INABA: Thank you. Then who is the public relations specialist? MR. LORD: That is Cyrus. But at this point in time, it's going to be an EA who is responsible for Public Relations. MR. INABA: Okay, we will see that change of title in the May budget? MS. SAKO: I think the change is a temporary change, which we don't always reflect, but we'll go based on whatever HR (Department of Human Resources) has in their system in the May budget. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you. In the OCE's (Other Current Expenses) of the office, I see they were increasing travel funds by three-fold to $18,000. Are there specific plans that areI mean, if we're going to be I think as a Council trying to Page 7 FC-32 April 12,2022 find funds everywhere to make sure that we're being as lean as possible, especially with these past assessments. So if you could share a little bit about that, and what the plans are for those funds that we're increasing three times. MR. LORD: At this—and Deanna might have more notes from our discussions. But as I recall, there was basically no travel happening except for a few trips to Legislature and to meet with our State Legislators. So with the pandemic being over, there are some meetings that the Mayor needs to attend with other mayors and the national mayors' conferences, as well as some conferences that need to happen where he's representing our County and our State. There's also going to be a few more trips interisland for the staff and the office for meetings that will now be better in person than on Zoom. So really it's a change from 100 percent Zoom meetings to, again, being judicious about which meetings we do attend in person, but an increase in in-person meetings. MR. INABA: Thank you. Deanna, for the $18,000 is that only for—it's listed as inter-island, so that funds can only be used for inter-island travel? MS. SAKO: I think that was the original intent. I'm not sure if part of that was for mainland travel as well. We'll double-check with Kaycie and break it, if necessary, for the May budget. I was just going to add that I think for the most part departments, you'll notice some increase in travel with the pandemic restrictions lifting. MR. INABA: Thank you. Chair, thank you. That's all the questions I have at this time. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Council Members? Mr. Chung, go ahead. MR. CHUNG: Yeah,just a very minor question. I'm just curious and I think we should all be proud about Mayor Roth attending that meeting. What conference is that? MR. LORD: Our Oceans, and I think Doug Adams could answer the question. I think he's involved with those more. As far as I remember, it's part of the United Nations programs and we were invited. John Kerry's there asking and meeting with the Presidents and leaders of Pacific Island Nations to talk about sustainability as well as ecological factors due to global warming, and where we're going with all that. If you need more information, Doug Adams has been the expert on that relationship and helping Mayor Roth with that. MR. CHUNG: Doug, can you just give us some information on that? Kind of curious. Page 8 FC-32 April 12,2022 (Note: At this time, Research and Development Director Douglass Adams came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. ADAMS: Thank you, Chair. Douglass Adams, Director of Research and Development. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chung. The Our Ocean Conference is an annual or biannual conference that's held under the auspices of the United Nations. Mayor Roth's inclusion in the agenda was associated with the Hawaii Green Growth, which is a UN 2030 Local Hub entity focused on climate change. Obviously, we are all aware of Celeste Connors and her background and her leading in that area. So he has already participated in the early portions of that conference. The conference actually commences at 1:30 this afternoon our time, which is 8:30 their time, for the next couple of days. Sponsored by Mr. Kerry, who is obviously the special envoy for climate change, as well as President Whipple who is Palauan President. Then we have—it's not just the Pacific as it turns out, it's actually global island nations, and other nations that are concerned about our ocean and the impacts of climate change on our ocean. MR. CHUNG: That's terrific. Where is this? MR. ADAMS: It's in Palau. MR. CHUNG: Oh, Palau. MR. CHUNG: And it's occurring right now? MR. ADAMS: It is occurring right now. MR. CHUNG: Alright. Thank you, Doug. MR. LORD: Thank you, Doug. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Chung. Ms. David. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Mr. Lord. Maybe this is a question for Deanna. I'm looking at the personnel position summary. Homeless Program Specialist was authorized in 2021 Fiscal, and then none for 2021-2022 and also none for 2021-2023. Is that Homeless Specialist somewhere else in our ? MS. SAKO: It went to Housing. MS. DAVID: Okay, so that's why it's not on your list. Perfect. That's all I wanted to make sure is that we do have one. Page 9 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. SAKO: Yes, we still care. It's just in Housing. MS. DAVID: Okay, awesome. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. Anyone else for the Mayor's Office? Okay, seeing none, thank you, Mr. Lord. Appreciate it. MR. LORD: Thanks again. Great questions. We appreciate your diligence with our budget. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Sir. Okay, Ms. Sako. (2) Department of Finance: (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. SAKO: Steve (Hunt) is also here, as some of our division heads are as well. But thank you for the opportunity. Ted did notice when I had it up here earlier it might not be formatted exactly right. It looked great on our screens upstairs, but sometimes when it's on a laptop you get a little bit different view. So sorry about that. (Note: At this time, Ms. Sako provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the presentation, please see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office, or navigate to the Council's video archives online from the County's home page at www.hawaiicounty.gov. A copy of the presentation is made a part of the record. See Comm. 645.8) MS. SAKO: So those are the highlights of the budget before you, and if you have any questions, we're happy to answer them. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Sako. Appreciate it. Council Members? Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Thanks Deanna, for being here. And I saw you brought your lunch. MS. SAKO: Yes. I brought everything. I'm ready for three days to spend with you guys. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks, Deanna. Real quick, you mentioned the employee bargaining units. We have one already, one arbitration, how many more do we have to go? Page 10 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. SAKO: So we have eight bargaining units county-wide. We have completed arbitration for one, that's the draft one you may have seen on the news that was released. Then one additional bargaining unit completed arbitration; one more is scheduled for the end of May. So the other four are actually actively negotiating Statewide. As a reminder, we have to negotiate as an employer with the State and all the other counties. So the State does take the lead, but all the HR directors are a part of that. MS. LEE LOY: So historically, normally one or two kind of sets the pace as to MS. SAKO: They do, yes. MS. LEE LOY: So is it—? MS. SAKO: So the first two, BU-1 is the one you guys approved, and then BU-ll where the draft was released. They're fairly similar. Just a little bit different because BU-1 does not have steps like the other bargaining units do. So based on the draft that came out, we probably will increase the percentage we have in the budget. MS. LEE LOY: Then you also mentioned healthcare benefits. We all know that after the pandemic just healthcare costs are rising. What's that percentage that's projected on those healthcare benefits? And how much did it go up from the past? MS. SAKO: So the biggest is actually increasing OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits), because we're not paying our full amount in the current fiscal year or the last fiscal year. So that's the largest increase, but thenoh, my mistake. Retirement went up. Health went down. And the retirement going up is really just as a percentage of what we're spending on salaries and wages. Both the expected increases in salaries as well as whether it's overtime or anything else. MS. LEE LOY: Earlier in Mr. Lord's presentation, he talked about 47 open positions, 40 on open recruitment. Have all the salaries and wages in those MS. SAKO: We did leave them in the budget. Primarily because other people are having to work overtime to fill those slots. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, and then I know it's 40 open recruitment, but that doesn't translate to just 40 positions. MS. SAKO: No, I don't have that count, because it's constantly changing. But we were just commenting that those have been with the County for a long time. The positions on continuous recruitment, usually it's a relatively short list. So those are the ones that they haven't been able to get lists on that are on continuous recruitment. There are others that are just posted for the normal two weeks. Page 11 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. LEE LOY: So just best guess, in the open recruitment list, how many positions do that account for? MS. SAKO: I want to say our cashier position is one of the ones that—that's our entry level before they get to Vehicle Registration and Licensing Clerks. So like the seven in Kona, and then you know we have several in Hilo as well. So we have probably at least 10 from that list that we're waiting for. MS. LEE LOY: So of the 40 that's on open recruitment as Mr. Lord, is it safe to MS. SAKO: That's not typical. I wouldn't times it by 10. But yeah, for that position it is. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, if you could get more MS. SAKO: Like I said, it's constantly changing. So after we prepare the May 5h report, we can give you probably a more accurate estimate. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, that's what I was thinking, when we get to the May budget, if we could get closer to the actual number. Thanks, Deanna. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz, go ahead. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Mahalo, Chair. Thank you, Deanna, for being here and for inviting us to be part of some of those budget conversations. Just a few questions for you. Managing Director Lord talked about seven openings within Vehicle Registration, but also mentioned considering outside of the box hiring activities. What did he mean by that? Where are we going to fill those shortages? MS. SAKO: So we have started our first recruitment incentive, and so it's relatively small. But we're trying to see if that works. "We'll pay you a bonus if you come to work for us and stay for at least a year in Kona." Kona is challenging not just for our department, but for every department, especially in those entry level positions. We're competing with a lot of businesses right now. So we're going to see if that works. Obviously, the County has good hours, you know, 7:45 to 4:30, so HR(Department of Human Resources) is actually in the process of hiring someone to give suggestions, as well as we have departments going on Indeed, and other—we realize it's different now. It's not just hope people see the vacancy in the newspaper, which very few people read anymore, or happen to see it on the County website. Page 12 FC-32 April 12,2022 The County website recruitment, though, is good. If you go in ahead of time, you can list all of the job classifications that you would be interested in, and it will notify you when those become available. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Can you describe a little bit more what that incentive could look like for recruitments. MS. SAKO: So these were entry level positions, so we did $1,000 and stay for a year in Kona. Obviously, other positions maybe that are more higher level or harder to fill, let's say Engineers, where you might need people to move to Hawaii. Or even attorneys where they might need to move to Hawaii and take the bar exam again. You know, it could be even paying for them to take the bar exam, it could be for moving costs. So HR does have a policy. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: They have a policy, then that pot of money comes from ? MS. SAKO: So we are—we included money under HR to get the program started. We are going to include additional funding in the May budget in terms of as we start to talk to departments, what that might look like. And we may just put it in the Provision for Compensation Adjustment, so that as departments try to figure out what that's going to cost. Because moving costs from the mainland I'm assuming have gone up a lot with all the shipping increases and everything. So we're not positive how much that is, but we do know that we're having to look farther. Obviously, we want Hawaii people first, but some of those more specialized positions, it may be people coming out of college,you know, Hawaii kids that want to come back home. So if we can help with moving costs to attract them, that may be the thing that makes Hawaii more affordable versus staying on the mainland to start your career. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Great. Thanks for that. I mean, I support any and every pathway to ensure that our local kids are getting preference to have good, quality paying jobs here at home. And I just want to shout out the program, the Lead for Hawaii program that is ensuring that our local kids have entree into County government, and hopefully that's a way in which we can build up their capacity so they can rise in the ranks within County. MS. SAKO: Yes, I think that'll work well. I think doing our professional training programs has helped as well. We've done it for Accountants, but other departments have done it also, where you primarily need a college degree and then we provide the training. So you start out a little bit lower, but then with work experience, you move up through until you get to the permanent classification of the position. So trying to help train, trying to do intern programs. You know, whatever we can get, where it helps them and helps us. Page 13 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. A couple more questions. Because Finance Department is now taking over the Administration of PONC (Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Commission), how is that transition between P&R (Department of Parks and Recreation) going? What other resources does your department need to fully and successfully implement that? MS. SAKO: So we're in the process of finalizing the letter. I think Parks has their last ready to come in with the grants, and then we'll send ours in at the same time. We are issuing some of the grant contracts that were previously approved by resolution, so those are up and coming. We're in the process of filling our vacant position in that section as well, then we will probably be asking for one more position in the coming budget to help as well. Both with PONC and our regular activities. You know, the person we lost in that department, almost irreplaceable, but yeah, we're going to try. So we're probably going to need a little bit more help in there. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks, Deanna. And just remind me, P&R had to take a look at applications from 2019 and 2020. MS. SAKO: And then we have the 2021 applications, and the PONC Commission has reviewed all of those, and so we're just finalizing the request. And Mo and I have been talking, so it's very close to coming in, both of those lists. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, great. Thank you. Then just taking a look at budget summary, $500,000 is releasing of a new financial statement for Finance. MS. SAKO: Yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Talk to us about that. Ms. SAKO: So it's kind of exciting to see how much things have changed since we got our current system. But we did do an RFI, so a Request for Information, just to get us more up to speed on what the features are that are out there, and then that also gave us a better idea on what the cost is going to be. So we put that in the budget. We are actively working on the RFP (Request for Proposal), different divisions in our department and other departments have responsibility for different sections, and we're going to go out hoping to get a complete system, but we're willing to do kind of whatever it takes to get a system that will work. Many of them. Don't have a utility billing system, so we may have to do something like that for Wastewater, a little bit separate. That is part of Eden right now. So we are going to actively pursue to get the best fit. One of the things we're realizing though after doing the RFI and seeing some of the demonstrations, is Page 14 FC-32 April 12,2022 we're the only county that does not have a payroll lag. We pay our salary currently except on June 30'', where you get your paycheck on July I". So it's very likely part of this transition is going to have to include some kind of payroll lag in order to make the time and attendance programs and the automated timesheets and everything that everybody's very interested in. To make that work, we're probably going to have to do a payroll lag. And since we cannot ask our employees to go without a paycheck, I want to be very clear, I don't want anybody panicking, and we would probably advance them the money. That's what I'm aware that Maui did, and then you have options. You can pay back $50 a month if you want, or you can just wait and have us take it out of your last paycheck or cash in lieu of vacation. So we are still looking. That's early in the works,but to make the time and attendance programs work, we're fairly certain we're probably going to have to do that. And that we would come into Council, a special action for that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks, Director, for the heads up. What is the timeframe for this new financial system? I know it's for next fiscal year budget. You've been doing a lot of hard work and research around what would be the best fit in terms of(inaudible) MS. SAKO: Right. So we're hoping to get the RFP out in the next month or so, maybe six weeks. Then we would leave it out for several weeks just to ensure everybody sees it. And then, you know, maybe they do have a solution for our current payroll, you know, where we pay currently. Then we will go through demonstrations and selections. So early part of next year we should have a vendor selected. Then recalling back to Eden, it did take us a good six months before we could even get the GL(General Ledger)portion up and running. So we would probably take at least that long, especially with customized reports or data. You know,just being able to get it all worked through. We do need to get off of Eden in the next, I think it's about two years we have. That software has definitely gone end of life. So we do want to move on. Payroll will be one of the more challenging sections to move over, as it usually is. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, and in terms of system, we're looking at payroll, so electronic timesheets. What about routing memos and things for signatures throughout various departments? Would also that be digitized? MS. SAKO: We do have a records management system in there as well, and whether we can do it as part of the software or some kind of other software, it's definitely on our radar. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And a budgeting dashboard? MS. SAKO: Yes, and a budgeting everything. Page 15 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, great. MS. SAKO: Ted's part of the group. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Excellent. Then I'm also thinking about all of the different, I wouldn't say special funds, but money we received from State and federal government, tracking that. It's not part of our regular budget, but folks want to know, specifically related to Puna recovery, where is all the money going. Will the system be able to support tracking that? MS. SAKO: We are hopeful for that. We do have a grant management system in the specs and that's something we're definitely interested in. So we are aware there are many systems that could be added on to do that if this one doesn't, but I think most of the ones we're looking at do have something like that included already. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And since you brought up grants, could the system also provide a platform for submitting CRF (Contingency Relief Funds)requests, innovation grants, grants-in-aid? I'm just thinking about the pilot that we did this year with the nonprofit grant-in-aid program and how valuable it was to do everything virtually. MS. SAKO: Maybe I missed that demo, too. But I didn't see that on some of these, but we didn't ask as well. So it's not to say that we can't, but we definitely want to continue that electronic process, especially for grant in aids. So IT (Department of Information Technology) is working with us to make sure that continues for coming years. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you for being available for all these questions. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Mr. Chung, go ahead. MR. CHUNG: Good morning, Deanna. MS. SAKO: Good morning. MR. CHUNG: You know what? Thank you for all your good work. I've got to say, you know, you always give us the sense of confidence when you're around. You do such a good job. So thank you so much. MS. SAKO: Thank you. MR. CHUNG: I just have a few questions, and they may already have been answered during the course of your presentation, but I'm not too good at Page 16 FC-32 April 12,2022 multitasking. So sometimes I'm concentrating on something else. You know, just in terms of comparisons, you know, with regard to the TAT (Transient Accommodation Tax), what's our net gain on this one, you know, from the old system to now. MS. SAKO: So we budgeted $13 million, and Steve is here if we have any difficult questions, but the collections have been strong for January and February, which we collected in February and March. We're in the process of collecting March. April 20'', you know, is a typical deadline. However, when you are the County of Hawaii, people sometimes get mixed up with the State of Hawaii. So we did collect State of Hawaii payments on our system, which Steve has been reconciling and returning. So we think $1.8 million a month is safe for right now. Of course, tourism numbers MR. CHUNG: More? MS. SAKO: No,per month. So multiplied out roughly we hope to remain on par with what we were getting from the State. We thought it would be a reduction, but given the current figures, we hope to at least maintain what we were getting from the State, which was $19 just under $19.2 million. We also are aware though, that these months have been very high tourism numbers. Very high revenue for most of the vacation rentals, hotels, and whatnot. But we're still in a pandemic, and we're not sure what the future could hold. So we will be increasing probably the revenue number between now and May now that we have a few months under our belts to base that on. But we want to be a little bit conservative not knowing if spikes and whatnot can still be coming. MR. CHUNG: And before I forget, you know, I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to Ms. Kimball for taking the lead on that matter, right? MS. SAKO: Yeah, thank you. MR. CHUNG: Thank you very much. So you mean to tell me we went through that whole exercise for pretty much even then? MS. SAKO: Yeah. The other counties are definitely making a lot more than they were getting under the State. But you know, we were getting way more than our fair share under that State allocation. You know, they did recognize we're the Big Island, we have a lot of infrastructures to take care of to keep our tourists safe, and so we were getting more than what we were actually collecting. So you know, if the pandemic continues to stay under control, and you know, we can keep COVID (Coronavirus Disease) at bay, but we also know right now a lot of the other countries are closed, so people see Hawaii as definitely the place to come. But you know, when people can start traveling internationally again you know, we're just trying to be optimistic, yet conservatively optimistic. Page 17 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. CHUNG: And I don't want to beat a dead horse or anything like that, but compared to how much we were supposed to, or what we were entitled to by law, it's far less. But you looked at it very nicely. Alright. And you know, a General Fund budget, 12.5 percent greater generally attributed to real estate market driving assessed values up. In terms of the assessed valuation of properties, how much increase are we looking at over there? MS. SAKO: The revenue to go up about 12 percent. MR. CHUNG: So reflective of that 12 percent. MS. SAKO: Yes. You know, we're currently under appeals, so they had to be postmarked by yesterday, so there are still many coming in. So we'll review that and when we certify values, we'll have better numbers. MR. CHUNG: And of course, I'm sure you've heard a lot of the complaints about the assessments, right? A lot of people, I have to say, are kind of coming to their own conclusions. They think it's some insidious plot, right, by the County, and we all know that's not true. It's just a function of how the system works, right? But the system also provides another type of defense against that, and that's the rates, right. MS. SAKO: Correct. MR. CHUNG: Now, I know how you feel about this budget, you know, you folks have built in a lot of expenditures to reflect the revenues that we are anticipated to generate. But if you had to adjust rates, and I don't want to put you on the spot because that's really our kuleana, where would you look at? MS. SAKO: Hotels and resorts have definitely been shut down kind of the last two years, so we'd probably take a look at that, as well as some of the commercial properties. Never would we have expected one of the outcomes of the pandemic was just an unbelievable real estate market. This is the first year we've had sales in pretty much all classifications. Keita is here, Lisa's in Kona if we have detailed questions. But you know, we actually had a lot of commercial sales and typically they don't have a lot of sales, so we don't adjust the values that much. But now that they actually are having sales, they're really getting adjusted to what the market value is. MR. CHUNG: Why do you think that is, that they had so many sales? MS. SAKO: In the residential market, it was easier because the thought process was is you're going to work from home during the pandemic, work from Hawaii. Have a view of the ocean, you know, live someplace warm. But with the Page 18 FC-32 April 12,2022 commercial properties, I think we were all surprised. But as a lot of people are transitioning to Hawai`i and want to do things, or maybe even want to start their own businesses, so I think we just saw a lot more activity than we normally have. MR. CHUNG: Okay, so the hotel and resorts and the commercial. I mean, that's what we should look at first. MS. SAKO: Yeah, and we haven't talked about it a lot, but that's, you know, I think there's other classifications that are high as well, that we would look at everything. MR. CHUNG: And I know there's a delicate balance, I mean, from you presenting on behalf of your budget; but you know, we also have to take a look at trying to balance things as well. MS. SAKO: Yeah, and just for the homeowners that are probably out there, they are protected by the three percent cap. So just to remind everyone of that. MR. CHUNG: Right, right. But you know, I cannot speak for anyone hereof course, but you know, caps carry with them perils as well, right? So I think maybe the adjustment with the real property tax rates might be a little bit safer, in my opinion. MS. SAKO: Right, yeah. MR. CHUNG: Getting off the topic, though. We had this whole you know, we went through many hearings regarding the Waikoloa development. And front and center to all of that was discussions about timeshares. What are your thoughts, and it could not be incorporated in this budget of course, but the creation of a new classification for vacation rentals and timeshares? Probably put together, and of course there might be some timeshares or vacation rentals are both into two tier, as well, but then you have to also take that into consideration. But is that a possibility or is there no need for that? MS. SAKO: I believe Lisa is in Kona. I'll let her answer just because I want to make sure we have the data in our system. That's usually one of our challenges. MR. CHUNG: And it's not for this year,just— MS. ustMS. SAKO: Right. But even for the future, right, what it would take to even do that, because you know, if we don't have the data, we'd have to gather that. MR. CHUNG: And Lisa, if you're not prepared to answer, that's fine. You can just say, "Hey, give me some time to think about it." I've got no problem with that, because I'm just throwing things out right now. Page 19 FC-32 April 12,2022 (Note: At this time, Real Property Tax Administrator Lisa Miura came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. MIURA: No, I can give a short answer first, and then you can always talk about it soon, offline. Lisa Miura, Real Property Tax Administrator. We don't keep records of track of timeshares and when the timeshares transfer. STVR (Short Term Vacation Rentals) is another category. We are aware of STVRs that are non-hosted, that Planning has approved. We are aware of the ones that come to us that will be hosted, especially if they were getting a homeowner exemption. But the data that the State the TAT that Steve Hunt and the County collects, the way the Legislature did it if I'm not mistaken, prohibits them from sharing that TAT data with us at Real Property Tax, for real property tax purposes. So we want to make sure that we're not relying on what we've seen other counties do, which is send surveys to the owners and letting it be only up to them if it's going to be fair wing to be able to have a way to track that ourselves and not rely on just, I guess, the honesty of some people that maybe aren't here on the island and aren't aware of how important that factual information would be. MR. CHUNG: Okay, well thank you, Lisa. We can have further discussions on that. It's not pressing. Deanna, what is this new department of homelessness? MS. SAKO: So that is the bill that you introduced. So that is the homelessness program. So it is on the health, education, and welfare section. So it does have its own tab, right after Fire. So we worked with Housing to get some of the breakdowns, and I think their accounting staff primarily broke out some of the administrative costs. But then the bulk of it obviously, the $8, almost$9 million would go to various programs. So Housing can answer any questions you might have on how it would be spent. But that's that second 75 percent of the amount coming from the second tier. MR. CHUNG: It's going to be a department? MS. SAKO: Well, it's a separate section, you don't have to call it a department. It's a separate section. So I think I've been calling it homelessness program, but we classified it as a department in budget, so sorry for the terminology. But it is that homelessness and housing program that was passed by the Council. MR. CHUNG: Okay, and then we kind of knew that, but I was just wondering what the description of it being a department, right? MS. SAKO: It is department.465,just so we can keep track of it, yes. MR. CHUNG: Yeah, and then what do you anticipate the administrative costs for this department? Page 20 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. SAKO: They did put like some contract employees and whatnot, so probably altogether they have about a half million administrative costs and $8.5 (million) going to homelessness itself. MR. CHUNG: Alright. Okay, thank you, Deanna, again. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Chung. Council Members? Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Deanna. And thanks for previous conversations. I have to say when you started about the timeclock, this is a fruition of a long conversation. So I'm actually quite excited to hear that. And I can see where that would save us a bunch forward, but we have to gear into that. MS. SAKO: We have to get there, yes. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, we have to get there. So I just wanted to say thanks for that and stepping for that. Because we've had this conversation for years now, and finally making it in. Appreciate you giving the Council a heads up, because we will have to make some adjustments, but it's the right direction. So just want to offer that voice of support. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Ms. Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. I actually had a follow-up on something Mr. Chung spoke about, which is the real property tax, the classes and the rates. Yes, it's the rates that the CouncilI had a question as to, similar to that we created with the second residential, the two-tier program, would the administration consider tiering the various classes within Commercial/Industrial and even Hotel/Resort? So creating similar tiered and creating different rates to the different tiers. MS. SAKO: So I know that's done in other jurisdictions. We actually haven't talked about it internally. So I believe we did get the software. The software update did happen, so we could apply it to other classes? MS. LEE LOY: Thanks, Keita. MS. SAKO: Sorry, Keita Jo, our Assistant Real Property Tax Administrator. We did upgrade the software to accommodate the second tier. My question is can we do more than just residential? (Note: At this time, Assistant Real Property Tax Administrator Keita Jo came forward to address the members of the Committee.) Page 21 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. JO: Yeah, so when we went out for the contract, we included the feasibility and possibility to tier other classifications as needed. So that functionality is built into the modification. MS. SAKO: So I appreciate Lisa and Keita thinking ahead. Thank you. MS. LEE LOY: Yes, thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Director Sako, for being here. MS. SAKO: Morning. MS. KIMBALL: Good morning. I actually want to thank Council Member Kierkiewicz for initiating some of the discussion around the financial planning software. I kind of want to just revisit it real quickly and just ask, so what are the key must-haves in your RFP, and what are the hope to haves? MS. SAKO: So the things you guys don't like, like the general ledger, yeah, it's kind of critical. So those are some of our key functions and we have the team looking at it, and we're meeting next week to actually go over the more specific details. So I haven't looked at every single key piece. We do have Kay Oshiro, our Controller, here, but you know, we definitely need the general ledger. We have to be able to do accounts payable, we have to be able to do payroll. At some point, we have to be able to do utility billing. We have to cover all the key accounting functions, which I know is not everybody's fun stuff. Then we would like to have, definitely, the time and attendance system, the automated timesheets, you know, being able to have more data available. But there are things that don't always work out so well. Just the accounting process and having to distribute costs, sometimes when we release that data, it will probably never be the exact information that's in the system today. It will probably be month-end information that was released and made public,just so we can make sure that all of the adjustments and everything are posted. You know, we want people to understand the data, and you know, not wonder why it's changing regularly, it's because there are a lot of adjustments that our team does have to post. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you for that. The automated time and attendance is huge, especially for P&R folks who have to deliver their timesheets on the right color paper. What are we looking at in terms of—you mentioned a little bit about the time to get to the contract stage, any sense of what we're looking at in terms of the time to confer, and is there big discrepancies between how data is collected now and in the Eden system, and what some of the initial programs look like? Page 22 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. SAKO: At some point, there will always have to be data entry. So you know, it's just who's going to be entering that data. So like when we went to Eden, we went from having a data entry section in our IT department to the various departments doing it. I'm pretty sure those departments will still be entering invoices and whatnot. But you know, hopefully, it will be a streamlined process for them. So some things might not change a lot. Some things might change more. So definitely the time and attendance piece of that, and hopefully simplifying the timesheets, is that a way to say it? You know, right now, the departments have to like basically detail out every line item, every night shift, everything. A time and attendance system hopefully would have a lot of those rules built in already. MS. KIMBALL: So are you looking at potentially having to bring in some contract employees at the time that we do the conversion? MS. SAKO: So some of the data conversion will definitely the data conversion itself will be done by the vendor, but we are very well aware we're probably going to have to bring in additional help. I mean our team is overwhelmed right now, so it's just which functions we would have them do. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, and any discussion about requirements for storage? What are you looking at for ? MS. SAKO: That's been a very big discussion, whether we go with the cloud or on prem (premises). I can't say we all agree, so we are giving the vendors the option to make their best pitch. What we do want is to ensure that our data is secure no matter whether it's in-house or on the cloud or wherever it is, easily accessible and in case of a disaster, making sure we can still continue with the core functions of processing payroll and paying our vendors. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, well look forward to being kept abreast of the process, and RFP, and certainly I think we can look at the transition to EPIC (Electronic Processing Information Center) when we look for some lessons learned. I'm sure Director Kern back there is smiling and nodding, can share some probably best practices, tips having learned about that transition. But it's something I'm looking forward to seeing and looking forward to support. For the TAT, Lisa, if you're still over there, I just had a question about your statement about the State not sharing data with us. MS. SAKO: Steve can explain it as well. We had to sign a special agreement with the State to keep that data confidential, and we're treated as a little department of taxation so to speak. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, thank you. Page 23 FC-32 April 12,2022 (Note: At this time, Deputy Finance Director Steve Hunt came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. HUNT: Steve Hunt, Deputy Director of Finance, for the record. Yes, the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding)that we signed with the state, they're very protective of the taxpayer data. In fact, if there are any breaches of data, we actually have to notify them because they notify the Legislature. One of the concerns that they had, I guess, of the breach in data, so they're sending encrypted files that we use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site to download to get that information of all taxpayers that are filing TAT returns or proceeds within the County of Hawaii. But we have to be very protective. We can't even send emails requesting information. We actually have to do hardcover letters because we don't know who on the other end is receiving that information. So we can't send refund information, we can't send invoices via email. So everything's done in accordance with HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes). Part of that, again, was that we retain that information in-house only for the purpose of TAT collections, that we can't leverage that for any other purposes by sharing the data within the County. MS. SAKO: However, we can take data from Planning and Steve can compare it to ensure that those people are paying. So we can take data in on the TAT side, but we can't share it with others. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Thank you. I mean that was one of the things that we discussed at length at HSAC (Hawai`i State Association of Counties), was that potential to utilize that data to ensure compliance. So in the next couple of months here, I'm going to be working with the HSAC leadership to look at our legislative priorities and do some bill drafting for the Legislature for the 2023 legislative year. If there are things around this that you guys need,please share those ideas, and we will work on drafting some language with regard to that. Do you have a sense at this point of the TAT collected in February and March? What percentage of that is coming from the hotels and what percentage is coming from short term vacation rentals? MR. HUNT: No, I don't have a breakdown of that. What I can tell you is we're still going through the reconciliation right now of January. We're actually still getting payments. We sent out about 520 notices for taxpayers that had filed with the State and didn't make any payments to the County. Right now, we're running at about 90 percent compliance on our revenue side, so if we take what was reported at the State as terms of taxable proceed, multiply that by the three percent, and compare it to actually monies that we've received, we're running at about 90 percent. But as the Director said earlier, some of those are misplaced payments, so we're waiting for notice to say, "Oops, we want a refund. We need to . . ."you know, "make that to the right place." We also have some that have been paid under protest because they were pre-bookings that they don't think Page 24 FC-32 April 12,2022 they're obligated for, and there is specific language that deals with that. So we're going through that as well. So it's hard to put an exact number on it at this point, but we're running much higher compliance in terms of revenues received than Kauai or Maui on their initial rollout. So I think the word is getting out that, you know, this is an additional obligation that taxpayers need to pay. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, thank you. MS. SAKO: Can I just take a second to thank Steve, who single-handedly has stood up the TAT program and the collections and everything. It's working really well. We did recently hire him a staff person, and we hope to get a couple more. But to have to work with every taxpayer and remain calm no matter what they say, he's done a great job. I just want to thank him publicly for doing that. MR. HUNT: Thank you, Director. MS. KIMBALL: I think I can speak on behalf of the whole body here too, that we really appreciate your efforts in standing up this program. We know it's a heavy lift right out of the gate and without a lot of notice to do it. So thank you for your work in making it happen. MR. HUNT: Thank you. MS. KIMBALL: So I'll put a communication out, but I think it would be useful for this body to have a more detailed report of the TAT breakdown as we get a little closer. MS. SAKO: As soon as we get a few more staff, yes, we're happy to do that. MS. KIMBALL: Some of these basic questions, though, what percentage is coming from the hotels, what is coming STVRs, maybe if we have a better understanding too, of like the number of misplaced payments and things like that. So just to help us with our planning a little bit better. I did kind of want to talk along the lines of what Council Member Chung was referring to. You know, a lot of the calls that I'm getting, and I think some of my colleagues are getting too with regard to the real property tax, is for the folks that are legitimate farmers who have taken advantage of the long-term dedication, if they're using their property as their primary residence as well, they're not protected by that three percent homeowners' classification. MS. SAKO: They are not. Many do come in, and Keita and Lisa can speak to this better than I can, but you know, when someone does dedicate, I think that is explained to them upfront and they're told to make their decision carefully. Page 25 FC-32 April 12,2022 Because you know, we never know what the real estate market's going to do. So in different circumstances, each program can be beneficial depending on what's going on. So yeah, so all of appraisers are very good about working with the taxpayers when they come in; but ultimately, it's the taxpayer's decision which program they select. MS. KIMBALL: Right. Thank you. Okay, with that, I don't think I have any other questions. Thank you again, Director, for being here. I yield, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Inaba. MR. INABA: Mr. Richards may be first, because it's in line with the communication that's actually happening, and I don't think I want to shift gears on us. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you for that. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, thanks, Holeka. Just on the TAT, and I know we're data-driven here, but I'm going to ask a financial feeling. Does it appear from what you've looked at, are we pretty close to our collections, what should be paid, or is there a big discrepancy? What's your thoughts on that one, Steve? MR. HUNT: We're running, if I actually look at hard numbers before any refunds or full reconciliation, we're running at about 89.76 percent, is what I've got; 90 percent. So we're estimated for the month of January based on what the State reported to us as taxable proceeds. We should have collected about $2.51 million for January. Again, January's usually one of those peak periods so it's one of our higher months. I wouldn't gage that as necessarily the benchmark, but we've collected about$2.25 million of that$2.5 (million). MR. RICHARDS: Okay so, and then getting back to numbers, as Mr. Chung said, the whole intention of TAT set forth back in the `80's, you know, that's behind us now, but we're stuck with what we have today. And using your $2.5, that would set us somewhere, if we amortized that over the year, it's like $27-ish, but like you said, it's a high month. So we're probably going to be in that ballpark $19 to $20-ish, is that what you're estimating? MS. SAKO: Yeah, I think if this was a normal year we may think differently, but with the pandemic and different things you see going on in different countries, we just don't know what's going to come. So we're thinking $19 million. We are hopeful we can collect that in the coming year. MR. RICHARDS: Alright, yeah,just getting a sensing of that. Thanks, Chair, I yield. Page 26 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Mr. Inaba. MR. INABA: Thank you. Deanna, I know we're struggling County-wide with the filling of the vacancies, and at least for your department, besides Real Property Tax, the one area that the public interacts with you folks is the DMV (sic) (VRL—Vehicle Registration and Licensing). I know we're trying to get those positions filled, but just in the way we operate already, are there any changes or ideas to make improvements in the process or the website or anything to streamline the process and make it easier for the public. MS. SAKO: Yeah, so we have been trying to work on the website and we'll try and do better. One of the exciting things, or maybe there's like one of those good news, bad news things, we follow the lead of City and County of Honolulu on things like driver's licensing. The data itself is part of a statewide system that City and County manages. So they've always taken the lead of procurement of drivers licensing. That contract actually expired five years ago, and they've just been extending it. So now the system is on very archaic equipment. Most of it is Windows 7 which is going end of life soon, so we need the City and County to really update that. When Naomi O'Dell, who I believe is behind me, went to a meeting on Oahu, the vendor was able to explain some of the things that the system can do. So we are very much encouraging the City and County to start the procurement process and get us going because part of that could actually be renewal by mail for the ones that are already REAL ID compliant. So you know, we can't get away from that. We still have to be able to touch and feel your birth certificate and all your documents to become REAL ID compliant, but once they are, hopefully we will be able to renew by mail or kiosk, maybe it was by kiosk, actually. So I envision, you know, you can have a vision machine in the kiosk and all kinds of fun stuff, but we're hopeful that we can do more to make it easier for people, just like how the vehicle registration renewal by mail and the kiosk and everything that the public was very good about doing during the pandemic. That's really helped and helped our staff a lot. We're hopeful that driver's licensing can also have advantages and improvements, but because we do it Statewide, we really do need City and County to get that moving. So we're in the process of sending a communication to Mayor Blangiardi to get that process going because we're tired of waiting. MR. INABA: That might be the best news we've heard all week I think, or the public would hear this week. So with that, is that somethingI mean, I know you're going to put the communication forward, but would that be for the next fiscal year, or just as soon as they are able to make a change like that? MS. SAKO: As soon as they are able to make a change. There would be some conversion time, probably a year,just by the time the data gets converted and everything. Just to give a little credit to our staff, I don't know if anybody Page 27 FC-32 April 12,2022 remembers mainframe computers and the Wang, but those are the screens they're still working at. It's not even Windows. They have to hit F6 or F8 to change screens or whatever. So just in addition to everything they deal with, yeah, we're on a super old system, and we really would like the City to change that up a little bit. I love the City and all they do. I don't want to get quoted in the paper or anything, but we really need them to start moving forward. MR. INABA: Okay, so besides that, which is something we have to look forward to, right now the only other area to kind of improve are our service and our ability to process this is getting those positions filled? MS. SAKO: Yes. So we're actively doing it. A lot of our staff are working overtime, you know, and whatnot, and many of our offices are opening up to walk-ins again. So I think that will make a lot of people happy. Kona not so much,just because we just are very short on staff, but if people have something that's immediate that they need to get done, our team has been working really hard to try and accommodate them. They just have to let us know. MR. INABA: Thank you. And yes, let's take the time to acknowledge all of our County employees in the DMV for all that they do and the stress that they go through working with our people here in the County of Hawaii. MS. SAKO: Yes. MR. INABA: So mahalo, Chair. That's all I have. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Ms. Villegas, go ahead. MS. VILLEGAS: Aloha, Deanna. Thanks for being here. Hi, Steve. Thanks for your answers. MS. SAKO: Hello. MS. VILLEGAS: I'm going to kind of step back into just more asking for some laymen or laywomen, explanations. I mean, I believe the rest of my counterparts on the Council here have also have their email blowing up with people asking for relief from the increase in the property taxes. I just want to not only—I guess I just want to ask a question. If you could explain, as simply as possible for people, including myself, who are not as savvy to how the system works and what causes an increase like this. Is this an adjustment because we've been so far behind? Is this caused by the real estate market blowing up? Which I think is kind of ironic that then people that have made so much money on that are now asking for relief from the taxes associated with it. Page 28 FC-32 April 12,2022 So for myself, talking to constituents and folks who are looking for—and I get it, we're just coming out of a pandemic as well. Sothis isit just keeps adding and this is a straw, and that camel's back is already pretty fragile. So if you could just kind of explain that in a way that I feel like people who are just taken aback by getting something in the mail that hits them with a very large bill or doubles or whatever the percentage is. I've heard from some people that the percentages of increase have also varied, so how that works and why. MS. SAKO: So I'll start, and then I know Lisa and Keita and Steve will hop in here as needed. So first thing is County Code says we will assess at 100 percent of market value, except where there's homeowner and other provisions provided. Then in addition to that, we do mass appraisal. So it's not like we're individually going out and appraising every home or business, so looking at neighborhoods and different things. But definitely, the number of sales also impacts it. So yes, the real estate market going crazy is what's prompting those adjustments, not necessarily adjustments, but you know, the market values increasing that especially a lot of the businesses haven't seen in a long time, because there haven't been a lot of sales in the past. MR. HUNT: Just to add to that a little bit. I think what you're saying in particular in commercial/industrial and hotel and resort is the count of those properties and the base that they represent, which is somewhere between maybe three and a half and maybe five percent on each category. It's not a big portion of our total tax base. So when you get sales that are one-offs, you'll need only have one sale for the year, appraisers aren't willing to move the market based on one sale. When you get a number of sales, and I think the question came up earlier, why do you think there were sales? I think the pandemic may have forced some of these sales because old-time operators that may have used their commercial business for themselves, the pandemic forced them out, they closed, but there were either investors or new businesses that wanted to replace them. So we started seeing more change of hands of commercial properties and industrial properties than we've had in a long time. And I think what this really represents is a catch up. We had so many sales of residential and land and condos year after year after year, that the appraisers have been really good about having enough data, that there weren't outliers that they just discounted, that they had good data to work with. I think we finally have gotten that data on the commercial/industrial and some resort sales that now give us those indicators on where we needed to be. So this is kind of a catch up. Your question in terms of why the values differ so much in terms of the percent, a lot of that has to do with the relationship of land and building. If you're Page 29 FC-32 April 12,2022 90 percent land driven and there's a movement in the land, of course it's going to be more than one that has a big building that doesn't move as much. So a lot of that is going to depend on the make-up of the assessment itself in proportion of that value. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. MS. SAKO: Then it's also possible that someone,the entire amount of increase could have been just driven by improvements they did on their property as well. MS. VILLEGAS: So really this is a realignment to a more realistic value so the taxes that are being assessed are more in alignment with market value and what should be paid. MR. HUNT: We're not at taxes yet. The assessments that are being given are more in line with market. Taxes is the byproduct of the rate, obviously. But yeah, assuming no change in rate, then that would be the MS. VILLEGAS: Based on the current rates and the way the system is set up now, those are what those values are. Because I have a lot of concerns about our small businesses and hearing from large landlords that have larger properties. I guess for me, it kind of gets a little kink in my craw when the immediate thing that I hear is, "Well, I'm going to have to pass that down to my tenants," and now you're hurting small businesses. One of the ironies I find sitting in this seat is that we're constantly asked to provide more services and how come the County doesn't do more, and what are all these gaps, and things are broken and fix them. The County doesn't operate like a corporation per se, and there are a lot of enterprises that own large commercial properties and resorts that have line items to build in for broader expenses. So I suppose I would love to see a little more empathy and flexibility in large commercial property owners and resorts in considering that they consider it a cost of their doing business and to not pass it down to the small business owner and to not hurt our community in that capacity. This is a reality. We'll do what we can to try and come up with some other taxation classes or to ease things in, but it doesn't sound to me that this is way offline for what the actual values have been. So for all these years, many of these entities haven't been paying or haven't been assessed equitable values and many times are making good money off of that. So I just—my hope is that there will be some opportunity for everybody to support the small businesses and it not to just be assumed that it has to be passed down, because it does hurt them more when they're already paying rent. I know in Kona the rent and the CAM (Common Area Maintenance), is really, really expensive. So just trying to navigate and find that balancing point of equitable distribution so that County can function and provide everything we need to, and Page 30 FC-32 April 12,2022 we don't end up losing our small businesses. So that's just kind of one of the challenges. So thank you for helping to explain that a little better, and we'll continue to navigate through this and try to find some solutions or staggered steps, or how we need to do this. This goes to my other question. I just want to confirm with you, because I hear from people that, "Why has the County increased this budget? What's going on with the Administration? They've created this enormous, expanded, balloon budget." Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is the budget gets created based on the money that's brought in. It's not that the County makes a wish list for a budget and then says, "Okay well we need this much money," and goes out to get it. It's really based on projected what's coming in, and then you create—it's kind of like when I go grocery shopping. If I'm like, "Okay, I have $100, what can I buy?" MS. SAKO: I think yes, that's a good way to explain it. Definitely though, we need the two to match. MS. VILLEGAS: Yes, that's a requirement. MS. SAKO: But yes, we have to see what's available. If it wasn't available then we wouldn't be able to spend it. But that's also why historically, you know, maintenance has been deferred and other things, because the revenue hasn't been there. MS. VILLEGAS: Exactly. But the revenue that does come in, it's a requirement to then, okay, this revenue's coming in, so we need to spend it. We have to allocate this. MS. SAKO: Right, yes. Or adjust the rates or make other provisions. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Just so that I just, it helps me when the broader population understands that. It's helpful. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chair. I just had a question, a follow-up on the DMV conversation. First of all, I took my daughter to get her learner's permit the other day, so beware everyone, she's on the road. But I actually want to just acknowledge that the experience was great. I actually really loved the appointment system now,just knowing you're going to get in there when your appointment is scheduled, and everything went really smoothly. So maybe that's something we keep. Page 31 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. SAKO: We all like the appointment system, especially for working people to go and know that's your appointment time, but there are people who maybe can't get an appointment soon enough. At least we'll be trying to accommodate walk-ins as we can. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, appreciate that, and everybody was very friendly there. So I just want to mahalo all of them. Are there any plans to expand the number of kiosks available for the motor vehicle registration at this point? MS. SAKO: That's dependent on vendor. Probably not, but if you're aware of locations or different things that might help that, we would be willing to bring it to the vendor and ask them if they would be willing to do it. No promises, but yeah. MS. KIMBALL: Great. Yeah, Council Member Richards, didn't that come up in our recent Waimea Community Association meeting as something that people were interested in, in that general area? MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, for like North Kohala, that's been an interest. I know it's a private vendor so it's a business deal between the private vendor and the location, whatever the case may be. But yeah, it seemed to have a quite wide public acceptance, so we need to explore that a little further. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, I think there is interest, and now the people, with the pandemic, actually became a little more comfortable using that service. So that's not a line item in the budget at all? MS. SAKO: No it's paid for by fees collected at the kiosk. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, great. Thank you. Well, look forward to further discussion on that. Thanks, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks. Deanna, circling back a little bit on the PONC. There was, if I recall right, there is supposed to be a position created to administer PONC or deal with that. What is the status of all that? MS. SAKO: I think the language in the Charter does not say a position shall be created, but that salaries and wages can be charged to PONC. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MS. SAKO: So we are looking at our current staffing, and we probably will be hiring an additional position in Property Management. Whether it'sI can't say Page 32 FC-32 April 12,2022 it's going to be 100 percent PONC related, but you know,just to help with the various duties and responsibilities of the whole division. MR. RICHARDS: I appreciate that correction. Not create a position, but charge. So you may have 50 percent of a position paid by MS. SAKO: Correct, yeah. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So you're in the process of getting that spooled up? Because that was one of the concerns as far as the maintenance fund. We're not administering that as sufficiently as we might. So that's in process right now? MS. SAKO: Yes, and Hamana has been going out and working with some of the nonprofits and learning more about the programs. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Council, further discussion for Ms. Sako? Ms. Villegas, go ahead. MS. VILLEGAS: Deanna, thank you for sharing that it takes encouragement for the Honolulu City and County DMV to update their systems. If you need any support from us or letters,please let me know. I'd be happy to help any way that I can. MS. SAKO: Will do, for sure. Definitely. Thank you. MS. VILLEGAS: Yeah, it makes a big difference. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Okay, Ms. Sako, it looks like it's my turn. I'm just going to run through your budget real fast. More of a line item by line item, but just the ones that stands out to me. 5122.02, Accounts OCE, there's a$750,000 accounting system lease. MS. SAKO: Yep. I believe we talked about it a little bit earlier, that number is based on the RFIs, or Requests for Information we got back from various vendors. So that's kind of the midrange. We won't know the final number till the RFP comes back. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Something I asked about previously in the year, is the budget up on the Finance website? MS. SAKO: The ordinances are always available on the Finance website as on the Council's Laserfiche system. But yes, there is a link under Budget under Department of Finance. All previous year budgets are there as well as the current March 1st drafts. Page 33 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Then in the 5124.02 Cashiering Software Support Credit Card Payment Gateway Support,just up from 2021-2022? MS. SAKO: Yes, so the cashiering system just went live. We didn't realize we were going to have additional fees. So we did find the money in the current year, but for the future to allow us to collect those improvement district payments, people will be able to do it by credit card and online as well. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Real Property Postage and Freight went up pretty heavily. MS. SAKO: Yes, we were underbudgeted this year. Postage has been going up as well as our contract with the vendor is ending, and so it's currently out to bid. We anticipate there will be an increase in those costs as the cost of paper and other items continue to go up. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: They're substantial, yeah? Almost $60,000. MS. SAKO: Yeah, that contract's been in place a long time, so they were locked into lower rates. So we're anticipating a lot of changes in that area. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I think a lot of folks are, given everything that's going on right now. 5125.40, Title Reports, $800,000. MS. SAKO: So that's our cost of sale. So we are going back to Real Property Tax sales now that the pandemic is kind of ending. So our first one will be in June, so this is offset by a revenue account that's withheld from the proceeds of the sale of the property. So in order to sell it, we have to have a title report on each of those parcels. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: These are for the parcels that the County MS. SAKO: That are the parcels that are going up for tax sale. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Is there a lot of them? MS. SAKO: We sent out 200 letters for the June sale. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Hmm. Okay. Again, 5127.02, Cashiering System Maintenance, that's similar to what we talked about already? MS. SAKO: Yeah, that's just under Vehicle Registration and Licensing. So they have a separate cashiering system. Page 34 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Queue Management Software for the same ? MS. SAKO: That manages the queue in Kona. We probably use that same line item to do the appointment software. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then interesting, there was a step down in overtime for Vehicle Registration in salary and wages. You're not expecting any overtime for the year? MS. SAKO: I don't think they increased it, but more than likely we will have to find them money. But they have been using the vacant position's funds to pay for overtime, and then the overtime related to COVID, we've been charging to our federal dollars. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Yeah, because this is zero. Zero budgeted, yeah? MS. SAKO: Yeah, so we'll look at that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Same for Drivers License Salary and Wages, it dropped down to zero overtime expected for this year. MS. SAKO: Yeah, we'll take a look at that forthcoming, because we know we've got to get caught up and stay caught up. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, Equipment, under Driver's License Equipment, up to about$30,000? MS. SAKO: A lot of that is the scanners, which are going end of life as you might have heard, on the current vendor. So the computers and the scanners, that is our cost to provide those. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. This one is interesting. The PMVI (Periodic Motor Vehicle Inspection)program. I'm looking at the State. There's a bunch of different categories for State, but they equal out to a pretty hefty rise in expected expenditures. MS. SAKO: So this is the State program. It's the safety check system, so the State does reimburse us for all of these costs. So the ones that are noted State, they reimburse us for those, and because they use this budget as kind of the detail that they reimburse us on, we do include every line item. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, good. I was looking at it a little bit, and like wow. Page 35 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. SAKO: Same for CDL (Commercial Drivers' License). CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, that was my last question. Okay, and then Administrative Costs for Commercial Drivers Licensing Program, OCE, Miscellaneous Contract Services, $42,000? MS. SAKO: Yes, so we calculate the administrative costs of the program, and then the State reimburses us for that,just to ensure that we can reimburse every dollar that's owed to us. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then in the Property Management OCE, I have some questions on that one. There were some interesting ones in here. So the Shipman Warehouse for Police and Fire is $120,000 a year? MS. SAKO: I believe so, yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. That's one of the things we've been looking at for our CIP (Capital Improvement Projects) that I'm hoping to get some traction on. Then the other one that caught my eye was the HOVE, Hawaiian Ocean View Estates Road Maintenance Fees for $3,000. MS. SAKO: So we do have some parcels there, so we also have to pay our share of maintenance fees. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So the County has parcels in Hawaiian Ocean View Estates? MS. SAKO: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And we pay for the road maintenance fees? MS. SAKO: Associated with those parcels, like any landowner. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, and is that the same for the Hawaiian Acres? MS. SAKO: Yes. I'm not 100 percent sure exactly what that is, but yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Hamana. Please introduce yourself, sir. Thank you. (Note: At this time, Property Manager Hamana Ventura came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. VENTURA: Hamana Ventura, Property Manager. It should just be related to the road fees. Page 36 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. It's just abnormal for me, because they're mostly private roads in these subdivisions, so I'm trying to figure out how these maintenance fees are being applied. MR. HAMANA: I'll double-check and get back to you on that one. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MS. SAKO: I mean, we're paying it to the association that manages the roads. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then Hawaiian Acres, the same thing? Do we have a parcel in Hawaiian Acres? Or is that for the emergency access route on Road 8? MR. VENTURA: We're not sure. I'll have to get back to you on that one. It may be related to Volunteer Fire Departments if we contribute to the association dues. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Yeah, let me know. It's interesting. Okay, that's it for my questions. Check my notes, Ma'am, one second. Just in general, you know, we have a lot of different funds. I mean, if we have questions about funds, do we save that for individual departments, like Highway Fund or Cemetery Fund? MS. SAKO: Right. So yes, Cemetery is under Parks and Recreation; Highways under DPW (Department of Public Works), yeah. So most of these have a department associated with them. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so Finance—it would be better to ask the question yeah, so just in general for everyone, better to ask those questions when those departments come in front of us for specific funds and usage of by that department? MS. SAKO: Yes, and I'll be here all three days, so if they can't answer, I'll be happy to help. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I'll be here all week. MS. SAKO: I don't want to be rude, but sometimes some of the revenue numbers, you know, we do generate and the departments work on expenses, but it's a joint effort. So if there's something they don't know, I'll be here. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then in general too, another question kind of more in general, in funding sources for salary and wages and retirement benefits, is that strictly set to one funding source? Or is that across the board depending on what the position is? Page 37 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. SAKO: Any position that is grant funded is noted in the budget by an F/S usually a federal or State. So we do try to identify those specifically. But other than our normal revenues, that would be probably the only other funding source I can think of right now. It would be grant funded. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so not specifically real property taxes? MS. SAKO: No,just general County revenues go to fund all of those positions. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you very much, Ms. Sako. Appreciate it. MS. SAKO: Thank you. Thank you for your time. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And I think,just good job in general. Thank you. MS. SAKO: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, unless there's any further questions by the Council. Council Members, do you want a brief recess while we ready up for Planning? Okay we'll take a brief recess. Recess: At 10:48 a.m. the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 11:00 a.m. (3) Planning Department: (Note: At this time, Planning Director Zendo Kern and Administrative Services Officer Grant Nagata came forward to address the members of the Committee.) CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Welcome back, we're out of recess. Our next department with us today is the Department of Planning. Thank you for being here, Director Kern. MR. KERN: Thank you. Good morning, Chair, members of the Finance Committee. Zendo Kern, Planning Director. And with me I have our Administrative Services Manager, Grant Nagata. First of all, I want to say thank you for the opportunity to be able to present our budget today. I have one piece of good news to start with, none of my divisions are on Wang. So we're off to a good start. Page 38 FC-32 April 12,2022 I want to say a special thanks to Finance Department for working with us on the budget. Deanna and her team are just excellent and really, really a great resource. I want to thank our entire Planning Department team. Just really, really grateful to be honored to work with them. Really a great team dedicated to serving our community. I want to also give thanks to Grant for putting this budget together. Grant is a force of nature to say the least. This guy comes in on the weekends. This guy works until very late. Very, very late, to the point where I said you've got to not go that much, which is just a really great attribute. So thank you for all you do. When we came here last year, you know, we had kind inherited kind of a budget that was already moving forward. We got a look at it and as a Director, and we had some very unique circumstances. You know, we were coming out of COVID, or still in it, thought we were kind of coming out of it and the waves going up and down. And what we were able to do over this last year, I feel, at the Planning Department was pretty remarkable. We transitioned folks back to work from COVID in a safe and healthy way that worked well and tried to accommodate the needs of our team members. We believe we really burnt the ships at the shore with EPIC. We got it up and running. From the Planning Department it's been working really, really good for us. It's given us a lot of flexibility and dynamic adjustments as we need to, especially with short staffing. So this has been really, really great. And it's really moved towards the direction of sustainability, working towards being paperless. Just about every document now is signed electronically. So it's just really wonderful. Eliminated so much paper. We've also done something that, in Hilo, that wasn't done since they moved in. We actually cleaned out the department. Physically cleaned out the department. And we did that with the entire team. It was an entire department team effort. We did it over the course of one day a week, you know, over the course of like four to five weeks. And we're talking dumpsters of stuff, lots of recycle, dust that was probably over 20 years old. We were able to make a little bit more room for staffing, really able to clean it up and refreshen it. But what it also did is it brought the folks together. Work together. Brought us—and people were asking, "How did that happen?" It wasn't just one person it was a team effort. And to go through all of this and see the team coming together and unity serving our community, really no backlog on permits, trying to be as responsive as we can, be on correspondence and writing. We're not perfect, we still have a ways to go, but I feel like we've really just made a really great improvement and the energy within the team is wonderful; and I feel that most of the feedback coming back in is really positive as well. So I wanted to thank you all for the opportunity to be able to make this a reality. Now I'm ready for my PowerPoint. (Note: At this time, Mr. Kern provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the presentation, request a Page 39 FC-32 April 12,2022 copy of the DVD recording of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or navigate to the Council's meeting archives from the County's homepage online at www.hawaiicounty.gov. A copy of the PowerPoint is made a part of the record. See Comm. 645.7.) MR. KERN: Our folks are active and engaged as a team and with the community. It's really a big `ohana, it's a big family. And I've been really blessed to be welcomed into it and to be able to work with them and we serve our community. So with that I also want to say a special thanks to Grace, she's the one who put this awesome slide deck together, not me. So thank you. With that, we're happy to answer any questions. And again, thank you for the opportunity to give an overview of our department. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Director. I have one question for you. That bottom left picture, do you have that many musicians in your department? MR. KERN: We do. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That is amazing. MR. KERN: Yeah. It's neat. You walk into the lunchroom and it's like kanikapila. But during COVID, it wasn't, right? And there was just this separation and as COVID's winding down and we're coming back together, that vibe is coming back into the department, which is really, really neat. We have some really talented musicians in the department. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I was going to say are you just lining up for a photo? Did we bring props? Or does that many guys actually play guitar, ukulele? MR. KERN: No, that's not what happened. Next time you can have them come play. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay, Council Members, discussion for Planning. Ms. Villegas, go ahead. MS. VILLEGAS: Aloha. Thank you for being here, Gentlemen. Just a quick question based on a number of statistics related to the EPIC system and how much faster things are being processed, and the number of permits that have gone through. While I don't have the specifics on which projects, I am still hearing from some constituents concerns that their permits are taking over six months, and continue to lag. So just wondering if you can share some insights and give some hope for those things, and the ones that aren't flowing smoothly. Page 40 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. KERN: Sure. If you have any specific examples for the Planning Department, I'd really be happy to look at those. Again, there's nothing perfect, but my understanding and my review, and I meet with my managers on a weekly basis, we're current as far as Planning goes. There is a longer period of time as it relates to building permits. However, we do not control the building permits. MS. VILLEGAS: Right, that's DPW. MR. KERN: When we have the building permits sent to us, we review them typically within a day or two. Sometimes it takes as long as a week, but generally it's within a couple of days. Occasionally things will get caught up say with like necessary—say it's for a preservation review. So we have an interesting one most of the projects are taken care of early on, but there was one subdivision that was approved many moons ago, and it essentially said that each lot needed to have a SHPD review (State Historical Preservation District), and what we're doing with EPIC now is we're turning that into a red flag when somebody goes onto the property and says it needs to go. Because what happened was somebody submitted the permit, it comes back around, and says "Oh, now you need to do this." But they've already been waiting a couple of months in intake and we're into this little bit of a lag that we jump on and try to facilitate and help with. That's some examples I'm aware of as far as the lag goes, but as far as the permits that we have direct control over and administer, my understanding is that within a 95 percentile we are current. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay, great. I'll make sure to do that and get you information about specific cases. MR. KERN: Please. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. MR. KERN: And that goes for the entire public. If anybody has a case or an issue with Planning, I'd like to know. You know, it's really helpful for me, because I can see what's going on, why did that happen and either give an explanation of why or fix the problem of why that occurred. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay great. Another issue that continues to come up is short-term vacation rentals, and illegal short-term vacation rentals, and the complications regarding those and fines and postponements of appeals, and ag properties, and just a myriad of issues related to that. What's the best process to work with you and the department to get those things resolved, and do you have a vision moving forward for how to mitigate? MR. KERN: Yes, I do. And actually it's being worked on right now. You folks will have the opportunity to review the legislation. I'm currently working on that Page 41 FC-32 April 12,2022 with a couple of your colleagues. I think for Sunshine (Law), it's all just kind of quiet about that maybe. But what we're doing is we're looking at the overall short-term vacation rentals and what was enacted in law and what was maybe left out. Like hosted rentals for examples and trying to plug the pukas where there are holes, and bring all of those underneath under the same umbrella so there is regulation across all of it. When Bill 108, the short-term vacation law was passed, it was for un-hosted rentals. So at that time, even when folks had a hosted rental and would try to come in and get it registered or an NUC (Non-conforming unit), they weren't allowed to because they were hosted. And it was like, "You're hosted, that's a different time, sorry you don't qualify for an STVR, you're a hosted rental." And the concept was to address it afterwards. Coming into this position, we saw that there were challenges with that. Some folks operating in a manner that I believe were consistent with the intent. You've got your house, you vacation rent out one of your rooms. And then other folks that I think were taking advantage of that. So we tried to issue a policy memo, just to define it a bit more because it wasn't defined at all. It was just like if you're hosted and someone's on there, go for it. And we didn't feel that was really the intent, so we tried to say, well we don't have a law to regulate it right now, we'll try to at least get some framework into that. So I know you folks are very aware, there are some folks that are making it quite a bit challenging. So the update to the Code will work to solidify it, basically deal with those issues. Even like, one of the things I'm looking at is higher fines specifically for short-term vacation rentals if you're not operating properly. We are fining them; we are giving notices of violation. We do have a number appeals. Some stop, some pay, it's a variety. But it has certainly been a challenge, I think, with the COVID kind of dynamic and tourism coming up, some of these hosted ones have been a little bit challenging. So the goal is to have something in front of you relatively soon, within probably the next—don't hold it to me exactly, but probably the next like four to six weeks or so, to really address these things and have a discussion around this. MS. VILLEGAS: Great, thank you. Because there are some specific properties in my district that are making upwards to $55,000 a week on properties that didn't get an STVR permit that are in residential areas that are negatively impacting a tremendous number of neighbors and guests. And they've been fined, but they just—you know, if you have a good enough lawyer and you file enough appeals and enough postponements, but they continue to operate in the same capacity. And one of these properties has upwards of almost 20 bedrooms, which is considered a hotel anyway. So thank you for your continued support on that and strictness. I have a number of constituents that are just at their wit's end for how to put a stop to this. So thank you for your support on that. We really appreciate it. My district's got a Page 42 FC-32 April 12,2022 unique, diverse compilation of people and socioeconomic backgrounds, but we are definitely negatively impacted by those that aren't participating appropriately, and think that they're above the law. MR. KERN: It's really frustrating for us as well. You know, those that have tried to maintain that certain intent, hopefully good folks that operate. And then there are some that are certainly pushing it and I haven't been shy with them. I said, "If you guys operate this way, there's not much I can do right now, you're outside of that. I will hit you with an NOV, I will stack in NOV's." (Notice of Violation). Yeah, I'm not shy about that. MS. VILLEGAS: Great. Just one more question, because there's also continued stress amongst constituents about short-term vacation rental and ag property, and where the lines of authority are with County versus State. MR. KERN: Sure. So right now, we're in an interesting place. When Bill 108, the STVR bill, was approved, it had specific language. There was a group of folks that appealed that. That went through the LUC (Land Use Commission), that is now in an appeal at Third Circuit Court. And so from the Planning Department perspective, we're kind of on hold waiting for that to get resolved. Then from there, there will be adjustments made accordingly. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Any idea on timing or where that is in the docket? MR. KERN: The next couple of months, I believe. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay, great. I'll keep an eye out for that. Thank you, I appreciate your comments on this, and I'll look forward to seeing this new legislation and working to continue. Karen Eoff worked very hard on Bill 108, and in talking to her now that she's retired, it was always her intention to take it to the next level. And she formulated fines specific to short-term vacation rental things, and to create the next steps of organizing and judiciously enforcing the intention of the STVR rules. So thank you. Appreciate it. I yield. MR. KERN: You're welcome. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you. I have a follow-up to that, Director Kern. Looking at this program budget, it seems that you are anticipating a decrease in the number of complaints that we might have to be investigating in the upcoming fiscal year. So just in terms of staffing, are we adequate, short, where are we in terms of those inspectors who need to go help enforce the Code. Page 43 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. KERN: You know, I think when we have the confines and the parameters, I think we'll be doing pretty good with our inspectors. One of the challenges I'm dealing with on the west side is Clerks and staffing in other areas. So one of my Inspectors, part-times as Clerk to fill in for that so when I can get my Clerk filled in, that inspector will be back in that area. We do spend a fair amount of time dealing with some of these nuance cases, which burns up time. So I feel if we can define some of those areas a bit better, we'll be good as far as staffing goes. MR. INABA: And then to what extent are we—do you have an idea percentage-wise of the cases that we do end up having to issue a fine? How are we doing on the collections? MR. KERN: They vary. What we find is that folks that are like, "Oh, I didn't know I was supposed to be doing that,"they just pay the fine and it goes away. Other folks will appeal it, and a lot of times those are drawn out. We're in a number of many of those being appealed. Other ones—it really varies. Certain ones we have out with Corporation Counsel, waiting on that. We've been really trying to—we've been having various meetings getting more confines around our collection as well as our NOVs, at issuing NOV's. There's probably not going to be too many of those details in this forum, but we are working on it. MR. INABA: Do you think there's room for improvement when it comes to collection of the fines? MR. KERN: I do think there's room for improvement on the collection of fines. Something that we're looking at on a higher level is when I was meeting with the Director of DPP (Department of Planning and Permitting) on the City and County of Honolulu. They actually attach, once it hits a certain level, they'll attach basically they'll attach it to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). So when the person wants to go get their registration or their license renewed, they'll say, "Oh wait, stop, you have this fine over here. You want to take care of that before you move forward." So I think some ideas like that will help that. Outside of that, we basically, if they're not cooperating with us, we turn it over to Corporation Counsel and from there, Corporation Counsel goes through the collection process. MR. INABA: Okay, and I might have missed this, and my apologies if that's the case. For OCE, there's an increase of almost$100,000. Is that for the General Plan? Section 115? MR. KERN: That's for the Subdivision Code. Zoning and Subdivision Codes. So with the funds that you folks previously approved there just a few weeks ago, and with the funds that were already allotted, we should be good on the General Plan unless there's something unforeseen, which then we'd come back and talk to you folks. Page 44 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. INABA: Okay. If you could just point me to which part of 115, which of those line items are the Subdivision Code updates that this $94,000 is being added to? MR. NAGATA: Good morning, Grant Nagata, Admin Services Officer. To answer your question, Mr. Inaba, it is in the item number seven. It got put together with the General Plan. The $300,000 that you see there is the General Plan plus the Code funds got put together. But in the May revision, you're going to see that split. MR. INABA: Okay. That's what I thought. I just wanted to confirm that's what's happening here. Okay, thank you, Director, very much. MR. KERN: You're welcome. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: I just want to visit the Coastal Zone Management(CZM). I see we have additional contract services budgeted. Can you just give us a status update on that, and where we are with expected outcomes being delivered from that? MR. NAGATA: So we added that extra $100,000 in the 115 account. So when I was putting together the budget, looking back in previous years we've had extra funds from previous fiscal years, and also the State has had extra money that they want to give to certain programs for shoreline and whatnot. So put that in there in anticipation that they're going to give us more money in Fiscal Year 2022. So it's not in this current budget, but it you look in the previous years, you're going to see that for the CZM, the budget was typically around like $510,000, the appropriation. And so what would happen is when the State would give us more money, we'd have to come back to Council and add that in. So just being a little more proactive, I wanted to add that in there. But be conservative, not overinflating, but just putting enough in there so that we do see the additional monies we have that provision in there and not have to come back to Council to add that in. So that's what that is there for. MS. KIMBALL: Thanks. As far as I know the State is planning to contribute again to that fund. MR. KERN: The State's a wonderful partner with CZM. MR. NAGATA: And then they did give us for this current fiscal year, I think it was $140,000 or $160,000 for some of our Coastal Zone projects. So for that we had to go to Council to get the resolution. Page 45 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. KERN: Science-based: shoreline setbacks, all the studies that we're working on, things like that. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, so more programmatically, like what are we expecting and when from these contracts? MR. KERN: I think we're getting very close. I can email that to you, kind of the last couple of steps. But we're in basically the final phases of our science-based shoreline setback project that identified the couple areas. It doesn't cover the whole island yet, but it sets those sample areas to start getting that idea. We aim to expand it. We're actually requesting some federal money to expand that program as well. But like I say, we're at the final stages of it. I just don't have the exact date on the top of my head. I apologize. MS. KIMBALL: But probably sometime this summer we should start to see something like that. MR. KERN: Yeah. That's my thinking. MS. KIMBALL: And the contract proposals are also, there's a legislative component to it, right? Am I remembering correctly that there's going to be some recommended legislative items that come from the consultant? MR. KERN: Yes. That's part of it, which will add up to our Code, Rules, et cetera. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, this question is probably very district specific for me, but I wanted to add. So you folks, you know, when folks go through their plans whether it's a subdivision or rezoning, whatever. You generate the easements, identification of easements, through that whole process. Who's responsible for maintaining easements? Is it you folks, is it—this may be a Deanna question. Managing easements and maintenance on easements that are developed through Planning. Whose kuleana is that? MR. KERN: I can help answer that. It varies. Sadly in certain cases it's the private landowner that's responsible for it. In certain cases it's the County's responsibility for it. This is a greater conversation that we're having as you saw the other day with one of the Planning Commission items that we had. That's part of the conversation. We had a follow-up discussion around that on how do we manage these easements and what resources go into managing these easements. We're not there yet, but we're working on it. Deanna might be able to add more to it, but I think MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, I'm particularly interested in the easements that have very clearly been identified as the County's responsibility. The previous Director, not you, actually signed an agreement on a number of easements in my district, Page 46 FC-32 April 12,2022 and "the County will maintain these" is basically the gist of the agreement. And my question is whose budget does that come out of? MS. SAKO: So this is a situation where the County has an easement over someone else's land, right? So in that case the department that—it's the purpose, basically drives it. So if it's Public Works, like it's a road easement or something like that, then they're responsible for maintaining it, so we would follow it that way. So yeah, we might need to make sure the departments are aware of what previous people have promised. MS. KIMBALL: Right. What about a trail? Would that be P&R or Public Works? MS. SAKO: Most of the trails are P&R. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Appreciate your flexibility, folks, for letting me ask that question. I didn't know where it fell. Planning actually signed the document, so I figured you should know. MR. KERN: Maintenance isn't in our budget, you can see from the size of it. MS. KIMBALL: I didn't know if I was going to have to get Jeff out there with his weedwhacker and do all this work. MR. KERN: He kind of likes—he might go for it. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chair. I yield. That's all I have. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Ms. David, go ahead. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair. And I just have one really quick question, since we're on the CZM section. Fringes, salary and wages, what are those? There's an amount of$180,000, what does that entail? MR. NAGATA: Okay, so the fringes, that covers the healthcare benefits as well as all the payroll taxes. MS. DAVID: Okay, that's on salary and wages, then,just for those specific CZM employees? MR. NAGATA: That's correct. MS. DAVID: I see. Okay. And how many employees do you have under the CZM right now? Page 47 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. NAGATA: There are six employees. MS. DAVID: That specifically do the CZM? MR. NAGATA: We do have one Senior Account Clerk that is funded through the CZM program. So of course she does a normal payroll for the department, but she also takes care of the CZM timesheets that we need to supply to the State. So her role, it does cover CZM stuff, but it also covers the normal payroll operations for the department. MS. DAVID: I see, and so in line with the questioning that Ms. Kimball was asking, one of these staff people in the CZM, they handle the complaints and they coordinate that with the State? Do you folks coordinate complaints with the State? MR. KERN: We will coordinate a complaint with the State depending on the nature of it, right? Depending on if it's a OCCL (State Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands) issue, or DLNR (State Department of Land and Natural Resources), we coordinate with them. Otherwise the authority for the CZM is delegated to the County. So if we get a complaint, SMA (Special Management Area) violation let's say, you know, that's one of our very high levels, we jump on that immediately. Our fining authority is much higher in the CZM SMA area. We can fine up to $100,000. So what it does oftentimes is, if somebody's doing something, most times they don't know it, but we can come and say, "Hey, stop" and it'll be right now big fine, and wait. Then we usually can work through it with them, but it's a stopping power. But for that side of it, now if it's multi jurisdictional, then we'll go ahead and coordinate with the others as we have in the past with trails and the whole nine, "You guys do it." MS. DAVID: And then these six dedicated CZM staffing, are you having them in—how many in Kona and how many on this side? MR. KERN: Two in Kona. MS. DAVID: And then four will be here. Alright, that's good to know. It' got a lot of CZM areas in Kona, and lots of stuff going on. MR. KERN: We do. Some of our core staff related to that is located in Hilo, but they have the island-wide perspective and they drive where they need to, they do what they need to, and then we have our Kona staff as well. MS. DAVID: Okay, awesome. Alright. Thank you very much, Director. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. Page 48 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. LEE LOY: Thanks, Chair. Thanks, Gentlemen, for being here. Earlier today, our Managing Director Lee Lord talked about housing and some of the projects in the pipe. So we're going from about 1,200 to what would be 5,500 in the pipe. So I'm just using that as a base, because in your program measures, we talk about plan approval reviewed, budgeted, and estimated. And I just, I love this department because you guys are Planners, and I'm just wondering ifI mean, I see it going up $20,000, but if we're going up nearly 4,000, I'm just wondering if that's a little light as far as the anticipated plan review numbers, the anticipated change of zone applications. MR. KERN: It could be. You know, the honest answer is it could be. Some projects are larger so it's still one review. It could have many more units on it. The more smaller projects come in, the more challenge that is. I will say related to our plan approval, we've been very efficient with our plan approval. Some folks come in early saying, "Hey, we have a project," and we're able to do kind of a pre-consult on them so when they actually submit it, it's taken care of. So we're trying to fill in those gaps with certain planners that may not have a full total staff on plan approval, so we're getting ahead of it. Also with the EPIC system, being able to view it all on BlueBeam so it's all on a screen with this software and smart measurement and everything, has actually increased the speed in which we're able to do that as well. So as we've seen through this whole last year, it's really about resource utilization and adjustments. So it may be a little bit. So far I'm comfortable with knowing how I can be dynamic with the team and how the team can show up to the occasion. MS. LEE LOY: Great. Which walks me into the update of(Chapters) 25 and 23. We've been talking about it for a while, and Grant provided the numbers. Are there plans to adjust the various permit fees? MR. KERN: We can look at it. We're going to look at it. It's a tricky one, so I've been trying to think about how we adjust them. Because part of the concept and goal from a Planning Department perspective is we want to have a layman be able to come in and do the process. Sometimes it's overwhelming, but when you look at it from a fee structure, I don't want that to be overwhelming for that person. So like Administrative Service permits, a lot—sometimes they hire a consultant but a lot of times they're doing it themselves. So not all of them are related to say, you know, development where there's large profit on it, or no profit on it but hard to say. So trying to say how would we kind of maybe have some fee structure adjustment, but not hurt the community members just trying to come in and do something simple or a small rezone for the family; it's really estate planning. So that's the needle, and how we thread that needle. Page 49 FC-32 April 12,2022 So I'm open to suggestions on that. It hasn't been the highest on my mind. I know it's there and I think about it. I've been a lot more focused on kind of the meat of the Code. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, yeah, that's fair. It's a balance definitely. But I hear my other colleagues talking about complaints, and you know, they just run it up. And I've been on both sides of that, and at the end of the day, we actually negotiate, right. So although they might run up a lot of complaints and fees and fines, daily fees and fines, the actual payment tends to be a negotiated price. MR. KERN: That's right. MS. LEE LOY: And I'm just looking at that revenue stream as far as permits, because we did that with the building permit process, right? We updated that fee structure and then gave them the three strikes kind of spaces. And I'm just looking at what's budgeted and estimated, and just alone in like subdivision fees, public fees, rezoning fees, they were actually a little low. And then we're estimating them to take a big jump. So I'm just trying to correlate those revenue streams as it relates to your program measures. And just, you know, setting you guysI really want to set this department up for success. MR. KERN: We appreciate that. MS. LEE LOY: It's two parts, right? It's the zoning piece, it's the General Plan, it's subdivision, it's all of it. But also making it worth our while. Because my concern is we want to be a little bit more self-sufficient and self-sustaining with the collection, but also with the collections of the complaint fees. MR. KERN: Correct and having a little bit more weight on some of the complaint fees. That's a big one. So right now, a typical application for a rezoning or a special permit is $500. For rezoning, it's $500 plus, if it's a subdivision, $25 for each lot. Then they pay during the subdivision side. But it's not that high. Again, how do we separate a structure that the person who's doing a four-lot subdivision for their family, versus a person who is doing a 50-lot subdivision you know. Is it for market? Is it for affordable? Is it luxury? Do we dissect those down? Do we have a standard? So these are thoughts and ideas. So I'm really open to ideas and feedback around the fee structure. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, and I'm trusting when we take 23 and 25 out, where we can actually get that kind of feedback. Like I said, I'm just looking at the program measures you have, listening to what Managing Director mentioned this morning, and seeing that forecast, right? Looking at the horizon and just making sure we're actually estimating a little closer to that, which then sets everybody up for success. Because the quicker we get through all of this process and the building permit process, the quicker we have a property to tax which generates more revenue. Page 50 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. KERN: Correct and we're anticipating an increase just based on coming out of COVID, based on some of the trends that we're seeing. Also SMA Majors that due to Act 16 which basically prohibited exemption for SMA along the coast. So previously as a single-family residence, you're basically exempt from having to do an SMA Major, but Act 16 changed that. Now if you exceed the $500,000 threshold, then it turns into an SMA Major. We just had one at Planning Commission last week, so we're anticipating an increase in that, as well. MS. LEE LOY: And then my final question. I know we had some activity around State Land Use Boundary amendments less than 15 acres. I see here in your program measures we're still holding it at greater than/less than. MR. KERN: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Is that still the plan going forward? MR. KERN: As far as number or the size of the acreage? MS. LEE LOY: Both. MR. KERN: The numbers, I feel, again, it's best estimate; the acreage we have no control over. If it's 15 or less, it's handled County jurisdiction. If it's over 15 acres, it's a State jurisdiction. There was some legislation going through that might have given more authority to the County related to affordable housing projects, that didn't move along. So that at some point may be an increased conversation next year. I do feel it would be really important, in my own opinion. But yeah, so right now, we're—it's really hard to estimate how many rezonings or State Land Use Boundary amendments, right? It's kind of like what are we feeling, what we are seeing, what's the trends, and best estimate. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, I understand that, but that's why I love your department, right? Because we're planners. We look at forecasts and horizons. I just know you guys are super smart and we're seeing that a lot is getting pushed into housing, a lot of places. So I just want to set you guys up for success in that area. MR. KERN: I appreciate that, and I'll also think about this a bit more, this conversation, and during our next submittal make any adjustments that might be needed. Thank you so much. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. MS. KIMBALL: I had a quick follow-up on Sue's question they can answer real quick. Page 51 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Which had to do with that 15-acre legislation. It applied to rural districts. Do we actually have rural districts in Hawaii County? MR. KERN: We do. It's really a State Land Use classification that isn't utilized very much here, that I feel really needs to be on a lot of our island. Certain parts of our island are rural, but they're classified as Ag. So to put it to you this way, we have .03 percent Rural. I believe we have right around 800 acres in total in Rural on the entire island. That's nothing, where there should be more. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, so that was one of the things that came up in HSAC (Hawai`i State Association of Counties), when we were determining whether or not to support that piece of legislation. So let's have a conversation about it for next legislative session. MR. KERN: Yeah, no problem. Also been talking with the State Office of Planning last year as well as the other counties, trying to come up with different ideas for that. Typically in the past the State Land Use Commission would do district boundary amendments. That hasn't been getting done so they would come back and look and reclassify an area. So now it's kind of our kuleana to do that do a degree, but we're also limited on what we can do with the 15 acres, so it's really challenging. And coming up with the planning world that we're moving into now with the affordable housing challenges, climate change, et cetera, getting that urban density that we need in our urban cores, but also then having our rural areas to ease it out and then ag being ag. It's a critical tool that we're not able to utilize yet. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Ms. Kierkiewicz, go ahead. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Director, Grant, for being here. I just want to start off by saying mahalo nui. Thanks for working so closely with our office on Planning Committee matters. But I know that you also house the Recovery Division, and Douglas Le and his team spend so much of their time,put a lot heart and energy into that work to support Puna. And I know, Director, because you're from Puna, it means a lot to you. So thank you for continuously showing up and just providing a lot of leadership there. And Grant, thank you for helping us manage our USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) grant and all the other projects that we have going on. So thank you. I know you're incredibly dedicated. Can we have a kind of follow-up kind of conversation, presentation around the complaints and investigation piece? Going through your program measurables Page 52 FC-32 April 12,2022 here, and you talk about identifying changes in the management tracking and resolution of that system. So I'm curious to know what you kind of walked into and kinds of the changes that you've made. I've been in touch with you about some problematic property that took a lot of time to resolve. No fault of the Planning Department, but I think there wasn't a very clear, articulation of process. You hinted today at some potential Code changes that we're working on, but just wondering this monthly report, is that something that we can have access to? MR. KERN: I wouldn't see why not. Yes, and I'm happy to talk a bit about that. Come back and talk story about it a bit more. You know, complaints were handled, and there's a backlog of complaints, and they're still working through some of them. They're handled differently on different sides of the island. So we've been trying to get a consistency of some type of letters; we've also started the practice of when we receive the complaint trying to get a warning letter out right away. Because that shows that person they might not even know that they're in violation, and they can just handle it before we have to take the resources out there and go through a full investigation and the rest of it. That whittles out some, and then the rest of it we get into it and actually go through the investigation and go through the process to issue an NOV and order, which usually gives a little bit of time to correct it, et cetera. So I feel like we're coming together a lot more cohesively and have consistent meetings with the entire enforcement team working through these areas. Also looking at doing evidence training, which is something that my staff has asked for. So you know, what qualifies as evidence, you know, video,pictures, et cetera. Because we're trying to keep it so we're doing our job with the complaint, we're also honoring the property owner and not coming at them with false evidence, et cetera. So it's just really trying to create that balance is something that we're working through right now. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. And so you're memorializing this in Planning Director memos, or will there be follow-up rules that are attached? Because what I don't want to have happen is something that works really well is established within your department, and then it goes away. MR. KERN: Yeah, so we're doing this in a few different areas. As we're going through the process, we're working on memo-ing. And then from that, once we feel like we have that process sound and those memos are in place, then we'd turn that over to Administrative Rules. That's the goal, and that would be done by the time I'm done. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, great. Okay, on the process serving, I notice $500 in the budget. Is that sufficient? I don't know if it ever gets to that point where you need to engage someone. I know that for some of the properties we were working on you did, because folks are really clever about how they avoid getting served. But is that sufficient? Page 53 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. NAGATA: We haven't had to use that service too often. I think recently maybe within the past couple of months we've had to use that service a couple of times. I believe it's for the Kona side. But in looking down the road, I don't know. MR. KERN: So it's hard to say. It could be a little light, and if it is I can adjust something towards the end of it. We have been using process servers more the last six months. Really trying to make a concerted effort to actually serve some folks. We've had community police officers serve folks. I've had somebody get served when they were arrested. We've had a variety of ways to serve folks, trying just to make that happen. Now process servers are not that expensive. So I think that's one of the reasons the budget's kind of low. So we're looking at the different mechanisms how we can serve, all the way down. We have one challenging case right now, so we're going to take it to another level and see how that works with Corporation Counsel. I don't want to get into the details on it. I don't think it would be the appropriate place to do so. But we are really working on that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: You're being very creative. We don't need details, but we can hear that you're being very creative. Thank you. I want to spend a little bit of time talking about our action committees, our Cultural Resource Commission, specifically that ACs though (Action Committee),because when they sign up to volunteer in these capacities, they want to take action. Don't really see anything within the budget that allows them to take action. I see a few thousand dollars to support some of the meetings and some meals if meetings run late, but what can we do to support them with financial capital or other capital so that they can be implementing the community development plans. My vision, long term, is to make sure that our budget is in alignment the General Plan and the CDPs (Community Development Plans), that we are proactively making these community visions manifest in a tangible reality. MR. KERN: That's a great question. I really have to go back to my team that handles the ACs and get some more feedback from them before I can really make an educated—or answer it educated; educated guess in that regard. I do know that we're actively working on filling our ACs, we just got Ka`u filled, which is wonderful. So we're filling and now we're going to be going back through and folks that are on holdover will be backfilling the ACs now to get fresh folks in there. So yeah, that's something good for me to think about. It hasn't come up directly as that request, so oftentimes you know, if somebody came up today and said, "We need another vehicle." And I said, "You're telling me now?" So that really hasn't come up that way. So it's a great question. So I'll talk to my team and get Page 54 FC-32 April 12,2022 back with you about it. And if there's something that we see, maybe we'll look at bringing it in as a supplemental. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. That sounds good. And I'm bringing it up because with the resilience capacity areas in the action teams we've stood up, they're not bound by Code, and so we're able to use some of the federal money we got from USDA to support them in implementation of their projects. So it got me thinking about how can we be supporting Action Committees island-wide so that every community is benefitting. So thank you for being open to having that discussion. MR. KERN: Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: The last question I have, one of your current major projects, Climate Action Plan, but I don't really see a line item in the budget to support that financially. Talk about the resources that are expended, any collaboration with other departments, I'm thinking R&D (Research and Development). But what do you need to get this done, and then will it also include a budget for action? MR. KERN: So this is in collaboration with R&D. R&D is, I'd say, a little bit more the lead on it. There's two parts: Adaptation and mitigation. We're a little more focused on the mitigation side of it. R&D is a bit more focused on the adaptation side of it. So we have consistent meetings and they're rolling out the program. I would say once we get through the program, gather more feedback from all the departments, we'll have a much better understanding what we need for funds. Right now the funds would go to personnel to really help get through the program. I know Doug—I don't want to steal any of his thunder—but he's working and worked on that. From our side, I've had Lead for Hawaii fellows help, I have Bethany helping. So I feel it's good on our side right now. I feel if we had the funds in there at this moment, it might be a little bit early. But once we get the plan solidified and those actions, then we backfill with the property funding for that. We have a lot. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I know. MR. KERN: To be quite honest, I can't take on any more this fiscal year. I've got Code and GP (General Plan) to cross the finish line with. And the CAP (Community Action Plan), to get the CAP done and then the next side of it, to actually assess what it's going to take to get the implementation, et cetera, whether it's staff personnel, professional services, et cetera, then I can make an educated choice there. Page 55 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Not trying to saddle you with more,just looking at the kuleana that you have, and recognizing that all of it is a really heavy lift. Timeframe for when we can see, you know, Draft 2 of the CAP? MR. KERN: Right now we're rolling out—the goal is to roll out each section and work with the various departments, kind of month by month, thinking that by eight months or so. Six different sections. I don't have them right with me, but we're going to be going through those. And it's also, you know, the challenge is it's one thing for our team, our R&D team, to work on it, but we're also relying on information from the departments. So we're making a lot of demands on them, you know, for information. "Do you have this; do you have that?" So far, we're just getting into that. So I say that only because we're stacking various things on top of them from the federal budget with the grants, needing information from them for those grants; CAP; as well as the GP. So any department that's listening right now, we apologize and thank you in advance for your review of our plans. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Mahalo nui, Director. And then Planning Conference. I think the last one many of us went to was on Maui. When is it our turn to host? Is it this year? MR. KERN: No, this year HCPO (Hawai`i Conference of Planning Officials) is on Kauai. They just opened registration. And I believe, I was just talking with Rachelle about that, I believe we're two years out from my understanding. So not this year and not next year, but I believe the following. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, great. Well thank you again for all of your hard work and your presence today. Thanks, Chair. I yield. MR. KERN: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you. Director Kern, when it comes to the NOVs, are they always accompanied with a fine? MR. KERN: Yes. The warning letter won't be, because it's just a straight warning letter. An NOV and order will typically say, you know, here's a notice of violation, you're in violation of this section of Code. That starts at$500. If it's multiple Codes, then it's $500, $500, $500. But it also says that you have 30 days or 60 days to get it taken care of. If you don't, then these fines will kick in. If you don't take action at a certain period of time, thenI believe it's after 90-days then you have daily fines of$100. After another 90 days, it's daily fines of$200 a day; then after another 90 days, it's daily fines of$300 a day. That starts stacking up on those folks. One thing the stack, it's more of a leverage to get them to do it, and then it's another collect as you say. As Council Woman Lee Page 56 FC-32 April 12,2022 Loy said, sometimes it's a negotiation, sometimes it's turned over to Corporation Counsel. MR. INABA: What exactly are we putting in the warning letters? I mean because if we're not for sure charging the fines with the NOVs, if we're giving them a time to correct the issue. So what's in the warning letter? MR. INABA: The warning letter says we've received a complaint about you have chickens and your zoning is Residential. You're not allowed to have chickens. If you are please cease and desist, otherwise we'll be contact with you shortly to schedule a site visit. We actually have to go do an investigation before we can just send and NOV. So that's what happens, is we get the complaint—so typically, we get a complaint, it would go in line to wait for the next one, then we'd contact the owner, the lessee, whatever it is, and say can we get on site. Then we get on site, we do an investigation, come back, draft an NOV and order, issue the NOV and order—if they'll take it, that's a whole `nother conversation that we're just kind of getting into—and then from there, then the NOV says what it says, whether they have X period of time to resolve it or not, and now that they've had it, that NOV is legitimate now. MR. INABA: Okay, and then the warning letter that goes out, once they are sent that warning letter, is there a follow-up, or is the follow-up based on an additional complaint being filed by neighbors? MR. KERN: Oh no, no, no. The warning letter is not the end-all. So the concept was that if we just go into the queue, then somebody, in some cases, doesn't even—we can't investigate it for a couple of months. Sometimes longer, right, because it's the queue. So the person that made the complaint is feeling like, "What the heck's happening? I filed this complaint over two months ago, no one's even contacted me, nothing's happened," da da da da. So we said, why don't we, when it first comes in,just issue a warning letter which immediately notifies the person you've got a complaint. We also cc the person who made the complaint. They see that we're taking action on it. And in many cases, that eliminates it. "Oh, I didn't know I wasn't allowed to have chickens in Residential." Great, they can send us that it's been taken care of, we can do a quick review of it, great. So it weeds out kind of the real cases from the unreal cases let's say' and then as we work through our queue, okay, we issued them a warning letter a month ago, we haven't heard anything back from them, we then request for a site inspection, and we go through the whole process. So it doesn't take away, it doesn't make it take any longer, it's actually to take an immediate action. But I can't come out of the gate issuing an NOV because we didn't do the investigation. MR. INABA: Yes. I know that, for sure. When it comes to the warning letter, they always are requested to respond with an action, or ? Page 57 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. KERN: Yes. MR. INABA: Okay, very good. Then in terms of the Cultural Resource Commission, what is the threshold or impetus by which the Resource Commission is consulted on various projects? I mean, I see their agenda, but some projects I feel should have gone through. So on your end, what constitutes a project being reviewed by the Commission? MR. KERN: It depends on the nature of the project. You know did it go through—did it need SHPD review? Did it go through SHPD review? Do we want them to opine on it? Is it in an extra sensitive area? Are there outside information coming in that says, "Hey, we should look at this from a deeper cultural lens?" So it really depends. I don't have a one size fits all. If it feels like merits is, we can go ahead and send it through. If somebody has a request to send something through, that's fine too. MR. INABA: Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. Just had a couple quick follow-ups. To Council Member Kierkiewicz' question about the ACs and providing some support financially for action, one of the things the Hamakua CDP Action Committee discussed was the potential partnership with the nonprofits. Kind of like the arrangement of friends of the parks. So you had the County-like entity and the AC, and then you had a nonprofit that could actually be the recipient of potential funds to do action items. So that's something we kind of discussed, very early stages of that, but I think there's possibility there for community-led government supported-type activities. MR. KERN: Yeah, I'd be very interested in hearing more about that and talking with our Corp. Counsel to see how that would fuse together. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, there might be some challenges there, but I think it was an interesting option. You know, we were talking about potential partnership with Hamakua Institute and the base there. MR. KERN: Yeah. Creative ideas like that I think will really help move us in the right direction. MS. KIMBALL: I just wanted to follow up real quickly on the Complete Streets and support for that program. That was something that was adoptedright, I think one of the first things that I saw as a Council Member, and then prior to that was the Project Zero, which we haven't obviously done very well on. Any plans Page 58 FC-32 April 12,2022 going ahead to add that to—it wasn't on your list of top priorities, but how we can move forward a little bit with that. MR. KERN: I have so many top priorities. It's kind of crazy. So yes, we are working on Complete Streets. I'd say it wasn't maybe in there because it's been put together. Now it's more about implementing. So we've been meeting with the Mayor. One of our team members, Natasha Soriano, she's our infrastructure planner, she's very knowledgeable about that. So right now we're working with DPW to really integrate and try to get ahead of the game. So any street that's getting resurfaced, restriped, reconditioned, to look at it with a lens of complete streets and can we fit it. And if it doesn't necessarily meet the "A" criteria say, can we do the "B" criteria and still make it work versus just saying, "Oh no, it doesn't meet A, B, C, let's just leave it alone,"versus, "How do we make it work?" And that's the conversation. So Natasha and I met recently with the Mayor and really talked to him about this as well. He's very behind Complete Streets. Really supports Complete Streets. He's actually quite knowledgeable about the whole process. So we have pushed from our side with the Mayor in collaboration with DPW to really integrate it in moving forward. And so it is currently in motion. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you for that. I'm glad to hear that the Administration supports that. I think Council Member Lee Loy and I have had a couple of conversations about when we were looking at the Subdivision Code and we were looking at the Zoning Code, you know, how can we incorporate the Complete Streets a little bit more intentionally and also look at some of the restrictions that we have as far as dedicable streets. Maybe we can have climate change benefits by not putting in as much concrete and other things like that. So look forward to talking with DPW more about that. MR. KERN: That's just it, and that's part of what we're trying to work on through the Subdivision Code and Zoning Code updates, is do our streets work and maybe they did back in 1985, but we're no longer there and with cluster subdivisions having 10 percent of our emissions for climate change come from cement and steel. So how do we have more green infrastructure, still maintain what we want, which is, you know, livable, walkable Complete Streets, multi-modal, et cetera, but with the offset walking path instead of maybe straight. Everything: curb, gutter, sidewalks, 50-foot right-of-way, narrower right-of-way, which would bring in more affordability, smaller size lots, all of that is top of mind. MS. KIMBALL: Hear, hear. I know a lot of us feel the same way, that that is the direction we need to move. So I look forward to one of you guys writing the legislation to make that happen. I kind of ran out of capacity already. Page 59 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. KERN: We're going to be doing that with our comprehensive Zoning and Subdivision Code update. And then we'll just bring it together and work through things, and it's going to be really good. MS. KIMBALL: Fantastic. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. I was waiting to weigh in until we said Complete Streets. Everybody knows that I'm not a big proponent of Complete Streets. Great arguments to support my position the Complete Streets is too much concrete. But I think for our communities, when you talk about the cluster communities, et cetera. So I agree with that. I'm not abject to Complete Streets, it's just that I don't think we need to have completely Complete Streets. I think that we can temper it with the communities and be mindful of that. Listening through all this, Zendo, and I appreciate you guys being here talking story about this, and I know we have kicked this around quite a bit, but I want to be sure that we have enough resources, which means enough funding. And are we good with this? I mean, you know, you're very frugal when it comes to some of this stuff, but I'm always asking about the supplemental. So I would like to know about that. MR. KERN: Yeah, I'd say sometimes I'm probably a little overly fiscally conservative. Maybe that happens when you grow up real poor. But in this case, I think, yeah, I think we're probably a little short on Code. So we'll be bringing in a supplemental for the Code update, 23 and 25. Again, I think we're good on General Plan, but we're going to need to up the Code amount. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so talking on that, we have $4.7 million right now, roughly speaking. MR. KERN: Total. MR. RICHARDS: Total. And we are looking at$100,000, $200,000? MR. KERN: For Code, we'll probably be at the $400,000. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. KERN: Which is my goal, to complete it with the funds that we've previously gotten, some of our savings we've put towards that as well, and then this will be kind of the final—hope the final cap from the County perspective for the Code. Then I have the hazard mitigation funding portion of it, but that really has to be tied to the hazard mitigation components of it. So I don't need to use Page 60 FC-32 April 12,2022 our funds to deal with that. I can separate it, but I don't have as much latitude with those funds as we would like to have. MR. RICHARDS: Well, I would echo the support from other Council members, but if we're starting to see a finish line at the end, I don't want to fall short on that. So again, we have to be mindful that there's only so many dollars that we have too. MR. KERN: Correct. MR. RICHARDS: But us knowing what you're looking at to really make it make difference is important for us. So thanks, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Ms. Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. I just had one follow-up. Is this going to be a complete repeal/replace with 25 and 23? Will it be a blended kind of subdivision/zoning code? I mean, what's ? MR. KERN: Yeah, we've been having a lot of discussion around this. Also met with Kauai Planning Director and some of his team to talk about what they did. Because they brought in form-based, some form-based code, et cetera. So the conclusion from that is we're going to go through Chapter 23 and 25 as they currently sit, and really that's going to be our base code. We're familiar with it, we're going to go through and change what we need to change. We're not going to be creating new zoning districts et cetera right now. I really feel like we need to get the base code solid. From there phase two will be let's look at form-based code. Let's look at some of these other areas. Getting their feedback on form-based code. There's a lot of positive to it, but it really takes a lot of time, effort, and resources to really focus and drive to those areas. It's also not something that just translates across the different areas. It was very specific per area. So my first grandiose idea was put it all. Right? We're taking it all on. But as we had these conversations with team, with them, and others, we realized that it would be much more tactful and strategic to hit our base and then move on from there, and kind of close these loops as we go. What I don't want to do is say, "We need to have a Subdivision and Zoning Code update that we've been doing for the last seven years." Not here. I will get it done within the next two years. MS. LEE LOY: And I think with the base code and then the form code, you could actually take into community kind of patina, and look, and feel, and so I'm pretty excited. MR. KERN: That's right. Page 61 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Okay, I don't see any lights on. Thank you, Gentlemen, for the presentation so far. A lot of my questions you've already answered. I like that you stepped down your overtime, that you're budgeting less at least, you know, from your actual 2021 to estimating a little more than half of what you had last. It's good. It's a good step. And then you discussed the fringes. That was a big step up in your budget. And the CZM. I do have a question regarding our CIP though. It is my understanding, and I had my discussion with Deanna last year about this. It kind of went head-to-head a little bit. But Planning Director is really, you're the guiding force for CIP list, correct? MR. KERN: That's right. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I do have some concerns. I looked over this list. There are a lot of good projects on here. But my concerns are Districts 4 and 5, Puna, has just grown exponentially. We have about eight projects. We don't consider the all district, you know, all-encompassing fixes, like holding cell improvements, Mass Transit Agency bus stops, that kind of stuff. But I look at actual improvements or infrastructure or new buildings, we have about eight projects on there for Puna of about 90 that are on this list. So my concern is,just looking at the way that population density has grown in Puna, and seeing that there's a real small amount of projects on this current list for the area, I'm just wondering how you're taking into account growth and how it's projected into this list in front of us. MR. KERN: So the CIP Budget process is unique. We had a good start to the conversation last budget cycle. Historically, at least in the last decade or two, the CIP process has been a little bit more passive. We tried to take a little more of an assertive approach to it. That being said though, the departments are really the ones that drive their projects. What I do and my team does is we question and work on them prioritizing and sequencing the projects and the capacity side of it. So this year we looked at it much less of, "I'm going to go tell you what projects you need to do,"but more of, "Thanks for your list of projects, let's go through them. Why is this a priority? Let's move it around. Do you have the resources? Do you have the funds? Is it shovel ready? If not, let's move things along." Because the goal was to say how do we come up with say $50 or $60 million bond float with a list of projects that make the most sense? So I believe at the next submittal, we'll be submitting a proposed list of projects that then meet that. Again, it's just a proposal. So each one of the projects that you see in the list from a department standpoint has gone through our process of prioritizing. Looking at it, larger of us dictating Page 62 FC-32 April 12,2022 all of that, the goal is to link up a lot of that with the General Plan where we can and say these are key priorities. Also that's one of the challenges working with the departments in a positive way, where it's like I'm not going to go tell necessarily how to do the road, but we question it, is that the right place to do the road, you know, so try to work that out through discussions and collaborations with the department. And that's the list that we've come up with. Always open to hearing other ideas. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I just, I watched this list with great interest, and it's always interesting to see what projects actually get done. That's a whole different deal. MR. KERN: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: It's been called a wish list in the past. Fair enough. But the more I've thought about that CIP list, the more I see it as it has to be in alignment with where we see growth and with what needs to be done, so it has a real high impact on our community. MR. KERN: I agree with you. One of the challenges that we're dealing with is the deferred maintenance side of it and the catch-up. So a lot of the money, or the priorities are going into existing facilities, existing structures, existing infrastructure, when we have firefighters that have to put up pop-up tents, you know, in their facility. So that's obviously a very high priority. We have a wastewater treatment plant that's a very high priority. So the goal would be eventually to really take care of all of the housekeeping measures, get current on maintenance, have that as its own funding, and then really focus the CIP on these growth areas to get the capital improvements that are needed to maintain that. Just trying to get caught up on that right now. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so more deferred maintenance- oriented, versus MR. KERN: That's what we're seeing a lot of. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Growth, General Plan, I mean I know they go hand-in-hand, and I know it's hard to find a clear route for it, is what I've seen in the CIP list. MR. KERN: It is, so hopefully, one of the goals that we're looking at through this unique federal grant opportunity, is we can get caught up in some ways, in some of these areas. We've been working really hard as an Administration to take advantage of as many of these programs as possible. So one of the things that you'll see coming forth with our proposed list, is a certain amount for A&E, Architecture and Engineering, to get projects shovel ready and allocate a portion to our first responders. First responders: Police, Fire, Civil Defense. There's Page 63 FC-32 April 12,2022 always a need for those folks. Then a larger list of more road and wastewater, bridge-type projects. So what I've seen through this process is there's always a need for A&E so you have the shovel-ready side of it moving forward, right. It's all about sequencing. Then our first responders always need a place in there, because there's such a need for that, for them to be able to get some of that. And we have, at one of our police stations, we have an air conditioner that's just right on the brink of going down. If that goes down, I mean that's a horrible working environment. Again, firefighters doing pop-up tents, unacceptable, right? So it's been a lot of things slept into the closet. The closet's opened up. The door cannot be shut, and we've got to go through and fix them and get caught up. And then we can have a bit more progressive CIP conversation. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So at the next hearing, you're going to be putting forward a list— MR. istMR. KERN: We'll be putting forward our list of what we recommend as priorities. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Different from the list that we have now? MR. KERN: That list will stay there. That is the CIP list, right? So you're going to go through and it's going to equate to $280-something million or whatever it is, right. In each one of those departments those are their priorities. Then we dissect it from down there what would make sense for A&E, what makes sense for our first responders and what they need, and what makes sense for the Mayor's top priorities. In this case it's a lot of bridge and wastewater. And then what capacity do the departments have to cover that. So it's really an algebra equation. For example, Police and Fire, their needs, a lot of their projects are administered by DPW. DPW has a certain amount of capacity for their own projects as well as there, so if we put, "Let's do all of this," and there's not the capacity to do it, then we're not really making a sound investment. So it's like how do we make sure we have capacity, the right investment, and getting the best bang for the buck. That's getting the highest need taken care of. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Well I look forward to that list, and just from my end, I just watched growth. And I'm watching the growth and I'm thinking about the General Plan and putting that CIP list and trying to incorporate it all together. So they all touch each other, and that makes sense to me. And it's what you're saying too. I want to see that kind of directed thinking, you know, future oriented. This is what we see coming, versus the more reactive style which is traditionally a government approach. React. MR. KERN: Correct. Page 64 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I look forward to that list. I've been looking forward to it for a long time. Okay, budget-wise, most of my questions were answered. I did have one question about the short-term vacation rental fund, and you may have answered this already. I was thinking and making notes at the same time. The fines and forfeitures, it was $2,300 in 2021, $92,000 budgeted for 2021-22. I don't know if we have an actual for that yet, because we're still here. But then looking forward to 2022-2023, we're looking at$10,000. I'm just trying to get a feel for your revenues on that end and if that's kind of in alignment. MR. KERN: The first one low. The other projection was just way too high. The last projection is probably going to be low, it just depends. Again, we have things that are pending. They're appealed. That's what we're seeing a lot of. A lot of the STVR NOVs that we send out, they appeal. Then we go through that process. So it's really one of those things that's hard to quantify right down to the dollar amount. I'm also in the mindset of I want to enforce where we need to enforce and collect as necessary. But also I don't like the idea of chasing a target number to get. That's not my style of government personally. I want to act appropriately for when folks come in there. So most likely, with some of the trends that we're seeing, it might come up a bit. And with getting kind of the guardrails around the law, it might a little bit. But again, I hesitate to project that high. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, I like that, because you're projecting high revenues, but you don't hit your mark and it throws off your budget. So I think that's smart. And License and Permits, you're looking to you're expecting a pretty substantial amount versus what you expected 2021. MR. KERN: Yeah, so the interesting thing is that projection is really the number it takes to fund that program. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, that's what these two do, yeah, they work together. MR. KERN: Yeah, and it isn't working. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I remember you saying that so I wanted to touch a little bit on this fund. MR. KERN: Just for example to date, fiscal year to date, we've had 132 new STVR registrations. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's this year? MR. KERN: Yeah, it's current from Page 65 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: 2021-22? MR. KERN: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How many? MR. KERN: One hundred and thirty-two. So previously we were tracking at that higher number of the mid-fives, and as I suspected that would taper off and it has. So whatever this number is going to factor out to at the end of fiscal, you know, maybe it's in the low 200's. And then we're constantly processing,just not at that volume, maybe not the same number of properties. Even though it kind of feels like there's movement in there, what we see is a lot of turnover. Change of owner information, them transacting and selling, but not the number. So those numbers are not going to met for this year. Who knows what happens next year. But I just don't see it keeping on track like that. That's not a sustainable track at 570 annually. It's probably closer to the 120 mark. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Then you have reimbursements and transfers. So fund balance projected at$95,000. I'm just tying in the revenue sources and then I want to go back to what you just said. MR. KERN: I'll let the guy who's smarter than me answer that question. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: He probably knows more than me too. Oh sorry. A little bit of latitude, Chair. MR. NAGATA: So that$95,000, the transfer, that should balance the budget and to cover the shortfall that we're expecting. MR. KERN: So we have a fund balance, and then we budget each year. To budget each year, we have to hit those projections. So out of the balance if we're coming in short, he moved that over in there to cover that. And that would be kind of the consistent theme as we move forward as it currently stands. But there are some ideas to look at that as well. I'll leave it at that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. It was always expected that you had a big hit of fees coming in when you first opened the program and then it would taper off. But if you're not seeing replacement for your revenues, how do you continue to fund? MR. KERN: I don't honestly know if the math ever worked. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. It was new. Anything new, there's expected to be some hiccups there. Page 66 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. KERN: Exactly, and you see revenue as your reoccurring revenue. Right, so NUCs (Non-Conforming Use), annual renewal, and those are tapering off as well. Right? They're not going to taper all the way off, but there's an attrition that's definitely come down. Numbers have been reduced. So we're losing there, and we're losing registration fees. So the math just doesn't work very well. But the interesting thing is now we're in a different realm because we're doing our own TAT (Transient Accommodation Tax). There's a lot of movement. So we actually need to be looking at these in more detail. So we have—we have some structural changes that we're looking at with our Code amendment. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And the last one, vacation rental software, which is like a that's a huge step up. I don't know, you budgeted $115,000 from 2021-22, but zero before that. But$60,000 this year. Is this the same software? MR. KERN: This is the same software, and we actually negotiated down. What did we get it down to? MR. NAGATA: I believe it was about$40,000. So they negotiated down so that we have received a little bit by doing that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Good job. So that would reflect in your estimate for next year, or—because you have it at$60,000 right now. MR. NAGATA: We did the negotiation, I think it ended around December- January. So we're going through the contracting process now. Finalizing that. But it came out at about$40,000. Like Zendo said, we had $60,000 in there. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: But more like $40,000. MR. NAGATA: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Well thank you. Appreciate the discussion. I don't see any more lights, and it's time for lunch. Appreciate it. Thank you. Very good explanations from both of you. And good questions from the Council. MR. KERN: We appreciate the opportunity to present. We appreciate the great questions, and we also very much appreciate your all's support and understanding. Thank you so much. MR. NAGATA: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, with that you guys, we are in recess for lunch. We'll be back at 1:30. Thank you. Page 67 FC-32 April 12,2022 Recess: At 12:26 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 1:30 p.m. (4) Hawaii Fire Department: CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Aloha. Welcome back from recess. It is 1:30 and we are back in session for our Special Committee on Finance for our budget hearings. Joining us we have the Fire Department as our next department up, and Chief Kazuo Todd is here today to give us an overview of the Fire Department. And Chief, I'm going to let you go ahead and take it away when you're ready. (Note: At this time Fire Chief Kazuo Todd came forward to address the members of the Committee.) CHIEF TODD: Okay, so I have a presentation that kind of goes over every subject, but feel free to interrupt at any point and ask any questions about anything that might be pertinent to your interests. Basically, this presentation is intended to cover the budget cycle and the Mayor's budget as submitted and doesn't cover the audit so much. So there also is an existing audit. Next week we'll be meeting to discuss the audit of the Fire Department by the County Auditor. So while this has some vague touches on it, it doesn't really go over the recommendations or anything else that's coming out of the Fire Department's audit. So just an FYI. If you do have questions about the audit, I can answer here, but it might be repetitive next week in other words. There are some implications on the audit as far as fiscalI guess the best way to put it is the things in the audit all recommend that we do things to solve certain issues. And all of those solutions probably cost money, which would need to be budgeted for. So while they're not directly discussed today, there are things to consider if we're going to do any editing towards the Mayor's budget. (Note: At this time, Chief Todd provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the presentation, request a DVD copy of the meeting proceedings from the Office of the Clerk, or navigate to the Council's meeting video meeting archives from the County's homepage at www.hawaiicounty.gov. A copy of the PowerPoint is made a part of the record. See Comm. 645.2.) CHIEF TODD: So the rest breaks out each particular section (from Slide 28) in terms of our Fire Prevention Branch, in terms of what our breakdowns are in terms of OCE, our Auxiliary Services Bureau and the breakdowns inside there. I won't kill you guys with figure, figure/number, number, and detail, but if any questions exist about any of the service that we're providing and where our Page 68 FC-32 April 12,2022 funding is going or how it's broken down between our salaries and wages and our OCE, I can get into further detail. But at this point, I think I'd just turn it over to you guys and any questions that you might have at this point on any of sections or any of the expenditures within the Fire Department. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Chief. Good PowerPoint. Council Members? Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Chief, thanks for being here. I actually wanted to walk back to Page 43 (Slide 27). And I'm trying to understand why you placed it into your PowerPoint, because earlier you mentioned you wanted to kind of compare apples with apples. I'm guessing this one got in because of similar population, but the land area or service area is really a wide range. If we're going to dive real deep into the audit at a later date, I just want to understand context. Because I thought everything else was spot on about our budget. CHIEF TODD: So my goal has been within the Fire Department as a new Chief to focus on the first year is analyzing. And the second year, honestly, in Planning. So trying to figure out where we want to go and what we want to do. So I spend a lot of time looking at different departments. The Auditor came and introduced himself and said, "Hey, I'm the new Auditor." And I said, "Hey, you know who needs an audit. This guy right here." Because everyone loves an audit, right? Maybe not. I wanted a third-parry objective look into our department from someone outside. And many of the things they brought up were not things I really thought were things I wanted to address at the moment or bring forward, but he brought really interesting light. He's from the mainland, Tyler, and very knowledgeable about the departments that he'd been involved in prior to in terms of auditing and whatnot. So had some interesting perspectives to bring. These departments that he highlighted under page 43 are based on the concept of the population served, so they all run equivalent within I think he said a 20 percent deviance of our level. None of them come close to our square footage. Yeah, the main thing is just generally with a similar population, they're looking at a similar tax basis; and with a similar tax basis, they're often building a department based on call volume. Because call volume is often tied into population numbers. So they'll run similar sized departments in theory. It's really, really hard to get a full apple to apple comparison because every department does things just a little bit differently. And one of the things, you know, when he first sent this over to me was I said, "Hey, I'd like you to break my budget apart because I'm three departments, and most of these departments are just Fire." Page 69 FC-32 April 12,2022 The only one that isn't just Fire is Tacoma, and they are a Fire/EMS (Emergency Management Services) budget. It's kind of interesting because they run similar numbers of firefighters and they run similar numbers of EMS personnel. Just kind of looking at the overall comparisons, I would argue we are the lowest funded of all of them in any capacity that you want to look at. It didn't matter if it was us or Maui, Kauai, and Oahu or any of the departments on the mainland, we run a very, very lean ship. The reason that I wanted to bring it up is because it's running into problems at the moment in terms of the fact that like right now my warehouse has no foam to go and fight fires with because of issues in OCE (Other Current Expenses) side of the budget. We have a$900,000 hole from the bulldozers on Mana Road that has kind frozen our ability to go out and buy protective equipment or supplies at the moment. So definitely there are issues in the Fire Department in terms of our funding and our ability to go and fulfill our purpose. I didn't choose these particular departments. The Auditor had basically done a survey of similar-sized departments with similar sized populations. So they're very interesting, but if had been me it probably would have been Maui, Kauai and Oahu. MS. LEE LOY: And I think—and like I said, I don't want to get too far into the audit, I was just trying to understand the context of this slide in the entire slide presentation. So thank you for that. I'll yield, Chair. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Mahalo, Chief Todd, for very thorough presentation. I really appreciate all the data. Strategic plan, number one goal in your list here. Is that something that you folks are going to be handling in-house, or is there money in the budget to engage a consultant to help lead you through that process? What are you envisioning? CHIEF TODD: So that's one of the primary recommendations coming out the audit, is that the Fire Department itself should be going forth with a strategic plan. The Hawaii Fire Department had one from 2015 to 2020, and one of the things the audit kind of talks about is, you know, you guys have this great plan, what happened? And you know, my predecessor did an amazing job with the, I guess, tools given to him. You know, there's a limit to what you can do when you get told to go race in NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) and here's a Camry. So there are limitations. Right now, one of the better departments out there is the Honolulu Department. Granted, they get $141 million to go and do their stuff, but they're the only department in the State of Hawaii that's accredited and actually has a Standards of Cover. So one of the things that's coming out of the audit is a recommendation that we work on planning. I don't think that magically solves anything. You know, a Page 70 FC-32 April 12,2022 plan without the resources to accomplish the plan isn't going to go very far, but one of the things I kind of wanted to focus on this coming fiscal year was, you know, where do we take the department? What kind of department do we in Hawaii County want? And then how are we going to fund it and provide for it. I think it's important, one of the things the Auditor recommended was not to do it in-house, because there's better people that you will probably spend less money on in the overall process that had expertise and can come in and do a lot of that work for you. So he'd mentioned some companies out there that, around $140,000 mark, would come in and do a master plan and help us put together a Standards of Cover document as well as a strategic plan to go forward with. That honestly would probably be my goal. It does require that we probably have one position in house at minimum. Someone that would be shepherding the process from our side. As I mentioned before, my Administrative staff is oftentimes half of what other departments of equivalent size are running. I don't have the capacity to really assign anyone in my office to focus in on it without starting to dip into a lot of overtime. So definitely maybe the creation of one position that would be a data analyst/accreditation manager would be at minimum what—I'd say ideally maybe even two positions and the funding to initially get that planning going. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, does the current budget that we're reviewing reflect funding for a strategic plan? CHIEF TODD: No. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. So possible supplemental? CHIEF TODD: Possible. Well, currently it's not one of my supplementals in there that had been submitted back earlier last year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: The audit has since come out? CHIEF TODD: The audit has since come out and that was one of the topics to discuss next week, was basically if we would like to fulfill that section of the recommendations, we'd probably need to put in a supplemental and get that approved. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah, I'm all for setting the vision and really understanding what is it going to take to get there. So would be supportive of a strategic plan. Can we talk a little bit about what it looks like within dispatch? You know, had the opportunity when you were BC (Battalion Chief) to go and meet some of those ladies. They do a phenomenal job. Noticed there were some vacancies. Page 71 FC-32 April 12,2022 Earlier today we heard of recruit incentive programs that are being piloted. Wondering if you're taking a look at that as well, but also looking at incentives to sort of retain folks. Because it is a very grueling job. CHIEF TODD: It is a very, very, very; very grueling job. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And I know Leanne, your Leanne (Kupahu) continues to kokua there as well. CHIEF TODD: It has been a journey. Already we've seen some pretty massive movement over the last year. It's been one of my big issues that I've wanted to push. So with the help of Finance, the Mayor's Office and DHR (Department of Human Resources), we've actually reclassified all of our dispatchers on this island. They are no longer Fire Radio Dispatchers or Police Radio Dispatchers; they are now called Fire Communication Officers or Police Communication Officers. In line with that, they all got a two to three SR (Salary Rate) bump in pay. The intent behind that was primarily on my side for recruitment, because we were initially, back when I was the BC (Battalion Chief) inside that area, we were paying $17 an hour to come in and basically work un-Godly numbers of hours in the middle of the night, and listen to people having a really bad day, and Target paid like $15 an hour to come work in the daytime. So it was, you know, kind of difficult to one, recruit; and also retain. Right? They come in, they listen to the first person screaming on the phone at 911, and go, "Uhh, not enough money for me to stick around for this." We have amazing, amazing people in dispatch. Some of the most talented, amazing people in my department sit in there day after day answering the phone and making a difference in the people's lives on this island. We're hopeful that some of these changes that they're going through—we're looking at a reorg and a couple of other things, I actually shifted positions around. And one of the positions the Mayor did approve is a permanent trainer position. So we're hoping those changes will allow us to do some long-term improvements. We have a new dispatch center coming up, and I'm hoping with better staffing we can look at maybe some alternative shift-work that would make our personnel a little bit happier. So we're still working on it. I don't know that there's anything immediately right here and right now within this budget that we can do that's going to magically fix any of the problems inside there. I'm hopeful that over the next couple of years as I slowly work through things, that we'll get things going. We have made huge strides in that section this year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah, you have. It's great to know that they've got a bump in pay. And also just kind of looking through some of the stats, 70 percent retention rate is what you noted. Is that industry standard? Page 72 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHIEF TODD: No that was the goal. We have a 19 percent retention ratio. The current FASO (Fire Auxiliary Support Officer), his goal was 70 percent retention ration. I think he's at 80 percent in the most recent class, and if the four people remaining continue through, he will make that goal. I wish him the best of luck. It is a highly stressful job. And while I have amazing people, there's only so much you can do. So I'm hopeful, and I don't have anything particular for this budget to really change in that area. But in the moment, if I can think of something that would improve or change or make a difference in that section, I will come to visit you guys, I assure you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, thank you. Also looking at some of the vacancies for aeromedical pilot. Can you kind of talk about that? CHIEF TODD: So those are actually not vacant. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, sorry. Expected start date, I saw somewhere. CHIEF TODD: So we currently run our aeromedical and our regular pilots through contract. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. CHIEF TODD: So we're fully employed and everything else. And they're through a contract. What we're looking do to is potentially swap those over to just employees of the County as opposed to running through a contract and an intermediate company. Part of that is just dealing with MS. KIERKIEWICZ: What would the benefits be for that? CHIEF TODD: This is sort of brought about by the person who's currently running our contract, in that he's having issues retaining because guys are not— they otthey can go off and make more money elsewhere sometimes, and they're not looking to, you know, set up roots necessarily. One of the benefits that being a County employee would be, that retirement, you know, after 25 years and hopefully help in terms of retention of employees. So he's been talking with us about switching employees under. So it wouldn't be a cost change. We already are basically paying everything through that contract, it would just be moving them into the County's system and then shifting that money around a little bit. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, thank you. Can you talk a little about some of the funds for vehicle repair? Because you did a whole reorganization of accounts, it was hard to track what was being spent in the past and what's being allocated this year. I tried to run the numbers looking at Vehicle Maintenance, OCE 6223.22, and thought does that compare with 5225.02. Page 73 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHIEF TODD: Yeah, so we did consolidate it a little bit over a previous year and this year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: If you could just let me know if there is any cost difference. I just want to make sure that enough funding is being provided so that all of your apparatus are properly maintained. CHIEF TODD: So basically everything we had before has just been dumped into kind of that area now. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: So no increase? CHIEF TODD: No, but we need more money. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Nicole—we actually have already thought this over this year, because we've run out of money this year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And that's what I'm concerned about. It's April, you still have two more months. You're buying parts. You're not paying vendors at the start of the fiscal year. You're already eating so much of that budget. So we really need to know how much is needed to get you guys fully stocked so you can pay your bills on time. CHIEF TODD: Understood. Nicole? So this—my understanding is Nicole has already submitted over to Finance about where we're short and what we're looking to increase. Is that correct? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Nicole, if you could just full name, title, for the record, that would be great. Thank you. (Note: At this time, Accountant IV Nikol Lonokapu came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. LONOKAPU: So last week, we did submit a budget amendment request to Ted for increases in fuel, the 20 percent electric and whatnot. So some of that is going into vehicle maintenance. There was additional money for repairs and maintenance, oil, fuel, and vehicle repairs. Parts and supplies and such, because t those costs are going to go up to, it looks like about$40,000. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Forty thousand is what you need to finish out this fiscal year? MS. LONOKAPU: Oh no, no. Sorry, this is for next year. This year, we probably could use another $50-ish. Because we are running out of money this month. We're still paying bills, everything's caught up. Nothing is behind, but Page 74 FC-32 April 12,2022 we're probably going to move money around to try to make the year. Because we don't want to carry any funds into next year, any debt into next year. CHIEF TODD: Definitely appreciate the other year where you guys did give me an additional $50,000 in this area. As FASO when I've been in charge of the mechanics area, we'd always been, basically around this time of the year starting to spend our money in credit at O'Reilly's and Auto Parts Hawaii and Napa, and so on. Then at the beginning of the fiscal year we'd start paying back our bills once they'd cut us off. So definitely having enough money is key. One of the issues we have run into this year is just kind of cost increases. It's not like we're doing more repair work or anything else, it's different. But we've seen just kind of inflation kind of kicking in and raising the cost and shipping delays or other issues have caused it so that we've burned through a little bit faster than normal. I'm not 100 percent sure onI think we're right now allocated for about$242,000 in this section for parts to repair our vehicles, but I think our needed amount is probably closer to $290,000. MS. LONOKAPU: Correct. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. That's what I was looking for. Thank you. Prior Fire Chiefs when they came to us with a budget, there was a section about apparatus replacement. Where is that reflected here under new accounts and are you continuing that program? CHIEF TODD: Well, that's still following under 6221, and that is going to be under 6221 under the leases, which is 6221.02.111. So you'll see that as $965,483. Note this is one of those areas I'm looking to get better analysis on, and I'm hoping for that strategic plan and other things like that to really help work us where we need to be. Note Kauai, who runs 14 stations, and each station has a set number of apparatus versus our 38, has a budget of about$2.5 million to replace their apparatus. And they're only running apparatus for 14 stations versus us. If we're looking to actually properly equip 38 stations worth of vehicles and equipment, $1 million is probably vastly short. The problem I have right now is knowing exactly where we should be, or what we can accommodate funding-wise is not something I have at this time, and it's something that we need to do a really deep analysis in terms of every vehicle, where we stand, what should we be replacing, what should be the goal. Generally, NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) is recommending a 15-year replacement. But on the County side, you know, what I would like to be able to bring to you guys is a breakdown if we replaced at 12 years, 15 years, 18 years, 20 years,what is our cost, and then how does that break down year by year. Page 75 FC-32 April 12,2022 I don't have a lot of capacity in my Administration I might have mentioned, so their ability to start really diving into data is limited. One of the biggest issues and one of the things we've been focusing on is overtime. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Capacity or bandwidth? CHIEF TODD: I would say either. I need more people is basically the long and short of it. I already have our staff in Admin coming in oftentimes on the weekend to make sure our payroll is taken care of. I just need more people is really what it comes down to. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, final question. And it was in this budget overview here. Page 108 about EMS Response Section. I was just curious about some of the ideas you're pursuing related to paramedics and selective hiring. Could you expand upon that? CHIEF TODD: Okay, so interestingly enough one of our issues right now is the shortage of paramedics. In conversations with my EMS Chief Chris Honda, we've been looking at possible ways of bringing in paramedics into our department. So currently to get into the Hawaii Fire Department, you have to come in as a firefighter recruit and basically you have to have your Health 125 and English 100 prerequisites. And we don't really have any method of getting into the department other than as a recruit. We don't hire into any other position. One of the things we've been looking at is how can we—you know, how do we get more in, how do we retain when they're there, and how do we keep them going longer. So there are different aspects that we want to tackle, and different areas that we can address. So one of the thought processes is, you know, bringing more in. So we're actually working with Department of Human Resources right now on the possibility of creating new classes of positions where we would hire direct, for either people that have their EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) license, and then potentially they go through like a paramedic program. And after which they automatically have to work for us for a number of years, or they've got to pay back the cost of the schooling. The other option was maybe people that have their paramedic, being able to directly hire them. So one of the issues right now is within the way our job descriptions are written under firefighter recruit, the option for like selective hiring, like, "Hey, you're a paramedic we want you," doesn't exist because the recruit doesn't require the job of a paramedic inside of it. It doesn't require you to be an EMT. It only requires Health 125 and English 100. So I can't like prioritize someone who's got a paramedic degree over someone else. It's the way the federal laws work and everything else. I have to have a job that says we're hiring a paramedic if I want to prioritize a paramedic. So if they had a lower score on the written test or something like that, they may never event make it to the physical agility, and they might not be hired. Page 76 FC-32 April 12,2022 So we're looking at different ways of going about it, and the concept is that's one of our bigger issues right now. I said I had like 39 vacancies in the field, 30 of which are recruits. But I have 12 of those vacancies are paramedics. So by the time those 30 recruits graduate, I'll be able to fill up all the firefighter spots, but I still won't have necessarily more paramedics. We run those classes separately. So we're looking at different ways to change the bandwidth in terms of how we bring in more and more personnel to address the needs of the department and the community. So one of those is by creating new positions at the bottom level to bring paramedics directly. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Whether they're an EMT or a paramedic they would automatically be entered into the firefighter recruit class? CHIEF TODD: No, it would be in a totally—so I have a whole flowchart upstairs if you're interested. If we could probably meeting, and I'll show it to you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah, I'm interested. Okay. CHIEF TODD: Basically the concept— MS. onceptMS. KIERKIEWICZ: Because right now folks where multiple hats. They're firefighters and EMTs, they're paramedics. And what I'm hearing is something completely different. That they would just run as an EMT or a paramedic. CHIEF TODD: Not exactly. They'd still be paramedic firefighters. It's complicated. Probably best at a later date, we'll sit down, and I'll show you our amazing plans and whether you think they're good or not, we can talk some more. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Right on. Thanks, Chief. Mahalo, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. Thanks, Chief. A lot of talk story. Appreciate the time we spent together. I wanted to go back and touch on the volunteers. I know you said you have 20 employed firefighters. Twenty stations and 18 volunteering. In my district, volunteers are kind of a big deal because we seemed to have set the world on fire there fairly often. Looking through the funding, and you and I talked about that, to be safe for our volunteers we have to outfit them like everybody and that's quite pricey. Looking at the budget, and I appreciate the fact that you're reorganizing, but there seems to be a couple of hundred thousand dollars difference there. In the presentation you touched on the volunteers, but you didn't really highlight that. You and I talked about the whole Page 77 FC-32 April 12,2022 volunteer program. Can you come back, revisit that a little bit more? Tell us your thoughts and then also your price tag? CHIEF TODD: Part of it comes back to the bandwidth and capacity in terms of what do we actually need. I have 18 fire stations. If you guys look at the audit, there's pictures of all of them. Some of them are very nice, and some of them are tents, while there's a truck parked underneath them. They also have needs in terms of our lease costs. I think earlier today, Matt, you were talking about the road fees that we're paying and what's up with that. That's probably my fire station that we have to you know, because we have a lot. We have to pay a fee into the community association for the road maintenance. Almost guaranteed. So there are costs that come along with that. Some of that isn't borne out inside the Fire Department's budget so much as it's borne under Finance's budget or other things like that in terms of Property Management. But there are costs, like the electricity and other things that come under the Fire Department's budget. Currently, the reality of it is, is we talk about our ratios in terms of where we stand, and you know, an ideal department's running somewhere between 20 and 30 percent on the OCE side and about 70 to 80 percent on the salaries and wages. As a department that runs volunteers with 150 volunteers and 18 volunteer fire stations, ideally our OCE would be a lot more substantial comparatively to other departments, because we aren't paying salaries and wages for those personnel. So we're really just kind of incurring costs on the OCE side. The Hawaii Fire Department sits at approximately 10 to 90 (percent) in terms of our OCE to our salaries and wages. We are very, very heavy on the salaries and wages side and very, very light on our supplies to basically go and pay for all the equipment and supplies needed to go out and do work. Each year, towards the end of the year, we start running into fiscal issues where we start sending out memos to everyone to stop spending money. So one of the things is, you know, we do need to do a better job. In our supplementals, one of the things I'd ask for was some additions to the volunteer side, and those mostly fall under supplemental nine. It's hard to give like an exact number. I know that we probably need several million dollars on the volunteer side alone to deal with vehicle replacement and to by PPE(Personal Protection Equipment) and things like that. Supplemental number two, which is covering just PPE for the Fire Department, covers the volunteers and at very bare minimum, there's about$200,000 we're looking to add into one of our line items just to cover personal protective equipment. My personal opinion on this is, you know, we send our volunteers and we send our firefighters out into some pretty dangerous situations. We had one of our firefighters who fell in an ash pit, also an imu, and the County is going to spend a lot of money on the medical and the rehab and the surgeries and things like that Page 78 FC-32 April 12,2022 for one injury. And our PPE is the critical link between how much that's going to cost in the long run, really, when we start looking at injuries in terms of dollars. It is critical that we provide that kind of safety gear that our personnel needs so that when they respond and do the job, they are in the equipment that they need to be in to keep them as safe as we can possibly do. There's always going to injuries, there's always going to be problems, because inherently we're doing a job that puts us in that line. But I want to make sure that our personnel at least have the bare minimum of safety gear so that when they respond they're in something that is appropriate and NFPA certified. I wish I could give you like a specific; I need $1,711,022 for this section. It's a little bit hard. I'm hoping that—you know, my goal this year was to analyze where we stand, to come up with a plan, and so the money for that strategic plan, and maybe hiring that consult to come in, and help us build. Like, what does it take to actually fund? And where do want to go with the volunteers? One of the biggest issues of the volunteers is we've lost them. I was talking with Union President from HFFA (Hawai`i Fire Fighters Association) the other day, and he is not a proponent of volunteers by any means, because if we don't pay them, he's like, "Hey, you should just be paying firefighters. But he says he understood the need on the Big Island. We just have too much land and we're just never going to have the tax basis in the next couple of decades while he's in his position and I'm in my position to be able to fund to pay Fire Stations pay firefighters. It's not going to happen. Let's be honest. So the volunteers aren't only necessary, they're critical. When we respond to Mana Road, I don't have enough firefighters that I can leave because the majority of my guys need to stay near their district in case something goes on in that district. While we were fighting the Mana Road brushfire, I still had brushfires elsewhere, down in Kailua and other locations. And so one of the key responders in this situation is the volunteers, their ability to respond island-wide. I had guys coming down from Ocean View, Pahala, and Na`alehu, and responding up into the Waikoloa region to help us fight that fire. So they are so, so critical. I do need more money, but I think one of the biggest things is to really plan out, where we want to go. Over the last decade or so, shut down three or four volunteer fire stations, and went from over 300 volunteers down to about 120 a year ago. We're up right now, about 30 additional positions, but right now I'm running into issues with issuing the PP (Personal Protective equipment) and other things. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So this brings up the point, we need the volunteers, and geographically we're huge and that's part of our problem. But I completely agree with you as far as the safety side. So if you're going to put them in the field, you better put them in with something. It's very nice,you know, the Sayres' have been very Page 79 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHIEF TODD: Very generous. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, very generous as far as supplying some really good equipment or some of the those but it still comes back to a number, and how are we doing that? You know, we haveI'm sure we have more volunteers, we get more fire, and so then it attracts the attention of that. We also have to pay attention to the volunteers. We can't just not include them if we're going to expect them to be there. So then it comes back to how do we fund that going forward and what kind of fund are we looking for, and what kind of program we're going to do. And I think you and I talked about this, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think to adequately equip a firefighter, we're looking at somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000 if we're going to put the appropriate equipment and depending what level we're doing it on. So for us, we need to know what kind of scale of numbers we're looking for. And that's why I was listening carefully and kind of jumped over that. But we're going to need that number, because I don't know how to advocate it if we're not getting that number. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. You know, one of the problems is getting an exact number. It's a little difficult. MR. RICHARDS: I'm not looking for an exact. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. MR. RICHARDS: We're looking for a ballpark. CHIEF TODD: So right off the bat, I was hoping to—one of the things, under Supplemental 9, it was about$1.2 million advocating towards that section, and one of the other things under Supplemental 9 was positions for training. One of the biggest issues that we've had on our volunteer side has been that as time has gone by, you know, we've lost volunteers because we just don't do much for them. We have two guys that helped them out in training—and they're able to bring their vehicles in for repairs, but we've replaced very few of those vehicles. So I have vehicles that were built in the 70s, that are still being used as primary response apparatuses by the volunteers. In recent years, we've had some really amazing donations from the Sayre Foundation, and once we've kind of filled our paid stations, some of those donations ended up going to our volunteers. And it's amazing what a new vehicle will do with a volunteer station. All of a sudden, the community is like, "Wow, look at that new truck. You know, back in the day I tried to volunteer, and I showed up. The truck wouldn't start, so I was kind of disillusioned then, and Page 80 FC-32 April 12,2022 decided not to be a volunteer." A new truck is an amazing motivator. It brings together a department. But it also comes down to facilities and other things like that. Our better facilities end up being—kind of in that Waikoloa region. Nine Bravo was a wonderful example. They've got an amazing warehouse, where have a bathroom and a place to wash their gear, and a place to actually store a truck that it's not a tent. And all of sudden, they have volunteers coming out of the woodwork to try and serve their community, and I think it's an amazing thing. My honest thing is to hopefully stop funding the Fire Department's equipment through the Sayers and do that through the County, and then kind of focus the Sayres maybe towards more of our volunteer side. I think there's a great possibility that the community is very interested in supporting the volunteer side of things. MR. RICHARDS: So I think what I'm hearing is that we need this master plan that we're talking about, it's going to play into that to a certain degree. But that's not going to be done by the end of next month, I'm sure. CHIEF TODD: Yes. MR. RICHARDS: So as we step forward, we still need a scope of what we're trying to accomplish here. And so like I said, I'm sensitive to it because we keep setting District 9 on fire. So that's a number that I'm going looking for coming forth. CHIEF TODD: Okay. MR. RICHARDS: And I'm going to—like I said, I want to advocate. I got it. There's another group, and I think I talked to you about you about it, that wants to start one. But again, we've got to know the scale because we've got to know what we can afford to put into our volunteers. Okay, I appreciate that, Chief. Thanks, Chair. CHIEF TODD: Okay, we'll take some more later, I guess. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, yeah. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. MR. RICHARDS: Please. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Mr. Chung, go ahead. Page 81 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. CHUNG: Thank you. Hi. Good afternoon, Chief. I really appreciate your comments regarding the volunteers and their importance to, you know, both your operations and our community. But in terms of training, can you just tell us how they're trained, by whom, and how rigorous that thing is? You know, both for their safety and as well as the safety of the community. CHIEF TODD: So it is a basically I have two paid personnel. We divide the island in half. One personnel is in charge of the west side stations, and one personnel is in charge of the east side. Stations meet, generally at minimum once a month, and some stations are meeting once a week. The answer is, it varies. But generally, the Volunteer Commander, John Bertsch, who runs our volunteer program, has set up a system of training, where they're going to—it's the essentials. And is John here? Let me defer to my expert, John Bertsch who is my Volunteer Commander. (Note: At this time, Volunteer Firefighter Commander John Bertsch came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. BERTSCH: Aloha, thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Please introduce yourself. MR. BERTSCH: John Bertsch, I'm the commander for the volunteers for Hawaii Fire Department. To elaborate a little bit on what the Chief said, we recognize that the volunteers need additional training. We do our best to do that. One of the things that we understand as volunteers is that oftentimes, contrary to say, where a recruit class coming in, where a particular firefighter would start on say January 1, and then go through the complete program and then become a certified firefighter by the fall, in January. We don't have that luxury. Volunteers will show up on our door any day of the week, any day of the month, and we never turn anybody away. And so we oftentimes will vet them, we'll run through a program. But we'll start them in October, or we'll start them in March, or we'll start them in June. And so what we've done through the approvals of the Chief and the prior Chiefs, is we have a revolving annual training, and basically the Fire Essentials book is the bible for the training of all firefighters, including the Volunteer Program. So if you—essentially if you start in June, and you go from June to June in our Volunteer Program, you will have completed the complete Firefighter I Basic Training Program, and that's in line with what we do, both on the didactic and the practical side. MR. CHUNG: Okay. Well, I don't understand all of that, but—you know, my concern is that we have qualified individuals who are performing the task; and as I said, not just for the safety of the community, but for their own safety and the Page 82 FC-32 April 12,2022 safety of their fellow volunteers. I think that's so important. You know, we certainly don't want to be turning away motivated individuals who are community minded. But you know, we just want to make sure that, again, training is so important as it is for your personnel. It's just something that I thought about. And then, you know, I see in the CIP planning monies, $1.7 million for a new Central Fire Station. I mean, with either consolidation with Kaumana, or whatever, I'm not too sure. Then the question I have is, and it's been asked by many individuals, so I just wanted to give you this forum to say a few words about it, our present fire station. I mean, you know, people look at it as being like a landmark. They've been individuals who have offered their time and energy to try to do whatever they can to help with its repair or other things. But what's going to happen? CHIEF TODD: So our interest in Central is obviously to maintain the station in terms of a Fire Department asset; however, one of the goals is to actually move our operations out of that station. There are a couple of reasons behind it. One, despite the fact that the station is historical and amazing. In that right, it doesn't quite meet the needs of the modern fire station, where we've recognized the cancer risks that come with the job. Newer stations are designed around the concept of having like a hot, warm, and cold zone. The aging issues that are coming up with the station really require a lot of work, and one of the concepts right now is to kind of tie that in. If we were going to spend a lot of money, it might make more sense to move locations and put a station outside of the tsunami inundation area, because every time there's a tsunami, we're scrambling to move everything out of the building anyway. There's a variety of issues in terms of the concrete. We just got a recent report back that said the station and the concrete, are things that could be salvaged if we were willing to put in the time and the money to do so. But one of the concerns going up and to this point had been whether or not we had some significant structural issues. We've had ceiling collapses, and huge sections of the wall just pop off because of rusting rebar inside the structure itself. So there have been some concerns prior to us trying to make the decision about where we go, about whether the building was even salvageable,just because we know there's so much water filtration into the concrete. Because the roof is and everything else, that we are afraid that the rebar and everything else has rusted to the point that the building might not be repairable. Current indications leading the direction that it is—and definitely I'd like to retain it for the Fire Department for use in training and a variety of other things. But as far as a modern fire station for the response of the downtown area, my honest goal would be to move it a little bit farther up the street, on Mohouli, and establish a new Central Fire Station that's out of the tsunami area, so we're not worried about that perspective, as well as having in-built abilities to maintain the safety of our firefighters. Page 83 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. CHUNG: I don't think anyone here would argue with the necessity for a new modern Central Fire Station. Yeah, my question just basically dealt with the structure itself, you know, its historical value. But if it's not salvageable, it's not salvageable. But at some point, the community is going to have to be informed, because people have been asking. It's such a lovely building. It carries with it so much history. You said you think it's salvageable, but at what point are we going to know, and at what point are we going to be able to make a request to put in money? To either repair it and get it up to some useable condition, or just a CHIEF TODD: We have a most recent report that has come out about the structural stability of the building, and says it is something we can repair and make use of. My goal still is going to be to try and get my personnel out of it because of the fact that we've had ceiling collapses and things like that. And then once we build a new building and get them out, then we can go in and start gutting and rehabbing the building for other usages. There's definitely a lot of usage in the Fire Department in terms of other programs that we can make use of the building for, and in a worst-case scenario, there are other things that the County could use the building for. But I would probably, if it was up to me, retain the building for the Fire Department. I have a variety of programs and other things like that, that we could shift into that building. MR. CHUNG: So what's it being used for right now? CHIEF TODD: It is Central Fire Station. MR. CHUNG: You know, when I looked at the write-up for the plans and designs for the new building, it says not suitable for personnel use. CHIEF TODD: So some of that is the existing, the condition of the building and whatnot. We have been looking with Property Management to see if we could find a facility. As of right now, they're still in the search for somewhere else. Then maybe we can move them out temporarily in the meantime. MR. CHUNG: I mean, but is it not suitable, I mean as reflected in the CIP request? Because if it's not suitable for personnel, then we shouldn't be putting our personnel there, right? Or is it, or is it not? CHIEF TODD: My personal opinion is if I had a place to move them, I would probably move them out of the fire station. MR. CHUNG: But it's still being used? CHIEF TODD: But it is still being used. We are working with Finance and Property Management to look at alternatives. Page 84 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. CHUNG: So it is sort of suitable, not unsuitable. I just want to make sure because we don't want to put our personnel in an unsafe situation. Sorry, I'm kind of moving afar from my original question. CHIEF TODD: Yeah, I get your point. MR. CHUNG: But I just wanted to know what are we going to do with it, yeah. CHIEF TODD: From my perspective, I'm always worried about the next ceiling collapse or something else happening with the building and injuring my personnel. We were several minutes away from having one of my guys in the hospital with potential major issues. He worked out of the bathroom, and like a minute later, about 200 pounds of concrete fell off the ceiling. The building is not unsalvageable, but there are significant issues with the plumbing. There are significant issues with the concrete. There are significant issues in the maintenance of the building. And because of the plot and the scope of the land and its location, the amount of money that we're looking to dump into it, I thought it's more prudent to move to a new location for the same amount of money. MR. CHUNG: Yeah. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. MR. CHUNG: I'm not arguing with that, I just don't want to put our personnel in harm's way. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. MR. CHUNG: We just don't want to put our personnel in harm's way. Do you think it might then be prudent for us to put some monies—and given your assessment that it is salvageable, your hope and your present assessment, to maybe put some money for a formal assessment, to see what can be done and how much it's going to cost to get into some kind of serviceable condition? Would that be something you would be okay with? Or is it— CHIEF tCHIEF TODD: I would be fine with that. We would probably want to talk with Ikaika(Rodenhurst) and his staff. MR. CHUNG: Yeah. CHIEF TODD: You know, the original plan I think had been a little over $8 million. That was the tentative plan. And I was under the opinion that once they started removing some of the paint and looking at the actual structural, that would have ballooned up to the price of basically a new fire station by the time we were done, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to move. But definitely, Page 85 FC-32 April 12,2022 a revised plan, where we focus on, well, what is the work that is critical needs to be done, but may be not the most up-to-date, you know, taking a structure from the past, and try to retrofit it. How do we take that building and maintain it plan, would be something I'd advocate for. MR. CHUNG: How about this, could you work with Ikaika on this thing? You know,just let us know what you think, maybe if not this budget cycle, then sometime. You know, there's been a lot of talk about the Central Fire Station. Maybe it's high-time for us to do something. One thing or another, anyway. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Chung. Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you, Chair. Chief, thank you. You know, what the reorganization of the budget, I want to call up Director Sako for her thoughts. Not that we don't trust you, but there's a lot of, I think, faith and trust; and Deanna having the big picture of the budget, for the County as a whole. And I just want to get your thoughts, Director Sako, on this reorganization, and because it's difficult for us to try and be flipping—I mean, it's difficult enough sometimes, going to column to column, and now we're pages to pages. (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. SAKO: It is. It's always a challenge. And so anytime we make changes, whether it's with departments, or in this case more like an entire reorganization, it takes like three years to fully get through the process. Next year you will be able to compare FY 2023, and then the new proposed FY 2024 budget. But, you know, this is more in line with what the Chief's laying out his operations as, and to hold their staff more accountable to the budget. So we agreed with that, and so we thought it was a good enough reason to make this change. But I do agree, it can be—it's very challenging in the first years of transition. MR. INABA: And then to what extent was your office, or you personally, involved in guiding or making sure this process is—got to where it is now. MS. SAKO: Like apples to apples, yeah. MR. INABA: So they did a lot of the legwork, and then Ted and Lisa(Tada) still work with them to make sure everything got in, and we believe it's comparable. MR. INABA: Okay, very good. Chief, I don't have a lot of questions. Thank you, Deanna. I don't have a lot of questions because I think a lot of our questions will come out next week, especially with the future and the forward outlook, and how we're going to make sure that this all pans out as a County, and most Page 86 FC-32 April 12,2022 especially you folks a s a department. So I don't have any further questions for today, but I look forward to our conversation next week. Thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. I actually had the same questions, actually, that my colleague had. You know, it is a leap of faith, a little bit. But it really leans into a space that I know I like, which is budgeting for outcomes. And so I'm actually really excited as to see where this will lead. I also think funding for that five-year plan actually provides that strategic roadmap. And if there's still more tweaking to do with the various funds, I think that is actually money well spent, and would support a supplemental budget to that extent. I just wanted to dig into one area, which is fire prevention, and you and I, Chief, have had a few conversations around this. One of the program objectives is review of our construction plans and construction permits, and you mentioned 14 days. Was that developed with Planning and Public Works, with EPIC (Electronic Processing and Information Center)? How did you pick 14 days? CHIEF TODD: So I did not pick 14 days. I told them 10 days. Actually, the numbers came from stats that I pulled back from when I was an Inspector, where we were running between about 10 and 15 days in terms of putting out plans. And I compared the total number of plans that had come through at the time back when I was doing it. We had records from Magnet, prior to EPIC, and whatnot. You know, I kind of looked at the overall trend, what our department was capable of doing in the past, and said, "Hey, this is the goal line, and go forth and do what you can." And so that was how that number had come out. As of right now, I think the last time we talked I had mentioned that we were sitting at 14 days, even though the goal was 10; but part of that was one of my final reviewers was on vacation, so we slowed down a little bit. But yeah, generally speaking, my goal is that—as far as the Fire Prevention Bureau goes, the public should not be waiting on the Fire Department for comments to go out and do construction, or rehab, or whatever else they want to do. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you for that. Because as we adjust to EPIC, I think at the end of the day we're trying to manage expectations. Because what we hear the community saying is we want reliability. We put it in; we want it to come out. And if you're making the commitment to 10 or 14 days, and other departments are making similar commitments, then there's an expectation that within 20 or 30 days, they'll get something. Page 87 FC-32 April 12,2022 Which then walks me into the new NFPA, what's the plan for adopting those Fire Codes? CHIEF TODD: Okay, so all of our amendments were basically completed, and then we submit them down. And then they told us they wanted it in a totally different format, and ramseyer format, so we are in the process of rewriting it. Part of that is they wanted the State amendments brought into our formal document so that people wouldn't have to reference both the original NFPA Code, then the State amendments, and then the County amendments. So the goal is going to be to have our section in the Hawaii County Code be inclusive of everything. So all you need is NFPA One and ours, and then you're done. But the process of grabbing, copying, pasting, and doing it in a format that was acceptable is going to take a few more months. But our goal here is before the end of the fiscal year to have that submitted and going through processing with you guys. MS. LEE LOY: And timing-wise, it's the January 2020-2021. So the two-year clock is ticking from that date? CHIEF TODD: So we're still working on the 2018, but shortly thereafter the 2020-2021 has not been accepted, as I understand it, quite yet. But it should be shortly thereafter, on the State level, in which case, we'll be starting the next two-year clock. It's a three-year cycle, so expect us to be coming back every two to three years, with like, "Hey, this is the next version." Luckily, I have a new Battalion Chief for Prevention at the moment, and he's getting his first run-through on this. Once the next one comes, hopefully it will be quick. Just, "Hey, adjust the numbers and resubmit, and let's just go." So the 2018 Code may be short-lived in terms of things going, but our goal will be to expedite this in the future a little bit. But we're getting experience and moving ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Perfect. And then the other piece was the 10 percent for inspection, is that going to be included with that Code adjustment? CHIEF TODD: That is our goal. Obviously, it will be coming forward to you guys to see if you guys want to put it forward, and we'll have more discussions on that. But part of that is, and this is just a suggestion at the moment, but Fire Department has additional plans that will come in later on. You know, the initial plans that come through, but—there's a fire sprinkler system. There's a fire alarm system. There's a specialty system. Those plans are not drawn with the initial submission. And so we you know, we throw the initial plans out. And it goes back, and they're allowed to bid they're building—But then they've got to hire a subcontractor, and that subcontractor is going to design a fire alarm system. And that design package still needs to come into the Fire Department. Page 88 FC-32 April 12,2022 So we're looking to basically build that into the fee system because it does incur work and everything else. Basically, it all just goes back to General Fund. But we're just trying to account for some of the costs that are basically tying up the work hours of our personnel. And it will be up to the County Council to door choose on that. I believe, my understand right now, is all three other counties do charge that fee. MS. LEE LOY: And Chief, on a follow-up to that, it's still within that 14-day window for review, when they come in with their new systems? CHIEF TODD: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Yes. Okay, thank you. Well, it is a leap of faith a little bit. And I look forward to kind of the measures based on this new budget and the way you've reorganized that. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chief, for being here. My first question was actually along the same lines as Council Member Inaba and Council Member Lee Loy's. It's a little different to compare across multiple years. How closely do your actuals from 2021 match what was budgeted? I was kind of looking at the CHIEF TODD: So you're looking MS. KIMBALL: We are provided with the 2021 actuals and the budget for 2021-2022, so we don't actually have the figures that allow us to compare. CHIEF TODD: They're actually very similar. If you're looking at the audit, the audit numbers are a little bit funky. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. CHIEF TODD: And the audit itself was based off of the year we're dumping a bunch of CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economy Security) money into the budget. So that kind of shifts the budget a little bit. MS. KIMBALL: That's what I was kind of asking about. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. MS. KIMBALL: Because it didn't look like there was any major—one major expenditure that was making it offset so much, but maybe just piecemeal here and there. Page 89 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHIEF TODD: Yeah. I know, Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, you had complimented to the Fire Department on managing the overtime last year, but a lot of that had to do with us having CARES funding to help us, you know, make things work. You know, last year was the same. We you know, one guy gets sick and comes to work, and because we're in communal-living, I had to end up sending an entire shift of people home and recall an entire shift of six or seven people sometimes to work. So we were burning through money in terms of overtime and other things like that last year, but this year doesn't have that CARES Act funding. So you'll see kind of a drastic difference in the overall cost. But there's not actually all of that much of a difference in the overall cost. There are slight increases here and there to deal with, you know, like electricity, water, and other things like. And we do have those additional five positions that are adding to the overall budget, but all in all, the budget is remarkably similar. We were a status quo budget coming into this year. And as of right now, you know, until you guys improve my $1.2 (million), and $200,000, and $500 million supplementals, the budget pretty much stays the same as it was the other year. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, so it's not the—it looks about a seven percent increase? Is that maybe CHIEF TODD: That is kind of like a CARES Act kind of thing, I think. But you would probably have to some extent, it might be easier to compare with previous fiscal years, not last year's. MS. KIMBALL: Not last year's. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, that's fair. CHIEF TODD: Then it gets funky because I totally restructured the budget, and you're going, wait, none of these numbers line up. MS. KIMBALL: Wait, what? CHIEF TODD: I apologize. The goal obviously in the long run is to have a system that's a little easier to track our outcomes and build those budgets around the programs that they're funding. But it is going to be confusing this year, and I apologize for that. MS. KIMBALL: No, it has to be done. And I share Council Member Lee Loy's philosophy that this better reflects the way we want to see budgeting done. Page 90 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHIEF TODD: Yeah, and if it interests you, I'm always available to come and sit down with you, and we can go line by line where the money went, and how we divided it, and why set it up in that way, and what did we spend. I have no problem justifying every dollar in our entire budget. It's not a problem. MS. KIMBALL: No, I'm sure you can. I think my biggest question the largest questions revolve around the staffing. And I appreciate the spreadsheet here, although I have some questions. So the NFPA required—should we be comparing that to the firefighter positions or the funded positions? Is that the EMS (Emergency Medical Services)position? CHIEF TODD: So the green yeah, so that green line is intended to be both EMS and Fire. So we're counting some of the EMS personnel towards that number, because there are some EMS roles that are happening on the scene in terms of rehab, and having someone there in case something goes wrong. But at the same time, our goal is to achieve that 16 personnel is on-scene when we do like a residential structure fire. We're not even possible to shift to try and tackle a high-rise. It's not going to happen. I think we—we went really heavy on Uncle Billy's fire, and had like 21 personnel there, and we brought in everything we had. So that's kind of indicative of what we can do in the downtown area of Hilo. If you head out of town, into any of the other districts, our ability to put personnel on the scene is highly limited without volunteers. MS. KIMBALL: This chart, which again, appreciate data being reflected this way, doesn't in any way account for vacation, or sick time. And so, you know, that actual current staffing of 104 is actually probably less than that,presumably? CHIEF TODD: So we pay overtime, and staff up to that 105. So 104 is where I am without vacation, sick leave, or any of the other things that could cause overtime. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. So the mathematics is not 105 minus 104. Saying we just have—we're basically filling one extra position. We're actually filling more than that because you're not taking into account the CTO (Compensatory Time Off) and sick leave. CHIEF TODD: So I'm filling one automatically. MS. KIMBALL: And additionally CHIEF TODD: Plus whatever number it is for sick leave, vacation, and injury. So if I have a guy who pulls a hamstring or something like it and is out long term, you know, on light duty. There are a variety of reasons—we could do it. A guy goes to become a paramedic; he's in class for a year. In the meantime, his Page 91 FC-32 April 12,2022 position is being backfilled. A guy is helping out with our recruit training officer, as a recruit training officer; his position is being backfilled. So there are a variety of reasons to end up costing the department overtime. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Yeah, I didn't quite have the question in my mind formulated until we started this discussion, so I apologize for that. So could you, rough estimate, like how many positions? What I'm trying to get is people hours per year that we're paying because of this vacancy. So like if you were to take the sick, injured people out, what is that on an annual basis. CHIEF TODD: So I believe in the audit, which I wasn't going to go super into. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. CHIEF TODD: But under page 39 MS. KIMBALL: Okay. CHIEF TODD: If you take a look on pages 38 and 39 of the audit, where the costs of our leave, for sick leave and vacation, basically average time up to $4.6 million; but if we are paying overtime to fill those positions, it's $7 million a year, based on how much sick leave and vacation are currently happening right now. And that's just our current staffing model. Like I said, the audit brings us some interesting propositions in terms of how we could adjust, to how much we're paying in overtime. We chose this model, and most departments do because, in theory, the overall budget number is less. MS. KIMBALL: Right. CHIEF TODD: And there's a big overtime chunk, but we're maybe potentially spending less overall because we have less employees, and less fringe, and less retirement benefits, and things like that. There are different ways of looking at it. And he has some interesting concepts. One of the things he covers, on page 39, is a pool composition concept, where he said up to 48 positions could be added without maybe costing us any more money,just by shifting our model. Not 100 percent sold, that it works exactly like it says, but it is an interesting concept. The idea that we could phase part of it in and see how it actually reflects in the numbers and the overall time cost and things like that exist, and so definitely worth discussing. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. CHIEF TODD: But I think he's going to be with us during the audit, so we can probably grill Tyler a little bit more on how it actually works. Page 92 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. And I'll save my questions about the different models and the options there for the audit review. But it's a budget issue, the overtime, thing, but it's also a burnout issue, you know. This is, yeah. CHIEF TODD: Yeah, I do want to bring that up, and it's something my deputy, you know, kind of nails in my head all the time. Given the opportunity, firefighters want to spend time with their families. They want to go out and live their lives like normal people do, and they do not want to live in a fire station 24/7. They do want to work their shifts; but ultimately, I think given the option, most of them wouldn't really want to work the overtime. They would rather have a wonderful balance between work and life, right? They choose to work that overtime because they recognize the need and the public, and they want to make sure that the guys they're working with are safe, and they want to serve. And some of them want to have a nice retirement benefit. Okay, so don't get me wrong. There are systems in there, and guys are trying to max out and whatnot, and so that's my job to take care of, and some of the things are covered in the audit. But generally speaking, you know, one of my bigger issues nowadays, and this might have been different from the past, is when we do a recall, to try to get more personnel on the scene, it's like pulling teeth sometimes to get guys to come back to work. You know, there's a limit to how much overtime guys want to work, and right now a lot of them have other priorities they would rather do. So looking at other alternative staffing models, where either we have a larger staffing pool, where if guys are off, we're not recalling, or we have a replacement pool or things like that, I think that's something that we should reconsider. You know, when we look at the line-of-duty desks for firefighters, 42 percent of them are based on cardiac arrest; and it's not because firefighters are out of shape or they'reoh, there's one or two, you know. But generally speaking, it's a matter of stress And sleep-cycle issues. MS. KIMBALL: Yes. CHIEF TODD: So there's a thing that's been tracked in the fire service, one is adrenal fatigue. It's being woken up multiple times in the middle of the night; which leads to really bad sleep cycles. It leads to stress. The stress leads to issues with heart attacks. And so literally almost half of the firefighters that die while they're working, you know,just die of a sudden cardiac arrest issue. You know, there are other implications there, too. One of our firefighters passed away the other year on a call to that exact issue. And I lost the firefighter that was working with him to—inability to come back to work. He just—there were issues. So definitely, having that proper work-life balance is a very important thing for our personnel. And if any kind of a staffing model can assist in that, that is something I, as the Fire Chief, am entirely for. Page 93 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, agreed. Agreed. I want to touch base on the question, about the paramedic EMT track. It's wonderful that you care so much about your staff that way. Is that something that is really just an internal policy to the County that we can do through HR(Human Resources), or is that something that we have to address with the bargaining units? CHIEF TODD: So it addresses everything. So we're going to have to talk with, you know, obviously HFFA. Usually, with this kind of stuff, I start with HR, and we put together some potential ideas on how it would look. So for example, we recently added a captain to the Dispatch area to supervise. One of my issues, when I had been the FASO in charge of the Dispatch area, is I just didn't have the time. I also ran the warehouse and the mechanics and dealt with purchasing procurement repairs, contracts and negotiating things, and whatnot. So there wasn't a lot of time to dedicate to Dispatch. And I wanted someone, who was just 40 hours a week, to help. You know, figure stuff out; get the needs taken care of. And so through County Council and the Mayor's Office, and DHR, and Finance, we were able to fund that position. And I actually just put out the announcement,just this last week; so we're looking to add a captain in there, whose sole purpose will be to support that section of our department. But the first phase is generally working with DHR. So we're going to try and create some job descriptions, and this is actually currently being worked on. And then we're going to play around with them. And we'll be sitting down, in discussions with the union, and then we'll be sitting down in discussions with Finance and trying to figure out this all works in the grand picture. It does take a while. Right now, it's conceptual. I do have that flowchart, which I didn't submit to your staff, which is why I can't show it to you because they don't allow you to show anything that hasn't been submitted ahead of time. But definitely, if you're interested, we can sit down and talk about some of the other things that we're throwing against the dartboard to see if it will work. Ultimately, the goal of our department is to provide the best possible service to the public we can and having as many ALS (Advanced Life Support)providers as we can is critical to that. So definitely, we're looking at some options there. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. When we discuss the audit next week, maybe submit the flowchart before then. CHIEF TODD: I will do what I can. MS. KIMBALL: All right. Yeah, I think we're all curious about maybe how to make that pathway a little bit more straightforward. Page 94 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHIEF TODD: So I want to note that the concepts that we've put together on that flowchart and whatnot are highly experimental concepts at the moment. We haven't created positions. We haven't run it past the unions. We haven't done anything else. Right now, it's just in DHR's hands at the moment to try and create job descriptions. And then it is a long process before that materializes in reality. And inclusive of how do we fund it and where does the money come from, and will the State approve it? And so it might be a multi-year process, but it is something we're looking into. MS. KIMBALL: Right. And I think we're not always brilliant on this dais, but we do have some pretty good ideas from time to time. CHIEF TODD: And yeah, let's talk about. Yeah, why not? MS. KIMBALL: Let's talk about it. All right. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Ms. Villegas, go ahead. And I'll come back to Mr. Richards. Thank you. MS. VILLEGAS: I'll try to keep this really concise. Chief Todd, thank you for the time that you spent with me, I think it was about a week ago now, going through these numbers. I want to congratulate you and tell you mahalo for having the courage to take the accounting systems, and the numbers, and the GLs (General Ledgers), and to transition things that keep them more succinctly governed in a way that, while this year it may be a little more complicated, moving forward there is an opportunity for things to be managed within the compartments that they're relative to. I also really appreciated, in our conversation, your frankness with, okay, if this is how much I have, this is what I can do. And sometimes department heads get beat up sitting here with Council, or I'm sure it happens with the Administration, or Finance, or whatnot, but to me, it just felt like a really fair summation of what you can do, where you're at, how many people you have, what the resources are. It's tragic in my mind that we have gotten to this point, where you are where you are. I wish we had all the funding necessary to essentially get you a year ahead, right, so you weren't staffing your trainees with people that had already left. So that there was that gap that you were ahead. And that, I think, is where we would like to be headed. In some ways, I feel like our County is going through like a time-warp of moving forward in recognizing the status of a lot of these departments. So thank you for your attention to detail, your focus on really objective inventorying, and also comparisons for other municipalities. For me, I found it very helpful to see the comparisons to Oahu, Maui, and Kauai, and also then comparisons in municipalities throughout the country. Page 95 FC-32 April 12,2022 So it also took great courage to raise your hand and say, "Hey, audit me first." But I really this year for me, navigating this budget process, this has been a really exemplary presentation of what's going on with the Fire Department, and I think it removes, while you were very humbly admitting, that there are people that really want that extra retirement, so they can do the numbers, to get the extra hours to whatnot. But in general, you're just keeping your ass covered so the world doesn't go up in flames. And thank you for keeping our tuckus, bottoms, covered, so we don't go up in flames, essentially. So I just really appreciated the frankness, the honesty. The humility that you're coming with, like this is what we can do with this, and now it is up to us to decide how many resources we allocate to you, and what that means for our health and safety, and services as an island. So thank you for that. Thank you for this great presentation, and I just wanted to say that. I have one quick question. We recently had a meeting at the pool, and I wanted some—here's another kind of odd dynamic that you guys have, is Parks and Recreation has the pool facilities, but the lifeguards there fall under your—and Alex does all the paperwork for that, correct? CHIEF TODD: I'm not familiar with the paperwork for Alex. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay. Yeah. CHIEF TODD: But I do my lifeguards are based out of the pool in Kona. MS. VILLEGAS: Yes. She does all that CHIEF TODD: I would love to move them into the West Hawaii Civic Center with my other staff, but I don't have enough room in the current office up there. And one of the things we've talked about was, "Man if there was an empty office up there. If you guys ever see one over there, or someone else wants to move out of their off, we would be glad to take a slightly larger one and consolidate our personnel." But yeah, I do have two guys who are officed out of there as well as another five or six that are officed out of the West Hawaii Civic Center, and one of the Clerk's that we're adding, actually in the Mayor's budget, is intended to actually shoot out to the West Hawaii Civic Center so that we actually have that office staffed Monday through Friday for 40 hours, so the doors don't have to be locked. MS. VILLEGAS: Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. I know it's one of the challenges we're having with the Kona Pool, is the staffing of the lifeguards there. There aren't enough of them in there. Supposed to be eight of them, and they're currently having to operate off of four. And the community gets so upset because they don't have access to the pool. But you guys are already operating at an understaffed level. Page 96 FC-32 April 12,2022 So I just want to thank you once again, and all of your teams and all of these departments, for being creative, flexible, and working ingenuity to get things done. But I think that we are hopefully on the precipice, the cusp of transitioning to more fully-funded, fully-staffed, fully-equipped fire stations, and all the different departments that fall underneath years, which is a plethora. CHIEF TODD: Yes, and I appreciate that. MS. VILLEGAS: Yes,plenty. So thank you, I appreciate what you guys do. CHIEF TODD: Thank you. MS. VILLEGAS: I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Mr. Richards, do you want to go? MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. Coming back to our Fire, and I'm going to touch on the overtime. I don't want to get real deep into it because we're going to go through that a little later, and there is no point in spending a lot of time on that. But it's been in my experience, overtime issometimes it's the cheapest way you can go forward, or the most expensive if not managed appropriately. And so that's the conversation I'm going to have, and I'm curious as we get into that. But for the great, and whatever we call it, Waikoloa Mana(Road) Pu`ukapu fire, whatever you want to call it, what did we do with our overtime there? Meaning, that we must have blown it out of the water. Is that reflected? Did you think about that, and putting this budget together? Then just as a side, we had some donations that came in to help cover some other expenditures. Is that all taken care of? Is that cleared now? CHIEF TODD: So that's kind of a maybe a two-part question there. So on one side, you know, the Mana Road brushfire highlights some weakness, in at least this current fiscal year's systems. We have a$900,000 hold, where we had spent a lot of money on bulldozers, water tankers, and stuff. I understand Fiscal is working with us. In theory, all of that is going. In theory, all of that is going to get reimbursed by the Federal Government, but that is in the future, through HI-EMA (Hawai`i Emergency Management Agency). And in this current budget, I am having a hard time even cutting checks to pay our electricity and other things, because that hold has made that section, the OCE (Other Current Expenses), in the negatives, and so it's a little difficult at the moment to do anything. Page 97 FC-32 April 12,2022 However, that is not necessarily built into future budgets. And inclusive of where we, in theory, have our overtime, the current budget submitted to you does not cover what it would cost to maintain our current staffing. We'll probably sit with you, at the end of next fiscal year and say, "We're over budget on the overtime." We will also be doing that in the next week or two, to talk to you about how we're over budget in our overtime. The cost of, basically covering that sick leave in overtime, is around $7 million, and that is not one of our current allocated. So I think this is that subject that has to come out in the audit in terms of like, "How do we want to fund our department, and how do we want to staff our department?" Part of the problem too, you know, if you look at the numbers between us, Kauai, and Maui, and you say, "Hey, ideally the Fire Department should probably"—if you were funded similarly, be sitting on a budget of$14, $15 million more than you are currently funded. Even if you were to say, "Yeah, you know what, here's $15 million. I don't have the ability this year to just magically use it all." You know, it takes a year just to train 40 recruits with our current systems. It would take us years to bring our personnel up to the numbers that would meet NFPA standards. It would take us a while to build our volunteers up. I think the long-term plan, really, is to sit down and fund that Strategic Master Planning process, where we look at, hey, where do we want to be? And understand that we can't get there next year, but maybe ten years from now we could. And then, what are the incremental steps; you know, every year we're looking to add $100,000 in this section of the budget, and build up that vehicle replacement, or build up that overtime, or change the structure of our staffing so that we're not having to spend so much money in overtime because our standard staffing is such that when people are on vacation, or sick leave, or things like that, we're not having to recall. It's kind of coughing around the question, so to speak, I understand. But yeah, it's there's a lot of complexity in that. MR. RICHARDS: And I do appreciate that. And what Ms. Kimball's talked about, the burnout, and we can all run out of panic-pace for a certain time, and then you can't pay me enough to go any further, and I got that part, so that's why I'll save that conversation for later. But for the fire, what was our final bill, and will that be covered? Are we going to recruit that as a County? CHIEF TODD: So, we should recruit most of it. I think our final bill, and it's kind of weird because we're still some bills or stuff showing up now, but our bill probably was around $1.5 million, I believe, on that call. And if Nikol (Lonokapu), who is sitting behind me knows that I'm wrong, she can always come up here and correct me. But we did get the FMAG (Fire Management Assistant Grant), and I very, very much thank Deanna, who is probably sitting in Page 98 FC-32 April 12,2022 the back, going, "I told you so." But basically, she made us call in and put all the paperwork together. And the beauty—and here's one of the reasons why really need to support our volunteers, is their hours count towards our share. So FMAG covers 75 percent. You guys had talked about it previously, where, hey, there's this $1 million of grant money that's going to cover the fire and whatnot; so the FMAG is intended to cover the cost of the local jurisdiction that we incurred in bringing in additional resources. It's only for the money I spent. And then this works—so for the Hawaii Fire Department, FMAG will cover my expenditures beyond the norm, right? So like I had to send all this equipment. I had to send all these people—so their hourly rate and the vehicles we put out there, all that can be calculated. And we put them onto basically these force papers that the Federal Government has. We account for everything, and that gets sent up to Fiscal, and Fiscal sends it to HI-EMA, and HI-EMA sends it to the feds, and they get us our money back someday. But the beauty of it is, is that our volunteers account for that 25 percent. So if we're saying that we spent$1 million in this thing, and we count the hours of the volunteers, they can be that cost-share, that$250,000 that normally would have been our cost if we can account for their hours and how much they spent and everything else to respond. Or even, you know, the community just coming together and donating food and other goods, a lot of that can be accounted for. So in the long run, probably we'll get back all that money. I don't know what fiscal year it will dump back into General Fund. And maybe, DeannaI don't know. Deanna is also welcome to come up and tell me how this works. MR. RICHARDS: She's on her way. (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) CHIEF TODD: Okay. MS. SAKO: So no, we're not recovering everything from Mana Road. We only get to you know, when we call in, there's a very short period of when it actually covers. So anything before we file for FMAG, anything once the fire is considered under control, we don't get that. So there's still $950,000 of bulldozer cost that we have to cover. MR. RICHARDS: We as a County? MS. SAKO: We as a County. And it can be the Disaster Fund. Kay (Oshiro) and I are looking at that. We're waiting for the expenditure adjustment from Fire to Page 99 FC-32 April 12,2022 move that. But anything we could use the FMAG for we have moved those expenditures to that grant account already, is my understanding. But it's not just Mana Road. It is other brushfires as well, and it's also the ability to control the cost when we're out there. So we're working with Fire to do a better job of having a set price when we call the bulldozers and ask them to come. So there are a lot of factors in this. But no, we're not going to get everything back, and that's going to be true for most of our fires. However, Nikol is going tracking every single fire. You know, she recently went to training. We're trying to get a grant. You know, once we hit$500,000, for all the other fires. So we're hopeful we'll get additional funding; but by keeping it in the Disaster Fund, when we do get that funding, we can replenish it; when and if we get that funding. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, and where I'm going with the conversation, that's why we have a Fire Department, and we expect that we're going to have to fund it to fight fire. I got that. And the fact that we have a great working relationship with PTA (Pohakuloa Training Area), you know, between County and PTA, you guys did a stellar job, and the State came in behind. But the cost—and a lot of that stuff, but it was handled by, out at Hawaiian Homes, the Pu`ukapu. There are a lot of expenditures that went out. A lot of people are donating. We're trying to get some expenses paid there, and we did have that donation. That was theirs. I was specifically asking about that, and I'd like to get a final accounting of that to make sure we got as much as we can. Because I also fully really realize, and I think everybody does, that not our official volunteers, but the guys with the bulldozers, that came and just cut a firebreak, or put out some of those mountains of grass,just to take care of their stuff. If that stuff had gotten away from us again, that thing could flare up. So there's a huge value in that. And if we can cover fuel cost in whatever which way; and we've talked about this, Deanna, and you and I have talked about this as well, that's what I'm looking for, where are we with all that? And I don't expect you to have necessarily that in front of you, but I want to make sure that we get this all taken care of. And we did have a very nice private donation, specifically to take care of that one. Be sure that all those funds have gotten to those people because that's reasonable. Okay, we'll talk about overtime later, and we'll come back and revisit that. But I also want to find out about this Pu`ukapu funding, and if there's anything else that we can help cover. So all right, Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Council Members? All right. Chief, I'd like to commend you. That was a very, very long briefing that you gave us, and you spoke almost the entire time with no water. Page 100 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHIEF TODD: Yeah, I was thinking that next year I needed to bring up a little bottle here just in case. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I was thinking the same thing. CHIEF TODD: It would have been bad if I lost my voice. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: You started to crack a little bit. Even my mouth's going dry too, and I was like, "Oh, bring water tomorrow for everybody." But thank you very much. I do have a couple of questions. I just want to follow up on a few things that you said. So just to rehash real briefly, not to get into it, but rehashing funding sources. EMS is State, correct? CHIEF TODD: That's correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And then Fire Department, you know, as far as fire protection, fire services, that is County? CHIEF TODD: That is County. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And their lifeguards? CHIEF TODD: Is a mixture. It's approximately 66/33. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, okay. You stated it, and I just want to restate it again because I think it applies to both Public Works and Police, as well. But the uniqueness of Hawaii Island is the size, and because of that size, and the amount of space that we have to cover, whether it's via roads, police officers, or Fire Department, it's the same problem, limited funding for a massive area. I mean I think you really kind of summed it all up by saying, "I may never have enough funds in the next few decades to get to where we need to be." I think that's a very true statement, unfortunately. But I think it's a very honest statement too, so thank you for saying that. Something that touched me briefly was, I mean, speaking about volunteers, at the end of a volunteer's first year, where would they stand as far as getting into a recruit class? CHIEF TODD: So the volunteers themselves don't actually join our recruit classes currently. You know, when you look at— CHR. tCHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I was thinking about the training aspect. Your training aspect. You're training for a year. You come out, and basically, you're having that Page 101 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHIEF TODD: So the idea is that you're, in theory, having finished your Firefighter I training over the course of a year, and they're basically going through, essentially, you know, a little bit over a chapter and a half each month, depending on what's going on. I think our latest version of Essentials is like 26 chapters, so they're doing like two chapters a month as they work through. And the goal is, ideally, at the end of the year, they've kind of covered the curriculum of a Firefighter I, and then they'll restart. The reality of it is, I really want to have more resources to assist our volunteers. I think we don't do justice for them, and I'd really like to build up staffing in that area in terms of support, you know,probably a Battalion Chief level, officer, and funding to deal with their vehicles and such, because they are a huge, huge asset. And relatively, the cost in terms of what we put in and what we are getting out, is critical. They're that bridge for the big runs. You know, when we're running that Mana Road fire with 40,000 acres, it's not possible currently, with the staffing I have on the paid side. I can't send guys from Pahala up to the fire because they've got to monitor Pahala. And even if I brought in overtime staffing, the vehicle that's in Pahala needs to stay in Pahala. So the ability to send resources and other things like that, for those in those in-built stations, doesn't really exist unless we want to staff up. So similar to how the Police Department kind of does that vehicle allocation funding for each officer and they maintain their own vehicle, the ability is that we're on an island, we're by ourselves; and then for the Police, the reason they advocate for that is when, you know, something has gone wrong, they can recall everybody one time. There are costs that come along with that, unfortunately. But relatively speaking, I think the Fire Department is going to do whatever we need to do based on whatever funding you give us. The question I think that sits on your level is, where do you want our Fire Department and our Fire Services to be at? And I'll give you the options and what it cost to go in every direction, and it's up to you guys. And then whatever direction you guys give us, as long with the Mayor and the budget, we'll go. You know, there are implications—and obviously, the level of services that are offered at every funding level. So that's kind of where I stand on that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. And part of the reason I'm saying that too, I'm looking at it, in the—our younger guys, if they were interested in becoming a volunteer, and then stepping into the Fire Department later, if there's an opportunity. And I don't want to get too far into it, but I thought it was an interesting idea. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. It is actually one of the areas I'd really be interested in doing, is we do a robust Fire Science program here locally. And one of the goals, in my long-term dreams and plans and whatnot, is to try to better integrate that Fire Science program into our Volunteer Program, where guys are coming out of Page 102 FC-32 April 12,2022 the Fire Science Program, and automatically maybe dumping into our Volunteer Program, and being assigned a station or something like that. And this will also give us a little bit of preview time with them. Like, "Hey, you my friend would be great in Honolulu Fire Department, and you would be great in our department" or something like that, right? But the opportunity to kind of preview people that we may want to hire in the future, to shepherd them and get them some of those job skills, also to supplement our line guys. You know, we have a lot of needs. This isn't going to be the last Mana Road fire. It will have a different name next time. But the reality is, you know, the other year up in the mainland, they had their first gigafire, which was a billion acres. The fires are getting bigger. They're happening more often, and they're spending more and more money every year to put them out. It's not going to be different on this island. We have to start thinking about like where do we want to be, and how much is that going to cost us to supply that kind of protection. We got really lucky with the Mana Road fire. Our personnel were able to stop it. It jumped the highway, and it was heading down to Waikoloa. We have $1 billion in infrastructure-plus in that area. And with the speed of the winds, if it had started burning one house, it would not have stopped at one house. We would have lost a vast section of the community, and we would have looked like those pictures of Colorado on the news. I have some really, really amazing personnel running around, and they made a massive difference in really, really old trucks, so I'd like to get them slightly better. I'll be honest with you, some of the headway we made with that fire was because of the donations we've had recently. We've had some amazing donations through the Sayre Foundation, who had provided Big Dog apparatuses that were off-road, and we were able to get in there and help us suppress. And without those kind of donations, I wonder how far we would have gotten. We still had to rely on pretty much every piece of apparatus we could send; the State guys; and federal guys, and you know, four federal helicopters, along with two private ones we hired as well as our own two. So yeah, we spent a lot. And thanks, Deanna, for correcting me on that. I didn't know the specifics on how Finance was handling the FMAG, only on our side. And the fact that I still have $900,000 in the hole, in my budget. But definitely, as we move forward for the future, we've got to make some decisions about where want to go. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Is there any chance of—we talked about this briefly, following the fire, but is there any chance of creating some funding in your budget for wildfire management or doing controlled burns, and going along those lines, where we're actually proactive on developing technique and creating Page 103 FC-32 April 12,2022 cleared—fire cleared roads, whatever they're called, you know. That's not my area of expertise. CHIEF TODD: So as you know, my budget is about 90/10, approximately in terms of Salaries and Wages versus OCE. On one of the things in our supplemental is a wildland fire manager officer kind of position. The idea was to maybe put them with prevention and start working with a lot of our large landowners to see if we could get mitigation efforts. We're actuallycurrently, very heavily invested and working with a variety of nonprofits on the island, and dealing with there's some additional money, after the FMAG, that we're currently applying for grant funding to do some mitigation with, is about$584,000. We're trying to apply it towards some of the fuel's mitigation. The difficulty obviously on our side is we don't have anyone who is specifically assigned to that. And so it's you know, as we have opportunity and time, our chief officers are working on it with their free time; and Chief Okinaka is probably taking most of the lead on that particular project. But yeah, we are working on fuels mitigation as we speak; granted that's a lot of—it's coming because of that FMAG. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: We have an amazing staff, and we have an amazing community, and that's why we got through it, but it's also our job to be proactive and try to think around the problem so it doesn't happen next time, yeah. So a little bit of both on all sides. Last but not least, I am getting incredibly concerned with the density and the lack of infrastructure in Puna. And I'm looking at the CIP (Capital Improvement Projects) list and watching with great interest, this Kea`au Fire Station/Police Station. It keeps getting moved around. But I'm telling you I'm watching the density grow in our area, and I am very concerned that the infrastructure we have there, our fire station is not adequate for the amount of population we have. CHIEF TODD: I am in full agreement. To be honest, and the biggest growth area on the island right now is Puna in terms of call volume. I spent my career as a Firefighter EMT out in Puna, and thoroughly enjoyed because it was a busy location, but it is a very busy location nowadays. And we're very lucky that we added that ambulance into the Paradise Park location because that really helps with the call load. But I would estimate over the next 10 to 20 years we are going to see a huge impact in that area, in terms of just call volume and development. It's become what they call the "bedroom community" of Hawaii because people are moving in and tying into the internet and working from home, which is great because they're not taking up a local job, I guess. But they are committing to taxes. But at the same time, the traffic load and everything else, those things are important. Page 104 FC-32 April 12,2022 There are a variety of CII'projects that the Fire Department would advocate for in terms of repairing some of our existing stations. We have stations where the roofs are falling off, and guys are sleeping under tents inside their beds, inside their dorm, because of leaking water and whatnot. So there is a lot of stuff we would like to see fixed. I noted that Lee Lord was actually talking about some of the things that are affecting our County, and I know the Mayor's goal is to try and advocate for more funding into that DPW area, for repair and maintenance, and CIP projects. So I am very hopeful that we'll see some of those things going forward in the future. But yeah, definitely Kea`au is one of our areas that we would love to get upgraded, and fix things. Especially, considering the lease, the fact that we don't own the land that the building is under, and the fact that my personnel sits in an office that used to be a hallway and has little catch holes that direct the water into a trash can so that they can have computers that don't fry from water. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I'm going to help you with some of that, we have a leaking roof and personnel trying to dodge leaks and respond to fires in the fastest growing district on the island, yeah. I'm glad that it's on your radar. I just want to clearly state that for everybody. Thank you. CHIEF TODD: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chief, thank you again. Appreciate it. Very thorough. And it is interesting to try and track your budget, between what's missing in the new budget and what's in the old budget. So we'll go from there after that. I did take the first two or three pages and matched them. You're pretty much on par with being 10 percent of what the previous year's estimates were, so you're pretty right on with your numbers, for the first two or three pages. I was trying to kind of balance which items were in which category, and it was hard. So thank you. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. So if you guys are interested, at any time, I'm available to sit down and actually talk about how we designed everything and where we wanted to go. And it was a work in progress between us and Finance in terms of how we set everything up. But there's a reason behind how we move the money around and what our goals were. A lot of it, ideally, was because I have Battalion Chiefs that are in charge of certain areas, and I want them managing the budget. It's great from a leadership perspective because they're going to grow and learn how to manage the section, and it's like a subsection of our business, and it develops them as officers; but also, it puts someone directly in charge of that section to also have a fiscal responsibility to manage that section. And so, they are in the frontline knowing, "Hey, I don't have enough money to buy this x-fire product because the budget doesn't allow for it. Now it's your turn to explain why you need it; champion it, come to the Chief meeting and argue Page 105 FC-32 April 12,2022 with everyone else why your need is more important than someone else's Chief's need. And in the end, we put together that whole budget packet for the next fiscal year, and the next fiscal year; and it helps develop my officers, in the long run, to become a better Chief someday when someone replaces me. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: You told me you were going to do it when you first came in as Chief, and then you did, so mahalo. Thank you. CHIEF TODD: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, with that, that is the end of our discussion with the Fire Department. Council Members, do you want a brief recess? Do you want to step right into Office of Aging? How do we feel? Okay, we'll do a—let's do a five-minute recess. We'll convene at 3:48 (p.m.). We are in recess. Recess: At 3:43 p.m., the Chair called for a short recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 3:49 p.m. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Aloha. Welcome back from recess. We are in our Special Committee on Finance, Special budget hearings. Our next department is going to be the budget on the Office of Aging. Mr. Farr, if you could come up. Introduce yourself, and then if you have a presentation, run through your presentation, and we'll do questions from the Council after. (5) Office of Aging: (Note: At this time, Executive on Aging Horace Farr and Administrative Services Assistant Christina Raine came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. FARR: Good afternoon, Horace Farr, Executive on Aging for Hawaii County Office of Aging. We do not have a presentation this morning. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. FARR: But on behalf of the Office of Aging, we want to thank the Council for all your support, especially during these last two years. We appreciate all the support that the Council gives to us. The last two years were extreme years. Our services, we were not able to purchase as much services as we would have liked to because of the pandemic and the different guidelines that came in. But we're happy to say that we did provide all the services that we could. We kept our office open. We limited what was coming in,but we served everybody outside as much as possible and tried to keep our staff as safe as possible. And I Page 106 FC-32 April 12,2022 really appreciate our staff that came in. Everybody came in regularly, so we continued to function. We again want to thank the Council for what you guys give us and what you guys do for us because it allows us to take our funding and turn it back into services. That's basically what we do, we purchase services. So whatever funding that we can save in that area, we immediately turn it back, and it goes back into funding services. So you know, we again just want to thank you for all that you do for us. And if you have any questions on our budget, we—as I shared last year, we would not be coming and asking for anything. And again, we're at the same situation. I like to run a lien operation as possible. I like to see that the money goes into the community as much as possible. Some of our major providers are County providers, but that is because of the structure and the situation where they're situated all throughout the County, and so it would be very difficult for private contractors to be able to provide that type of service. But as much as possible, we try to run as much of a lien office, and we'd like to see the funding go out into the community as much as possible. So if anybody has any questions for us on our budget? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Farr. And who is with you today? MS. RAINE: I'm Christina Rain. I'm the Admin. Services Assistant. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you for joining us today. Council Members? Ms. David. MS. DAVID: I don't really have a question. But I just really wanted to say thank you, because our kupuna in our respective districts is the ones that really needed assistance during these two really difficult years, and I really thank you folks for maintaining what you could maintain just to serve them. And so,just thank you for your dedication and service to our kupuna. Mahalo. MR. FARR: Yeah, this year it was more of keeping relationships open with the State and the Federal Government. The funding was coming down, but we needed to follow their guidelines, implement those guidelines, and follow what they were asking us; or advocate, can we make adjustments in the guidelines so that we can adjust the needs that were out there? MS. DAVID: Right. And I understand you folks had to rearrange your operations in order to do that,just to maintain services for our kupunas. So, thank you so much. MR. FARR: Thank you. Page 107 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. DAVID: Mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Mahalo nui, Horace, for being here. I had a wondering the last two years have been very trying for our kupuna. You folks have maintained an excellent level of service. Just curious to know, what sort of pivots you might have made in your operation so that you are maintaining the relationship and ensuring services to kupuna. Anything new that you're going to carry on outside of this COVID emergency period that you think was really valuable that we should know about? MR. FARR: Basically I learned a lot about maintaining the relationship with the State, right? Sometimes you've got to know when to tap out. You know, it's better to tap out here now, and then come back and then wrestle full-force on that. Keeping that relationship, making sure that that relationship is in place, which allowed us in this past pandemic to go ahead, and sometimes be bold and asking the State, you know, "We need this versus this." And so that I think is one element. The other element is that the funding comes down, but it's very difficult to expend, very difficult to spend. One of the things that we're looking at that the pandemic brought out was that we—it wasn't much of a funding issue, especially now what we're facing, it's a workforce capacity issue, right? We don't have workers. We can't purchase service. We would like to purchase services. One of the things that concerns me very much is daycare. I only have one daycare provider on the whole island now. I have nothing on the West Hawaii side. The small daycare that we had in Waimea closed. Kona Adult Daycare closed. I give them credit; they tried as much as possible to hang through the pandemic, but just in March they shut their doors,right? So we're going out to RFP again. We're trying. We're hoping that we can get other vendors to come in. They're just having trouble maintaining staff. It's very competitive for the staff that they hire for CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants). It's very competitive now, so they're having a hard time retaining. So those are some of the things that we're working on. We want to make sure that our providers you know, we can raise the unit rate, but it doesn't guarantee that a portion of that unit rate increase will go to the staff, right, the employee? We cannot dictate that to them. So we're looking at different options. We're looking at, hopefully, that we can get providers now that things are stabilizing out; that we can come back. You know, most of our programs, on average, took a 40 percent hit in the amount of service that we could do, and people that we could serve. So we're looking at Page 108 FC-32 April 12,2022 next year, which is just coming back to the pandemic level, and then in 2024, coming back to the pre-COVID level. So, that's what our goal is. I think our office is doing a good job in budgeting our funds and asking the powers to be that we can extend those funds, that we can use them longer than normal. And that we've been very successful in that. So I would anticipate that in 2024, we will be shooting to try and come back to our pre-pandemic levels. So we'll be keeping an eye on those things. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate our advocacy and creativity. Just a final question. You mentioned maintaining relationships with kupuna. As you do that, are there like top three issues, challenges that you're hearing about that they're facing, that you would like to share with us so we're aware of how we can better support our kupuna? MR. FARR: Well, right now we're trying to get them to come back out, right? To get back out into like our congregate meal sites. In the beginning, they went into isolation and it was hard for them to adjust. Now they're pretty much adjusted, and so now it's to get them back into programs. While the pandemic was—we had clearance from the State that we could you know, we couldn't run our congregate meal sites because of social distancing. So in order to continue getting meals to them, the State allowed us to reverse the process, so that we could take the meals out to them, for those that didn't qualify for home-delivered meals. But they were congregate individuals. But once the emergency proclamations ended, then the guideline said they had to come back in. We could not serve them. So we're trying to help our providers transition into opening their programs again and also trying to get the seniors to come back out again. There's still a little bit of hesitancy on their part of still coming back out. So we're heavy into educating, you know about vaccination, boosters, and practicing just good sanitizing, you know, handwashing, and all those small little things that we never really took for granted. So we're kind of really pushing more the education to help them that it's okay now to come back. We can get eight of you back in the van versus four, right? And so it's that re-educating them that it's okay, we're coming back to normal. And by all of us working together, we can get the programs back running again at the level that we want them to. It's a little different for us because when you look at elderly recreation, they deal with the more "well" seniors. You know, those seniors are well. They're ready to go. You know, these guys travel; but the group that we deal with is the more vulnerable, they're more frail. They take a little bit more. They take a little bit Page 109 FC-32 April 12,2022 more assurance. Their caregivers are a little more hesitant about letting them out, letting who's into the home, and stuff. Again, it's—one of the biggest things will probably be education for us. To get educating them that we are running good programs, it's safe, and we'll try all our best to keep them safe and allow them to participate again. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you for that. I'm sure they're all proceeding with caution. But I trust in your leadership and your team's ability to really create a safe environment, and educating them that it's going to be okay for them to come together. So thank you for everything that you do. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Okay, I have a couple of questions on here about the budget you submitted. Just going to run through them real quick. Account 115, Interpretation Services dropping from $7,000 to $500. MR. FARR: Yeah, so that account basically is for you folks, that's a Contingency Fund. So when you guys have a Contingency Fund or an item that you guys want to move, you usually come through us. And that's the vehicle that we use to pass your contingency item on. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay, so that was Contingency Fund, and it's not there anymore, so back down to $500, okay. MR. FARR: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Office of Aging, Miscellaneous Charges. Looks like we're going to step up substantially from 2021 Actual, from $577 to $8,290. MS. RAIN: Okay, so that account is what we use normally for our Older American's month, which is May every year. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MS. RAINE: But last year, because of COVID, last two years actually, we weren't able to have a large even. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Oh, okay. MS. RAINE: And so we still have in the budget because we're hoping at some point to get back to that point. But right now, we are not having it again this year. There are some small expenses, but nothing like it was in the past. Page 110 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So we are or aren't having it this year? MS. RAINE: We do have a recognition, but we don't have the luncheon that we normally have. So our nominees are honored through a sort of like a video presentation that is sent to the State, and the State has a statewide presentation on the air on TV. And so it's actually a really nice tribute to them, even though it's not an in-person tribute. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So is that full $8,290 needed for ? MS. RAINE: Hopefully for next year it will be. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, okay. MR. FARR: Yeah, if we go back to traditional, then that's where we would use it for. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, thank you. Your copier lease, is that correct? $8,710 for a copier lease? MR. FARR: No. We're not going to lease. We've decided to go out and purchase the machine. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that makes sense. MR. FARR: Because we didn't want to lose the money, the funding. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay, yeah. It seemed expensive for a lease, so I had to ask. Like there's no way that can be a lease. And then this one is interesting, there's Miscellaneous Contract Services, I mean, it's a substantial jump up from where your actuals were in 2021. I understand though, we had COVID. Are what we're seeing, the rebound from COVID within that budget for 115? MR. FARR: So what we're anticipating is that as we come back, some of the things we learned is that we had to increase our unit rates and everything. So as we're coming back, we're hoping to come back at least 20 percent of the 40 that we went down. So I think that's correct. Go ahead. MS. RAINE: So what you said is exactly right. Last year, we had very low utilization of some of our services because of COVID. You know, for transportation, you cannot get as many people in the vehicles. People were staying home. A lot of expenses were a lot less. And so we're hoping to get back to where we traditionally are, which is more in the $3 million range. Page 111 FC-32 April 12,2022 So I know it kind of looks over the place, but it's just a matter of where it was for COVID, and where we traditionally expect it to be, and hope that it will be next year. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Please understand, I'm a small business. MS. RAIN: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: We get the same thing. We went to here, to here, to here. What is this? It is all over the place. MR. FARR: Our providers are really struggling, and we're trying our best to help them make it through, you know, till we get back to some normalcy. But some of them are really, really struggling. Hopefully, they'll hang on a little bit longer, and we can get through the next cycle. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, yeah. Good, good. Okay. Okay, I think just tracking what you guys have said so far. A lot of the questions that I had, that's going to be the answer. And I just appreciate you guys, and that your budget is tracking with what we're seeing in the real world. That lines up for me. So, thank you. And again, during COVID I think I came across a couple of the vans with the kupuna, and everyone wearing their mask. Just watching that, it was just hard. It was hard for the guy driving the van. It was hard for our kupuna. It was hard for our community. You guys were there. As I'm getting older, and my parents are getting older, and I have different friends and family who are getting older and I'm watching that, and realizing you probably should get way more money than you get, because you provide such a big service to our communities. Thank you. MR. FARR: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. Any further questions? No? Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. MR. FARR: Thank you, folks, all for your support. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Of course. Thank you. Okay, our next department for today is the Department of Public Works. We'll take a brief recess while we get Public Works on. We'll give us five-minute recess. Recess: At 3:53 p.m., the Chair called for a short recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 3:50 p.m. Page 112 FC-32 April 12,2022 (5) Department of Public Works: (Note: At this time, Public Works Director Ikaika Rodenhurst and Deputy Director Steve Pause came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. RODENHURST: Yeah. Aloha, Council, and mahalo, Chair. My name is Ikaika Rodenhurst, Director of Public Works. Here with me today is my Deputy Director, Stephen Pause; our Highways Chief, Neil Azevedo; our Engineering Chief, Keone Thompson; our Traffic Chief, Aaron Takaba; our Acting Building Chief, Neal Tanaka; and we have a representative from Automotive on their way; as well as our Business Manager, Haku Kelii. So mahalo, my staff, for being here. I know it's late in the day, and I know you've all been here all day, so we'll do our best to keep up with this presentation. All right, here is our presentation for Budget 2023. Okay, today we'll be covering our overall revenue and expenditures as well as some of the projects we've completed and projects in progress. (Note: At this time, Mr. Rodenhurst provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the presentation, request a copy of the DVD recording of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or navigate to the Council's meeting archives from the County's homepage online at www.hawaiicounty.gov. A copy of the PowerPoint is made a part of the record. See Comm. 645.3.) MR. RODENHURST: Before I close the presentation, I just want to point out that our staff is human. Some people may forget that as we talk about these numbers, or people call us up. But I really appreciate our staff, that they go above and beyond; and just in these numbers and things out there, but also in participating in the community and improving more hours. There are some things that are not represented by the numbers here today. But I just want to take the opportunity to give kudos to all my staff from every division, and what they do for the community and when they go above and beyond. I really do appreciate that, and I want to mahalo them for that, From the laborers and clerks, all the way up to the supervisors and chiefs, so I really mahalo to you guys. And mahalo for this past year and what we had planned for the next year. One last thing is for our mission statement. Our current mission statement is "Building, operating, and maintaining public infrastructure for the success and growth of our County," and that's in line with the Mayor's vision to, you know, treat the community like family, but also make this a place for our kids and for future generations. So that's our budget. I'm happy to take questions. Mahalo. Page 113 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Director. I'll go to the Council for questions. Council Members? Ms. Villegas, go ahead. MS. VILLEGAS: Aloha, thank you for being here. First off, thank you for all the work done on our roads on the west side. It has been recognized and appreciated by many, many people. I also want to thank your Deputy Director for his hands-on service and help with me and my office with some of the issues we are facing in District 7, so thank you for that. I'm also excited to hear about the plans for repaving for next year. Some of the roads that you are mentioning are definitely in need of it, and it's always helpful for the morale of constituents to hear that it is on the books and in the works and heading our way. So yeah, I just want to kind of say thank you at this point. So, thank you. And congratulations to your team for all that you have accomplished during a challenging time. With coronavirus, shipping issues, price increases, and all those things, I think we'll probably continue to navigate some of those challenges, but with courage, wisdom, and determination. I do have a couple of people who've recently reached out with issues of EPIC, but I'll circle back with you on that to talk about what specific cases those are and why they may be taking longer. All right, I yield. MR. RODENHURST: Mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Director. Couple of questions I had. First of all a comment, Paniolo Avenue in Waikoloa has a really rough road. We've got to resurface. The community was very happy; however, the complaints went from a rough road, now people are speeding too much. So I'm working with Police to get that attended to. Couple of things, Director. First of all, with the road-swapping. We have the stretch between Mana Road and Mud Lane, which was County, and it didn't get resurfaced. And I know we're in we are in a transition phase, but we've got the shoulder fibbed up; you know that. We didn't get it resurfaced, but now it's a State kuleana. What are we doing about that, because we still have this transition phase? MR. RODENHURST: So we are working with DOT (Department of Transportation). We have regular conversations with them, whether it would be locally with Hawaii District, Harry Takiue, or at Hawai`i's overall level with Ed Sniffen about maybe projects that were in the works and making sure that they understand the need and what level of work we have provided in that. So we are Page 114 FC-32 April 12,2022 communicating with Harry locally of our intentions for those in the past and how they can move forward with that. That would currently fall under State's jurisdiction to get those addressed. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. And so as we have this transition, are we—stuff that they've started, they're going to finish stuff that we've started. We're going to finish as we're doing this swap. Is this one that we're handing off to the State? MR. RODENHURST: This one will be handed off to the State. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Okay, so on that same stretch of road, actually a little bit more Waimea side, there's been trees that we've taken care of periodically as they've come down, that tree maintenance because as they've come down. It was deemed they were County jurisdiction, so we took care of those. Are those now County—still County, or are we going to—is that all State now? MR. RODENHURST: With the road swap, as of January it would be part of State's jurisdiction. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. RODENHURST: Just like Akoni Pule Highway up north, that is part of our County jurisdiction now to handle. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. RODENHURST: On that one section going from Hawi down to Pololu, to be clearing up the whole Akoni Pule MR. RICHARDS: Okay, which is the next question. So as we do that, are we going to now complete—responsible for that, Hawi to Pololu Valley? Is that ours now? MR. RODENHURST: Correct, that is. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so anything that happens there. Because again, we have this transitional, but now we're pau with the transition and we're moving forward. MR. RODENHURST: Still transitioning in that we're communicating with State Highways and their maintenance division on what services they previously provided and what services we're providing now to make sure there are no gaps there. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Because then out at the end of the road, right at Pololu Valley, we may need to do some traffic improvement,just as we're trying to go Page 115 FC-32 April 12,2022 through all this sort of stuff. So, I'll communicate that with you a little bit later. Okay, enough for now. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you, Director Rodenhurst forI just want to confirm. From building R&M-OCE (Repair and Maintenance - Other Current Expenses), did that money in Section 109 just get moved to General Services 109? Because I see a decrease from $335,000 about to $20,000, but then on General Services OCE I see a jump from $2,000 to $317,0000. So I just wanted to make sure we're just moving where the money was if that makes sense. MR. RODENHURST: I'm sorry, which page are you looking at? MR. INABA: Page 47 and page 48. So on page 48, 5171.22-109 to 5171.02-109. MR. RODENHURST: I'll have Haku (Kelii) answer this one for you. MR. INABA: Thank you. Thank you. MS. KELIL Good afternoon, Business Manager Public Works, Haku Kelii. Yes. MR. INABA: Okay, very good. Thank goodness she's here. MR. RODENHURST: I second that one. MR. INABA: And then on the top of page 48, the vehicle we have there, is that just a normal vehicle—or can you share what that vehicle was for, 5171.06-449. It's for $38,000. MR. RODENHURST: That would be for an SUV(Sport Utility Vehicle)to replace a current vehicle with NGS (New Generation Star). We have some more vehicles that are quite outdated, and so we want to be upgrading those. For the General Fund, we have a lot of vehicles that are quite outdated. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you. And then page 51, 5173.02-115, the drug testing. That's just for normal drug testing new hires? Slight increase. Really manini, but since it's there, is that just for new hires? MS. KELIL It's also testing for some annual testing that we had to do, as well. MR. INABA: Okay. Thank you. Chair, that's all I have for now. Page 116 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Okay, I'm not seeing any other lights on. Well, I have some questions then. Hey, there we go. Mr. Richards, I'll trade with you a question. MR. RICHARDS: I figured we have a, you know, take a lap before we come back and ask. Ikaika, the budget, this was set. You guys been working on this for probably four or five, maybe even six months. The values in here, given the cost of oil right now, for your resurfacing and all, and then your operation costs for the vehicles and servicing and all that, where are we with that? MR. RODENHURST: So I'll talk about the materials question first. Currently, in our maintenance contracts for materials, we haven't seen an increase in price just yet. It doesn't mean we're not going to see one. But we're constantly in communication and reviewing these prices to see how that impacts, because as we know oil is a critical component of asphalt paving. As far as for parts and whatnot, we are concerned with the backorder of parts for supply chain, especially for some of our heavy machinery or construction equipment, that does become an issue, and has been an issue for when we do have those repairs and does set back repairs beyond our control. As far as fuel cost, we are addressing that in the upcoming revisions to the budget as we mentioned, because we're seeing this fuel cost rise, and that will be coming out. So we are aware of those. MR. RICHARDS: And you would probably find this—or maybe, Haku you know the numbers. What is the projected expense for blacktop for paving for this next year? Where I'm going with this is, we've seen, roughly speaking, a 20 percent increase in, like for instance HELCO (Hawaiian Electric Light Company) was before, and they're projecting 20 percent increase. Retail gas has gone up by probably 25 to 35 percent, depending on where you can get it from. So is that going to impact the plans that we're looking at here, or do you think how are you going to manage that? MR. RODENHURST: I mean, basically it comes down to priority at that point. We always have that as one of our issues; one of our potential hurdles to overcome when we have paving projects. You have labor availability, equipment availability, material availability, and finally, something we can't control is weather availability. But material availability, when we have a lack of oil, when we have a lack of available mixed asphalt, we're just going to have to prioritize our schedule and go off of the ones that are in need of the most resurfacing. And we use our asset management software for that, our Mandli system, the RoadView Explorer, that let's us know off of a good, fair,poor system, which roads need the most. A little Page 117 FC-32 April 12,2022 bit more complicated than that, they have a lot of factors involved, but that helps us to prioritize that work. We don't know what the increase is going to be, like I mentioned, or if we're going to see one. We anticipate there will be one obviously, with the rise in fuel, and we'll just have to do as much as we can with what we have. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. And as soon this will spill over to the STIP (Statewide Transportation Improvement Program) funding or whatever the case may be, meaning if you have to cut back—if you have a 20 percent increase, theoretically you would probably have to cut back the miles by 25 percent. I assume this would just transfer over to STIP, as well. And you'll see a reduction in the total? MR. RODENHURST: STIP is a little bit different. I mean, we have the (inaudible) funds that should help us offset some of those costs. But also, you would see a rise in contractor pricing for the bids on some of those projects. So we anticipate to see them higher. We're not sure what that's going to look like. It's definitely a concern of ours. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, best guess, MR. RODENHURST: Best guess, we would see a 20 percent increase that matches HELLO. MR. RICHARDS: All right. Okay, that's it for now. Thanks. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Okay, I'm going to go with my questions then. Thank you for the presentation. Sorry, it's been a long day. I'm going to run through your guy's budget real quickly, and then we'll get into Highway Fund. Just in general, I've seen a lot of departments dropping overtime to zero, with the 2022-2023 budget, and I'm just watching that with interest. You know, right in the front of your guys budget, General Services, Salaries & Wages, overtime down to zero, from your actual in 2020-2021 would be $33,000. It's not so much I'm complaining you dropped to a zero, I'm just worried that by zeroing it, you're not having any kind of a cushion there if you do have overtime. I mean, are you aware you dropped to a zero? No overtime expected at all for the year? (Note: At this time, Acting Building Chief Neal Tanaka came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. TANAKA: Good morning, Council Members. Good morning, Matt. Neal Tanaka, Acting Building Chief. Page 118 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How you doing, Mr. Tanaka? Good to see you. MR. TANAKA: Good. So with regards to the General Services, yes, we're trying to maintain our service to the County with regards to our S&W (Salary and Wages). I'm trying to control that OT (Overtime). We do have support from Mass Transit to cover some of their requests, and that comes out of their budget. So we're doing everything that we can to handle that. We have become fully staffed except for one position, so that we're able to cover the duties that we need to cover. We also have our ARC Services that we are implementing right now, and with that supplemented, I think that we could have that under control. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Oh, good job. Good job. MR. RODENHURST: If I could add to that, too? You know, because we're nearly fully staffed, we anticipate using that to its fullest extent. We want to be prudent with the funds that we have available, and historically with less staff we had to have some way to recoup that work, and this is general services to all the County buildings. So I stand by what Tanaka said here today, we're going to make sure that we do the best with what we have. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay, thank you. And the next one, Account 109, same thing, 171 and maintenance. There's a real substantial, move upwards to $317,000 from $837. MR. TANAKA: Neal Tanaka, Acting Building Chief. Are you talking about the General Services OCE? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Correct. MR. TANAKA: Okay. So what we had done was we had transferred, as Haku had mentioned from the R&M (Repair and Maintenance) to GS (General Services). So that number is just a transfer of funds. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And anotherI mean, I think Mr. Inaba mentioned this before, but there is a vehicle as well here in the General Services equipment, for under 5171.06. MR. TANAKA: Yeah, so as Ikaika and Haku had mentioned, we are just replacing our aging fleet. This is a vehicle that we have been requesting for in a supplemental budget for several years, and we're at a point where, because it is General Fund, that it's time to replace it. Page 119 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Water and gas went up almost double. The rise in prices, what's going on there? I'm just interested in these because some of these are County services that are offered, but we also pay for those same services, which I find interesting, but you know, here we are. MR. RODENHURST: Yeah, those are in response to the rising cost from each. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So your guys' water bills are going up, or the rate is going up for you? MR. RODENHURST: I think that it would be both, if I'm not mistaken, that the rate and the bill have gone up, and usage on some things, as well. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Electricity, that makes sense. You know, there's definitely going to be some raises there for everybody. We're all watching that one. You know, the spigots. I always come back to this one, spigots. Water spigots and maintenance, is there set funds in here every year, to maintain or to do improvements and maintenance on those spigots? MR. RODENHURST: It's to cover labor costs and other maintenance costs, whether it would be electricity for some of those areas that are provided. And we are required to maintain those. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I mean, I have a lot in Puna. So if we have a need to fix those, there's a budget and a line item to fix each one of those when needed, whether it's putting some gravel down or fixing pipes that are broken. MR. RODENHURST: Correct. It would be working with our Highway Maintenance crew to get that maintained. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Roadway Drainage Program, what is that one about, under Engineering Division OCE? MR. RODENHURST: Steve, you want to cover this one? (Note: At this time, Deputy Director Stephen Pause came forward to address the members of the Committee.) CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That is page 55, under the Engineering Division 5183.02. MR. PAUSE: Steve Pause, Deputy Director, DPW. So we have been looking at ways to improve drainage around the island. Obviously, anybody who goes out Page 120 FC-32 April 12,2022 on a rainy day realizes that some of our roads just need improvements for drainage. In combination with our Highways folks who are out, the eyes and ears of the department, out looking and identifying locations where we need to install drywells, essentially working with engineering. So what we've done this year is we've put in a line item specifically to begin the process of designing an upgrade in locations that are identified. Ideally, it becomes something that we can do every year. But it's specifically called out this year as a line item. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. This is any and all County roads? MR. PAUSE: Correct. MR. RODENHURST: Or is specific areas, here and there? MR. PAUSE: And, Ikaika, we've got a grant to do. Is it South Hilo ? There were two locations that I think we've gotten some money to begin this process, as well. MR. RODENHURST: So we have this is an island-wide process. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, you're talking about the flood study? MR. PAUSE: No, we've got I can't remember the name of the grant. MR. RODENHURST: Oh, that's right. No, the Fair Share funds. MR. PAUSE: Fair Share, thank you. MR. RODENHURST: Sorry. That's why you got me. MR. PAUSE: Abbot and Costello, sorry. MR. RODENHURST: No, but yeah, we did have improvements from the Fair Share funds to add to our CIP to help out with drainage improvements in multiple districts. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, okay. And so I think drywells, I mean, we're talking the canals that we have or making sure that our ? MR. RODENHURST: Primarily the drywells. MR. RODENHURST: Ridges are good. So we won't see blowouts in certain areas like we saw during (Hurricane) Lane and things like that, or this is drywell? These are improvements, too? MR. PAUSE: These are improvements. These are areas where, you know, again with the Highways folks out. They go, "Hey, it just doesn't drain here after a Page 121 FC-32 April 12,2022 heavy rainstorm" so we put a mark on the ground. And these funds are to allow us to go out and do the design and begin the permitting to put together a plan, again, island-wide, starting hopefully with the places that are worst factors, and doing this over the course of a long-term period. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I'm going to move into the Highway Fund. I mean, right off the bat, Highway Engineering, Roadway Improvements, you've got$1 million increase there. This is under 5183.05, Highway Engineering OCE. MR. RODENHURST: This is for our contract services. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, and what is that for? MR. RODENHURST: To help with our contract services for the design and management of our road engineering projects. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then, a little bit more down. You've got two SUVs lined up for this coming fiscal year, or one, no two, under Highway Engineering Equipment. MR. RODENHURST: I'll have our Division Chief, Keone Thompson, discuss the SUVs. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Mr. Thompson, thank you for joining us. (Note: At this time, Traffic Division Chief Keone Thompson came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. THOMPSON: Hi, Keone Thompson, Engineering Division Chief. Good afternoon, everybody. Yeah, so the SUV's there's for two of them, and they're to replace an aging fleet. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So two SUVs for the Highway Engineering Department? MR. THOMPSON: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, due to aging fleet. Okay. Right below that, in Miscellaneous Equipment, coming in at$40,000. And I see an office workstation furniture system? MR. THOMPSON: What line item was that? Page 122 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That is Highway Engineering, Equipment, 480, Miscellaneous Equipment. MR. THOMPSON: Oh, yes. So I believe that's for they're going to remodel all DPW'sI think it's Building, Engineering, and Admin, how is everything is set up inside that office. We're going to rearrange the same arrangement, and to accommodate for more capacity into that office. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, okay. MR. THOMPSON: So that's what they're planning for. MR. RODENHURST: So as we increase the amount of positions we have, we have limited space as it is in the system, or the layout was designed for a smaller staff. And so we're going to be working within our space there to redesign that and make the necessary improvements to accommodate desks for increases in these areas. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And just to ask, what is a nuclear gauge accessory equipment? MR. THOMPSON: So the nuclear gauge is pretty heavy to carry around, lug around. So this is just a handcart too, so it can roll from the vehicle to the site and then into the office. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And it's to gauge nuclear ? MR. RODENHURST: Compaction testing. MR. THOMPSON: Compaction testing. MR. RODENHURST: So nuclear gauge testing is a version of compaction testing for pavement soils, permitted for soils. It does increase—it decreases the testing time. So when you have a soil testing for compaction density out there to meet requirements of Federal Highways and STIP, it reduces that amount on time, so it allows the contractor to get back to work sooner. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, interesting. This is the cart to roll it, not the actual piece of equipment. Is that right? MR. THOMPSON: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, okay. MR. THOMPSON: So we have one for Hilo and one for Kona. Page 123 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. THOMPSON: So our inspectors go out to the site, and they actually check the compaction of the site. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And the ice machine? MR. THOMPSON: Yes, the ice machine is for Kona. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Lucky guys. MR. THOMPSON: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And when you work in the field, you've got to have that, because I feel that. MR. THOMPSON: Yes, we do. Okay, Council Members, you have anything you want to touch on, or I'll keep going. Ms. Kierkiewicz, go ahead. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Director, for the presentation. Since you have Keone up here, I'm going through the proposed Operating Budget. Looking at program highlights for Engineering, specifically number 3, projects that are currently in design. What is the oldest project on the list? How far back are we going here in terms of design? Two ninety-five (see page 295 of the Proposed Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2022-23, Part I, Volume II, under Public Works Department). Are these this last fiscal year, or does it go beyond that? It has to go beyond that because I see some recovery projects listed. MR. THOMPSON: Sorry, my page number is different from yours. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Oh, okay. MR. RODENHURST: So if I can maybe give spotlight on that? As far as this list right here, to know the oldest one, I don't have that in front of me right now. We would have to get back to you on that one. Unless Keone might have a chronological time order of that right now. I do know which one is the oldest, but I don't have it in front of me right now. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Which one is that? MR. RODENHURST: Of the many projects we have and the many projects we need, I don't know it off the top of my head, so I apologize for not having that today. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: No, it's okay. I mean, I was just curious because we're talking about having a need to fill more engineering positions, and so just Page 124 FC-32 April 12,2022 wondering how it's taking to design these. I'm not quite sure the level of complexity that's involved for each. I know that the ones for Lava Restoration are very complicated. So, I was just really curious. MR. RODENHURST: You know, Keone, you can confirm this, but it's not just design work that our engineers do. There's also a regulatory review, and there are multiple other aspects. Project management as well that our engineers are tasked with doing with our charge at engineering. Keone, do you have anything to capitalize on that? MR. THOMPSON: No, not really. Our guys—as for this list, there are a couple of them, they are kind of old, but I would have to get back to you on that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. It's a pretty extensive list. And then considering what the Director just shared about other duties and functions of you folks,just want to make sure the correct level of support is being provided, and where there are opportunities to get outside assistance. And I'm going to be a little bit selfish here, and just say that I would like for there to be additional hands and bodies involved in a lot of the lava recovery projects. You know, it was really devastating to community to hear that it's a couple more years till folks can get home and that I think is being optimistic. It's if we are able to meet everything that you've shared in the timeline, Director, in a timely manner. So, there's a lot here. You need more bodies. What sort of incentives are you folks considering to attract more talent? We heard a couple of other departments talk about some of the things they're doing, so just wondering if there is any creativity in planning with HR (Human Resources.) MR. RODENHURST: There's a difficulty in hiring engineers, and it's not just restricted to the County or the State, or the private sector, or even this State. It's hard to find engineers, and to find good, experienced engineers is even harder. We're doing what we can with the engineers that are available, to train them up. Currently, reallocating the position at a lower level so we can give them the necessary training and encourage them to pursue getting their license and getting the necessary knowledge and then training on the job. At the same time, we understand that doesn't help us in certain aspects. Like you mentioned, the multiple projects that we're going to get out there. And that's why we've expanded our contract services and pursuing contracts to get more design consultants onboard, and construction management, and ask consultants onboard to help us with this. Frankly, there's a wide arrange of engineering projects that we need to get out. So we're relying on the private community as well to help us through this, working together with what we have on staff, and making sure that we deliver these projects out to the community in a timely fashion. Page 125 FC-32 April 12,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: As we were reviewing Planning Department's budget earlier today, I saw a line item for Lead for Hawaii, the fellowship program that's being run in a number of different departments here. I'm wondering if that's a consideration, a way in which we can be getting some of our local students and talent right here, working in a much-needed County position. MR. RODENHURST: So, there is a perspective. We're looking at what we can do to encourage, like I said earlier, for our future generations to stay home and find jobs and a lifestyle here on the island. One of the challenges we have to overcome is the fact that we don't have a college of engineering on this island, even though it's in the UH (University of Hawaii) system. But we are looking to see what we can do to hire local engineers, or maybe provide those opportunities to interns, or have a student helper with the department in one of the many divisions we have. So that's something we are looking into. We we're working with HR to see how fast to serve that. Maybe provide some clear avenue, similar to that program with Planning. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. With the federal money that is available with Build Back Better,just an infrastructure package. Just curious to know if there is a core team within your department that's taking a looking at all the available funding and what might be applicable, and how we kind of set up a strategy for going after those funds to get a lot of the projects that we have on the books and in CIP design and construction. Do you guys have a strategy for that? MR. RODENHURST: So currently we're grateful that DOT (Department of Transportation) has been so open to us, and the other counties as well, in organizing that strategy, because a lot of these funds, like I said, come to the STIP program. That the State has jurisdiction over allocating those funds to whichever county; their help and support, and understand our needs, whether it be bridges or roadways that are on the STIP program and working closely with our DOT island counterparts to identify that. So we're working together with them to make sure that we're not overlapping but we're also doing a need-based assessment of our roads and bridges that equates to what they're doing with theirs, as well. So, they're helping us with that. They've allowed access to UH-Manoa College of Engineering. Their assistance in looking at grants for these projects, as well. So we do have a line of communication with them to aid in that. And also, in communication with R&D to look into what other support we need for grant writing. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Can I get a copy of that STIP project list when it's available? Or is that something that you guys can transmit to us soon? MR. THOMPSON: Are you asking for the grants list? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Projects. Page 126 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. RODENHURST: The STIP project list, correct? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I recall getting that in prior years. MR. THOMPSON: Yeah, we do have that. MR. RODENHURST: Yeah, we can get you a STIP project list. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay,perfect. Thank you, gentlemen. Just also want to mahalo you and your team, Aaron (Takaba). Thank you for getting those speed tables installed on Highway 132. A lot of racing was occurring there, and police and community members are just really grateful for that road treatment. So thank you for accelerating the pace in which that happened. MR. RODENHURST: And I just want to highlight as well, it was also Highway Maintenance crew in conjunction with Traffic to get that done. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes. MR. RODENHURST: Let me mahalo to Neal, and Aaron, and the Puna crew. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah. Sorry, long day. Neal was sending me photos as work was being done. So just really appreciate the close coordination and follow-up and the follow-through on that one. Thanks, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Ms. David, go ahead. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair. Director, Deputy Director, thank you so much for your presentation and your overview. I just really have one question. You mentioned, Director, that you're trying to—in filling your vacancies, you're trying to, what was it, revise the qualification process so it will open it up to more applicants. How long—what does that process, entail? Are you lowering the qualifications? And would that process take working with HR or the union, and if it does, then how long is that process? I'm just excited that you're willing to do that just to get your positions filled, and I think if you could accomplish that as quickly as possible, I think that would be very helpful to your department. MR. RODENHURST: So the process isn't end all be all. It's not going to solve the problem overnight. What it's really doing is identifying that we have a hard time. For example, Building Plans Examiners, you know, it's been a hard position to fill. Not so many folks meet the minimum requirements of that. So we are working with HR and making sure that it meets all the union requirements. MS. DAVID: I see. Page 127 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. RODENHURST: Lowering that minimum requirement, maybe it can be education level or experience level, and then giving them the opportunity to gain that experience on the job through a training process that's outlined with our staff to get them to that. Whether it be years of experience or whatnot, and working where that progression is, so that we can get them up to speed and give them the opportunity to get there. So, it does take some time. We're near the end of that process for the one, in particular, I'm mentioning here. I just talked with HR earlier today about that in fact because it is, like I mentioned, we have three openings three positions that we need to fill for that Building Plans Examiner role. MS. DAVID: Well, I just wanted to make a note of that because that's certainly creative thinking in trying to resolve some of the issues that your department is facing with staffing as well as every other department that has staffing issues right now. Other than that, I don't have any other questions except to say thank you for always being available and open on issues that I contact your department with, and just your willingness to be helpful and always responding. So that's all I need to say. And I think everybody's budget looks like you guys are doing the bare minimum and what you really need. So other than that, I don't have anything specific right today. So, thank you very much. I yield. MR. RODENHURST: Mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. Okay, I'm going to go back to it then. I'm just going to run through your budget like I was doing. Highway Fund–Bridge Improvements. Bridge improvements centered in a certain district? MR. RODENHURST: We do have a lot of bridges in Hamakua, but there are other bridges throughout the island. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, which ones outside of Hamakua are you guys taking care of? There's a$700,000 increase from your actuals in 2020-2021. MR. RODENHURST: One sec. I'll let Keone discuss our bridges. MR. THOMPSON: So the increase of the—it's pretty much going towards hiring consultants to do the evaluations and inspections of the current bridges that we have on our list. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So is there a list of bridges somewhere? Page 128 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. THOMPSON: Yes, we do have a list of bridges. We can provide you a list. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay, thank you. Traffic Division, Salary and Wages overtime. This department actually went up like $60,000. What was the cause? MR. RODENHURST: Traffic Division, we also have those two new positions. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. But this is for overtime specifically, though. MR. RODENHURST: When we have, especially in our Maintenance Division, we need to have overtime available for emergency use, whether it be a down streetlight, down traffic signal, those kinds of items. So we do have the overtime put in there and budgeted for our staff. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I mean,just go back to it, 2020-2021, your actuals was $20,000, but you're going up to $85,000, which is a big step. I understand the need for overtime for signals and that, but just wanted to see why the $60,000 increase in overtime. I see budgeted for $85,000 for 2021-2022, but I like to go back to the actuals and see what was spent in previous years to get a feel for what was being spent. (Note: At this time, Traffic Division Chief Aaron Takaba came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. TAKABA: Hi, Aaron Takaba, Division Chief at the Traffic Division. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. MR. TAKABA: I was told—it's actually not an increase, but primarily the overtime is meant to handle standby operations and emergencies during after hours, and particularly with signals. There are a lot of knock-downs that we have to address, and malfunctions. So that's the primary use of the overtime. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Because I don't have anything to gauge off of—because I looked at our last monthly report, I looked back to 2020 and 2021, where your actual expenditure was $20,000. The I looked up to the current year, it was estimated at$85,000. That's where I get my difference. I understand there could be a difference from this year's expenditures, but that's a big increase in overtime. And maybe if you can provide me a current overtime for this year, for this same line item. MR. TAKABA: Okay. Page 129 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That would be helpful. And then, office supplies. Is this part of the build-out for office, for the Traffic Division? Or is this just normal office supplies needed? MR. TAKABA: Yeah, I think it's just normal office supplies, yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Traffic Division equipment. Motor Vehicles, I see a 4x4 pick-up truck and two forklifts. MR. TAKABA: Yes, those are replacement vehicles. One was we were having problem with the forklift and a lot of maintenance incurred; and similar with the sign truck, which is Item 1, the 4x4 truck. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. How old is that truck that you guys have currently running? MR. TAKABA: I need to check on the year, but I know it's pretty up there with the mileage and the year. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I know you've been working on our signalization, are we moving in a direction of doing more smart signals? It may be the right term, but I mean in "adaptive." Yeah, adaptive technology for signalization. I see some increases in your signal electricity in your Miscellaneous Contract Services. I mean, are these moving towards that adaptive technology, or this is just increases in other areas? MR. TAKABA: Yes, as far as adaptive, we were working on that in Kona for several signals, the whole Highways 19, 11 corridor, and Kuakini down below. And we're also going to try and do what's called SPM (Signal Performance Measures), on Kipimana and Highway 130 intersection on Highway 11. So those are in the works. We're just still trying to finalize those. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What is SPM? MR. TAKABA: SPM is called Signal Performance Measures. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. MR. TAKABA: So the signals, they actually collect data, so we're going to use that to actually help us kind of analyze and try to make improvements to the signals, so that's what that's for. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Cause it was big. It's big for our residents. The Kipimana one has slowed things down, but we've been working with Director Rodenhurst, and the State, and our local State Representative to try and fix that, and it's been good. Page 130 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. RODENHURST: Oh, Aaron's been the one that's been really doing the work. I'm just helping coordinate between everybody, but Aaron and his staff. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. It's needed. The residents asked for something, and that's what they asked for. You guys actually come back, and you follow up, and you make it quicker and more efficient. That's very, very helpful. Thank you. Another SUV for Kona side for the same traffic signals and equipment, for 449? MR. TAKABA: Yeah, it would be a replacement vehicle as well, and I can get you the year if you want that, too. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: It think what's more important is understanding how many vehicles we already have. I know we have that big, thick binder of vehicles and assets for the County,but it's hard to gauge when it's needed and when it's not for us as a budgeting body, yeah? So that would be my concerns; if you can, how many vehicles we have and we're looking to replace with, and why. That would be very helpful. MR. TAKABA: I'm kind of working on something like that, so I can—when I get that done, I can get that information to you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That would be very useful, thank you. MR. TAKABA: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I thinkI'm not kind of diving in too much. I mean, there's asorryoverall, I looked to Public Works for a lot of things. The main thing I looked to you for is road maintenance and upkeep. I mean, Mr. Azevedo and his crew I think do a tremendous job by keeping up with the highways. On the backside of that—in our previous meeting, we kind of ran over the budget. It was not disheartening; I think it's good we've moving up, but we're heading 25, I think, miles of roadway. Whether that's four lanes, two lanes, you know, we had that discussion. But I'm really, really interested in seeing us pick that number up. So the budget in front of us, is it going to give Highways the ability to up that number? I mean if I boiled it down to what's really important to me and to the community from what I hear, is this going to bump up Mr. Azevedo's ability to hit our roads harder and keep them up to a better standard? MR. RODENHURST: That's the intention of the budget, is to increase. Like I mentioned earlier, to get that cycle down from a 50-year cycle down to a 35 or 40-year-cycle, and continue that process downward. We want to make sure that Page 131 FC-32 April 12,2022 we maintain. The more frequent our maintenance, the less we're going to have to pay these bigger engineering projects. And so, we want to make sure that we maintain these roads effectively for the community. We do have a concern about the material price and seeing how that is addressed in the coming year. So without—you know, I cannot guarantee without that not being in there, but can I guarantee our intent, and our mission here is to achieve more and to pave more. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I mean, what specifically in here is going to help us get there? I was looking this over, trying to understand this whole Highway Fund, Building Division, your Public Works Department. What specifically in here gets us to that goal? (Note: At this time, Highways Division Chief Neil Azevedo came forward to address the members of the Committee.) CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Go ahead. MR. AZEVEDO: Aloha, everybody, Neil Azevedo, Highways Division Chief. Sorry, can you repeat that question? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I'm looking over the budget. I think one of the biggest things we all want to know is, can we up our road maintenance? Can we get you to where you need to be, so you're hitting our highways, you're hitting our roads, and we're hitting those repaving, resurfacing projects as quickly as we'd like to get them all done, which should be all at once, which is hard. You know, maybe impossible. Do you have what you need in here to ensure that you can do the maintenance and the paving that we want to see in our respective districts? MR. AZEVEDO: Well, what we do is we schedule the paving throughout the districts. We schedule around the—we move the pavers around the districts to make sure we keep up with maintenance. We're in one district paving a road, you know, about a month or so. We try moving around to share to everybody, make sure we catch all lane miles throughout the districts. We try to share it. But for us help, you know, for get up with the mileage, personnel would help. But whatever we get right now, we'll do our best to accomplish what we need. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. AZEVEDO: And weather, material, all that plays a role. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Is it personnel, or equipment, materials? What holds you back in hitting that—? Page 132 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. RODENHURST: I think those are all factors; as I mentioned, the labor availability, equipment availability, material availability. In the end, if there's one factor that really helps us, it is the funds that we have available, and primarily in the Highway Fund, a lot of that comes from Fuel Tax. So that allows us to move forward and have more. Like I mentioned, there's an increase in our funds from fuel tax this year; increase in our overall Highway Fund for this year. That will allow us to pave more. It allows us to get more material. It allows us to really get that going. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Can I hear from Mr. Azevedo? MR. RODENHURST: Of course. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. MR. AZEVEDO: Saying what Ikaika said, you know, material-wise, that was the major factor this year. You know, every time we've scheduled, then out of oil; and no oil, no material. Then once we get everything started going, then our equipment goes down. Then once the equipment gets back on, the weather plays a role. But I don't want to find an excuse. We will do our best to do our mileage. Whatever mileage we can do, we will do. You know, our guys work hard every day, and they get excited when they pave roads. They're excited to make the roads safer for everyone. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: But the community loves it that's why. I just want to make sure that you have what you need. And we ask that with other departments, "Do you have what you need?" But I mean, for your department specifically, you keep our vehicles moving, yeah. You keep us going to work. So if it's MR. RODENHURST: That would be Automotive to keep the vehicles moving. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: No, I mean our vehicles. Our vehicles rolling on the roadways; the residents. MR. RODENHURST: Gotcha. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So manpower good? MR. AZEVEDO: Always manpower is good. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Materials? MR. AZEVEDO: Materials, when we get them. Page 133 FC-32 April 12,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Equipment? MR. AZEVEDO: Equipment-wise, we're good with equipment. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. AZEVEDO: You know, for maintenance-wise, we've got a bunch of equipment coming in, hopefully this year which is going to help us maintain the grass and stuff. Grass cutters and stuff. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, I saw that in here. MR. AZEVEDO: We're all good with equipment. Manpower should be good. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay, I saw Mr. Richards's light on. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. Couple of questions concerning—actually for Neil, probably. This is a little bit for you. The road going up to Waiki`i Ranch, you had talked story about we're expanding those. They're not really bridges, or more culverts and everything. And so the work looks great. Looks like we're actually getting more capacity going through there. The funding on that, what is that coming out of? How are we covering the cost? And when are you going to be pau with that one, Neil? MR. AZEVEDO: Okay, I think that the first culvert extension is on the 52-mile marker, pretty sure. MR. RICHARDS: Sounds about right. MR. AZEVEDO: Where the water runs along the road. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah. Yeah, that's the one. MR. AZEVEDO: That's one of the hazards. So we're working with Engineering on that. So that one should be completed already. So we're going to turn around, and we'll work with Traffic on extending the road a little, about a 3-foot pavement there, like two lanes. MR. RICHARDS: Sounds just—Right. Yep. MR. AZEVEDO: We want to make road safer for two cars to cross. And the other two culverts, I think they went go ahead, and they poured couple of yardage already today for the headwalls. Page 134 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. RICHARDS: Oh, okay. MR. AZEVEDO: And they going to start backfilling. Then I think we've got more culverts after that. So say about maybe the end of May. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. AZEVEDO: Pretty close, depending on what comes up weather-wise. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, I give you guys' credit. Because when you first talked about it, I was kind of wondering how you're going to do it; and okay, you're being very ingenious (inaudible). I couldn't figure out how you're going to widen that thing, but I see what you're doing now. I know the community is going to be really happy on that one, so I appreciate that. And funding, how is that coming along? MR. RODENHURST: Yeah, so whether it's the engineering, the design, and some of that work, or whether it's Highway Maintenance getting the work done out there, Traffic helping us out with their work as well, that's all from Highway Fund. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. I think Ashley talked about this one, comes to capacity. We're looking at this funding, and maybe I missed this, it's been a long day. But like having the capacity to get this stuff shovel-ready, so when we get funding out of D.C., and we're swinging hard for that, are we going to be ready? MR. RODENHURST: Yeah, so the (inaudible) funds, that's theI forget every single word, acronym there but basically those funds, it's over a course of five years. So right now we're working with what we have currently available, as far as engineering projects. From there, we're also looking at making sure that we have projects for the coming years; and if possible, increasing the amount that we're able to spend that way. DOT is very receptive. If we have the capacity to put out more projects, they'll work with us to see what they can do to allocate more funds to us, from that overall amount provided to the State. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Because I know there's a timeline on here, and I know we've been successful in the pass by having shovel-ready, so if they had some, maybe we can jump and run. Are we going to have enough engineers to get that? I know you talked about hiring more people, but do we have the capacity? Because I feel we're going to miss funding if we don't MR. RODENHURST: So we're pursuing using consultant engineers for design to help make sure we have enough projects on the shelf ready to go when the time comes. Page 135 FC-32 April 12,2022 MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. RODENHURST: So we're looking at, like I mentioned, training our staff in-house, making sure they're up to speed, but at the same time not losing sight of the services we need to provide, and getting those projects up and going and taking any help we can get, whether it be from the consultants, to get those projects out there. So, we're hitting this on every corner as we can. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. And then final question, again coming back to the Pololu Road, historically that thing gets blocked every time we have wet weather; of course, we haven't had that kind of weather this year. And do we have the heavy equipment in Kohala because I know the State didn't and they would contract it very quickly? What's the plan if we get a blocked road because that's an end of a road? Only one way in, one way out, so that's a high concern for the community. What do we have? What's our plan if we had a landslide and we've got to clear the road? Do we have the equipment there? MR. AZEVEDO: In North Kohala, we got a backhoe there. And if we need extra bigger equipment, we've got a 966 loader in Waimea. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. AZEVEDO: And a CAT (Caterpillar) excavator in Waimea. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So we've got—relatively close. MR. AZEVEDO: It's about half-hour, 45 minutes away. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. AZEVEDO: Then we'll respond quickly to them. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, I appreciate that, Neil. Because that is a concern, especially if you live in Niuli`i or whatever. When this road closes, that's the only way out, and that's why we've explored all the different avenues. But we've got to be able to respond quickly. So, that makes me happy. Okay, that's it. Thanks, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Very quickly. I understand the equipment, the weather, the materials, the labor. We've heard it a few times I can remember now. But when it comes to the materials, knowing that we have a schedule a few months out of anticipated work, what is preventing us from, and I'm sorry if I missed this, but Page 136 FC-32 April 12,2022 what is preventing us from making sure that we have those materials? Are we not able to store the oil, or the materials, ahead of time? MR. RODENHURST: So the batching of AC is done by private companies. Not owned or operated by the State or County. Those are privately owned. We have agreements. We have RFPs and everything with them, for maintenance as well as—for the projects that have contractors, they have agreements, if it's available. It's really kind of like a first come, first serve process where they schedule this on a daily basis. These plans run and operate daily and service multiple folks, whether it be private jobs, State jobs, or County jobs, so we're all kind of in competition. But we do work closely. I know Neil's guys work closely with the local asphalt plants as well as Keone's contractors for engineering projects to schedule that and make sure if there are any drops in services, that we address that. But like the nature of construction, anything can happen,plant breakdown. Like Neil mentioned, oil availability. We need that oil for tack coat as well as for the oil for the actual asphalt. So there are portions of that, that are limited by supply chain, that are beyond our control. To summarize, basically it's really at the availability of the material providers and making sure they have for that week, and how many jobs are going out at once. MR. INABA: Okay. But we are actively, on our end, making sure that the requests for those materials are submitted to these suppliers or to these plans. MR. RODENHURST: Correct. MR. INABA: Okay. All right, thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Okay, any other questions? No? Okay. Thank you very much, Director. Thanks for bringing your team in today. And I expressed this earlier: Fire Department area covered, Police Department area covered, trying to make that up with taxes and funding sources, and it's just difficult to get to you where you need to be given low population and size of the island. So what you folks are doing with the funding that you have, you know, I really appreciate what you guys are up to. And what your guys been doing, and the headway you've made with permitting and just keeping our community safe as a whole. So thank you for being here today. I appreciate the PowerPoint and the discussion. Thank you very much. And to your whole team behind you, thank you, everybody. Appreciate it. MR. RODENHURST: Mahalo. And I want to say again, mahalo to my team, not just the guys and gals behind me, but also the folks that are operating on a daily basis and that operate when they need to for overtime and for after hours. And Page 137 FC-32 April 12,2022 also, mahalo for that because it is a difficult j ob for them. They don't always get the credit they deserve. I know that we're not perfect. Sometimes we make mistakes and talk about permitting. I made it very clear we're not perfect. We're getting better. But we're not done yet, and we continue to improve. And I'm really appreciative of this team. They are able to work with what they were given and make the best of it. So I just can't say mahalo enough to my team. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you very much, Director Rodenhurst. Appreciate it. With that, Council, we are in recess. Recess: At 5:33 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Page 138 FC-32 April 13,2022 RECONVENE: The Special Meeting of the Committee on Finance was reconvened in the Council Chambers, Hilo, at 9:02 a.m., Wednesday, April 13, 2022, by Mr. Matt Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Chair Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member (via videoconference from Kona) Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member (via videoconference from Kona) Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member(came in later) Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Member(came in later) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member (via videoconference from Kona came in later) Absent& Excused: Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: (There were none.) CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mr. Waltjen, mahalo for being here this morning with your team. I'll give it to you, go ahead and take away the meeting. DEPARTMENTAL The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next item on the agenda, BUDGET AND: Departmental Budget and Program Reviews. PROGRAM REVIEWS (1) Office of the Prosecuting Attorney: (Note: At this time, Prosecuting Attorney Kelden Waltjen and First Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Fry came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. WALTJEN: Aloha, Chair. Mahalo for the opportunity to meet with you all today, and to discuss our department. I'm Kelden Waltjen, Prosecuting Attorney. Here with me today is First Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Fry, who also serves as our supervisor of our Kona Office. I'd also like to take the opportunity to introduce our team who's seated in the gallery today. We have Lisa Faulkner- Inouye Business Administrator, Kayla Ogawa Accountant, Daniel Pang Chief Investigator, Tar Benevides Victim Witness Director, and back in our office is Kelvin Ono our Management Information System Supervisor. Page 139 FC-32 April 13,2022 Our office is comprised of three physical locations. We have an office in Hilo, Kona, and in Waimea. It's comprised of seven units, we have 122 employees when we're fully staffed including grant funded positions. The mission of the Prosecuting Attorney's Office is to pursue justice with integrity and commitment. We seek justice for victims who can't stand up for themselves, and we do that with the ultimate goal to make Hawaii County a better and safer place for everyone in our community. In order to achieve our goals, we need to get up to speed with other states and counties, consider and implement fresh ideas, and just think outside the box. As such, our office will continue to employ a multifaceted approach toward addressing crime and criminal justice concerns in our community. We identify and seek stiffer penalties for serious, violent, repeat offenders, including drug dealers, and where appropriate,promote rehabilitation and treatment for those suffering from addiction and mental illness. We'll collaborate and utilize available resources in our community toward prevention, education, awareness, and reintegration. Crime trends are on the rise. People no longer feel safe in their homes, that isn't right. There's been spikes in the distribution of illegal drugs in our community including methamphetamine, heroin, and most recently, fentanyl. You know, there was a case out in the Kona side where the Federal Authorities worked with Hawaii County Police, Prosecutors, I believe DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), and Homeland Security Agents. It was a huge bust, and it was really a coordinated effort. Fentanyl is in our community, it's something that needs to be addressed. With a growing drug influx, we've seen a rise in burglary, theft, domestic violence, prohibited possession of firearms, as well as violent crimes, such as robbery and even murder. MR. FRY: So in the last two years, we've been dealing with COVID (Coronavirus Disease) and the change that brought to the criminal justice system. Just wanted to give everyone an update on where our office is and moving forward in life after COVID. In March of 2020,jury trials were shut down and they've been shut down for a number of times, from the time period of 2020 through 2022. They most recently got started back up in March of 2022. So for all of calendar year 2021, we had a couple windows where we were allowed to proceed forward to jury trials, and certainly with those shut downs,we've had a backlog of cases, and prosecuting cases during the time of COVID when the Governor's emergency mandates were up, and the Mayor's emergency mandates were up, we had to wear masks in court rooms. The jurors had to be socially distant. We have four circuit courts on island, two in Kona and two in Hilo. They couldn't impanel juries at Page 140 FC-32 April 13,2022 the same time, so even when we were allowed to do jury trials, we were limited to doing it one at a time because of social distancing and excepting in jurors. So all of those things slowed down the process of over the last couple of years. We're happy to report that as of March 2022 and all the emergency orders being dropped, we're moving forward and working through the backlog. Court calendars are moving faster,jury trials are going forward, and the court has the ability to do two at a time on each side,just like we have in the past. During that COVID time, there were concerns about COVID in the jails. There were Supreme Court orders that were issued, talking about the release of inmates, there were challenges that we faced in regular release of inmates. Again, we're happy to report that those challenges have been diminishing. We're seeing very positive ruling from the judges relating to sentences that are being imposed, bail that's being maintained on violent offenders. We seem like we're getting back to where we were two years ago, and everyone moving forward and sort of getting beyond the problems that COVID was presenting. The court staffing has results of the closure of the Waimea Court House, that's still closed. We're hearing that they're starting to get that back up to speed, they're going to start slow. It's going to start with civil cases going back, so we're not going to be back in the Waimea courthouse at the moment. They're going to let us know when that's open up again. Through that time period, we've been able to maintain—it created challenges because we have work that's in Waimea, the Waimea Office that's been shuttling files and working remotely to get those files to the court rooms that the cases are now in front of. But we were happy to maintain that office, it's important to serve that area and the community. We're looking forward to that courthouse being opened again to make it easier for citizens in South Kohala, North Kohala, and Hamakua, to have that location that's a little more accessible for them. We also had a challenge in December of 2021 that was recently resolved in March of 2022. It was a Supreme Court opinion in State v. Thompson. It drastically affected how complaints were filed that resulted in a number of dismissals. Basically, it was being interrupted here that police or a complainant would have to sign a complaint, it resulted in a number of dismissals. Our office along with all the other County Prosecutors and the Attorney Generals (AG), worked quickly. House Bill 1541 was passed as Act 2, amended HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes) 805-1 back to requiring just a prosecutor's signature. So that hurdle has affected us for a couple of months, and now we seem to be beyond that and we're recharging those cases. So all those things point forward are positive. MR. WALTJEN: We'd also like to take this time to, I guess identify a few of the other challenges that our offices are facing this upcoming fiscal year. Traditionally, our offices relied upon funding by the State Attorney General's Office to support our Career Criminal Prosecution (CCP) unit, and Victim Page 141 FC-32 April 13,2022 Witness (VW) units. The CCP unit was just, to give a little bit background and history, it was created by the Hawaii State Legislature, and it's mandated by statute. It was created based on the understanding that a disproportionate number ofa disproportionate amount of serious crime is committed by the same repeat, multiple felony offenders that we refer to as career criminals. Our office has used CCP and VW monies to fund nine positions in the past. This year, that total salary cost would be approximately $510,000. Back in December 21, 2020, we were informed by the Attorney General's Office that the CCP and VW funds will be cut to zero. Last year, we relied upon County funding for those positions. This Legislative session, we're anxiously waiting for the progress of House Bill 1600, which is the State's proposed budget. Forty-eight-hour notice was submitted yesterday. Following yesterday's Senate floor there was an amendment made. Our office, along with the other County Prosecutor's and the Attorney General's Office, all submitted commentary for House Bill 1600 for consideration by the committees for the return of CCP and VW funds to the State budget. So we're closely monitoring the progress of the bill, and we'll update the Council when we hear more. But I'm optimistic that our efforts will be successful in securing the additional funds. So I'll let you guys know when we hear more. MR. FRY: So one of the other things that we're working for is updating our records management system, it's called Legal Edge. We've been talking about it for some time, it interfaces with the Police Department's Spillman Records Management system. It's an ongoing issue, but we're having biweekly meetings with our MIS (Management Information System) unit with Legal Edge to get that up and running. The hope is that once those systems are integrated, it will streamline some of the processes to make our clerical functions a little more efficient. We're looking forward to having that rolled out by the end of this year and we're implementing new life data to go into there to further finish out the testing and get that up and running. So once we turn it on it's not incurring additional work load for our staff, it really serves to streamline the processes. Through that new records management system, we'll be able to provide reports on crime trends and we're looking forward to updated statistics that it'll provide. With that system, one of the things that we're looking forward to doing this year or soon, is to transition over to electronic discovery. Currently, what happens with discovery is we'll get police reports and any data over, we'll print those out and we'll provide hard copy paper to Defense Counsel. We've looked into and received quotes for electronic discovery so that we're just sending it over electronically and PDF (Portable Document Format), which would eliminate wear and tear on our machines, it would eliminate paper, and it would allow us to retain data easier. One of the other things that we do is once we print out that electronic discovery, if other agencies need that we'll have to scan that in, Page 142 FC-32 April 13,2022 reprint it, send it over, which takes man hours, more wear and tear, and more paper. If it was electronic discovery, we could just send it over automatically, and it would allow us to better retain our records. So one of the other challenges we have is with the immense volume of paper and cases that we have. We have to have a purging method in place and send things to a physical storage for cases that require it, which has its own challenges on whether or not that physical paper is actually going to maintain its integrity. So with electronic discovery, we're looking to solve all of those issues going forward. MR. WALTJEN: Just touching base a little bit on the electronic discovery, you know, another one of the concerns that has been brought to our attention working with members of the judiciary, including the Probation Department, is if we were able to assist them by streamlining processes. One of things that we provide the Probation Department for preparation of presentence investigation reports, or mental health evaluations, is we provide copies of those police reports. So if we could utilize electronic discovery with that respect to facilitate that and transitioning paper over to the judiciary, it would also, hopefully, speed up processes and make a little bit more judicially economy in our system. Lastly, one of the other challenges, I guess it's no secret, it's something that every department has faced and employers everywhere, is just throughout the pandemic, dealing with employer retention and having the ability to fill vacant positions. We've also encountered similar challenges. It's been difficult. Besides working through the pandemic and those challenges of health and safety concerns, it's been difficult to compete with competitive salaries, benefits, and the flexibility that other offices and departments afford their employees, including working from home, or telework opportunities. We simply don't have that luxury. Many of our positions are unable to be performed remotely. By affording our office the ability to compete with competitive salaries, we believe we'll be able to secure the personnel that are necessary to take our office to the next level and to better serve our community. We'd also like to share how our office is moving forward in 2022, to create a better and safer Hawaii Island. I'd like to first discuss a little bit about our non- Administrative units. Over the last year, our new Administration has focused on making essential internal office changes to promote positive changes in our work. We've implemented internal changes to our structures, policies, and procedures, all with the overall goal of streamlining,promoting efficiency, accuracy, and resulting in better prosecutions. We'll continue to incorporate this dynamic approach to the management of our office. With respect to our clerical unit, our changes focused mostly on being more resourceful with our time and staff, alleviating unnecessary work and capitalizing on the strength of certain staff members and addressing weaknesses. We've incorporated flex work schedules to address court related time constraints, Page 143 FC-32 April 13,2022 reorganized workstations to encourage efficiency, redistributed duties and assignments where appropriate, and we're making sure that our staff is cross trained, in the event of another unit member's absence. Despite staff shortages, we're able to maintain coverage and even address backlog this past year, by utilizing grant funding opportunities to cover overtime related expenses. MR. FRY: For our attorney's unit, what we've done is we've implemented sort of a policy that our attorney's supervisors will be working supervisors. Our supervisors take on the most complex cases and they're really leaders in our office. What we've seen in that change is that we really have a collaborative environment going on at the Prosecutor's Office right now where people can reach out to their supervisors for training, experience, and leadership, and that's a positive thing. We have a really strong team of attorney supervisors that are taking the office forward. We've encouraged for local prosecution, so prosecutors are involved in the charging of the case and see that case all the way through trial. We've developed teams to allow for specialized knowledge. We have a sex assault team, we have attorneys that are focused on traffic crimes, we have attorneys that are focused on drug crimes, and we have attorneys that are focused on violent crimes. Allowing attorneys to specialize in particular areas will make them more proficient and allow us to prosecute those cases better. We've assigned all of our attorneys to each Council District, so i don't know if you've had the opportunity to reach out to those attorneys that are assigned to your Council District, but that's something we've implemented. We've received a lot of positive community feedback from being able to get out to the community and have those attorneys assigned and really understand what each district's challenges are. MR. WALTJEN: For the investigator's unit, we transitioned into implementing more law enforcement related functions and supporting our police. Including serving subpoenas, and penal summons complaints, conducting follow-up investigations, interviews, drafting, executing search warrants, even search warrants on digital evidence, we've addressed non-compliant sex offender, registration violators, and we're providing awareness to the Farmer's Market vendors about the growing agricultural theft concerns. By assisting our police, what the goal is that we're hoping for is to free up Police Officers and members of our Police Department. We understand they're seriously understaffed right now, and it puts them in a very tough spot. So we're hoping we can free up some officers, alleviate unnecessary burdens, and we can do our part in making the best use of our County's limited resources. For our Victims Assistant Unit(VAU), we have new leadership and we're considering addressing the higher hierarchical structure of the unit to provide for Page 144 FC-32 April 13,2022 growth and advancement of our staff. That will enable us to retain experienced employees and help us better serve our community. Our Restorative Justice Program, or RJ is within our VAU unit. It's also been presented limitations, as a result of the pandemic. So we took that time to address it and realized that RJ was an underutilized resource in our office. So we took that time to address it, and increase the numbers of the program and reprioritize it as a resource within our office. Now that the pandemic restrictions have lifted, we are waiting final confirmation from the Department of Public Safety to allow us to restart our victim and back classes at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center, and our VOCARE (Victim Offenders and Communities-A Restorative Experience) classes at the Kulani Correctional Facility with RJ. For our Crime Prevention and Justice Assistance Group or CPJAG Unit, their primary focus is to engage community stakeholders, address issues such as substance abuse, domestic violence, sex assault, prevention and education. Our CPJAG unit is also instrumental in helping us promote open lines of communication and providing the public with information through management of our social media sites. I put a little QR(Quick Response) code on your desk so you guys can actually use it to take a look at the link to each of our pages. These outlets, they provide the public with information about what's happening in our community, including case updates, arrests, trials, sentencing decisions, our office media releases, and just share the different projects that our office is participating in or coordinating. So shameless plug, please follow us at Hawaii Prosecutors Instagram and on Facebook. MR. FRY: So in addition to asking County for funds, we continue to seek funds from our federal grants. We seek funds from outside sources to ensure that we're properly supporting our special projects. We have currently 10 grants, and those grants do things like support certain salaries associated with our domestic violence prosecutor. We have a sex assault prosecutor that's supported by a grant. We have a traffic safety grant that allows us to do State-wide training. We have grants that support work in juvenile delinquencies, substance abuse, technological improvements with the office and electronic crimes. MR. WALTJEN: Lastly, we're focusing on fostering a more cohesive law enforcement community on our island, with the overall goal of just making our island a safer place. Just like to extend our mahalo to Chief Ferreira, and Deputy Chief Bugado. Each month we meet with them for a face-to-face police prosecutor meeting. At those meetings we discuss, you know, concerns, cases, policies, and just how we can work together to get the job done. Our open lines of communication don't just stop at our Administration Offices. Our deputies also routinely attend briefings at the patrol level, as well as the criminal investigation division levels. We're also working with State and Federal law enforcement partners and agencies in joint initiatives and operations in reducing crime in our community, more Page 145 FC-32 April 13,2022 specifically, serious drug trafficking and distribution, as noted earlier, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, firearm offenses, sex crimes, domestic violence, offenses against children, and impaired driving and road safety. Last year, we were asked to submit a status quo budget. We all faced the challenges that were presented by the pandemic, which required us essentially to do more with less. Moving forward this fiscal year, our primary goals are to become fully staffed, retain our experienced employees, address and prioritize our outdated office management system, and seek outside sources of funding for special projects, infrastructure, and to promote public safety. I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank our budget prep team, our private secretary, Lorna Ita, our fiscal unit, Business Administrator Lisa Faulkner-Inouye, our accountant, Kayla Ogawa for all of their assistance, and mahalo to all of our staff for all of their hard work and dedication and commitment to serving the community. You know, without them, we wouldn't be able to do what we do at the Prosecutors Office. Thank you, and we stand here ready for any questions. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Waltjen, appreciate it. Thank you for the overview. Council Members, discussion? Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thanks gentlemen for being here this morning. You know, you mentioned the monies from the AG's Office and a House Bill 1600 and being optimistic. What's plan B? MR. WALTJEN: Plan B is that we're hoping that the County will fund the positions. MS. LEE LOY: Then that walks me into all of the grants that you've talked about. You know, the VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) grant, the VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) grant, the JAG (Justice Assistance Grant) grant, are those certain at this point? MR. FRY: Yes. The VAWA grant has reduced by a little bit, which that one covers one deputy. So the salary for that deputy is higher than the VAWA grant covers, so every year that VAWA grant reduces, we have to ask for more money to cover that one position. But those grants aren't going anywhere. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, great. And I'm asking out loud because we do our own grant-in-aid. I was wondering ifI get it, we need deputies and your clerical staff, but have you guys thought about looking at half timing a clerical staff with a grant writer? I'm just trying to kind of think outside the box a little bit and asking out loud because of our build back better monies for infrastructure. But there's a lot of grant opportunities tied to that. Again, thinking on how to flush your office with money. Page 146 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. FRY: I think absolutely. We've been doing the same thing, of trying to brainstorm a specific position that will be able to focus on grants specifically. A lot of that falls on our Administration, so if we could find an employee that would be specifically tasked to grant work—we are actively looking for it and trying to figure out how to incorporate it into our organizations. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. And you know, you talked about your partnership with the Police Department, and so I'm almost wondering if there's a way to kind of work together there. Between the Police Department securing grants and grant writing and grant opportunities, that actually might blend an opportunity for more money to come in. Okay. Then my last question was around your electronic discovery. How are you guys on equipment? Because I know storage becomes a big issue, and then the transition between what was called the Killman program not the Spillman Program, how that's all integrating, and if you guys have enough funds related to technology. MR. FRY: So I think one of our supplemental request was also to address that. One of things that we do if we ever get into a position, and we rely a lot on advice from Kelvin Ono, our lead on those issues. He provides us updates on when we need maintenance and replaced equipment and things of that nature. So historically, we've been able to use forfeiture funds if we ever run into any kind of issue where we have a need that needs to be immediately addressed. But we are asking as part of our supplement, that some of those funds be allocated so that we can replace equipment. Storage is a continual issue, we have a lot of data that comes in even without electronics. The electronic discovery is cloud based, so someone else will be housing that. So we don't have to internally take care of that equipment ourselves, but for our own systems, storage is an issue, and we do have expand those. We have network switches that needs to be updated, and I think that was part of the supplemental request. MS. LEE LOY: Perfect, gentlemen. Thank you so much. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Mr. Chung. MR. CHUNG: Yeah. Good morning, gentlemen. You know, I don't have too many questions, actually only comments. But one question, you know, we're looking at about a 13 percent increase in our present budget overall, but as it relates to your department, and I'm just doing real quick math over here, an increase of about$130,000, out of an $8 million plus budget. That's less than 13 percent, yeah? What's your thoughts on that? I'm not trying to pit you against any other department, but is that increase enough for your department to operate effectively and to provide safety to the community? Page 147 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. WALTJEN: I think we were a very fiscally conservative and responsible department. We try to see how we can get things done. You know, we're more than willing to entertain looking at an increase, I wouldn't turn it down. I'm sure we could find ways that we can make use of the additional funding, but basically, what we've submitted with our—and including our supplemental request, that's, I believe, is what we need to get the job done. MR. CHUNG: Okay. You know, this was a bit of wisdom, whether it's right or wrong, many, many, years ago given to me. It was pointed out to me that Prosecutor's and the Mayor's,just like we are, are elected, yeah? And so therefore, you know, there should be some deference given to those two bodies, Mayor's Office and you guys, inasmuch as you guys have been chosen, elected by the public, not saying we have to go overboard or anything like that. So I have that bias towards the Prosecutor's Office. I will tell you this, Kelden, I mentioned this to you after the inauguration. I don't know if you recall, but I thought that your inauguration speech was excellent, inasmuch as you told us what the problems were, what your goals were, and how you intended to get there. You told the public what to expect from your department, very important in my opinion. So the two of you basically answered all of my questions. Stephen, and by the way I enjoy working with your wife, she's an excellent attorney. But you know, you talked about the Spillman system that the records management thing that we've been hearing about for a long time, trying to coordinate with the Police Department. It looks like it still hasn't really gone to where we want it to be, but at least you touched upon it. You guys have only been here less than a year, right? Yeah, and this is something that's been ongoing for at least two plus years or more. Hopefully when you guys come back next year, you guys will have better news or maybe even before that. I don't know if it was Kelden or Stephen who mentioned the cross training, I think it was you, yeah? It's so important in any department, and no offense to anybody, but I wish Public Works would do that, so that if somebody is down or on vacation, sick leave, you can have someone else to step up,particularly as it relates to building permits. Kelden, you also mentioned, and you weren't shy about saying that people in our community don't feel safe. That's not an easy thing for a prosecutor to say, right? But it's true. If you said anything else, I would say you may be living in a different world, right? So I appreciate that because when you articulate that, at least you know what everybody else you can feel what everybody else is sensing. You're not so far detached from the situation that you cannot see how people are feeling. Page 148 FC-32 April 13,2022 Then Stephen, you brought up what the challenges were. We've been through COVID, the court system has been at a standstill. You didn't use it as an excuse, but it certainly is a plausible explanation for why things have slowed down. So I really appreciate that too. That's all, I mean just the two of you, very clear in your explanations and bring a vibrancy to the department. I think we all like that. You're not self-promoters,just tell it like it is. So thank you, that's all I have to say. MR. WALTJEN: Aloha, Council Member. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Chung. Just to note, Ms. Rebecca Villegas joined us in Kona, and Mr. Tim Richards joined us here in Hilo. Kona, I'm going to go to you folks real fast, is there anything you'd like to add to the conversation? MR. INABA: Oh, good morning. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Good morning, Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Prosecuting Attorney `ohana. Quick question, I'm not sure if I missed it. When will we know for sure about this potential gap, or whether we get those funds from those different agencies outside the County? MR. WALTJEN: Aloha, Mr. Inaba. The 48-hour notice was given yesterday, so I'm hoping to know by late this week or early next week. MR. INABA: Okay. And then the total you'd potentially be short, if it doesn't go in our favor is? MR. WALTJEN: About$510,000. MR. INABA: Okay. Thank you, MR. WALTJEN: What we're waiting for, besides looking at the final budget, is to review the budget worksheets that detail the expenditures and the funding for the State budget. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you. And then on pages 124 and 125 of the budget, I see that we have Westlaw in two locations. One's listed under the Kona Prosecuting Attorney Office OCE(Other Current Expenses), and then one under just the general I believe on page 124. So are we paying for two separate accounts or licenses here, or is this just like an old titling of budget lines and we're only paying one time for the Westlaw? So on the Kona Prosecuting Attorney OCE, it's 5271.14, Section 225, and then on page 124 it's the 5271.02 OCE Section 225. Page 149 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. FRY: So we have one Westlaw account, but all of our we have multiple licenses. So all of our attorneys have to have a separate license, so when we split things out between Kona and our other offices. So I think the general would be the licenses from Hilo. So it's one account but we just budgeted—we split out the amounts to cover our Kona license and Hilo licenses. MR. INABA: Okay, so in terms of the Waimea Office, is that grouped in one of those too? MR. FRY: Yeah. The positions in the Waimea Office, our attorney there falls under the Kona organization chart. So it's not split out on the budget to separate that office, besides the other like telephone expenses and things like that and rent. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you, Stephen. Then Section 227 right beneath that is just a slight increase, that's for OCE computer and office. The increase though is for what? Supplies? Which specific section are we seeing that increase? So we are main office OCE MR. FRY: Is that on page 124? MR. INABA: Yes. MR. FRY: So I think we're just budgeting in case of upgrades. One of the challenges that we have is printers. You know, we're trying to go through electronic discovery so we're less reliant on printers, but those will never go away, it's just the nature of the evidence that we have to put in at court. You know, pictures are always going to be for the foreseeable future, hard copy, color printers. We've had two printers go down in the last year, which made it a challenge to get photos printed. You know, we were on verge of having to go to Home Depot to print out photos to take to trial. So I think that's just a cushion that we're budgeting in case we run into supplies,printer cost, and things like that. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you. And then sorry, last question, right back to the section we were talking above that 225, the increase in those respective sections are increases due to the Westlaw cost, is that right? Because I think we've might have had some type of resolution or discussion in Finance or in Council. Is that just an increase in the Westlaw cost for those? MR. FRY: I think that's correct. We had to—I believe us and Corp Counsel also had to renegotiate our Westlaw contracts. They enhanced their system so our Westlaw can provide more services that it has in the past, but it cost a little bit more. Page 150 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. INABA: Okay, thank you. That's all I have. Mahalo for keeping this budget really together and without seeing significant increases here, nothing unreasonable at all. So mahalo, Prosecuting Attorney and your staff. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. And thanks guys for meeting earlier, and then talking story about things. One thing I do want to touch on, first of all taking Mr. Chung's lead, as far as funding going forward, is there enough? We've talked about that earlier as well, so I am curious on that. One thing we didn't touch on, but you did mention it, Kelden, was the ag theft and the Farmer's Market. I know there was work, we had an investigator for ag theft. I know we've changed the laws so it's a much lower threshold to give more teeth into the law as far as what becomes a felony and all that. There was work being done with I think they called it smart water before, where are we with all that? Because a theft is a big deal. MR. WALTJEN: You know, we respect agricultural theft. I think that what we've learned in working with the police, is that although there have been changes in the law, there is still limitations and restrictions that are kind of created just by the way that the letter of law is framed. Sometimes it's just a bit easier to prosecute a felony theft, that's not an agricultural theft because it's easier for us to meet the elements, and it's the same level of the offense. Agricultural theft requires additional elements to be met. Some of the limitations and issues that we've had in past, the police will probably share the same sentiment is that, you know, having the necessary equipment. Whether it be calibrated scales, a lot of it is awareness issues for the farmers and members of the community who are being victimized. You know, having the proper signage and fencing off their properties and things of that nature. Those are additional requirements; they're set up by law. One of the things that we were trying to look at was addressing some noncompliance issues, by providing awareness to the vendors and in the Farmer's Markets. So as recent as the last couple of weeks, community policing, whose been kind of tasked with agriculture issue and agriculture theft, concerns in the community, actually reached out to our office. They did have a meeting with one of our deputies who has been kind of the lead for our ag theft cases and investigations. They did have a meeting and I think we're going to be scheduling another meeting to further kind of round table and identifying issues that are presented, and hopefully, coming together to identify possible solutions on how we can work together in the future. Page 151 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So I understand having a little bit more validation to claim an ag theft. I find that a little troublesome, and I realize it's not your guys' call. But if, you know, I'm thinking here, if you see a purse or a wallet in a car and you open it up, there's no sign that says don't take my purse or wallet, but that's still a theft. So if you see an avocado hanging on a tree behind the fence line, why do we have to tell people that's behind the fence line? I realize that's an argument for later. But to the point, if we are truly interested in becoming food self-reliant and promoting that, we also have to give the farmers and ranchers the confidence. You know, we've talked about safe community, and we've talked about some of the challenges that we're dealing with right now. What's the step going forward? Do we change this at a state level or is there a different way to approach this? That's what I'm looking for because agriculture people are in agriculture because they want to be in ag, but if we make it so hard for them to stay in ag because we're not supporting them, how do we do that better? This smart water program as I understand, is just for the Council. It gets sprayed on the commodity and then you can actually trace it. It's not DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) but it's almost like a DNA tracer that you can then identify it back, and that's defendable in the court of law, as I understand. So do we need to fund more there? What I'm trying to do is see a way forward for agriculture, so they have confidence. MR. WALTJEN: I think that one way that we can help our farmers and our community is possibly providing them with necessary funds to help them protect their properties. You know, a lot of these properties don't have, or these owners, they don't have the funding sources to have reasonable video surveillance equipment or just any type of surveillance equipment or any other type of anti-theft related devices. You know, when we talk about agriculture theft, I think a lot of times people get a little sidetracked about realizing that just because we can't show or prove that the bag of avocados was over 25 pounds, it might be in a video, and you might be able to identify the possible suspect. We still don't know how heavy the bag is, or be able to those are the types of concerns or issues that we have in criminal court. But if you can show that maybe if we could lower thresholds even more, and that's something we have to work at from the State level as far as addressing the HRS. But I think if we attack it from more of a unified perspective with police, prosecutors, and agriculture members, I think we'll be able to address some of these issues. With smart water, one of the limitations is having the necessary experts to be available to testify in the court of law, when those cases actually go forward for hearing. Page 152 FC-32 April 13,2022 So we've actually been working with our investigations, investigator's unit. We're looking to see how we can move forward with smart water. It's been talked about for a long time. I believe there are property owners in the community that has purchased some of these kits, and they are also hoping that we can move forward. A lot of these tactics or these kits were purchased under the past Prosecutor's Administration, and I think right now we're at the implementation stage where we need to work together to try and get it to hit the ground running. Some of these kits I think even have expiration dates, so that's another issue that smart water presents, but we're hoping to work through those things. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so what I'm hearing is funding needs, so let's continue this conversation later. If I recall right, there's a couple $100,000 committed by the State previously for that, so I think we need to see what we can do there. I want to talk to you about smart water later and maybe if we get the $100 million grant for R & D (Research and Development), that we can find some funding there, but we'll talk about that later. Okay, I appreciate it. Thanks, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Kona, I'm going back to you. Rebecca or Ms. David? MR. INABA: Nothing at this time. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, mahalo. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. I just wanted to quickly weigh in on the smart water conversation because it came up a couple of times in our discussions with the Prosecutor's Office. Folks in the Honomu community particularly, thank you folks for making the time to meet with the community on that as well as the Community Policing Officers that joined us. One of the things Council Member Richards said it's still not FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved, so if you spray the smart water on the produce, you're not going to be able to sell it to eat. So one of the things that we had discussed in our most recent community meeting was to do a pilot project. You know, putting it on some low hanging fruit, no pun intended, that might be really attractive. Just to even see the whole process you mentioned some of the challenges would actually work, but until it becomes FDA approved for use, it's not going to be a viable solution. Page 153 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. WALTJEN: Ms. Kimball, if I could just add just briefly with smart water. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. MR. WALTJEN: So one of the other avenues that we looked at besides just trying to utilize it as a resource upon actual agricultural produce or products, we looked at the possibility of being more applicable with putting it on top of like machinery and equipment and things of that nature, in like an inconspicuous area, and using it as a further means to identify someone's property that maybe where a serial number, or if it was a vehicle, a VIN(Vehicle Identification Number) number was removed. So that's kind of where I think we would be looking at trying to utilize it. I mean it could be a very good tool, as far as a theft deterrent type of tool. But again, a lot of it transcends back on to having the ability to bring in the experts necessary to present that type of evidence in court. MS. KIMBALL: Right, right. Yeah, thanks for bringing up that other use for it in addition. You know, hopefully, it will become FDA approved and we can use it on the actual produce because that is the real challenge. I mean I've got a lychee grower in Honomu that loses a third of his crop every year. He just kind of writes it off, if that's going to happen. The challenges are the level, you know, reporting everything, having the appropriate evidence, and things like that, and I am making a list of ideas for HSAC (Hawai`i State Association of Counties), for legislative priorities for next year. Let's talk more about that. Council Member Richards you and I can talk more about maybe some changes to the HRS, to make prosecution a little bit more viable for this. Couple other things, budget wise. The legal edge and the integration with the Police Department system, I kind of recall that was also in the works last budget cycle. Were there some sort of delays or some problems with getting that integration in this last year? MR. FRY: I don't know if it's anything other than just challenges, personnel challenges. You know, the one thing that Legal Edge is going to do is it's going integrate with courts, police, HIJIS (Hawai`i Integrated Justice Information Sharing), attorney generals, us, and it's an endeavor. We're contracted with an outside agency to put all this together, whose job is to work with all these groups to get them together. So the collaboration between our office,police, and the courts, that's one of our delays. You know, when we come up with something that needs some work from a programing level to further the integration, getting those people to the table, it's not, it's outside of our organization. So we're dependent upon that cooperation with everybody else. That's probably the biggest challenge in rolling this out. MS. KIMBALL: You guys don't have any internal IT (Information Technology) support specifically? Page 154 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. FRY: We do. MS. KIMBALL: You do. Okay, that's just not sufficient to help in this case? MR FRY: They're involved. They're in the biweekly meetings, and they're present talking about the challenges in working with the other departments. I mean we can control our IT people, it's getting our IT people in connection with everybody else to get everything implemented, that's the challenge. MR. WALTJEN: I think the other challenge that we—we do have our own IT, however, we've been understaffed with IT. We have three positions. We currently just had the supervisor position filled so we rely on our supervisor to basically service the entire island. You know, all three of our offices, all when fully staffed is 122 employees, so it's a bit of an endeavor. You know, when things happen, he's responsible for all the different inner workings, networking, that goes on in our office. Yesterday morning we had an issue with our phones, and he was instrumental in trying to take care of that. It took a couple of hours. So we're hoping that we're able to fill those vacancies soon and get him the support that he needs so that we can tackle this project head on. We have, I feel like, made strides over the last year by introducing or by prioritizing the project and setting deadlines and goals through these meetings that we have every two weeks, and working directly with the representative from Legal Edge and bringing in and creating this working group. I think we really made a lot of strides, and I'm very optimistic by the end of the year it will be live. We actually have that data in there now. The next step is to get—even trying to basically open the flood gate for the entire police record management system, to bring all the cases in so that we can really get very accurate testing done, and having our staff start to use the system even more. Right now,just limited to the working group, but I feel like we're going to get done this year. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, that's great. Are those two positions that are vacant, are these some of the ones that are identified as funded? MR. WALTJEN: Yes. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, great. I foresee that, you know, in the long run getting that integration going more virtual is going to ultimately save us money, both in personnel time as well as all what you mentioned, it's about paper, and equipment, and things like that. So happy to support. Curious about, you know, you mentioned that some of the attorney positions being difficult to fill, but clearly, these are potentially difficult to fill. What are some of the evidence that you're looking at for incentivization? You mentioned that briefly, but can you go into detail. Page 155 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. WALTJEN: As far as like with attorney positions, we've gone as far as posting ads on indeed.com. We've done that. We've advertised through the Hawaii State Bar Association, and we've also, you know, via email. Even I think yesterday or the other day, we shared it on our social media pages,just that we're actively recruiting. Another area that's very difficult to fill positions has been our legal clerical positions. It's very difficult because these aren't entry level positions, and unfortunately, the SR(Salary Range) ratings don't provide the highest salaries. So we have recently looked at incentives and things of that nature, and we're actually meeting to discuss how we can possibly utilize incentives in the future. Now that you've mentioned it, maybe it was something we should have added on as a supplementary request for some additional monies, whether it be relocation cost or things like that. You know, one of the issues that we had with the legal clerk positions is when you get an applicant and they're going to try to relocate, it really has to be worth it for them to move. It's difficult just given the current, as we all know the current housing market and things of that nature. So I think incentives would be great. One of things we've done with the legal clerk positions is we actually reallocated some positions to lower positions,just to increase the number of applicants. It's been successful. We have been able to fill, and those positions have been utilized as such and getting people the necessary training and what not, and hopefully after they're at that level competent with the next step, we can then reallocate the positions back up to as they were originally created. MR. FRY: One of the other things with attorneys, specifically, is there's only two bar examines every year. So the pipeline of new admittees to get in, you're either looking at people who are already admitted and looking for a career change, or new attorneys that are looking to establish their career. We have entry level positions, and we can promote from within, but one of the things that we're doing and we're excited about, is bringing in people that are before pre-bar examine, pre-license internship capacity, and things like that. They are at Richardson, at other law schools, that are looking to come home that are already from this community, inviting them into our office, establishing those connections so that we have that pipeline of talent that's coming in for years in the future. We're excited about that, but that's a long way home. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. HR(Human Resources) Director Waylen is in the back there, I know there's some collective bargaining issues with making incentives for things. But your idea about internships, do you guys partner at all with Lead for Hawaii in their program? I have a Lead for Hawaii person in my office, there's some in Planning, R&D has folks. It's been a great relationship to bring people into the County, so it's something that you might consider, and I'm happy to make the connection with the Director of that organization. Page 156 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. WALTJEN: That would be great. You know, I think we're finally at the point where we can start to bring in the extra bodies into the office, I don't have a better way to put it. You know, with COVID and the pandemic, there's so many concerns about having more people in the office than necessary and things of that nature. So as far as like with our volunteer program and our internships, we didn't really have anyone in, so now we're finally getting to the point where we're comfortable. So as Stephen was mentioning, trying to bring in law students who are already vested in our community. You know, they live here, and they want to serve and be public servants. I think that's a great way for us to transition people in, get them the taste and see if they really like it too. The one benefit of having internships with Hawaii law students, so students who are at Richardson Law School, is that under Supreme Court rule seven, they're allowed to actually practice in court under the guidance of a license attorney. That would be a great learning experience for any of the students. So we're really excited about it, and we're hoping that we can do that in the near future. MS. KIMBALL: Great. I think that's pretty much in line also with what Lead for Hawaii goals are, so happy to make that connection for you folks. I know they're recruiting right now to MR. WALTJEN: Is Lead for Hawaii, is that like a student work type of program? I guess I'd love to talk to you after. MS. KIMBALL: No, we'll talk offline. It's not a student program, so we'll talk more about it. MR. WALTJEN: Were also been doing that this past semester, we did have a CV (Curriculum Vitae) student from Hawaii Community College. So it's another avenue that we're looking at trying to utilize as a resource. MS. KIMBALL: With that, I'll just close by thanks, over the course of my first term here, your office has been very supportive when I've reached out and I appreciate your help on 1448. It died as you may or may not know, but we're going to try again, next year. So thanks for helping me with the language on that. I yield, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Chung. MR. CHUNG: Yeah. You know, I'm probably the least well-equipped person to speak about ag theft, but it kind of peaked my interest this whole discussion. Mr. Richards brought up the example of if you go over the boundary line and pick a fruit, it's akin to taking something from someone's car. My question is, how many cases have been brought to your office during the time that you've been Page 157 FC-32 April 13,2022 here from law enforcement? Then the next question would be, what has been the disposition of those cases? MR. WALTJEN: It's a really interesting question that you bring, Mr. Chung. I'd have to check back and see exactly the actual statistics, but it's actually interesting to note that we don't see very many of the cases getting routed over to us. MR. CHUNG: I would think so. MR. WALTJEN: There's not that many cases where suspects have been identified. We have persons of interest that have been identified by police who are persons of interest related to agriculture theft. One of the things we've done in the past is we look at those persons, we see if they have other pending matters, and sometimes they do have other related offenses. But I'm sorry I'm not able to give you a number as to the number of cases that we've had. MR. CHUNG: It's probably a low amount, right? MR. WALTJEN: Yes, it would be very low. MR. CHUNG: If at all, right? MR. WALTJEN: I know of an agricultural theft case that was arrested and charged, I have to check as to the disposition. But the facts of the matter of the case were that someone cut a branch of an avocado tree right at the Farmers Market, and then that person was charged with agricultural theft. I believe that case was initiated by a South Hilo Patrol Officer, I think it was Officer Ebesugawa. MR. CHUNG: This was at the Farmers Market, right? MR. WALTJEN: At the Farmers Market. MR. CHUNG: So this is not your classic ag theft where you're going out to the farm. MR. WALTJEN: Correct. MR. CHUNG: Okay, well that's a different story. So I just wanted to point out, you know, what the difference is over here. The Prosecutor's Office yeah, they're part of the criminal justice system, but they're the prosecutorial arm, they're not the enforcement arm. The police is the one who's going to do whatever it takes to arrest people or find out whether people are committing a crime, and then it gets routed to them. What I would suggest is okay, do we have an ag theft team? Page 158 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. WALTJEN: I believe the Community Policing Unit has been tasked, I guess with agricultural theft issues. MR. CHUNG: Okay, and maybe he can answer this. What I would suggest is, if we don't have one, and we're looking at a big increase in the budget, even if we pare it back a little bit, you know, with the rates and stuff, but what I would suggest is work with prosecutors and police and create a specific ag theft team. Like devote $3 million, $4 million or whatever it is so that guys can go, and they can do like undercover work, they can do whatever it takes. I mean, I don't know what it takes, right? But I do know ag theft has been a long-standing problem, and it's a problem because it's hard to find. You don't know where these guys are going to commit their next crime, right? But if you can do things surreptitiously, you know, we might be able to make inroads. Maybe you can provide a little bit more guidance on that, Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Chair, quick response? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Just as reminder seven departments today, so tie it back to budget. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, quick response. There was an ag theft investigator that was through the Prosecuting Attorney's Office, and I think we lost the funding on that. So I hear you and this is a good avenue to go. We did have something, but I'll come talk story with you and see if we can kind of beef that up a little bit. Every pun intended, thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Kona, checking in. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair, we have no comments. Mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Any more discussion in Hilo? No. Okay, I have a few questions for you guys. Thank you for the conversations today. Looking through your budget, I had a quick question. Employee-wise, you had a lot of start dates for March, April 1, May 1, how are you doing on those positions that we're looking to be filled? MR. FRY: So of the attorney positions that are listed as, I think there'sI saw some on there as April 1, and May 1. We have an offer out that's been accepted, but it's probably not going to come through until December. Some of those are anticipated start dates, for the attorney's that are just hopeful that we're continuing to recruit and ready to bring them on as soon as possible. Outside of waiting for bar results, so I think we have seven open and four in the pipeline coming in more realistically by the summer. But those positions remain open and we're continuously ready and available to recruit for those positions. Page 159 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. What about the investigators, see you have a lot of Investigator V and Legal Clerk positions. MR. WALTJEN: With our Investigators Unit, I think one of things we're looking at doing is addressing some of the dated language with the class specs and position descriptions. It has to do with the firearms training and qualification, so I think it's necessary. So we're trying to get that done, and as soon as that paperwork is completed, we're going to move forward. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Those expected start dates looks like its May 1st, are you going to have the paperwork done before then? MR. WALTJEN: At the time we thought we were going to be able to get it done when we submitted this, but it's not going to be done by May 1st. That's one of the priorities for our department. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then I'm going to guess that on the next budget we'll see something a little bit more realistic as far as timelines not for them. MR. WALTJEN: Yes. I feel like with recruitment efforts and things of that nature, I feel like we're getting to the point where, you know, this past year I think Steve, what did they call it? The great resignation? That's what they were calling it across the nation. I really feel like people are getting excited to get back into the workforce, and we're hoping to fill positions. Our investigators position, I am very confident that we'll be able to fill quickly once the recruitments go out, the announcements, because traditionally those positions, there's a lot of applicants, a lot of interest. It's usually the clerk positions that are a little bit more difficult. I really feel like with the attorney positions I think we're going to be able to fill them as well. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Run through just real quickly, kind of get more of your line items? Prosecuting Attorney OCE, equipment repairs, there's a substantial bump-up from $14,000 to $27,000. What is that due to? This is on number 109 under your main office. MR. FRY: That might be software, that firewall and software maintenance. I don't know if it's Celebrate. Celebrate is awe were talking before about some of the MIS functions that our servers require regular maintenance, I don't know. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I see a Celebrate Software maintenance on the 111 down below, but not on this upper category. MR. FRY: Yeah, right. Page 160 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. WALTJEN: I think it was more of just an abundance of caution of some unknown systems that needs to be updated or repaired. Just having that cushion available that we don't have to look to move funds from other accounts. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so you're not quite sure then. MR. WALTJEN: Yes, I think we just added it on just as an abundance of caution for unanticipated repairs. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, you can get back to me on that one. MR. WALTJEN: Okay. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Then ammunition for $800, that's more of a general question. You guys have ammunition in the office? MR. FRY: Our Investigators Unit carries, and they do regular firearm training. We see that expended at the range as part of their training process and their annual certification. It's secured. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Good, good. Do you guys help push for the firing range? Is that any part of your office being that you're tied in slightly to that? MR. WALTJEN: We haven't been roped in any of those discussions. Our investigators usually set up their own range time at different locations, and they coordinate that amongst themselves. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Overtime for Kona, and understanding COVID was a funky year across the board and budgetary wise 2021 was low but we're back up to about$10,000 estimated for this coming year. Overtime, are you guys in line with what you're thinking is going to happen? This is for the Kona Prosecuting Attorneys' Salary and Wages, 021. MR. WALTJEN: When we did this proposed budget, sometimes we have unexpected vacancies and things like that or as a result. I think at that time we thought that$10,000 would be okay. That's something we may want to take a look at, I'm not sure if we want to ask for a little bit more just in the event. Right now, our clerical unit, that's where usually the overtime expenses go to. They're going to be a little short staffed, we're hoping that we can make some adjustments and fill vacancies as needed. At the time, that's where we were at, at the $10,000. Is it okay if we reach back out and maybe retake a look at that and assess it? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes, I think it's good to be tight with numbers and constrain, but at the same time, if you know you're going to be over it's better to know now. So we can really gage your expenditures when we look Page 161 FC-32 April 13,2022 at the budget as a whole. I mean I've seen different departments coming at zero and I'm looking at them like are you really going to be zero in overtime for this department given what we have to do? Is that realistic or not? Looking through some of these, you know, understanding like the Career Criminal program, you're waiting on funding. You can see 2021 was substantial but I see going forward it's all zeroed out. So I had questions about that, but you already stated that you're waiting for the grant funding. How many more of theseI see in different areas of your budget you have a lot of grant funding you're waiting on, yeah? Prosecuting Attorney forfeits, this is State funded? MR. WALTJEN: These are the forfeitures that are related to criminal cases. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Just gauging again, it's hard right now but 2020-2021 that fiscal year, some of these were zeroed, but coming into 2022-2023 we're going up to like $50,000, $4,000, really big bumps. I'm just trying to understand the difference, and what those forfeits. MR. FRY: So traditionally, the forfeiture money comes out of things that are forfeited to the State, and a portion of that comes to our office. We have the ability to be flexible with that money. We're constrained to spend it on a law enforcement purpose. So we can't spend it if it doesn't come in. But if it does come in, the categories are just the types of categories that we would use it on. So if there's a need that's not covered within our regular budget, we'd be looking to use forfeiture funds on needs that arose during a calendar year. It's not something that we regularly spend down, we use those funds to address special needs. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. You know, the Status on Women, the Committee on Status of Women, is that I think that was something Val pushed really hard for if I remember. Ms. Poindexter, previous term, but how's that going? I spoke to a member at the State, and I just wanted to check in on that program, that's interesting to me. MR. WALTJEN: So the Committee on Status of Women is run out of our office. We assist them with doing their postings, and coordinating the meetings, and things of that nature. I'll be really honest, you know, given the staff shortage, and crime trends, and things of that nature that our office deals with, it's difficult to sometimes meet their needs. It's something that I actually recently sent an email communication to their Chair about, whether or not maybe it's a consideration that maybe we should consider if it's possible to reassign Committee on Status of Women to another department that has the funding, resources, and the staff that are able to assist them in meeting their needs. Right now, what we use is they fall within our crime prevention justice assistance group, and they're working with one of our special project coordinators. Page 162 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. It's a small $10,000 budget. I want to make sure that we do some good there, yeah? It was really important to Ms. Poindexter, I think she fought to get that$10,000 into the budget. She was very happy when she got it. I remember that moment. Just want to make sure we follow up on the back end. MR. WALTJEN: Yeah, sure. I'm not sure if you saw yesterday in the Tribune Herald, they ran an ad for equal pay day, so that was an ad that was secured and purchased through Committee on Status of Women. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, good. Victim of Crime Miscellaneous Salary and Wages Fringes, we're up $50,000 from budget this fiscal year, but I mean looking back to previous years being almost zero, so wanting to understand that fringes, what it covers and the increase. This is under balancing against women—sorry 5271.56 number 099, under the Victims of Crime act. MR. WALTJEN: Chair, I believe that's to address any raises, or things of that nature that go in with the staff employees. Anticipated increases. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, similar to other departments? MR. WALTJEN: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, yeah, we're going to see that across the board. Travel and Conferences, Victims of Crime Act, budgeted this fiscal year for 50 but dropping down to 10. In alignment with a lot of departments I see travel going up, but this one actually dropped down substantially, which is not a bad thing,just wanted to make sure you got I mean getting ready for travel and conferences because COVID has kind of let up. MR. FRY: Right. What you see in the 2020-2021 at zero is because no one was going to conferences and our travel was pretty restricted. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: This fiscal year was 50, but we're going into next year looking at 10. MR. WALTJEN: I'm not sure Chair, let me get back to you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that's fine. I just wanted to know and wanted to check in with you guys. MR. WALTJEN: You know me, I'm an honest guy. Page 163 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I just want to touch on JAG and Traffic Safety Training Projects. Are these new programs, new grants, new projects, are these ongoing? MR. FRY: The Traffic Safety Training Project is federal grant run through the Department of Transportation. What that is there's two traffic safety resource prosecutors in the State of Hawaii, and there's traffic safety resource prosecutors in every state, at least one, other states have multiple. So the Traffic Safety Training Project, as it works in our County, is that federally funded grant we utilized to name—one traffic safety resource, the prosecutor's name is Herbert Mukai, so he attends national conferences. We just did the life saver's conference in March,which was in Chicago. It's a meeting of traffic safety professionals from across the country. We also use the majority of that money to do a statewide training with police and prosecutors on our island. So we're training Oahu prosecutors, Kauai and Maui prosecutors, as well as Police from all those departments in impaired driving matters. So we rotate topics. We do alcohol impaired driving, drug impaired driving. As long as it's tied to impaired driving, that's what that grant requires. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So DOT (Department of Transportation), federal grant, do you bring folks here for the training or do we go off island? MR. FRY: We send our traffic safety resource prosecutor, and the funding also covers an additional prosecutor, to go to at least quarterly meetings for traffic safety issues. There are monthly meetings that discuss changes to the law that result from traffic safety, so that grant enables our traffic safety resource prosecutor to be involved in those meetings. So for the trainings that we send individuals for it covers that, but the majority of that money is bringing about 60 people into our island to conduct a local training for police and prosecutors from across the State. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that explains the amount for travel and conferences. MR. FRY: Right. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. MS. KIMBALL: Chair, if I may? As you mentioned before we do have a lot more committees today, and I appreciate your diligence, but could we get moving on? Thank you. Page 164 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball, understood. Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center from the State, is there funding there or no, going forward? MR. WALTJEN: Chair, can we consult with our Business Administrator? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes,please. (Note: At this time, Business Administrator Lisa Faulkner-Inouye came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. FAULKNER-INOUYE: Good morning. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Good morning. Push the button then introduce yourself for the record. MS. FAULKNER-INOUYE: Lisa Faulkner-Inouye, Business Administrator for the Prosecutor's Office. So for Big Island Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center, historically, we receive funds from the State, federal funds through the State, and to my knowledge, we'll continue to receive those funds for East Hawaii. Our West Hawaii program, unfortunately, was State funded purely from the general fund, and that was cut two years ago or the end of last year, and so that facility closed. But we still have our East Hawai`i contract with the Salvation Army Family Intervention Services, and there's been no notice that will end. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So East Hawaii we're good, but West Hawaii we don't have a facility right now? MS. FAULKNER-INOUYE: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How is that impacting? MS. FAULKNER-INOUYE: You know, for being on the Big Island, our service providers are very proactive and resourceful, and well it does impact services to juveniles that are picked up from police. They're still provided with interventions and services, it just doesn't go as smoothly as we would like, if I may say, but they're still being served. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Yeah, there's an area I've been watching with a lot of interest. If there's funding needed for this program, it'll be good for us to know. MR. RICHARDS: Chair, I think we need to be mindful the timer has gone off. Page 165 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards, appreciate it. This is our chance to talk to the department about their budget, and I think it's important. Then one last question, substance abuse prevention coordinator, I don't see staff going forward, but I see the expenditures there. Is there a different funding source for the staffing? MS. FAULKNER-INOUYE: So our substance abuse prevention grant is from the State Department of Health, and since our office already employs our crime prevention and justice assistance group, we do a lot of activities and prevention intervention education regardless of funding for staff. So the funds that we do get, because we have two special projects coordinators, the funds that we do get from the State allow us to do more, actually. We do community outreach, advertisements, meet with other providers in the community on substance abuse, trans prevention, and work as a conduit to bring people together to address issues island-wide. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so I'm not seeing any salary and wages there, but the travel expense is printing, mileage. So logically, no staffing but we still get the expenses. MS. FAULKNER-INOUYE: So the staffing comes from our unit already, so minus this grant we would still do prevention activities because we have the staff already. So if we were to get paid for funds out this grant, we'd be supplanting, so we don't want to do that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Yeah, Deanna doesn't like that word at all. Okay, beautiful. Thank you. Please keep me updated on the Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center. MS. FAULKNER-INOUYE: Sure. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Okay, I don't have any further questions. Kona, checking in with you before I wrap up for the Prosecuting Attorney Department. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair, we're fine. Mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Anything else to kind of close us out? MR. WALTJEN: Mahalo, Chair. Just thank you for the opportunity to meet with you all today, I just appreciate it. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you both very much, and thank you for your team for being here this morning, and I appreciate your time. Page 166 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. WALTJEN: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, Council Members, moving on to the Department of Human Resources. We're going to do a five-minute recess, we'll be back at 10:31a.m. Recess: At 10:27 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 10:35 a.m. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Aloha, welcome back from recess. Our next department for today's meeting is the Department of Human Resources. We have Director Leopoldino here today. Sir, would you please go ahead and provide an overview for the Council, and I understand there's no PowerPoint presentation for us. MR. LEOPOLDINO: No. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, go ahead. (2) Human Resources: (Note: At this time, Human Resources Director Waylen Leopoldino came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. LEOPOLDINO: Good morning, Chair Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder and members of Council, Waylen Leopoldino Director of Human Resources, the Department of Human Resources. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present our budget to you all this morning. So brief overview of our department, the Department of Human Resources is a central department. We support all County departments, and we administer the civil service laws as it applies to the County of Hawaii. As the central Human Resources Department for the County, we have the responsibility for strategic planning, work force planning, and employment equal opportunity, personnel development, compensation and benefits, labor relations, and occupational health and safety for our County employees. To do this, we are made up of eight specific functional divisions, classification and pay, labor and relations, personnel and organizational development, equal opportunity, administrative services, recruitment and examination, health and safety, and worker's compensation. To say the least, we've been through a lot over the last couple of years dealing with COVID. I think that's a general theme so far with the departments who presented prior to our presentation this morning. I think we all can agree that recruitment is the elephant in the room. Page 167 FC-32 April 13,2022 I kind of wanted to focus my presentation on some statistics that I kind of put together with regard to "the great resignation"which is affecting us all. Recently from a Civil Beat article I read, the quit rate is about at three percent. BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) reports 20.2 million workers left their employers between May 2021 through September 2021. That's a huge hit to our workforce. In August of 2021, 73 percent of employers were surveyed, and they all have expressed the same concern of the difficulty to attract workers. Seventy percent of those employers expect this trend to continue through 2022. Also, as part of that article it revealed that competency use including computing and communications, which are very broad, are transportable in the minds of our employees. So that means that our employees feel they have the qualifications to pick up and leave at any time and take it to another employer, and this could be for any reason, you know, even if it's not COVID. It could be flexibility, it could be pay, it could be not getting along with my co-workers, I'll just up and leave because now is the time to do that. This includes classes such as accountants, IT professionals, engineers, truck drivers, our customer service type positions. They're all lumped and grouped to this group of employees who feel their knowledge skills and abilities are transportable. So that's part of the reason why we're experiencing such significant vacancies, our vacancy rate here locally. So the article continues to say service based economies will continue to struggle, such as the County of Hawaii, and thanks to social media, employers have that opportunity to promote all these great vacancies they have. They can promote telework, they can promote four, 10 work hour weeks, you know, these flexible schedules which sounds great to these employees. So here in our department we really need to focus on what's the source, or what's the root cause of these vacancies. We don't just want to throw out a whole bunch of recruitments and advertising for recruitments. We really got to figure out what's the root cause so we can solve that up front. A more local stat that I was able to pull, you know, as recent as April I Ph, which was Monday, Hawaii Business released an article which revealed 222,000 local employees in the State of Hawaii resigned in 2021. September alone, 38,000 employees quit in the State of Hawaii, and that's the total of 6.6 percent of the total State of Hawaii local workforce have just left their jobs. So here in the County of Hawaii that's significant. So I wanted to share that and let you all know that as part of our budget you will see we are focused and our priority is to help our departments fill these vacancies. That's kind of where we're at, at this point. I know you all have a lot of questions about our budget, so I do want to open that up at this time for discussion and questions, but I wanted to share some of those statistics with you all. You know, it's easy for us to say it's because of COVID, because of COVID this, COVID that, but COVID did make employees realize or reprioritize what's Page 168 FC-32 April 13,2022 important to them in their lives, whether it's childcare, whether it's pay, whether if it's flexibility at work, whether it's development, whether it's promotional opportunities. When employees were recalled to come back to the workforce, they had to rethink their priorities, and I think that's another contributing factors to such a significant vacancy. You know, we can put aside pay, I know that's really important, and it is another factor, but you all know how the pay works here in government. It is on our radar through the collective bargaining process. But I just wanted to share that we in HR do recognize the significant impacts these vacancies are having on all of our departments. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Director. I'm going to questions from the Council. Council Members? Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Director, first of all thank you for really level setting, you know, what really is, and you hit it out of the park when you said we're all struggling with workforce issues. And pay aside, COVID really has had everyone re-evaluate what's important, right? So people looking for jobs with flexibility or the ability to telecommute or maybe work longer hours and shorter work weeks. You know, all of that is now a benefit, whereas in the past a paycheck and insurance was great benefits and some vacation time. So with that being said, what we're hearing and as we go through the rest of the different departments is the ability to provide entry level and then step them into higher classes. Of course, there's definitely some positions where you need a technical license or training, so that aside, what is the plan from a Human Resources perspective? To adjust or retool some of the position's descriptions, you know, what's that strategy? Because that stuff will come at a cost, I understand, and I'm trying to forecast what that might look like so we can better prepare for the budget. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Thank you for that question, Council Member Lee Loy. Our department has recently started to take a more proactive approach with meeting departments. In fact, the last two weeks alone we've met two or three departments specifically related to class specs and how we can address the career ladder and the development of our employees so that when they come in at entry, they can see the progression or the opportunity to grow and actually develop a career with the County. So as of right now, and this may develop into something more formal, but right now to address that we've been meeting with departments specifically—and you know, we can kind of glance at our class specifications that we have, and we can kind of take a look at when these specs were last updated. Usually that would trigger us to have that discussion with the department, "Hey, are your certifications updated, do they need to be removed, does this create a barrier for employment?" Page 169 FC-32 April 13,2022 So these discussions have already been started, whereas like your first comment where the County used to be attractive with all its benefits, and retirement, and retirement savings and health benefits. Whereas the new generation entering the workforce, they don't look at that anymore, they're looking at how they can progress. So we've identified that need and so we've been working, like I said, we've started discussions with departments to address class specs updates. MS. LEE LOY: So a follow-up to that, because that adjustment will require a lot of conversations and of course working with our unions, what would that horizon look like, as far as a timeline as we begin to retool these things? I'm asking that question because we have a number of vacancies which take up a lot of money in our budget, and if those adjustments would possibly occur in this fiscal or is this some longer-term plan where it would last the course of maybe two or three budget cycles? MR. LEOPOLDINO: I would say that the bulk of it would be long term, but to meet immediate vacancy needs, we will address the departments that need to meet the immediate needs so we can fill those vacancies. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, again. MR. LEOPOLDINO: You're welcome. MS. LEE LOY: Really appreciate it. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Kona, questions for the Director? MR. INABA: Yes, please. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you. Good morning, Director. First question is in regard to, let's see, page 38, that subsection 341 for the recruitment for $100,000. Is that part of the funds we're trying to use with those bonuses? I think Deanna had mentioned something, or could you explain what that$100,000 is? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. So the $100,000 is going to help our department. I don't want to say it's addressed initially for recruitment, but as I mentioned earlier, we're kind of getting down to the root cause of a lot of these vacancies. So we realize more and more that there are other issues involved with these vacancies, to include diversity, equity and inclusion, retention, so it actually crosses all of our divisions. So that$100,000 will help in funding if we need to add another recruitment position, if we need to add someone to assist in developing a diversity equity and inclusion type program. Page 170 FC-32 April 13,2022 Some of the more tangible deliverables we're looking at is the County hosting a few job fairs, we want to do job fairs. We are in negotiations with Linkedln to come up with a package deal where they can recruit, be more active in recruiting for our professional level positions, which we've never done in the past. Our current applicant tracking software allows us to spider our jobs out to different social media recruiting sites. So you know, exploring these opportunities, we realize how very expensive they are. The $100,000 is a great first step to get us to at least try and meet the immediate needs to fill all of these vacancies because it's not in one class of one, or a few classes of work, it's made up of many classes of work. So we need to address, and we need to focus our attention on different audiences. The short answer is yes, that$100,000 is going to go to our efforts in recruitment and in other areas to help fill these vacancies. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you. I mean I am supportive of those efforts and those ideas, I'm just concerned that we are just lump summing $100,000. Maybe when we come back for the May budget, if we could have a better understanding of outlining how much of this $100,000 will go to each of those different initiatives. I think this is one of the bigger line items I've seen so far this year that's not really specific. It's a general recruitment effort, which I know we need to do, but if that's something you might consider to further detail and identify those specific areas and break downs of the $100,000. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Absolutely, we can get that information, no problem. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you. Next question, right above that Section 340, could you share a little bit about this employer of the year program that seems you'll be initiating. I don t see it previously budgeted. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yeah, so the Department of Human Resources in the past, has always been tasked with the annual employee recognition program. It was taken out of the budget the last couple of budget cycles I believe. But prior to that it has always been in our budget to fund. You know, we do an annual County employee recognition program, and it's usually in the fall. That pays for the awards, the event itself, all the logistics, the food and the refreshments. We were asked to reinstate the County employee recognition program, and again, we feel that this is another part of retention and motivating our employees to continue the great work that they're doing. So it was added back after a couple of years of being out of our budget. MR. INABA: Okay, thank you. That's exciting that we'll get that back to recognize our employees. Then last question for now, 5151.30 the employee's scholarships, kalamai, I forget how we're funding that and what exactly that it Page 171 FC-32 April 13,2022 goes to. I couldn't find it in the program budget box, if you could just re-share what that$15,000—where it comes from and where it's going to. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Sure. So the $15,000 comes from we have our County flexible spending program. Any forfeitures from that program is put into a separate account. Part of the forfeiture monies is used, I believe its $15,000 of that monies is used to fund our County's tuition reimbursement program, which is a great program for employees that want to upscale or get a degree in the area they're working in, or get certified in a specific area that can help them in their jobs. The County will reimburse those employees up to $1,500 a semester. There is a committee established to review applications. There is a County tuition reimbursement program committee that meets twice annually to review these applications that come in, to ensure that the employees are meeting the qualifications for the program, and they are awarded up $1,500, it's a scholarship. It's a reimbursement program, so the applicant has to have completed and meet requirements in the degree program where the certification program before we award monies. But that's kind of the summary of that program. MR. INABA: Okay, that's wonderful. I think that's all I have right now. Yeah, just again if we can get that breakdown for the recruitment of$100,000, that would be very much appreciated. Thank you, Director. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Anyone else in Kona? MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair, no. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you, Ms. David. Here in Hilo, Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director, for being here. Director Sako yesterday touched a little bit on what we might expect out of the collective bargaining process in terms of this budget. Can you kind of expand on the overview she gave us with as much information you can share of what we might expect in the near future? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Sure, I can give a brief overview. As you all know, that process is confidential until agreements are met. So we've only ratified one contract, that's the bargaining Unit 1 contract that you all adopted. So we just ended interest arbitration hearings for the fire fighters, HFFA (Hawai`i Fire Fighters Association) bargaining Unit 11. So we are awaiting a final decision on that. We will be participating in interest arbitration hearings for our Police Officers, SHOPO (State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers) bargaining Page 172 FC-32 April 13,2022 Unit 12, which starts on May 23rd. The rest of the bargaining units, the other five, are HGEA (Hawai`i Government Employees Association) units, are currently in negotiations for wages. MS. KIMBALL: What is the timeline with them? Nothing set, yet? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yeah, I actually followed-up to see if I could get a timeline, there is nothing set yet. A lot of it rests with the unions and their—each unit has its own bargaining team, so it's just depends on where they're at with that. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. So are you comfortable at this point with some of the padding that's been put into the budget, to account for salaries and wages increases in terms of where we are right now? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. I've been working closely with the Director of Finance every step of the way,just to be sure that she and I have close communication. Anytime I have updates, I do let her know, so yes, I am. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. I wanted to ask about the newly requested positions, that Safety Specialist I, is that the one that was a supplemental last year? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. MS. KIMBALL: And so helping with the worker's calculated issues. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. MS. KIMBALL: Fantastic, glad to see that in the budget. Happy to support that addition, I think it will save us money. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. MS. KIMBALL: Oh, there was one other thing. Oh, the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) funding, the $50,000 in there, is that for renovations to your own facilities? MR. LEOPOLDINO: It's our modification fund, so departments can come in and request. So recently, Parks and Recreation would come in and they might need repairs to their pull lift, that's where they would come in and request the funds and the funds would come from this pot of money. MS. KIMBALL: And do we ever get grant funding for that sort of stuff, or is that all from our own general fund? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Let me call up—Dee Ann Sadayasu is my Administrative Services Officer, and she's responsible for helping me with the budget. So I'll see Page 173 FC-32 April 13,2022 if she can answer that. The $50,000 is actually court mandated, and we do not have any grant funds for that pot of money. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, I see. So that's part of the previous settlement for failures. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, got it. Thanks for that clarification. One more last question. Overtime in 2021 was about$30,000, you're dialing that way back. What was some of the reasoning that you were seeing that actual overtime? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Dee Ann might have to correct me, but what happened last year is there was a huge settlement with the unions where we had to do retro pay for—how many years was it? It was two years, which—our team at Department of Human Resources is very small, and the transaction team responsible for that is even smaller, so they worked tirelessly and a lot of overtime to get that done. I think that was a huge chunk of that. So we're crossing our fingers we don't have to deal with long retros again. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. That's all I had. Again, thank you both for being here, I appreciate it. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Thank you. MS. KIMBALL: I yield, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. Thanks, Director. Not so much on your budget, but more on your data. Could you just go over those resignation numbers again? And just real quick what you found here in the State, because I assume you're looking nationally as well, correct? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. MR. RICHARDS: Could you repeat them again, please? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Oh, sure. So per the Civil Beat article in November 2021, the quit rate was at three percent, and they quoted BLS as reporting 20.2 million workers left their employers from May 2021 through September 2021. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. I think it brings up, and we're talking about how we're funding going forward. Your department is a little different because you represent—but each department has their own employees. What do we have Page 174 FC-32 April 13,2022 under County employment currently, and what's the total vacancy rate? Do you have those numbers? MR. LEOPOLDINO: I do not have our current vacancy rate. MR. RICHARDS: Could you get that for us? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Sure. MR. RICHARDS: Just to think about that because I'm curious on that one. When it comes to recruiting, you pointed out that money isn't necessarily the trigger, which that doesn't surprise me, but we're talking about opportunity and future, which comes back to the value of security and security in the sense of food, shelter, being able to find a house and all that. I'm not sure what the answer on that one is, I know we have to build more housing. For that marketing standpoint, you know, to Mr. Inaba's you know,we're going to spend the money, but how are we going to spend that? Are we re-evaluating how we're going to market the County as far as a good deal? Maybe that's the question I'm trying to ask. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yeah, actually thank you for bringing that up, Council Member Richards. Part of that$100,000 is, and as I mentioned, you know, our focus is trying to get to the root cause, and I think that's what you're trying to allude to, why we have all these vacancies. So part of that$100,000 is going to help us fund actually serving our employees and we're titling it an engagement survey. We're going to start with that as part of the process, but you know, we would take a look at our own vacancy numbers here, And try and figure out what's the cause of that, and then refocus our efforts. One of the things we want to do is we want to rebrand the County, based on the data that we received, rebrand the County to focus our efforts specifically on those issues that we've identified through these surveys and through our efforts. So to answer your question yes, in our recruitment efforts we're going to move away from a more passive recruitment to a more active and proactive type of recruitment. So we're in the process of trying to figure out what the best way to do that, and that's where the $100,000 is going to help us do that. Thank you. MR. RICHARDS: Because that's what makes sense to me. We can't recruit people, we're not sure why. Yeah, so we got to answer the why, which is going to start with the survey. To some that may sound a little goofy, but I don't think that's wrong at all. We have to figure out why people don't see government as a profession going forward. It's going to be, you know, I'm sure part of that is how do you feel about yourself and are you accomplishing something? There's also the financial side because our cost of living is so high here. People have to have a future going forward and all that. So I think the direction is the Page 175 FC-32 April 13,2022 right way. I just want to make sure that we don't shortchange it and just keep trying to do what we did in the past and expect a different outcome. I think that's definition of insanity, isn't it? Okay, well I appreciate that because you're actually marketing all of the departments. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Correct. MR. RICHARDS: And there's going to be different wants and obviously different professional needs for each one, but we're not going to get things done. It comes back to having the resources, which is a human capital to get maybe handling the funding that could come available to us, but if we don't have the resources to apply it, poho. Alright, I want to be sure it's enough to get that project done, because this is probably one of the more important projects for the long-term success for the County. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Kona, checking in. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair. No. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I don't see any lights here in Hilo. Director, a lot of my questions have been answered already. Okay,just more of a high-level question for you. A lot of the big questions like the recruitment and the employee of the year, Admin fees, ADA, those were all answered. In general, do we do output as a County along all the social media channels with our job openings and offerings that is easy, like a one click, you know, click here to apply? Do we have anything like that currently? MR. LEOPOLDINO: So part of our planning will include ease of applying. Currently, we have a presence on Facebook. We do have a County wide jobs page, which basically links, if the viewer is interested in any of the positions we're recruiting for, there is a link that takes them directly to the application on NeoGov. I mean in a sense it is a one click from the social media page, directly to our county's application process. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And the application process is available online, or do you have to come in and fill out—? MR. LEOPOLDINO: No, everything is online. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Everything is online? So you can click from any number of outreach pages directly to the County? Page 176 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. LEOPOLDINO: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And then from the County you can do an online application? MR. LEOPOLDINO: Correct, yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that's good. That's the basics, we make it easy to apply, that's the first step. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, good. And the next step, what you're see across the board is getting people back into those positions. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And I've heard this, I think, from previous Directors, is during hard times people fall back to the County because it's a solid secure job. During good times, the job offerings are many and people outreach into the community for higher paying positions. It kind of has that flux during the economy. That's seems to be what we're going through now, despite COVID, which kind of threw a wrench in all of it. So it's interesting times. Small business owner, I see, from my end, I see what is going on. I hear from other business owners too, same thing, hard to find staff. So it's just where we stand right now, I think. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you, appreciate it. Appreciate the overview, you're doing a good job. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Thank you very much. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you for staff for being here too. I recognize faces from my first interview over here. MR. LEOPOLDINO: Thank you all for everything. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. Okay Council Members, we're going to move on to Research and Development. Recess: The 11:07 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 11:09 a.m. Page 177 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you for your patience, everyone. We are out of recess. Joining us at this time is the Department of Research and Development, and we have Director Adams here. Director Adams, if you could get us started. (3) Research and Development: (Note: At this time, Research and Development Director Douglass Adams and Deputy Director Robert Agres came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. ADAMS: Thank you very much Chair, appreciate it. Appreciate the members of the Council, standing in as Committee on Finance. I'm Doug Adams, the Director of Research and Development for the County of Hawaii. I have with me our Deputy, who will introduce himself. MR. AGRES: Aloha, Bobby Agres, Deputy Director. MR. ADAMS: So first of all having the opportunity to come and talk about our budget, and also to present on our department is actually an honor and a privilege to be able to do that. Sometimes as we get prepared, as we're preparing to do this and we're thinking about the numbers and all those kinds of things, it's always helpful to kind of sit in the back and watch our colleagues go through this process. But also recognize the importance of what we're doing as a democracy, as a republic, knowing that there were other entities or other nations out there that are not having this opportunity. As you know, I'm previous military, so having seen and been in some of those areas where folks don't necessarily have the opportunity to engage in this kind of conversation,this kind of dialog. It's really, really important to recognize this for what it is, which is all of us working together to make sure that we can take care of each other, and do it in a way that allows for governance, that is, and for, and by the people. I can't take credit for that last part, I think that was Abe Lincoln. First of all, I appreciate the value that the department receives, clearly from both the Administration and from the Council, otherwise you wouldn't fund us. So it's important to recognize that. The second thing is that I'm really proud of the team that we have in the department. They do a lot of really good work and we're going to talk about that a little bit. Then finally, the opportunity to share our focus, the things that we're focusing on in imagining, investing in a collaboratively creating a sustainable, equitable, and thriving Hawaii Island. That's what we're going to be talking about here as a part of this budget briefing. So the programs that we have, there are a number of things that we cover, but that's part of the nature of the mission that we have in the department. So agricultural and food systems, you're all aware of our build back better regional Page 178 FC-32 April 13,2022 challenge application, having one at phase one and then having applied for the phase two along with 59 other recipients. We anticipate, although we have not been told yet, that we'll receive word sometime in late May early June along with everybody else. They have provided the build back better team out of the U.S. Economic Development Administration of the Department of Commerce and has indicated that there is a mid-June gathering, in-person in D.C. Whether or not they're going to use that as the means by which they will announce, or they'll do it prior to that, we're unsure. We anticipate that there will be two or three of us that will be attending that, as there will be two or three from the other 59 recipients as well of the initial phase one application. There's a variety of other things that we're doing in agricultural and food systems obviously, and the opportunity to talk about those we can do that. We also have a lot of work that we're focused on in renewable energy. Looking, we pay attention, and we have a contract with folks at Arizona State University to help us with this process. We pay attention very closely to what is happening at the Public Utility Commission when it comes to the variety of dockets that are open, both for the utilities and for independent power producers that are on the island. We know that we are very, very, fortunate as a geographic entity when it comes to the opportunity to go green, and to do it in a way that can be done more quickly than perhaps in other areas. We also recognize that the ability to do what we would like to do to reduce the cost of living here, to reduce the cost of farming, to reduce the cost of conducting business and transportation, and all of those things that are associated with both business and living, but also with climate change and taking the kind of actions we need to take in terms of climate, action has to be done in a way that also recognizes the cultural concerns that many in our community have. So that's a part of what we talk about, when we're talking about renewable energy as well. Electrification and transportation is a key piece of this for us moving from particularly, within the County fleet itself, we're making good headway moving forward with the electrification piece. We're very fortunate to have John Andoh as our Mass Transit Administrator. He and the team that is under really the leadership of our energy coordinator Riley Saito, have really moved forward in an expeditious manner and we look forward to seeing the benefits and the results of that with our buses, with our charging infrastructure, as well as changes in the fleet in our departments. In fact, maybe even combining some of the fleets to reduce a number of vehicles that we have. So that's all working right now. It's not just on paper on a wall somewhere, it's actually happening so we're very excited about that. Our climate action plan, we have the draft that was published in 2020. A further iteration of that is underway right now, as some of you are involved in that Page 179 FC-32 April 13,2022 process, and I think the process itself is something to be proud of actually. I think the communications that's being undertaken with members of the community, the development of the working group so that we make sure that the values that we hold dear here in our island, are also part of the climate action planning process, both in terms of the mitigation measures and the adaptation measures that will be identified in that climate action plan. That plan will be focused on the County, specifically, but part of the reason for that is so that we can get a plan out. Because I think what we've recognized—and we're working in close coordination with the Department of Planning. Director Kern and I meet monthly with the combined team that is working on this to make sure that we have an understanding of where they're going and what are the processes and outcomes from those processes that they have at the moment, and what they anticipate them being over the course of this year and into the early part of next year when we believe we can actually publish a plan, and begin an implementation of that plan. We are also tangentially working with the other departments, both the staff as well as at the Director and Deputy level, to make sure that whatever comes into the plan has already been worked through, at least in an initial way with the departments that maybe affected. So the idea is not to have the plan all of sudden dumped on a department Director's desk and say go do, but to make sure that the items that are in there are things that they agree or things that they can do. Because ultimately, there are going to be budget issues associated with these kinds of implementation aspects moving forward. The regenerative tourism and our destination management action plan is something that we're moving forward on in an expeditious manner along with the Hawaii Tourism Authority. We're fortunate that we are into, I think, the second year of this particular aspect or close to finishing up the first year. The development of the objectives and the goals and the actions that are part of that action plan are things that are innovation grants as a matter of fact, are participating in supporting. The other elements here that are important is that things that we're learning as a part of Bob's work with the community recovering resilience efforts, particularly in lower Puna, but also in other areas of our island where we're concerned about our culturally and historical significant sites and conversations around those locations. The kinds of conversations we're having there, we're learning from those, and that information is also being applied in the destination management action plan efforts, and so we're trying to make sure that we're connected. There are benefits to being small, and one of the benefits to being small is that it doesn't take much to talk to each other. One of the disadvantages of being small is that there's only so much you can do, but the folks are working really hard in that. Community well-being, as you know, you all provided the opportunity for us to bring one of our EDS positions, Economic Development Specialist positions, forward into community well-being component in the department. We did that Page 180 FC-32 April 13,2022 last year. We hired an individual in August, Yoshi Otake, and he has hit the ground running. He is primarily focused on the advancing health literacy grant that we have, we'll talk briefly about that, but he is also begun the process in working into other areas in well-being. Bob has also been very supportive of that effort, making sure that we are connected to those areas of well-being that are important, it's not just the economy. It's also the things that are going to help us thrive, that are going to help our residents be able to earn a livelihood and at the same time, enjoy the lives that they have here with their families. And that's a key part of that particular process. The health literacy piece is ongoing, we're coming up to the end of the first year, it's a two-year project. That whole process whereI know that you had the opportunity to hear from Randy Kurohara the Executive Director of Community First, as well as Lisa Rantz, Executive Director of the Hawaii Rural Health Care Association and the Hilo Medical Center Foundation here recently. That talked about their access to care survey, well that work there is connected to the advancing health literacy work that's ongoing as well. We will be looking forward to seeing what the next year of effort in this particular way,particularly having to do with our chronic diseases and helping folks that may not understand what's available to them gain an understanding of what's available to them over next the year. So that work is ongoing, we are well in our connections with both the Federal Government HHS (Department of Health and Human Services), and the Office of Minority Health, which runs the grant, as well as Community First and they're consortium of health care entities around the island. The directors that we have around the island that are working on this with community boards and the evaluation piece that HHS required that we have out of UHH (University of Hawaii at Hilo), all of that is working and we're really, really happy about that process. Workforce development, we know that the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the workforce development team is moving to the Department of Research and Development from the Office of Housing Community Development. That process is going to get very, very, busy here in the next quarter, with the idea that being that we are staffed, or close to being staffed by the time we hit July 111. That allows us to work, what we think is a natural synergy between the jobs piece at the workforce development works on as well as the economic revitalization piece that we have with our other EDS. So that will be a really good fit for us moving forward. Business development, obviously, it's a key piece of what we do, as well as creative industries we're hiring in both of those positions. We'll be interviewing for those positions here in the next week or two, and we anticipate having them filled and ready to go by the time we hit July 1st of this fiscal year. So that's programs. Page 181 FC-32 April 13,2022 Grants, obviously a big piece of what we're looking to try and do is add to the amount of funding that we have available here in the County, so grant writing, grant tracking, a significant piece that's been added to our budget. We'll talk a little bit more about that when we talk about the changes in the budget, but that's a significant area for us. We are moving forward right now with the development of the contract, then moving forward to identify somebody to take that on in a manner that's very soon to make sure we can make that happen. There's just so much money out there, and we know that. We need to make sure that we're identifying the opportunities for our departments and applying it in a way that's going to allow us to be competitive. So all of that is important, and we're moving forward with that. Also broadband, digital literacy, and digital equity, key elements associated with what we're doing in the department. We're working, obviously, with other departments, Department of Information Technology, my friend back here as well as the Director of Public Works. Those are three entities in the County that are connected to the broadband work. It is really important. I don't know if I can overstate this, how important it is that we get universal access to broadband here on this island. I hear the President say that, I hear all the folks that are associated with the broadband at the federal level say that. I hear the Governor say that, it just is the case. So making sure that the $65 billion that's available at the federal level for broadband access and the infrastructure, we're going to get our fair share and we're going to make sure that we're putting it to work. We just have to do that. The childcare programs and facilities, mental health work particularly for our youngsters, our youth, those are key elements particularly from the grant side of things. You haven't asked me, but I'll lead with this. There's funding obviously and is a part of the State and local fiscal recovery funds out of the American Rescue Plan Act. We have told you previously that the first tranche part of that funding is intended to be used for childcare, both programs and facilities as well as broadband work. In conversations within the County, we have taken a look at what the second tranche is, as well as the non-entitlement unit amount that is coming to the County, and part of that is going to be used to support really a crisis in mental health. We see it here. We know that it exists here, so we're going to use some of the funding to work on that. We've already begun some of the conversations with that, and Bob and Yoshi have continued in some of those conversations as well, to identify what's the best way for us to move forward in some of these areas. Infrastructure is a key piece of this as well, including affordable housing. It turns out affordable housing is something that the State local fiscal recovery funds can be used for. So the opportunity to be able to use some of that funding for what is the number? Is at least number one, two, or three on our priority list. Which one Page 182 FC-32 April 13,2022 is it, one, two or three? Okay, but it's up there. So that's just something that is key to making sure that where we can see that funding being available, that we were able to make that available, because we've already heard it today, right? We heard it when it touched Human Resources, it touched our recruitment. People can't—heck, they were talking about it, the Prosecuting Attorney was talking about the inability because of housing here. So making sure that we have affordable housing. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to do a community information session up in Honoka`a, and the question there was what about ag housing, providing housing for ag workers? It's all part of this affordable housing mix, so our ability to support that with the funding that's part of that is going to be key for us. Then community navigators, there are a variety of community navigator funds that have been placed out there, but it's clear to us that more needs to be done, whether it's with ag or with some of the social services that we're not responsible for, right? Those are typically done at the State level or the federal level, but allowing people and helping people to understand how they can access those things, they need help doing that. So our ability to help with that is going to be something that we're going to be looking at our State and local physical recovery funds to support. Then finally, small business and nonprofit support needs to be a part of what we do. It's really important as we take a look at our economies. We take a look at the unemployment picture, which actually is supposedly doing well, but doesn't something kind of tell you that the stats don't really tell us what the truth is? So I can take a look at the stats as well as anybody else can, but there's another piece that says that isn't what I see happening. It's the old eyeball test, right? So there's work that needs to be done, particularly for our small businesses, and we know that the nonprofits have carried more than their fair share. So our ability to help and see what that looks like is going to be important as we take a look at the grants moving forward. Our innovation grants, moving from grants we will take in to grants we will give out. So you'll notice as a part of the budget that we have reduced in some cases the contracts out in some areas and increased it in other areas. We'll talk about those specifically. Part of the reason for that is, we reduced the number of grants moving forward. Our plan is to reduce the number of grants in the innovation grants, moving forward from in the neighborhood of 30 to 35 to more like nine or 10. The purpose of which is to actually increase the amount that the grant applicants and ultimate recipients would receive. Because we believe that to make these recipients sustainable in the work they're going to be doing, they have to then have done enough with funding, have had enough funding to do the work that they can then raise their visibility for other philanthropic foundations and others that had the opportunity then to fund them. Part of what we've been doing is that we had been funding at a relatively low level. I mean 25,000 is not super low, I understand that,particularly if it's Page 183 FC-32 April 13,2022 helpful. But the idea is that doesn't necessarily break the barrier for other providers of funds, and they're not going to look at folks that are just getting 15,000 or 25,000 and we end up just continuing to fund those. That doesn't necessarily help us when it comes to innovation, we just become another purveyor of funds out to non-profits. So if what we're supposed to do is take a look at innovative ways of doing things in the areas that we're working on, then we think that giving them providing an opportunity to have more money so that they can use that money to do more and then raise the visibility of what they're doing, will help with the sustainability of the efforts that they have. I also will talk about one of the items that we have, it's not a huge item in our budget but it is incredibly huge in the results that happen. That's our Immigration Office, which consists of one person at the moment, although we're going to add a half-time clerk to that position as well. I think it's important to say that when I walked into the department, I knew that we had an immigration specialist. I had an understanding and I thought of what they did. What I didn't recognize was, both prior to my arriving on the scene here in this particular position, the work that had been done over the last six, seven, eight years that we've had the specialist position and into the last year and few months that I have had the opportunity to work and see the work that's being done. It's not just helping people fill out forms. It is indeed connecting with the communities that are out there, and the work that our specialist does to be a leader in those communities to help them. maybe I wouldn't have seen it if we hadn't had some of the efforts that we had to reach out to some of our populations that had difficulty with COVID, both the testing and the vaccination piece. But because of an individual that we have in our office, because of Tulpe, making sure that she's available and talking to those communities, those communities then show up for these tests and vaccine opportunities. We're now continuing that effort with the Broadband Hui and the work that they're doing to reach out to some of these populations, whether it's through the Emergency Rental Assistance piece, whether it's the—what was the Emergency Broadband Benefit that's now going to be ACP, Affordable Connectivity Program also associated with broadband. The connections with Sharon Hirota's work and Susan Kunz's work with the financial Impairment Center, all of these things are tied to the ability to connect with folks, and our Immigration Specialist has been front and center in helping us do that. So tremendous efforts and work being done there. Then you haven't heard me talk about the comprehensive economic development strategy yet, but we have to. It is an incredibly important entity or program moving forward. We're going to be working with Jackie Hoover, she is both leading it here in the County as well as at the State level. So understanding that there is a deadline at the end of August for that strategy to be available and into the State wide strategy, that will lead—having the variety of proj ects that we're going to be talking about over the next five years included in that and identified as Page 184 FC-32 April 13,2022 priorities, that has to be done, otherwise, they won't get funded. So that's a key piece for us as well. Then finally, processes for us, pilots, so grant management not a surprise. Data management, we're looking at data management. Council Member Kimball is aware of this and has also been a leader in talking about this. But as we talk about the data that's available here, so much is paperwork, right? And that's just hard to gather that information. It's hard to have it be available to use and so turning that into digits is a key piece of what I know the Department of Finance is doing. The Director of Information Technology in our department is working with and talking to vendors that are out there, not to talk to them about what they can do specifically for us, but to talk to them about what is it that other jurisdictions do. What can we learn from what they're doing so that we can make sure that as we approach our needs here, that we have an understanding of what that looks like and what the cost maybe associated with that? We have to get there. It's not going to happen this year, but it has to happen eventually so that we can then take that information—we have so much information here in the County and we don't have access to it. It's not because we don't want to have access, it's not because the departments don't want to provide it, it's just the effort to do it is incredibly difficult. Infrastructure obviously is a focus, we've talked about that. Economic revitalization, and then capacity, both capacity within the departments and across the County. We continue to talk about that. I would tell you that as we take a look at where we're going as a department moving forward, we were just having the conversation about where we are right now. We've added three contracts just here in the last I guess few months, two within the last couple of weeks actually. One to handle childcare and the childcare grant funding, a couple, one to help out with climate change and one to help out with zero admissions, as a zero-admissions specialist helping with our renewable energy work. That's just kind of the start here because we know that as we move forward, if we're fortunate enough to receive funding in the bill back better regional challenge, that would mean that we'll have funding supporting contracts to help with the governance and help with the work that agricultural coalition is going to do as part of that program and the projects that are part of that. We know that as we continue to work on climate change and the climate action plans, there are couple of additional positions there that are necessary. We've been very fortunate to add another year of our volunteer and support to America our vista program, which we have seven of those folks that are going to be coming. We've just received our first individual, our first vista for this coming year on Monday. So very excited about that process as well. Page 185 FC-32 April 13,2022 Finally, the lead for Hawaii program, we have broadband individuals. Somebody's going to work on broadband that's going to be coming out of the lead for Hawaii program, going to be working in our Kona office. So having somebody that's focused on what we can do with broadband is going to be very, very, key to us. So all of that means that we'll be adding to the numbers that we have in the department, whether its civil servants or it's by contract, but that would give us the capacity to do more is the key. Getting ourselves organized, I'm going to rely on my Deputy to do that because I don't think that maintaining a horizontal structure where I have a span of control over 40 people is probably helpful to getting things done. So we'll take a look at what that looks like. If we're successful in getting these positions, right? Changes to our budget, briefly, because I know you'll have questions about it. We have added travel funds to both the Director piece, $10,000 there, and then our film Commissioner, $2,000 there, miscellaneous contracts for both grant management projects and grant writing, you see the $500,000 that's been added to that. That is designed to support a grant writing and grant tracking team. Grants Management, we see is being written into the grants and handled by the individual departments that have responsibility for those grants. But there will still be responsibilities for accounting and for reporting, both with Finance and with the Department of Research and Development as we go through this initial process. To have the confidence of the Administration and hopefully the Council for this amount so that we can actually go after a lot more than just what$500k is going to bring us, I mean the idea of spending money to make money, I've heard that used here before. If we're not making more than $500k then we've failed, and we don't intend to fail. We have to get a bunch of that here so that we can use it and do the work that is going to be done, infrastructure in particular. Then the sector contacts you'll notice that there have been changes from previous year's budget to this year's budget, and that's associated with the change I've talked to you about in terms of our innovation grant process, where we're going to—rather than have a variety of the small amount innovation grants, we'll have the larger ones. Then identifying them across the sectors that we have, agricultural, tourism, sustainability, creative industries, energy and business development. I would focus in particular on sustainability and creative industries. We know that those are areas for economic revitalization moving forward, but we haven't funded our innovation grant contracts that way. So we're going to make sure that we're taking care of that as a part of that process. Then finally something that's not in here but we will because we failed to get the supplemental into finance. There is the $306,000 that's part of the soil and water conservation district. Many of you are aware that came to us from Department of Public Works a few years ago. It pretty much has been running itself, but there has been no increase in the funding for that, which is largely for salary. So it's Page 186 FC-32 April 13,2022 largely for the folks that do the work. So we're going to be requesting a 10 percent increase, about$30,000 as a part of the supplemental that would increase this piece from $306,000 to $336,000 as a part of the soil water conservation district funding. So that's what I have as a part of our briefing moving into this. I would say that obviously, we've had the opportunity and we appreciate the opportunity to have had conversations with all of you here and obviously in Kona, both me and our team. Your interest in what we do is really, really, appreciated. Then we also have had the opportunity to work with most of our other departments, and that is both at the Director and Deputy level as well as staff level. The opportunities to do that we think are bearing fruit, they are from our advantage point. So we really appreciate that. To some degree we're punching above our weight when we do that, and so it is something that we're aware of. So we talk about process and we talk about outcome, but clearly for us it's the results for our residents for our citizen's that really matter the most for us. With that, I will ask my Deputy, who hates when I do this, if there's anything he would like to add. MR. AGRES: Aloha. I just want to reiterate what Doug said in terms of our staff, because you can hear the range of initiatives that this department is in charge of, and the reach it has in all the different aspects of community life. I think there's a couple things I also want to emphasize because there's so many different things going on. There's a method to the madness, because the department has some very explicit strategies around really understanding and informing decisions that are being made in these range of sectors. So the research, the data, that deep understanding, and then the grant making and all of that is about the partnerships and collaborations and the leveraging of resources, so that's an explicit strategy. I think one of the areas that we're most proud of with the staff is this issue of pushing equity in everything that we're doing. Riley Saito likes to say, if we design things so that the solutions actually address the most vulnerable, then that's how we can ensure that everyone benefits from the kinds of things that we're pushing on. So just wanted to push and give kudos to staff on that, and sort of seeing the whole picture of what the budget is about in terms of how we approach the work. Probably the last thing, which Doug alluded to that's happening, especially in the area of the regenerative tourism, is about everything, which is how we understand this place and use that as a way to actually inform things moving forward. So example, the work in Pohoiki with the Parks and Recreation Department, starting with the understanding what the `ohana and the lineal descendants there have been for generations practicing those practices and local wisdom and cultural knowledge is indigenous data science. So it's not a nice thing. It's something that we really need to understand at a deeper level, help us to make sure that we're taking advantage of those thousands of years of research and development Page 187 FC-32 April 13,2022 that people from this place have invested in, and then learning from that and moving forward. I think our staff is really, really, ma`a to that kind of approach. And so I'm pretty excited about being with Doug in this department. MR. ADAMS: And with that, we will be happy to take any questions that you have. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Agres. Council Members? Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director, Deputy, for being here today, and thank you for a very thorough presentation. I take it you probably watched some of our previous questions and answer sessions, so you had a sense of what to prepare for. I just wanted to mention to Council Member Chung, you missed a really good comment on statistics from the Director. Oh, you were outside? You heard it? Okay. We share some sentiments about that. I wanted to ask specifically about the childcare program. How close are we to getting something actually implementable? MR. ADAMS: Thank you for that. I'm really proud that we have brought Angela Thomas on under contract for working the childcare element here. She's well known in the County and across the State actually, and I think she waited for us, probably. So the opportunity to—so to answer your question specifically, the hiring of somebody that can work the problem directly and who has keyed into the needs both across the State but specifically on the island, she's done data development collection analysis for years on this. It's going to help us move much more quickly than we have over the last year essentially. Part of this was the identification of whether or not this is a specific way that we wanted to go. We've identified it relatively early on to the Council that it was. We saw a lot of the advantages and benefits of doing that. The key has been, given everything, I think we all thought, well at least I did, that childcare from the Federal Government was going to be something that was going to come through, and that we would be able to add to that. That has not been the case and so figuring out then what will be the case and how we can be sustainable in our approach. We have had some delays associated with that, and part of that's a determination of what's the right way to go forward with that. Having Angelia in the docket now is going to help us immensely. MS. KIMBALL: Alright, thank you for that. You know, ties into of course the equity pay that you were talking about before, and welcome Angela, glad to have her on board. What are we looking at in terms of that contract, like where we're going to have some benchmarks of some deliverables from her? MR. ADAMS: Well, we're going to work specifically with her to identify how we're going to spend the rest of the funds that we have as part of the State local Page 188 FC-32 April 13,2022 physical recovery funds, the funds that we identify there. So part of this is going to be—we have some decisions to make with that. Do you go all out? Do you go facilities? Is that sustainable? Is that a way to make sure that it is? Do you instead try and go programmatic? Do you do some hybrid of that? How much money is available to be able to be sustainable? These are all questions that we've been having conversations about, but now I feel comfortable. I do, I feel comfortable that we can actually make some decisions on the right way to move forward for this island and for our parents. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, so it sounds like it's still fairly early stages in terms of MR. ADAMS: In terms of the identification of that, but it's not early stages in terms of the depth of information that we have available to us. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, that's useful to know. With the CEDS (Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy) and the August deadline, what is the mechanism that the County is interacting, your office is interacting with Jackie Hoover's team? Is there an avenue for the Council to participate, or are you going to be presenting it to us at some point before the final comments go back to her? Just want to see if there's a way we can participate in an active way as the Council. MR. ADAMS: So that process has not been provided necessarily to us yet. We know that both myself and Bob have been identified by Jackie as going to be serving on the islands team. Then potentially I'll be on the State team that will take a look at the overall strategy that's developed and moved forward. How that is going to happen and the timelines for that are not—they haven't been provided to use yet. MS. KIMBALL: So it sounds like given the timeframe, we should probably just communicate directly with you if there's things that we want to contribute. MR. ADAMS: Why don't we just say that? MS. KIMBALL: Let's just say that, okay. Happy to support the huge influx of funding into the grant writing. You know, I think you're absolutely right, spend money to make money in this case. When we were at NACo (National Association of Counties), it was very clear that there were all sorts of resources out there. The one conversation I think we've had, I may not been recollecting correctly, but with these contract services, say for example, are you going to be looking for area specialist I guess with certain expertise? MR. ADAMS: You mean for the grant writers? MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. So like they'd be expert in writing for grants for Public Works for example. I'm a little concern about just if we have general grant Page 189 FC-32 April 13,2022 writers and they don't have a little bit of area expertise, we're going to be pulling time from the Director's, and the staff in the departments, and not getting as much value out of the grant writer unless they have some specialty—areas of expertise. MR. ADAMS: I appreciate that concern. That's my first way of saying yes, we're going to go with our general grant writers. The reason for doing that is that it takes too long to go after individual focused grant writers. The contracting process takes too long. We want to identify and we're in the process of identifying grant writing contractors and then we will work directly with the departments, and they know that. They understand that part of this is the grant tracking, part of this is the prioritization process that we're going to then be working with them on, and then the grant writing itself. Part of the reason we think that will be successful, not just potentially successful, is that's how we do it now, and we're relatively successful on the ones that we actually write. So we take folks that are known for being good grant writers in the County. They then work directly with the departments and the experts in the department, and then develop what that grant is, and then get the grant out and apply. We've had a pretty good track record on being successful for those, and then the management piece of that then falls to the department. The issue that has been with the departments largely, I think it's fair for me to say, is that they haven't been funded for that necessarily. So what we want to make sure we're doing is that as we discover in the grants that we've written for us, is we want to make sure that the management piece of that is funded as a part of the grant budget. So when these grants come to the departments for whatever it is that they'll be funded for, whether it's programs or infrastructure, the management piece of that is something that's budgeted for and then we're able to bring somebody on into the department, as opposed to taking it out of the departments hide to do that work. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, that's reasonable. So the overall analysis was shorten the time up front to get people in by just doing a more general hire and then maybe it gives a little time at the back end by the time it takes to do the MR. ADAMS: Right. We'll be able to hire the management piece to be able to work that. Then we'll have a little bit of the infrastructure inside our department, working closely with Finance Department to make sure the reporting piece gets done. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. I'll just ask that you keep the Council abreast of how well that strategy is working, and if there's a decision to re-tool it at some later point. There's one other question I had real quick. Oh, the resource center, I see that we're putting Page 190 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. ADAMS: So that's a sustainability funding, that's where the sustainability funding goes into. So from a budgeting perspective because we're going to try and focus more of our innovation grant funding into sustainability, that's where you'll see it. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, I see. Okay, great. Thanks for raising the data management and the importance of that and the importance of County wide common language around data and data collection. We've had a brief talk about that, and I just want to share that with my colleagues, that I think that's something that will continue to work with R&D on. We have, as Doug said, and Scott back there, you know, we have a lot of information available on this County. Not all of it is in this format that was easily useable at this time, but hopefully more and more will get into that, and a lot of being able to cross communicate has to do with the structure you set up front. MR. ADAMS: And I know that there's a timing and everybody else has to speak, but let me just speak to that if I may briefly. MS. KIMBALL: Sure. MR. ADAMS: Right now, folks that are using mass transit can go to google maps and they can see what's happening. The only reason that happened is because we had Vistas working with Riley Saito, that took the word document information that bus drivers used about which way to turn, and where to turn left and right, and turn that into ArcGIS available geo data, so that could then become digitized. That's a one off, and being used in a tremendous way already, but it took three months for them to do that work, three of them working. MS. KIMBALL: What a huge payoff, right? MR. ADAMS: It's a huge payoff. So the opportunities inside the County for more payoffs like that, we just have to get digitized. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you. I yield, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Going to go to Kona. MR. INABA: Sure Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Yeah, thank you. Director Adams, first of all in terms of the positions, I know on the last page of this operating budget, your section in the program, it lists out the different number of Economic Development Specialist II and III. However, it's nowhere clearly stated who is doing what with regards to energy, tourism, to my knowledge. Is that available somewhere? Page 191 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. ADAMS: I can provide that information to you. MR. INABA: Yeah, I think moving forward it might be helpful, because I know you do break down the different sectors of your department here and explaining their program highlights. Like the other departments, they'll give specific positions for each of those divisions or those areas, and I think it's helpful because I'm still unsure what people are doing what in looking through all of these documents. So that might be helpful for us in the next round. And then MR. ADAMS: Let me just say, Council Member, I don't anticipate that we're going to put names against those positions. Each of the specialist that we have are classified as Economic Development Specialists, and they're not listed separately based on maybe the areas or the sectors that they have responsibility for. But we can work with you to make sure that you understand who's doing what as a part of that. MR. INABA: Okay. Then I'm not sure I was super clear, I know Council Member Kimball just asked about this grant writing, but who exactly is leading this charge in your department? Is it one of those specialists? MR. ADAMS: Yes. MR. INABA: Who is it? One person or two people? MR. ADAMS: So right now, we have Beth Dykstra that's writing up the statement of work. Actually, we have the statement of work written, and we're working to move that through the finance ERC (Expenditure Review Committee) work. Then we will be moving through our professional services category process because we have a professional services category for grant writing. Then we will be hiring off of that. MR. INABA: Okay, so part of this—and that's hiring outside grant writer or it's a hiring of a position outside? MR. ADAMS: No, it would be contract. It will not be civil service. MR. INABA: Okay. Then I see there is a decrease in the tourism promotion from 459 to 150,000, but there's no position filled under that section of your budget. There's no request for a position, though there was one before. So how is that 150,000, or who is managing that? MR. ADAMS: So in the budget, all of our specialist are paid for out of the salary and wages piece, which is at the top. All of the items that you see there with the $150,000 for example on tourism, that's on a 115 so those are contracts. So that's part of our innovation grant funding. So those would be grants that the County, Page 192 FC-32 April 13,2022 R & D being the provider of these and the one that develops the RFP (Request for Proposal) and then has the review responsibility and ultimately the decision to send out these grants. That's what those funds are for. CHR. INABA: So who is in charge of that tourism kuleana in your department? MR. ADAMS: Well, the identification of the innovation grant funding is a department wide responsibility. So it isn't—no one individual has the responsibility or has the authority actually to decide this is what somebody that's applying for tourism is going to get. It's a department wide as a part of our RFP process. MR. INABA: Yeah, sorry not saying who's determining it, but who is the one who because you know, earlier this year we've had discussions about film, right? We've had some problems there, so I want to know and make sure that each of these categories are being handled by a staff member, or we have an idea who is taking care of it since it's not explicitly said who's taking what. It's just listing out all of these different specialists, but we have no clue who is doing what as it relates to these different sectors. MR. ADAMS: Well, I'm responsible, but I can tell you the individual names for the individual specialists and the responsibilities that they have. Is that what you want me to do here in open forum? MR. INABA: No. I'd like to just understand so if we can have maybe something that gives the Council a better picture of what's going on in this department. There are some funds being moved around. I'm happy that we're going to be seeking grant funding for a variety of things, but it does help us to know, when we see a budget amount but there's no specific position that show's who's managing or who is going to be leading those funds, it helps us to understand how this program is going to work better. MR. ADAMS: So the innovation grants because that funding is used for innovation grant contracts, we don't know that when we submit this budget. We run through an RFP process that identifies that offers the opportunity for nonprofit to come in and apply for grants in the areas that we've talked about, agriculture, creative industries, energy, sustainability, tourism, and one other that I'm forgetting off the top of my head. So those areas receive applications and then we go through the process of reviewing those, prioritizing them, and then making decisions on who receives funding. We then provide those funds to the recipients that have been awarded the funds. The individual specialist in those areas that the funds may be going to, they then have responsibility for those contracts. But we don't know now who's going to win those funds, right? MR. INABA: That's okay, I wasn't asking who's going to win or for sure who's going to be getting these grant funds. For agriculture, I see that we're decreasing the OCE (Other Current Expense). So with a decrease of, you know, over Page 193 FC-32 April 13,2022 $100,000, is the idea, because I think we all want to support agriculture, so is your perspective here, we're going to decrease on this specific line item, but hopefully make up those funds and those efforts in the form of securing those grants that are part of the $500,000 request? MR. ADAMS: Yes, that's not a hope. It would be a desire that the funding that we're able to win and then we can then use some of that funding. But the idea is that what happens with the innovation grant funding coming in, that's different than the build back better funding, right? So no, the idea is that we pretty much salami slice the amount that we had available across the contracts that we have funding for. But that doesn't mean necessarily that agriculture for example, is only going to have contracts out of the innovation grant process for $150,000 or tourism is, or sustainability, or creative industries. This will be determined by the funding that we see coming in, the applications coming through the innovation grant process. So maybe that there are applications that cross as we saw this last time. We actually had applications that crossed sectors, and so they were good applications. They did well competitively with the others and so we funded them. We had to select from a particular area where it was going to come from, but the idea that applications that come in for innovation through the innovation grant RFP process are going to be specifically only to one sector, we don't believe that is going to be the case. As a matter of fact, we think that it's going to be likely that it's less the case as we move forward. It's easy to think of things, both in an agricultural sustainable and energy related, covering all of those sectors for example. So we'll figure out the funding associated with that. MR. INABA: Thank you. Page 44 Section 5-1-63.25 you folks have listed anticipated, or do you have secured private contributions for this next fiscal year totaling $50,000? MR. ADAMS: Right, we have not secured that. That is a place holder for any that may come in. MR. INABA: And the intention for soliciting those funds are for a specific event or program? MR. ADAMS: No. MR. INABA: So we're putting in money into the budget for donations, but with no intention of what it's for or who it might be from? Is that correct? MR. ADAMS: That's correct. We are an economic revitalization, economic development organization, the ability to bring funds in from a variety of sources is part of our Charter's mission. Page 194 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. INABA: Director Sako, can you come to the table, please? (Note: At this time Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. SAKO: Good morning. MR. INABA: In regards to this question and this specific section, I know we've had discussion in Council over the last year with regards to contributions. Is this something that you recommended being put into this budget for this department, especially without an idea of its purpose? MS. SAKO: So actually, most of our departments do have contributions account both the revenue and the expenditure, and they can only spend it if they actually receive the contributions. So R&D, for whatever reason, didn't have one so we thought it be a good idea to have it. Sometimes donations come in at the end of the year, and we want to make sure we have the appropriate accounting mechanism set up so that they can spend if needed. MR. INABA: Thank you. Is it normal to put an amount in? MS. SAKO: Yeah, most of them have anywhere from $10 to $100,000, depending on the size of the department. MR. INABA: Okay. Thank you very much, Director Sako. Thank you. Director Adams, I'll be following up with you with some additional questions offline. Thank you. MR. ADAMS: Thank you, Council Member. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Anyone else in Kona? MS. DAVID: Chair, questions were already asked and answered. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Here in Hilo, Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Doug. I think you probably would have needed 30 slides, for your 1,000 words per picture, but I digress. Couple of things, Research and Development, we touched on this when we were talking story. It is my belief that Research and Development needs to be doing that research and stuff, and so grant, when we talk about funding you, we as a County, we as a Council, have to accept the fact that everything you're going to try is not going to work, but that's what you're supposed to do. Page 195 FC-32 April 13,2022 To that, there are some questions coming forth, nor sitting here. We talked about the daycare and looking at setting up a program. Why are we not looking at contracting some other programs that could use some help rather than try and set up a program our self? That may be a little bit rhetorical, but has this been evaluated, because I'm thinking about some other programs that are out there that are struggling? Rather than reinvent the wheel, why don't we just stand them up? MR. ADAMS: It's not rhetorical and it's absolutely correct. We're not trying to set up a County program, I mean that's not been on my agenda, right? MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. ADAMS: The idea is there are so many programs out there, which one do you choose? And if you're trying to be sustainable or create the opportunity for sustainability of the program that you're going to put some funding against, then what does that look like? So facilities, is that the way that you do it? But then do you have enough actually to do enough, or do you try and go with programs? Do you try and work with Work Force Development to help with their credentialing? There is a variety of opportunities here, we don't have enough money to solve all of them. So it's not our intent, at least it's not my intent to say that hey, we're setting up a County childcare network. That's not what we're talking about. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. I'm glad to hear that because that shouldn't be our intent, but this kind of gets back a little bit to what we were talking about with Human Resources and quality of life issues and thereby more wrap around services. I think I described it that way. If you're going to have young people working, you're going to have young families and how do we attend to that? So is that something, and that's not unusual for employers to figure out how to help solve that. MR. ADAMS: That's right and we think that actually, we know that childcare is a part of work that employer's do oftentimes you see that happening on the mainland all the time for example, right? The idea of being able to do that here has been done here in the past for example. So that is another potential way for us forward. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Then I'm going to jump on the data bandwagon a little bit. MR. ADAMS: Not the data bandwidth? The data bandwagon? MR. RICHARDS: That data bandwagon, we'll get to the bandwidth in a second. But the data bandwagon, one of the challenges that we had in the State was under our Department of Agriculture. We shut down our statistics, which was fine because we cut a lot of cost, except it's not fine anymore because that data would be very important for us right now. And not that we want to reinvent that, but you Page 196 FC-32 April 13,2022 talked about looking at, and I'm not a subscriber to the use of the term sustainable because it's overused, but self-reliance. The ag industries in our County, in our State, we're running about$500 million, more or less, but we can develop that further, but we need the statistics to be able to manage that. Are you looking at, at least redeveloping or helping get those data points? Because we looked at the avocado exports, the shovel avocado, and there's some good opportunity but we have to have the data there. So is that what you're looking at as far as trying to capture some of that? MR. ADAMS: So the build back better regional challenge application includes as a part of the Hamakua institutes project, the identification of—we've already identified obstacles and constraints, but a piece of understanding what those are includes the data development. So it's both collection development and analysis, and that is a part of the project. So funding that would come back from build back better would be specifically focused on data development, because it affects everything else that we're talking about. Now let's say we don't get that, right? Plan B is referred to. We're working right now with DBET (Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism), and the research arm there, to talk about the fact that do we get enough information from them? Maybe I've talked about this here, but I apologize if I have, but the conversation that we're having is their data helps only so far as it goes maybe down to the County kind of level, but it doesn't help us within the County. We don't get district information, and then we don't get any agricultural information for the reasons that we've talked about. So they're recognizing where that is and what the problems are associated with that. So we're working with that research arm also to try and figure out how can we they're not a collection agency but they do deal with folks that collect information. So our understanding of how we can begin to get some of that and then our ability to talk to our own legislators about—you know, the reason that we don't have ag data is because those positions were never refilled, right? So let's refill them because the data itself is vital to our ability to execute some of the programs and projects that we have in mind, to be able to help with food security on this island, to help with the export of the Hawaii value premium brands, you know, off the island. The ability to not necessarily have to go to an industrial ag, but to go to the kind of ag where we can use the volume of producers that we have, and then be able to both with the aggregation, shared services, wrap around services, all those things that we're talking about allows for demand to be met, and to be created to be honest with you because the supply all of sudden becomes available to folks. Data is vital to us, to be able to address the nuances of all of that. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So I'm glad to hear that's forthcoming, we'll wait to see what we get with the funding. Jumping over to energy, had this conversation last year, Arizona State, now that's under contract isn't that? Page 197 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. ADAMS: Yeah. MR. RICHARDS: What is the cost of that contract? I was looking for it, but I couldn't find it. MR. ADAMS: Hundred k, it's part of energy's, $100k. MR RICHARDS: Okay, and I still raise the question is that good value for the County? MR. ADAMS: Unbelievably good value. We're not on like really live right, we're getting a bargain. The amount of work that they're doing for us with what the PUC (Public Utilities Commission) has on the docket and stuff that they do. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, because we also have our own university here, and I raised this question before. I want to make sure that we are spending money, and getting value for that. Then the other thing, trying to be mindful of time, I am concerned about the funding when it pertains to tourism, not so much for the marketing but for the management of it. We've had that conversation before. As we go forward, we talk about the regenerative tourism, I guess that's a trendy term now. MR. ADAMS: Well, it's part of your tourism, the County's tourism strategic plan from 2019. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, but the point is we have to manage that, if it's going to be good. MR. ADAMS: Absolutely. MR. RICHARDS: I'm concerned about funding levels, especially when you look at the statistics here, the data of the projected arrivals. So what are we going to do about that? MR. ADAMS: Well, the management piece is a shared responsibility with HTA, DBET. And then HTA's chapter here IHVB (Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau and then the County, right? We know that right now it's uncertain as to HTA's funding, whether or not that's going to go to HTA so that they continue to do the work that they've been doing with the management piece with John Defries and his vision for that, which is tied to what the DMAP (Destination Management Action Plan) is doing, or if it's in fact going to be coming to the counties. You all passed a resolution that allowed for funding to be sent here from HTA, if in fact that bill passes the way that it might. That's a hard one for us, we're not staffed necessarily for that, and so that will be interesting to see how that all works. Page 198 FC-32 April 13,2022 We manage what we can. The things we have responsibility for in the County largely are community based, and so that's where you see the funding, that's where we see the funding that went for innovation grant recipients last year. Most of that funding went to programs that are tied to how does the visitor industry impact here? How can we make sure that we are operating a tourism industry which is more than just accommodations. It's also the tours, it's also the restaurants, it's all the crafts, making sure that all of that is connected in a way that allows for our residents to feel good about it, because they're also part of the economy. So those conversations are being led oftentimes by our specialist, Frecia, and Bob has been involved in helping with that; Glenn Sako, when there are ag stakeholders that are involved as well, so we have members of our department that are part of the conversations, as well as the HTA folks and the IHBB folks as well, participating in that. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, and I want to put it forth, and I want to be mindful of the time, but let's talk about this. I'll come talk to you as far as that goes, but I want to be sure you have the resources, and make sure we attend to that. That Na Ala Hele Trail program that sort of a test run on it— MR. tMR. ADAMS: That stewardship program that they had up at Pololu Valley? MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, the stewardship. Right, it's working exceedingly well. MR. ADAMS: Absolutely. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so I don't want to cut short just to cut budget, so let's be mindful of that going forward, so appreciate your time. Chair again, I want to let other people have a chance to talk. Doug, thanks so much, but we'll come and talk story about some of this. MR. ADAMS: Thanks Council Member. MR. RICHARDS: I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Nice timing, Mr. Richards, that was good. Mr. Chung, go ahead. MR. CHUNG: Good afternoon, Doug. You know, for R&D, I mean I understand you guys have a small budget for such an important role. In any company, R&D is a crucial aspect of the success going forward, and a lot of money is normally put or devoted to that department. I know you do what you can within the constraints that you're faced with in terms of the budget, so thank you for your good work. Page 199 FC-32 April 13,2022 I just have two questions, and both only require a yes or no answer. First one, does your department, in trying to advance an agricultural agenda, work with the Real Property division? Real Property Tax division, or Finance, however you choose to look at it? MR. ADAMS: Yes. MR. CHUNG: Is there some coordination over there? MR. ADAMS: Yes. MR. CHUNG: Okay. Then the other one is, I was looking at— MR. tMR. ADAMS: Primarily Property Management. I apologize, it's not a yes or no. MR. CHUNG: Oh, so not in terms of the agricultural part though, because you know, we give agricultural breaks within our Real Property Taxing structure. Again, I'm not asking you to answer this, I'm just going to give you my thought and then you can go and talk to Deanna later on. But I think an across the board unless it's a land-use related reason for the ag tax benefits, I think when we're trying to advance an agenda for agriculture, it should be crop-based. So if you guys are trying to promote a certain type of thing, whether it be cut flowers, or certain types of vegetables, or whatever, some kind of crop, those things I think, should be given more weight in an agricultural tax arrangement, in conjunction with maybe the University or something and then the industry, but not just an across-the-board thing. But that's just my thought, you guys go and talk it over later on. Second question, travel, you've got about$10,000 here for travel_ I was kind of looking over all of these things. So the Mayor's Office has about$18, and then you had another department, $240,000 in travel. Is that enough for your department? Yes, or no? And before you say yes or no, I'm going to tell you why I'm asking this. Back in around 2003 maybe 2004, I'm the guy who created the Deputy position for your department. Prior to that there was no Deputy, small department, right? But it was my thinking that we needed a Deputy for that department so that either the Director or the Deputy could go out. You spoke about it, learning from other places, right? I think it's vitally important for your department to be out and about, and then now that COVID is loosening up travel restrictions, I think one or both of you should be going out to see what is out there. It cannot just be learned from reading or zooming, you got to be there, whether it's a foreign country, other places in the United States to bring those ideas back here. You are an idea place, you are the think tank for County of Hawaii. So is that enough? Yes, or no? MR. ADAMS: No. Page 200 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. CHUNG: Okay, that's all I wanted to know. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Chung. Okay, I don't see any lights on in Hilo. Kona, they're going to reach out if they have any questions. I just have a couple of questions for you, Mr. Adams. Thank you for the MR. ADAMS: The long and winding road. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: No, it wasn't too long, it was good. Some of the positions you have, their start dates were April 1st. Have those positions started? MR. ADAMS: They have not. We're interviewing, actually, for them in the next week or two. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so not yet. Thank you. Then the grant writing piece is interesting, that's been kind of talked about for a long time, I think that's a good step. It's a sizable piece of money, and I think that has great potential. MR. ADAMS: I mean I don't have to, but I will say that it was veryI very much appreciated the Mayor and the Finance Director saying we need to go forward and do this. It's not happening if I don't get their support to do this. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: In my eyes the cost benefit, it will play out good for us in the back, on the back end. MR. ADAMS: I concur. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Overtime, you have it at zero going forward. I've seen a lot of departments doing this, and I'm just trying to make sure, you know, come this year you don't go, "Oh, no, we need overtime for this or that"just trying to be realistic. Okay, good I like that. Ag, this year was 264, we're dropping down to 150. MR. ADAMS: If you look across all the sectors, they're all 150. Now the numbers won't look like that because there are some additions, like I think it's like 264 or something with energy, but that's 150 plus other contracts that they had in there. So they all were rated at 150, we salami sliced that amount with the understanding that what we're really talking about is innovation grants. When we get the applications and we see what those sectors are, then we'll be making some decisions on where the funding comes to support those. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Just given whatever seeing across the world right now, I think this is big, and this is an area we wanted to push hard on from the beginning. Page 201 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. ADAMS: It's part of the reason we went towards the build. I mean there were a variety of areas we could there were seven different sectors that they offered funding or applications towards in the build back better regional challenge. We chose agricultural for a reason. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I love what you're doing, I love Riley. Riley is amazing, energy stainability, that's where I come from, you know, solar for 10 years. You got my love on that one no matter what you do. RFP contracts, $127,000, the RFP contracts under film for miscellaneous contracts. MR. ADAMS: Right, so that includes the amount for creative industries, and the idea being that we have not necessarily focused on our creative industries, economy piece from an innovation piece in the past, and so that's part of that. We need to make sure that they're an equal partner as we're taking a look at our funding, it's the funding intentions. It may end up being that we don't get enough applications, it's going to justify that. We're not just going to say, "Oh, there's only one here so they get all the money. That's not how that's going to work. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I think it's a neat opportunity. We had discussion previously in Council about film and the film industry, the effects on our island and our community, but on the back end, it's an opportunity. I remember the Indiana Jones movie being filmed here, I was waiting tables one night and Shia LaBeouf, I don't know if I'm saying this name right. I'm sorry. MR. ADAMS: Somebody is familiar with social media. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So he came in and he sat on my table and I was trying to figure out who he was and only after he left that I realized who he was. But there isI realized there is so much influx of money on different levels. MR. ADAMS: The key for us yes, we really appreciate folks bringing the big budgets here and all that because it allows for work to occur here as well. But the key for us is that we think that we have the talent here and we need to raise that up and we need to create the opportunities for them to have a livelihood here, doing what they should do as artists. We just think that there's a real opportunity for us to be a Silicon Valley for creative arts here, to be honest. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Good, and I'm just looking because it looks like we lost a lot of projects to like the coqui control. I don't know if they just went away or if they moved to other places. MR. ADAMS: That's Finance Department stuff. I'm not really sure yes, it is. So in other words, these are grants that came in, they keep them on the books for a period of time, even though we haven't necessarily seen funds that have come from the feds or from the State necessarily. So I can't tell you why they are stillwe haven't seen that funding necessarily for a couple of years. Page 202 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. That's all I had. I appreciate it. I think you guys have a lot of potential as a department and you got good leadership right now between the two of you folks who came in. I know you have a team in the office as well who do amazing work, so thank you for your time this morning. Before I get off, Bob, you talked about kind of indigenous research and development's map, I think for a thousands of years, that was actually a reallyI like that comment a lot and it always brings me back to one of the sustainability conferences we had here, ag conferences at the Hilo Hawaiian and one of the farmers who came from Oahu said we need to normalize indigenous thinking. I can never get rid of that statement. I kind of wraps up everything in my mind of how do we deal with ag? How do we deal with people? How do we feed people? It's like we did it for thousands of years. It's just remembering what we used to do, and you stated it again in a different way but same idea. So good statement. Thank you. MR. AGRES: Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the Chair, I appreciate the Council, and we're always available for conversations as we have been. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Agres. Council, do you want to keep going? Okay, Renee, do you need a break? Two minutes, okay, we're briefly recessed. Recess: At 12:32 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 12:34 p.m. (4) Department of Information Technology: CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: We're back after a brief recess. Joining us at this time is the Department of Information Technology, Director Uehara is here. Sir, why don't you go ahead and get started. Do you have a PowerPoint to lead off with? (Note: At this time, Director of Information Technology Scott Uehara came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. UEHARA: No, I don't. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, go ahead when you're ready. MR. UEHARA: Good afternoon, everyone, my name is Scott Uehara, Director of the Department of Information Technology (DIT). Like you had said, I have no presentation to start off with. I do want to go over what our department handles, Page 203 FC-32 April 13,2022 which will be an understatement is we take care of all of the applications, computer systems, networking, servers and communications for the county. You know, that is a gross understatement of what we do. There is much more to all of that. You know, one of the thingsI normally don't come up in front of Council very often but what I do want to do is take the opportunity to thank the team at DIT. They are the ones that are really supporting all of this. They're the ones keeping the county afloat in terms of technology, and they keep moving us forward and protecting us. You know, one of the things I do want to talk about very briefly is cyber security. It's becoming a very major issue. I know other directors have talked about it but before I jump into cyber security, I did want to talk about the accomplishments of our department for over the past year. We have completed the deployment of our DWDM, and I know everybody hates acronyms, so I'll define it. It is the Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing. Again, that doesn't really just I see Council Member—it doesn't help describe what this project is. The County fibering that goes around the island, it enables us to use more frequencies of light. So fiberoptics uses light frequencies to transmit information. What this Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology is it allows us to use different colors of light to add on additional capacities. So imagine, through the same fiberoptic cable we're shooting red, green, blue, turquoise colors of light, each one is their own independent data communication. So now we've essentially taken that one fiberoptic cable and now we can split it eight ways. We can actually split it a little bit more but with the funding that we got through one of the grants, that's what we could get. So we got eight frequencies in there so we're adding capacity that way, and that's been completed. Tomorrow, we're about to close our fiber gap through the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Yes, Council Member, yes, I do remember these conversations. So we're very proud to be able to say that we will have redundancy of the County network starting tomorrow. Another project that we've been working on yes, but again, you know, I'm just here at the finish line. It's been many directors before me who have been pushing for this. I'm just lucky enough to be able to be at the finish line to say it's been completed. Again, it's been completed. I know it's an understatement, but it is a very big deal to all of us at DIT and hopefully we'll see the benefits of it from everybody else. Those messages of having network outages at 5:30 p.m. after, now we can actually localize it to just that one facility and communications will just keep on running along. You know, we don't have to let Police Department, Fire Stations know that they're going to be out of service or even VRL (Vehicle Registration and Licensing). We can make sure that they have more resiliency and redundancy in their communications. So thank you for saying that, Council Member Lee Loy. Page 204 FC-32 April 13,2022 Another one is EPIC (Electronic Processing and Information Center). I know it's been a much talked about system. Our department has been supporting it all the way through. Whatever technological challenges, we've been there to address it. Right now, we do have one of our team members that's dedicating much of their time to addressing and supporting the Planning Department with EPIC. So that's one of those areas I wanted to bring light to. We touch every department in the County, and we dedicate ourselves to helping departments succeed. That is one of those things that I really wanted to hallmark, as one of those accomplishments that we were there before they started up and we're here even after they've gone live, and we keep on supporting them. We're not stepping away from it. Another one that we've been working on is adding additional fiber to facilities. Some of them have been for Environmental Management, their Hilo Wastewater Plant was a really large endeavor to take on but we got them connected with fiberoptic cabling now, and we're working on other DEM (Department of Environmental Management) facilities for the future, but not just DEM, for other facilities that we can think of or there might be fiber connectivity also. For our future, what we're looking at is we are going to be re-doing our email systems. That was in this current year's budget. We are working on the RFP to complete that process, to redo our email systems to help make it better. Another one was our GIS system. That was an emergency fund to get that updated. It was a 10-year-old system where it was operating on 10-year-old equipment already and we got new hardware in for that. Do we will be seeing some new additions to our GIS capabilities, very much needed. Like everybody else has been saying in their departments, you know, helping to modernize or digitize the County workflows. I know the Finance Department has been talking about it, Research and Development. We're very thankful that Finance has brought us in early, into the process of talking about an enterprise resource planning system or the replacement for the Eden system, so we're very thankful that we're being brought in very early on that. I wanted to wrap up, the part about where we're looking at the future but before we start going into the budget, they want to talk about cyber security. I know we see in the press a lot about the war causing a lot of increased cyber threats going on throughout the world. We've actually been seeing that even before the war happened. 2021 was kind of a landmark year for cyber security. We had supply chain breaches with our Solar Winds, not our Solar Winds but the SolarWinds company. That was a new attack that nobody had really seen before. There was the Colonial Pipeline where a ransomware attack impacted 10,000 gas stations on the mainland. We've had others where Microsoft had zero-day exploits. Zero-day exploit is where an exploit or a discovery of an exploitation of a system is discovered and the same day that it's announced, it's already been announced that people are targeting Page 205 FC-32 April 13,2022 those exploits, so we call it a zero-day exploit where we have no prior announcement that the vendor has discovered this vulnerability and immediately, we need to patch, and our team has been very diligent in that. Any known vulnerabilities, we have been patching immediately. Since the war, we have seen more and more patches coming out every day and we continually to just patch as quickly as we can. The last one that we seen is this one called Log4j. I'm not sure if anybody has really heard of it but it is a really large one. It impacts a lot of computer systems. The vulnerability is one where it even affects things such as printers, even your refrigerator at home, something that is connected to the internet could possibly have some of these vulnerabilities built in. It's something that we've been monitoring on the County network and making sure that we're not vulnerable to it. Just to make sure that everybody understands, you know, we're a small County that nobody thinks that we couldn't be affected by this. Just recently, within the past year, on December 9, the bus network in Honolulu, they were attacked and they were compromised which took down their capabilities for almost a week. they're bus routes, their ability to take payments, cards, they just implemented their new holo card system, and they couldn't take payments through it. The Honolulu Board of Water Supply, they had their Kronos payroll application that was breached, not at Honolulu Board of Water Supply but their vendor, Kronos, that was impacted. Just recently as yesterday, it was announced that the undersea cable, there was an attack on it. Our internet undersea cable, which supplies internet for every island was under attack. I don't have more specifics on it just yet. As Homeland Security provides more information, I'll learn more about it, but it is a threat. I mean it's bringing it really close to home, so our department is going to constantly be keeping up our guards. We're even talking about adding additional defensive measures for the County to make sure that the way we tackle this problem is we already have a few defensive measures in place. If anybody has questions about it, happy to take it offline, but I wouldn't want to talk about it publicly, giving our adversaries an insight into what we have. But like anything else, everybody in cybersecurity always talks about defense in depth. The idea is it's like an onion, you keep on adding layers and adding layers just to make it harder so that by the time somebody who is a high schooler and just, not to target any age groups or anything, but just some kid just poking around thinking that they're going to breach into a government network, all they have to do is get past the firewall. You know, we have much more than just a firewall, but it's to make sure that if they are advanced and they are sophisticated, that we're going to put up enough barricades in front of them that after a while, they just don't have the patience to keep on fighting through the barricades, and that's what Page 206 FC-32 April 13,2022 we're looking at moving forward. With that, I'm open to any questions about our budget. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, director, good overview. Council Members? Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you. First of all, kudos for closing the loop. That's been something that has been ongoing for the last bunch of years, and I know it predated you. That went to DC, the Senators had to deal with, I think many would consider kind of some silly issues and concerns. But anyway, got it through National Park and congratulations on that because you may not have been here for the whole thing but getting that thing closed is really important. I don't think any of us want to take any of that away from you because getting that done is really good for the County both for the County government but also for the County as a whole, so thank you. Your statement about the cybersecurity, this is stuff learned at the national level through NACo (National Association of Counties). We're actually the ones more at risk because nobody thinks that we should be at risk, so there is a lot of jurisdictions that don't have things in place at our level because we're not big ones. So that's where they end up targeting and so the fact that we're on top of that, again, congratulations on that. Moving forward, again with the security and all, I'll ask this question. Is there enough funding there to take care of what you believe is the needs for this County going forward? We asked for the supplemental, are you looking at supplementals? Do you have a need there that you're concerned, and a lot of this stuff is not important until it's too late, so what's your comment on that? MR. UEHARA: Thanks for the summary on that. You know, inside of the supplementals, we do have one item for cybersecurity. You know,just like everybody's been saying, the budget has been a work in progress, and I think I'd like to add some more to cybersecurity before May 5, but definitely, we want to be respectful of the budget process and making sure that we're fiscally responsible. There's always more but whatever we can do with our budget is what we'll do. If we can find additional funds, not to take away from another department or another area, but we're always happy to spend more money on our defensive measures. MR. RICHARDS: I appreciate that, and I have to say almost categorically, all department heads are saying the same thing, we don't want to take away from the next department. So thank you for that, but for us as policy makers, we need a number. So we—and we may not be able to supply it but at least we'll have an idea of what, in your mind, is the right way to go. So think about that and float that back towards us because that helps us going forward. Page 207 FC-32 April 13,2022 The only thing I was going to comment on is your high school. Ms. Lee Loy said, "Do you know where he went to high school? Yes, I do, you're a proud Waiakea graduate, I know that, and just the fact that Lee Loy had to make that up, I had to bring it up. Thank you very much because I think you've put this department in a great situation, but I am curious about any added funding that you might think would be beneficial for the long term. With that, Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: With that, and Mr. Richards' last comment, Director Uehara, in considering, you know, a lot of concern regarding the ballooning of our budget, I'd also like you to consider, we've seen some increases across all departments but our tax payers are very concerned so at the same time, I'd ask you to also think about areas in which cutbacks might be applied to your budget as we move forward, prior to the May budget. So, this is something that I don't want to have to repeat to every department and it's the first time I'm saying it now, but I do think it should be said. It needs to be said so I'm not asking specifics but it's something I'd like you to consider as we move forward. MR. UEHARA: Thank you, Council Member, You know, this is definitely something we'll take a look at our budget to see where we can make any kind of reductions in our budget. I think working with the budget team was really good in that we stayed status quo, but absolutely, we can definitely take a look and we'll consult with the budget team on that. Thank you. MR. INABA: Thank you, Director, and thank you for the work that you're doing, especially with the closing of the gap and ensuring that our systems are safe. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. I don't see lights on here in Hilo. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Thanks, Director, for being here. I just had one question because in your budget, you have different licensing and maintenance and I'm just trying to understand, for example, Blue Beam. Blue Beam is there's an amount in your budget and then there's an amount in Planning. So I'm trying to understand the difference because together, that's about$15,000 if my math is right, for that one program. MR. UEHARA: For Blue Beam, we actually were paying for the licensing for Public Works and for Planning Department. I'll definitely roll back with Zendo and Grant to check on additional needs for Blue Beam but we did purchase, and we are supplying the maintenance for Blue Beam for those two departments. Page 208 FC-32 April 13,2022 MS. LEE LOY: So the funding that we see in your department is for the maintenance while the departments themselves have needs—got it. Thanks, that was MR. UEHARA: It could be. I'll go and address it with them and then I can take the information back to you. MS. LEE LOY: That would be perfect. Thanks Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. A couple of follow-up questions. That Dense Wave—what is it called? MR. UEHARA: Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing. DWDM. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Is that just a general question, is it specific to something IT is doing or that's something they're doing network wide? MR. UEHARA: It's something that we're doing in IT but then it has benefits for other departments also, so it's going to be useful for Civil Defense inside of their radio communications. It is going to be an alternate back haul for their radio system. So we're looking at every area that we can support other departments in the County. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I like that. It's interesting. Nice, it's efficient. You have aI mean this is a lay person, you have a cable that can send light, our fiberoptic network but using different wavelengths of light, which maybe they may have always done but I never broke it down in my head that you could split it into different wavelengths. MR. UEHARA: Yeah, I didn't know about this either. This is a newer technology. It's been used by the state as I'm aware. They have an older system. Our system is fairly newer compared to the state, but yeah, it's trying to think of a way to analogize it. If you had a water hose and you're shooting water through it, imagine adding on seven more hoses to just increase the capacity, even though you're just using that one hose. That's a bad analogy but it's increasing what we have by not having to purchase more. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So you could put seven times the output of what the hose normally does on the same hose. MR. UEHARA: Yeah, using the same hose. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's cool. Information Technology OCE, you jumped up, over the last two years, you jumped up pretty substantially, from $530,000 to $850,000 to $1 million. What is the cause? Is that long-term? Looks like it's going to stay that way, you're estimating it to the future. Page 209 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. UEHARA: That increase is for a lot our software applications, they're moving to more of a subscription based. I'm not sure if you work with applications like Adobe where before you could just buy Adobe and it was your application for however long you had your computer. You didn't have to purchase a new license year after year, but a lot of these vendors are moving towards that subscription model and we have to adjust with it. It's the cost of doing business. If you want, I can dive more deeply into each one, that's just a general answer. Some of these are also, you know, we are purchasing licenses for other departments to support their applications. You know, you could ask why each department doesn't purchase their own but it makes more fiscal sense for DIT to buy it and manage the license so that we get the volume purchase discount rather than each department buying five licenses or three licenses. It's managed through us and we get a volume purchase discount for other departments. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that makes sense. I mean is there any one of these on here in this section that happened this year that was new, that's kind of jumping us up? MR. UEHARA: Not new but definitely increase was line item five. You're talking about 15118.02.109, line item five, Cisco Smartnet Maintenance? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes. MR. UEHARA: That one went up by a considerable amount. It's also related into our 102, line item three, Voip Operational Cost. That one, the model from Cisco for our Cisco phones, they're going to a new pricing model which shifts some of the costs from those Voip Operational into this Cisco Smartnet Maintenance of the devices. So we saw an increase there. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then also in the 111 account, Information Technology, there's a Nutanix lease, your GIS, your FireEye, these are stepping up as well? They're holding because of lease agreement? MR. UEHARA: They're holding theNutanix, lease for GIS, that was the emergency purchase for $300,000 to get a new GIS infrastructure put in place. The FireEye lease, that one was a grant that we had. The grant is going to expire, so unless we can find another grant, we need to ensure that we have this in to help protect us. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, going forward? MR. UEHARA: Yes. Page 210 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so this number right here, this 37347, we should just kind of look at this going forward in the future as being consistent? MR. UEHARA: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Besides that, I guess there's one other big bump in the air versus this current fiscal year was for your computer and office OCE, office supplies, computer supplies. That's about$15,000 you have budgeted. MR. UEHARA: Hold on, let me go check my notes on that one. You're talking about 227, line item number two? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Correct. MR. UEHARA: This one we have it as this one we're actually purchasing a lot of miscellaneous items like cables, connectors, surge protectors, batteries for UPS equipment, small desktops which is for locations that don't have enough network connectivity, we'll put in a small switch to expand their capability. Normally we've been able to keep it under our office supplies but with the, and I'm sure you've heard this already from other departments,with some of the supply chain shortages, it's caused a lot of increases in a lot of these smaller equipment cost that we normally can just cover, but it's just been increasing and harder to get. if we want to get it in a timely manner to support everybody, we have to pay additional shipping or we have to try and find other vendors who will charge slightly more than what we've been traditionally seeing. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so this ties in with what we're seeing across the world and you're trying to get ahead of the game? MR. UEHARA: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, fair enough. That was all of my questions for you, Director. I appreciate it. Council Members, anything else for the Director before we wrap it up for lunch? Okay, seeing none, thank you very your time today, Director Uehara. MR. UEHARA: Thank you, Council. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, we're in recess until 1:30, Council Members. Recess: At 1:00 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 1:33 p.m. Page 211 FC-32 April 13,2022 (5) Police Department CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Aloha, welcome back from recess. Joining us for the Special Committee on Finance meeting, this time it's the Police Department. Thank you for being here, ladies and gentlemen. (Note: At this time, Police Chief Paul Ferreira came forward to address the members of the Committee.) CHIEF FERREIRA: Good afternoon, Council Members, and Chair Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder. I first want to introduce my staff with me. To my left, I have Deputy Police Chief Kenneth Bugado; behind me, Assistant Chief Kenneth Quiocho from our Area 1 Operations; to the left of him is Assistant Chief Andrew Burian from our Administrative Services Division. In Kona, I have Assistant Chief Chad Basque from our Area 2 Operations, and probably the most important person here behind me is our Accountant, Hau`oli Aiona, who keeps us fiscally sound and myself out of jail, and I'm Paul Ferreira, the Police Chief. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I think you might have some pull on that. CHIEF FERREIRA: She does. She takes care of me. She makes sure I'm not violating any procurement laws and staying out of prison. First, I want to thank the County Council for the proclamation this week recognizing our Police and Fire Radio Dispatchers for this year's National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. We began on Sunday, April I Oh and ends this Saturday, April 161'. Every year, the second week of April, the telecommunications personnel in the public safety community are honored in a week-long event. This was initially started up back in 1981 by Patricia Anderson of the Contra Costa County Sherriff's Office in California to recognize the dedication and hard work of our dispatchers. The proclamation you supplied was presented to the dispatchers Monday morning. Again, thank you very much on their behalf. Although we are emerging from the COVID pandemic, I want to reflect back on the past two years, and take a moment to recognize the men and women of the Police Department both sworn and non-sworn, who from the onset of the pandemic, continued with our 24/7 operations; keeping our door open with safeguards in place to ensure that we minimize the spread of COVID-19. And although some may not agree, I'm confident in stating that during this difficult time, we responded to the needs of the community and actively attended to the department goals and objectives servicing the entire island. I'm very grateful for the efforts that were put forth by the County, the community, in minimizing the spread of COVID-19. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't read an article of a law enforcement officer that passed away due to COVID-19 while in the line of duty. That did not occur on Hawaii Island. We Page 212 FC-32 April 13,2022 had minimal cases. We did have our cases, but minimal in comparison. There were no deaths, and as the Chief, I'm very thankful for that. Moving on to our fiscal budget, the reason we're here. Well, another year, we're facing a status quo budget, with only increases allowed for utilities and collective bargaining agreements. Unfortunately for us, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, the County, there's an unknown labor cost lingering on the horizon. The majority, if not all of the unions are going through negotiations, or at some point in time, revising their collective bargaining agreements that have since expired. For us, that involves SHOPO the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers and HGEA (Hawai`i Government Employees Association) workers that we have. So although some increases may have been factored into the budget, again, we're looking at increases happening, unknown down the line because of the negotiations. And because of the COVID pandemic, there was a negative impact on the labor market, not only for Hawaii County Police Department, but for the nation. Which leads us into the department's greatest fiscal challenge coming up, not only for the next fiscal year, but for the upcoming fiscal years, and that is the continuing recruitment, staffing, and retention of not only our sworn employees, but our non-sworn as well. The sworn staff of the Hawaii Police Department consist of 483 authorized full- time sworn officers, or police officers to cover an area 4,031 square miles. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but that is twice the size of the rest of the State combined. As of April 1, 2022, we have 51 sworn vacant positions to put some perspective on that, in comparison, when I was here last year at the same time, in April 1, 2021, I reported that we had 57 sworn vacancies. So over the course of a year, we've only increased our staffing by six. It's not that we weren't trying. In June 1, 2021, we started the 94h Police Recruit Class with 32 recruits. In December, we started the 95h Recruit Class with 28 recruits. That's a total of 60 hires that we did that should have taken over the 57 vacancies that we had. Unfortunately, out of the 32 from the 94h, we only have 19 remaining. Out of the 28 from the 95h, we only have 10 remaining. There's a discrepancy. That's where their bodies went. We asked the recruits, "Why are you leaving? What's the problem? What's the issues? How can we change?" It runs a gambit. The reasons come back. "I decided this wasn't for me. I decided I wanted to move back to the mainland. I decided to go back to my old job I'm not ready for this. My family didn't want me to do it. It runs a gambit, there is no one specific reason to hang your hat on. If any one of us could figure out what the exact reason would be, we'd be millionaires. And that hasn't happened. And we continue our efforts in trying to fill our recruitments. In collaboration with the County Department of Human Resources, which I'm very thankful for, Page 213 FC-32 April 13,2022 and our staff, we continue with the aggressive recruitment campaigns. We currently have two recruitments in progress. The first was posted on October 20, 2021, which are in various stages for the 96h Recruit Class, so we hope to start in the later part of the summer this year. However, that has only 24 candidates remaining. The next recruit class that we're looking on starting is sometime targeting the first quarter to 2023. That recruitment opened on February 20, 2022, and is in its phase that it's just starting, so there is a written exam that has to be administered. My understanding right now, is that we have 202 applicants that will be taking the test or have signed up to take the exam. Again, it's a very limited market that we're competing with. Now, you couple that with the fact that by the end of this year, out of the 432 sworn officers, we have 25 that are eligible for retirement that can say, "We're out of here, we're gone." So those are the challenges. That's why I said, it's a challenge that will be here, not only for the upcoming fiscal year but going forward. Additionally, for our non-sworn personnel, we have 155 authorized full- time non-sworn positions. As of April 1, 2021, we have 32 vacancies in comparison to the 25 we reported in the budget during the same time last year. Now, these are not full-time positions, not including the school-crossing guards that we have difficulty filling. What's involved here is 17 of those positions are the Police Radio Dispatchers, the ones that take the 911 calls; the ones that take care of the officers while they're out in the field. This again, is not a dilemma only unique to the Hawaii Police Department, it's statewide, if not nationwide. We're hoping with the recent passing of Act 63 during the last Legislative Session, that required the Department of Human Resources to look at the pricing and classifications of the Police Radio Dispatchers, which recently upgraded and we came before Council to reallocate the positions upward. We're hoping with that coupled with the fact that in 2021, we broke ground on the new Communications Dispatch Center for Police and Fire improving the working conditions, that that will help with our recruitment and retention. The other gorilla in the room for me, and I know a topic of discussion, is the other challenge for the Police Department in the coming fiscal year and going forward is Animal Control Services. Since June 2021, when the contract with the previous vendor was terminated, staff have essentially created from scratch, an entirely new division within the Police Department. This was only accomplished through the collaborated efforts put forth by our department's Human Resources Section, our Finance Section working with the County Department of Human Resources, County Finance, County Purchasing, and Corporation Counsel, in developing employee contracts. Page 214 FC-32 April 13,2022 None of this would have occurred except for the dedication and hard work of two individuals, Major Aimee Wana and our contracted Animal Control Director, Regina DoDaro Romero Serrano. They were instrumental in moving this forward, as well as stabilizing our operations as we're going along. Under the current program, we have 15 contracted employees operating out of two facilities, the old Kona facility next to the Police Station and a temporary facility in Volcano. You'll see in next year's budget submittal for the animal control, it has increased approximately 144 percent, primarily due to funding of personnel, not necessarily the funding of equipment or services. To maintain the operations that were being done in the past, we need to increase our personnel. Over the course of the past nine months, the efforts have been to stabilize the operations in providing for the basic services, which is still a work in progress. The plan going forward is to incorporate what is in place into a long-term plan for creating a hybrid program consisting both of County assets and contracting services of private or nonprofit vendors. The County is already in this process of seeking or acquiring a permanent facility in Puna, and discussions have occurred with the County Department of Public Works to do necessary repairs and improvements, if not, renovations completely to the Kealakehe facility. Both will then be County-owned operated facilities whether it be through a private vendor or a nonprofit vendor. Additionally, in the coming weeks, I'll come before this Council again, asking to seek the multi-year contracts for the employees that we have contracted doing the animal control services at this time, not to exceed 2024. The reason for this is we need to maintain the operations as we go forward, even while we're making plans of how to stabilize the program outside of the County. As in previous years, the department continuously looks to supplement our budget; to provide essential training, acquisition of equipment; necessary overtime. All of this is looked through Federal, State, whatever grant opportunities that we have out there, and we're continuing to do this. If you look through our budget report, and throughout the year, we constantly go after grants. Now, would it be beneficial for us to have a grant writer or have a position totally dedicated to this? Yes. Do I have 40-hours' worth of work a week? No. So it would be a part-time position or it would have to be housed somewhere else and we take advantage of it. Another source of assistance we gain from is community partnerships. If you recall,just recently we did a donation from the Hawaii Canine Association for funding in the amount of$10,000 for the purpose a new canine; for our Area 1 Juvenile Aid Section. So whenever possible, and we can go into partnerships with the community, we will take advantage of that. Page 215 FC-32 April 13,2022 Lastly, when you review our department's budget submittal, you'll notice in the narrative that we've established specific objectives with each of our operational units to meet the goal of ensuring the public safety, which includes an aggressive enforcement program as well as in the education. The major challenge on the crime front is related to the illicit drug problem in the community. This is the root of the majority of the crimes being committed in the communities such as property crimes, violent crimes, etcetera, which are all somehow, someway, interconnected. In combatting the illicit drug use, the department continues with an aggressive campaign working in collaboration with our Federal law enforcement partners. Fortunately for us, we have a law enforcement presence on the island with FBI(Federal Bureau of Investigation); HSI, Homeland Security Investigations; alcohol, tobacco, and firearms on island. And we have access to agents from DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency); Secret Service; other Federal agencies that are an island away. What's disturbing is the drug of choice and the problem in the islands still is and has remained, crystal methamphetamine. We're part of the Hawaii HIDTA. I sit on the Hawaii HIDTA Executive Board, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Board. In a meeting yesterday involving Federal, State, County, Local Law Enforcement Agencies at the HIDTA Executive Board meeting, it was reported that between the first quarter of this year, 2022, a total of 134.51 kilograms of crystal meth had been seized by the taskforces across the state. This is not necessarily only from Hawaii, but it may have been parcels or targets that were being transported to Hawaii. Now, you're saying 134 kilograms, what is that? That's 297 pounds of crystal meth in the first three months. All of 2021, the taskforce seized a little over 600 pounds crystal meth. It's scary that that is out there. Fortunately, because of the aggressive campaigns that are being done across the state, these numbers are being seized. Of significant concern as well, is a continued emergence of fentanyl, a highly addictive narcotic that is out there on the streets again. Again, during the first quarter, 0.47 kilograms were recovered across the state. Roughly one pound of powdered fentanyl, which is too much. If you remember in the news accounts, fentanyl has been the result of several deaths across the state in overdoses. Page 216 FC-32 April 13,2022 In closing, I want to sincerely thank all the men and women of the Hawaii Police Department for all their hard work and sacrifices they make daily in the performance of their duties in ensuring a safe community. I also want to recognize efforts of our department's Administrative and Finance Sections in consistently monitoring our department's budget, making the necessary adjustments to line items whenever necessary to ensure that we operate effectively within our budget. And then, thank you for this opportunity. At this time, I will make myself available for any questions. If none, I'll be glad to leave. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Nice try, nice try. Thank you very much Chief, appreciate it. I'll go to the Council Members for discussion. Mr. Chung, go ahead. MR. CHUNG: Good afternoon, Chief. As I said before, always a pleasure to listen to you presenting, because no more fluff. You might have a few jokes here and there, but really, no fluff. I mean, laser-focused on what's important to your department and the community, right? You hit recruitment, big issue. I mean you and I have kind of had some chats about it, right, especially as it relates to, you know, homelessness. You know, a little bit more police presence in downtown, both here and Kailua, what can you do? No more enough police officers, right, realistically? We've got to address that, yeah, and on other fronts too, not just beefing up police presence in the urban areas, but of course, in the more rural areas as well. But you cannot find officers. That becomes a very big problem, especially for an island of this size. And then you talk about the inescapable issue, right? The animal control. I cannot really say for certain, but based on—if I'm just gauging it on the amount of complaints that I'm getting now, which is zero, it must be because you guys are doing a good job, I mean the way it's being administered. Although it may be people just tired of, you know, calling. But you know, before it was really bad. I mean, lack of responsiveness. You know,just, it was not a good situation before. A lot of phone calls we were getting. Then, you talk about the overall public safety and the root of what you believe to be much of our public safety problems, right? Drugs. I think that's pretty clear, you know. You just articulated something that we intuitively thought was the problem either organically causing some guys to go cuckoo or you know, having to get money to do stuff. It's not a good situation,yeah? So, yeah, I just wanted to tell you thank you for all the good work, you know. I don't have any specific questions. I mean the way you present things, you would think that maybe you're like a Hilo High grad or something like that, right? Page 217 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHIEF FERREIRA: Thank you, I am. MR. CHUNG: That's an inside joke. You know, these guys always touting their school. So I figure I better say something for good `ol Hilo High, right? But anyway, thanks Paul, I really appreciate it. CHIEF FERREIRA: No, thank you, Sir. And as far as the homeless situation, our Community Policing Officers are doing an outstanding job. In downtown Hilo responding, to the complaints or the concerns raised by the community and the Downtown Association, the officers have been looking at trying to do at least three walkthroughs downtown; walking the beat, per se, and going around town, especially when you have the Farmers' Market days or situations like that. You also hear about the Community Policing officers' work in Kona in getting back into the community, talking to the homeless, working with the different groups, HOPE Services trying to get the transition going there. So, yeah, the kudos shouldn't go to me or the Deputy. We take the complaints. The kudos goes to the guys hitting the streets; the guys pounding the streets. The men and women that are out there doing the actual footwork. The kudos need to go to them. Because they're the ones that are actually out there, accomplishing everything that's making us look good. MR. CHUNG: And I'm glad you pointed that out. And I do apologize for thanking you, because you know, it really is to everybody else, right, that does all of the good work for your department. But one more thing, the budget, you know,just overall, is it something that you know, you feel you can work with? I'm sure, you know, there are other areas that you'd like to see beefed up, of course, but CHIEF FERREIRA: Taking a comment from previous Council Hearings, if I had a wand, yes, that I could wave that I could get things, there was a lot of things that we need. You know, we need repairs to our facilities. I could use $100,000 to buy blue-and-whites for across the island; restock our blue-and-whites, as they're failing, as we arrest more violent offenders MR. CHUNG: Yeah, of course. Okay. CHIEF FERREIRA: We have to deal with more mental health issues. For the officers' safety aspect, we need those vehicles to transport. It's no longer the situation when I was a patrol officer, where you can handcuff somebody in the back and throw them on the passenger seat and drive back to town. That situation has changed a lot over the years. So again, that's things that we would need. Page 218 FC-32 April 13,2022 MR. CHUNG: Okay, well in terms of the increasing the blue-and-white fleet, are we at least making incremental progress towards that goal? Because if we come back, well, I'm not going to be around, but next year, you know, and you say, if we had "X" amount, $100,000 or so, then you know, we could get to where we want. CHIEF FERREIRA: When we do have a surplus of funds, we look at purchasing vehicles. Unfortunately for us, and I think for the nation right now, there are no vehicles. MR. CHUNG: Yeah, okay. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Chung. I want to go to Kona. MR. INABA: Mr. Chair, yes, please. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mr. Inaba, go ahead. MR. INABA: Yeah, Chief, I think for one of the sections, we're seeing an increase, and it's for the facilities. Is the big increase for the a/c at the Kealakehe Police Station? This is on Page 62. CHIEF FERREIRA: The $750,000 for the two cooling towers in Hilo, and the a/c in Kealakehe, the $800,000? MR. INABA: Yeah, that's a significant increase foreseen, it's those two items, is that right? CHIEF FERREIRA: Those two items are not to maintain, but to replace the air-conditioning systems at both the Hilo Police Station and the main station in Kealakehe, which is right now being operated on a prayer and a Band Aid. If any one of those systems should shut down, you're not only affecting the working conditions for all the uniform and civilian employees in the facilities, but these also are our detention facilities where we house pre-trial detainees. MR. INABA: Thank you. And the only other question I had was with regards to the electric projections. I think for a lot of these electricity projections or the budget amount I should say, we're seeing a decrease knowing that we're anticipating an increase in the prices. So, is that something that we might want to increase? I think it's a conversation we're having with most departments, but I want to make sure that we're not shorting ourselves. Page 219 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHIEF FERREIRA: It is my understanding that by the next budget submission in May, the utilities will be increased by a percentage in light of what is going on across the nation as far as fossil fuels and availability. MR. INABA: Thank you. And I'll just say, Mr. Chung always seems to talk before me when it comes to the Police Department, I guess to get the first compliment in. So I always have to just agree with what he says when it comes to this budget, that you always bring forth to us in such a concise way. So Mahalo, and Hau`oli, mahalo for keeping the Chief out of prison. Chair, I yield. CHIEF FERREIRA: Thank you, Sir. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Coming back to Hilo, Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks Chair, and thank you Chief, for again concise, pointed, and I appreciate the conversations we had. Couple of things, you know, talking about homelessness, and Mr. Chung, you had mentioned previously, homelessness is a bigger issue, and I think that's where we need services to attend to that. It's not just having the police show up. But to the point, in Waimea we had a situation where someone called to complain about it. Between the phone call until an officer was onsite was less than 12 minutes. So, I've got to compliment, you guys took care of that thing really quickly. It's an unfortunate situation, that guy has some issues. Chief, we talked about your blue-and-white fleet, and you mentioned that's a big need for you guys, and I had a question, Deanna, on this. This is a capital expenditure and does this come out—is the debt reflected in their budget? Or maybe, I can even ask your financial—where does the funding for something like that come from? The blue-and-white? (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. SAKO: It's like equipment. MR. RICHARDS: So it'll be under equipment in here? Okay. Alright, so it'll be through a lease or something like that? Okay, alright. CHIEF FERREIRA: I can answer. If I can add to that question. We used to have a line item before for blue-and-white replacement. I think at one time, it was, correct me if I'm wrong, it was a million dollars annually for the acquisition of services. Back then it was under the previous Administration, I believe, Mayor Kim at the time where it was a discussion about transitioning from a subsidized program to a fully fleet program. Page 220 FC-32 April 13,2022 Well, it was very well known that the benefits of having a subsidized program where the Police Department can mobilize 100 percent of their uniformed force at any given time, as opposed to having a fleet and the cost associated with a fleet to be run correctly, having repair shops on either side of the island. In fact, even on north and south sides of the island was way more costly to the County. So at that time, making a long story short, Mayor Kim put a million dollars in the budget for the acquisition of vehicles. Like everything else, when the budget goes south or the funding goes south, you need to cut certain areas, and that was one of the areas that was cut. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, and we did talk about it. You said you need, if you could do it, 10 would be the number you'd be looking at as the first swing at it. Is that correct? CHIEF FERREIRA: Yes. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, alright and so that would be like a$600,000 investment or $60,000? CHIEF FERREIRA: On the low side. MR. RICHARDS: On the low side. Okay, a million. Okay, alright. I know that was a concern for you guys. Again, very concise as far as your needs. You also talked about—we talked about the whole recruiting thing in earlier conversations today. I think quality of life is something, because we talked about recruiting, and you just explained, again very clearly, the challenges we're having to find new officers. Is that something else that you're looking at as far as how we recruit people? I know we talked about going into the high schools and all that, but other avenues, like different ways of marketing our police force. I appreciate the fact that we're going to be different than just about everybody else, because we're such a big geographical piece, but are you looking at different ways of marketing? CHIEF FERREIRA: We market through, you know—fortunately right now we have a PIO (Public Information Officer)that is really akamai as far as social media. Her skills are outstanding. So she's been pushing out short blurbs out there using officers in Kona doing a short segment on recruitment, how good the job is, what it all entails. So we've been going out on social media. We go out into the schools. We go out into the community recruiting what we can when we can. If you look across the nation, again departments across the nation are having difficulty recruiting police officers, law enforcement entities of any type. It's because of climate out there as well, you know, what the public feels about the police officers. Fortunately for Hawaii, it hasn't emanated to us yet, but it's still there. But across the nation, they're having difficulty getting this pool of Page 221 FC-32 April 13,2022 officers. How do you change that mentality? How you change that, I don't know. We're trying everything we can about going out into the community, getting the information out there, recruiting what we can. But, we're not going to do what some other departments are doing, which is lowering standards. If you read the article, some departments are lowering their standards. Maybe they're overlooking certain crimes or overlooking certain situations. I don't see where we should compromise quality for quantity. I don't believe that the community would want us to do that. So at that point, I will draw the line and say, okay, if we have to start cutting quality, then, that's the time that we need to draw the line. But so far, we're trying to do everything we can to compete for what is out there. The trouble is, right now, we're all competing for the same pool of candidates across the state. I believe Honolulu City and County is down, if I'm not mistaken, 20-plus percent on staffing. Maui County is down, if not more. So everybody's looking for sworn officers. We have a little incentive because of land prices in Hawaii County is a little better. The living conditions in Hawaii County are a little better. We also offer different incentives, like our officers out of recruit class, once they graduate, they're hitting the streets, they're in a motorized unit. As opposed to City and County where you spend a year or two years in the cellblock before you hit the streets. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Thanks Chief. I think on that, recruiting is going to be a tough one. I think it's always going to be, so I'll have to come back and visit on that. The other thing I do want to jump over and compliment on animal control; worked with you guys a lot on that coming forth, and I have to agree with what Mr. Chung said. The improvement of that over time has been substantial, and I think it's really coming into its own right now. I appreciate the fact that you've always wanted to let County Council take over animal control, however, I think we have it housed in the correct place. CHIEF FERREIRA: It's still up for grabs. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, I know. But you know, I accept your generosity, but we'll leave it where it is for the time-being right now. But no, all kidding aside though, you've done a really good job in putting some good backing to that going forward. So I see that whole program really coming into its own right now. I like the fact that it's, I guess you call it a couple-years' test run to see how this thing all settles in. But I do know we also need some funding in that when it comes to vans so we can move the animals around. Again, compliments on that coming forward. So with that Chair, I'm going to turn it over and give it to the other Council Members. Thanks Chief. I yield. Page 222 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Thanks Chief, for being here, and thank you for elevating that conversation that we had offline about the grant and grant writers. I'm going to circle back around on that, because I was actually listening upstairs. You know, in addition to the need for personnel,just boots on the ground, part of them doing their job is the assets, right? Has the department ever done a needs assessment on all the assets and their life cycles? And by assets, aside from personnel; the buildings, the cars, the units, the computers, has the department ever gone through something like that? CHIEF FERREIRA: We consistently do assessments on our equipment. Our facilities have been neglected for years, and I think it's County-wide that's been an issue. But we continuously look at all our equipment such as the computers. It is a cycle that we've put in for replacements. Same thing goes for our bulletproof vests, our handguns, our ammunition. Everything is on a lifecycle. We're constantly monitoring that. When you talk about grants, the grants are normally not for personnel. Fortunately for us, the grants will normally bring in the overtime. Or we can use it to buy equipment that we need to have that we cannot afford otherwise and we're bringing it in. It's also used majority for training. During COVID, that was a stumbling block, because there was no travel. You couldn't travel for training, and everything was done online. There's a lot of training classes that we cannot do virtually. We have to send the individuals out to the mainland to get trained, or we need to bring people in to do the training. So those are all areas, that yes, we do have needs. MS. LEE LOY: Perfect, because like we had our conversation offline. You know, having a grant writer in your department, you don't know if you would have enough hours for them. But this is where they could actually try and look for grants for rehabilitation and asset needs, like fixing your buildings because that's actually a bigger safety and equity issue that we keep hearing from the Build Back Better monies. So, that's why I was just interested, you know, aside from personnel and all the equipment that you guys need, there's still other tools that you guys do need. And then we're hearing the same thing from Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Page 223 FC-32 April 13,2022 So, really trying to think at a high level on how the possibility of a grant writer, having technical expertise within law enforcement, and the needs of law enforcement both at the Prosecuting Attorney's side and then with law enforcement, Police Department side, there might be an opportunity there. But as far as the needs assessment for your physical assets, do you have one? CHIEF FERREIRA: A lot of it, we depend on the Department of Public Works. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. And then a lifecycle analysis of your equipment. CHIEF FERREIRA: Like I said, the equipment that we do have, a lot of it is on a lifecycle. Like our vests will expire; our equipment will expire, so we have to transition out. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Chief, always good to talk story with you. CHIEF FERREIRA: Since you mentioned the Prosecutor's Office, there was a grant writer at work between us. We have a very good working relationship with Prosecutor Waltjen and Deputy Prosecutor Frye. I appreciate their openness to us. They're willing to meet with us every month to discuss issues. They're on the phone with our officers directly. They know that they don't have to wait to go to me or the Deputy, or to any one of the AC's (Assistant Chiefs). If they have an issue, feel free to contact our officers directly, and I know our officers are comfortable in contacting them directly, as well. There have been some issues where a question was raised, "Well, why didn't we prosecute this case?" And the officers have that confidence, or they have that ability, they can just reach out to them. So for that, our officeI'm very thankful for Prosecutor Waltjen and Deputy Prosecutor Frye. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, thank you Chief. I think the dovetailing of our Community Police Officers along with the Prosecuting Attorney's Office being assigned to different districts has really taken a stab at the concerns of community and addressing safety issues. So, thank you so much, really do appreciate it. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you, Chief, for being here. Thank you to all your staff and all the officers out there, especially the Hamakua Community Policing Officers. They've been really wonderful in the recent months about coming together for community meetings both on Zoom and in person. So really appreciate their time. Page 224 FC-32 April 13,2022 The one question I had, you mentioned the dispatch challenges of staffing dispatch, and I wasn't sure—Chief Todd mentioned yesterday that their retention rate for their calls for services, about 20 percent, I didn't know if that included you folks. CHIEF FERREIRA: No, I believe that's only them. MS. KIMBALL: Yes, so do you know what your retention rate is? CHIEF FERREIRA: The retention rate on the dispatchers, off the top of my head, I'm not really sure. MS. KIMBALL: But does 20 percent sound ? CHIEF FERREIRA: I would like to say, believe me, it might be even more. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. CHIEF FERREIRA: You know, it is a very difficult job. Like I explained to you know, I don't explain, but I tell the dispatchers when they first get hired the Deputy and I meet with them; do an opening statement with them. I explain to them that the emotional rollercoaster ride that the dispatchers are on is far greater than the emotional rollercoaster ride that a lot of the officers are on, because the dispatcher does not see closure where the officer does see a closure. When they get to a scene, they see a closure, where the dispatcher might be left in the dark about what's going on, and they have to move on to another call. So because of those challenges, the amount of people that are willing to do the job is very minimal. I'm glad with the reallocations, that we're able to provide some pay incentive, and to be honest with you, I've talked to different individuals in the Legislature and said, "That's not enough, you need to increase the salaries across- the-board for the dispatchers." MS. KIMBALL: I'm glad you kind of talked to the mental health aspect of it, because that's actually where I was going to go next. Having a close friend that's an officer that was involved in an officer shooting, but completely legitimate, I worry, though, about how he must feel. I mean it must be a terrible burden, even though a completely justified situation, to have to live with that. So do you guys particularly provide any funding for that? CHIEF FERREIRA: We have a very strong peer support counseling unit, and that is led by, right now, Police Chaplain Renee Godoy. She's instrumental in making sure that whenever we have a critical incident, our peer support unit officers that are there trained are responding. Same thing goes for the Chaplains that are across the islands, they will respond anytime there is a critical incident occurring, and we have one in Dispatch as well. They're there for the civilians as Page 225 FC-32 April 13,2022 well as the police. I believe she was instrumental in starting up the peer support unit with the Fire Department. So now, we're working cohesively with them as well. MS. KIMBALL: I've been interested if there's maybe a nexus between the money that R and D (Research and Development) is spending on community health awareness, and maybe just addressing and identifying that for first responders. I mean that's a really big and important part of you being able to deliver service, but also their personal quality of life. CHIEF FERREIRA: For the Police Department, anytime there is a critical incident and an officer or employee involved, if it involves the use of a firearm and results in a death or serious injury, we do send the individual over for a wellness exam as well. So we will bring in mental health professionals when necessary, and you know, it's part of our budget. It's in our budget as far as funding is necessary. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, great. Thank you, Chief. The other question I had, and I may have asked this last year and not remembered what the acronym stood for. This NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) Act Record Improvement Plan. What is that budget item? It's on Page 81. I'm not sure if that's like a Federal requirement; State requirement. Something that you're—it's a Federaloh, it's firearms, okay. It's 5216. CHIEF FERREIRA: Oh okay, it's the NICS Act Record Improvement Program. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. What's that all about? CHIEF FERREIRA: That is part of the Firearms Registration Program. When we need to do a background check on individuals that are applying for firearms permits. This is the program that we're utilizing. It's a Federal program. MS. KIMBALL: And then do we get grant funding to support that? Your account person is nodding. Sorry, I forgot your name. CHIEF FERREIRA: We still do get grant funding, yes. MS. KIMBALL: Alright. Thank you for the clarification on that. Again, thank you for everything. You know, I share Council Member Lee Loy's thoughts about, maybe doing a needs assessment for facilities and equipment. The larger item equipment, you know, I think that's important to kind of get ahead of, as we were talking about deferred maintenance and stuff in some of our other departments. We want to not get to that point, at least where we can. Page 226 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHIEF FERREIRA: For the Police Department,we do have a five-year strategic plan in place. In fact, this year we're having to revise it going forward again, and we look at it every year. It encompasses our facilities, our equipment, our vehicles, even our personnel; how much personnel we're supposed to be at in a certain period in time. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, great. Thank you. I yield, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Thank you, Chief. Kona, checking back in. MR. INABA: Nothing at this time, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Okay, I'm going to go then. Chief, talking about your positions, the unfunded, funded positions, we have some vacancies that—main thing, are all your—if they're not being held for recruits, are any vacant positions funded at this time? CHIEF FERREIRA: Vacant positions are all funded, and all of our positions are funded. I don't believe we have any that the funding were totally removed, other than the same position, JAS (Juvenile Aid Section), I think that was unfunded a while ago. But as far as all the other positions that we have in place, if there's a vacancy, the funding is still there. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, and that allows you to bring in recruits as soon as we get them? CHIEF FERREIRA: That allows us to bring in recruits. Also, any excess funding that we have, any excess salaries and wages are used to pay overtime or salary-related incidentals. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: How many vacant funded positions do you have right now? CHIEF FERREIRA: As far as sworn-in, we have 51; and as far civilian, we have 32. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So they are vacant, but they're funded. CHIEF FERREIRA: Yes. Page 227 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then touching on that a little bit, I looked over your positions, 22 School-Crossing Guards, expected start date was April 1, 2022. Have they started? CHIEF FERREIRA: No, they haven't. That was prepared back in February and March. That was in anticipation that we would because school was starting back up, we could have the positions interviewed or being hired again. That hasn't happened. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Plus, we're coming up on summer. My brain was logical, wait, this is summertime coming up, so. CHIEF FERREIRA: Again, with the school Crossing Guards, it's a difficult position to hire for, and it's been that way for years because you're talking two hours of work. In the morning and in the afternoon. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: But really important for our keiki. CHIEF FERREIRA: Very important. In fact, in some schools where we had issues in Kona, we had to have officers there. The CPO's (Community Policing Officers) did a fantastic job in working with Public Works, the school, DOE (Department of Education), and the State in fixing the traffic problem that we had on Puainako Street involving the school. So yes, they are very important. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So, I mean, all those positions, if they're not going to start, they're just going to float until next year? CHIEF FERREIRA: Yes, they continue floating. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Communications Officers, beginning start date, looks like a lot of them are March 16, 2022. How are we doing on that? CHIEF FERREIRA: That's our Police Radio Dispatchers. I think we hired six the last class. I think we have two remaining right now, and right now, we're actively recruiting. Out of the last group that came in, we only have one that's still there wanting to be hired, and we have an ongoing—right now, we have a continuous recruitment for the positions. And what happens with the Radio Communications positions is, once they pass the County HR (Human Resources) side and the names are referred to us, we do what is called a realistic job interview. All that is, is bringing those individuals, those prospected applicants into the Dispatch Center, letting them listen in and see exactly what's going on. What happens there, is yes, they decide, "It's not for me,"which is good in a sense because we're not continuing on with the program. Page 228 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: It's a hard position, I mean not that I mean almost all your positions are hard. It's not an easy job across the board. In dispatch, I mean, you walk in the door, you deal with people having their worst moment again, and again, and again. Fire just said the same thing. It's the same thing for the Fire Department. You know, so it's just not an easy job to fill. There was discussion about raising pay for them or changing the classification. CHIEF FERREIRA: You know, fortunately for us, our County HR, when Act 63 was passed in the 2021 Legislature, all Act 63 said was DHR supposed to look at the classifications and make a determination on whether or not the classifications faired to what have you. Our County DHR took it a step further and actually reclassified the positions; looked at it and said, "No, they deserve an increase, they need to be increased." So they did the reallocation, I came before Council as well. So, they actually upped the game by saying, "No,we need to pay them." They didn't go with, "Oh no, we've got to make a comparison and return a report to the Legislature, this Legislative session." They took it to another level, saying, "No, we're going to pay them more." CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Well done. So that's reflected now in our budget? CHIEF FERREIRA: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Beautiful. Okay, good. That should help in retention? CHIEF FERREIRA: Hopefully. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Recruits, you know, I've been watching with interest, the recruits. It's difficult understanding that we're bringing in classes of 33, 35 people, maybe 40 people but on the backend, you're ending up with 17. That's hard to swallow, and I don't have a solution for that. I've been waiting patiently for our officers in Puna. They keep asking for more officers in Puna. It's very much needed. It's a big district and it's growing, but I know on the backend that you can't get recruits in to fill, and there's retirement on the top end too, so you're bleeding from both ends. CHIEF FERREIRA: And it's unfortunate, like I said, during that one year we hired 60 officers. We're supposed to be in a very good place, but you know, it's the workforce that's there. Page 229 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: You mentioned Animal Control Services, 140 percent raise over what's allotted for animal control services? CHIEF FERREIRA: It's 144 percent increase over the contracted amount that we had the previous fiscal year. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So, that$1.8 million? CHIEF FERREIRA: It was at$1.9 million, and now I'm up to $3.4. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So not just over what we spent, but over the allotment that we had for that. Okay, thank you. Highway Fund, I noticed this fiscal year, drones. That was interesting to me. I just want to understand what those were within the Highway Fund. CHIEF FERREIRA: Okay, that one you got me on. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: It's under HPD Traffic Enforcement Unit for Hilo and for Kona, there's drones, and then mapping color printers in each one. That's actually for this coming fiscal, but a fairly large—well, I'm not seeing an increase, there is a budgeted amount of this fiscal year, 2021-2022 and then as well for the next fiscal year. CHIEF FERREIRA: For the drones? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: For drones, for both Kona and Hilo. CHIEF FERREIRA: We're looking at programs involving drones, the use of drones for mapping, for investigations, what have you. So I believe this is part of a grant. This is part of a grant-funded program. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then what just so I could ask, what for? What are the drones for? CHIEF FERREIRA: If we go to a traffic site and we need to investigate, what is the easiest way to get over open trail of the ground, as opposed to bringing in equipment to do it? Put our drone straight up in the air and take whatever measuring necessary; photographs you need. You can also define areas where vehicles are not accessible, like if we have an accident that the vehicle is not accessible like we had in Hamakua; like we had on the mountain, you may need to get equipment down there to take photographs. The only way to get down there safely without having to repel somebody down there is the use of technology. Page 230 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Within those same categories, too, I see towing and investigative cause of death. It looks like they're new to this section just from gauging the budget, yeah? See I'm learning. Did it come from somewhere else, or is this a new section altogether? CHIEF FERREIRA: See that's why she keeps me out of trouble. Regarding the towing, it was brought into the Highway Fund because we're working with DEM (Department of Environmental Management) directly on the abandoned vehicles, and other vehicles. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So, I mean, there's an abandoned vehicle, a vehicle-disposal fund that we have as well. This is separate funding sources altogether? CHIEF FERREIRA: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then there's a need for it, or not? Because I know our disposal fund is actually pretty solid. CHIEF FERREIRA: No, the towing for the Traffic Enforcement Unit and for whatever investigations they need to conduct with negligent injury, negligent homicide, we need to tow the vehicles in, and we need to maintain the vehicles until inspections and everything is done. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, okay. You touched on it briefly, mental health. Is there any movement within the department to look at Mental Health Officers? I mean, I'm watching our officers deal with more and more mental health issues. We talked about this two years ago. It probably was talked about before I was ever in office. CHIEF FERREIRA: I know. When COVID happened, it put the brakes on what we're doing with the State Department of Health on a Mental Health Emergency Worker program, of having that accessibility on island. It's currently available in City and County, it's currently available on Maui, we're the last one to be pulling into that program. So now that COVID has let up, now it goes back into okay, we need this on island. We need the training, we need our people to be able to access these services. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I agree, I agree with you. It's going to become more and more important and it's more and more apparent as you drive around and you see—it's not just that you're responding to a crime, it's the same individual with mental health needs. Page 231 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHIEF FERREIRA: It's frustrating because it's a homeless individual out there and when everyone talks about the homeless, houseless, they say, "Okay, let's get HOPE Services, let's get one of the nonprofits involved." This is great when the individual wants to be helped, when the individual is seeking help of some type. When the individual has mental health issues, they don't want to go into these programs, they don't want the controls that are in these programs, but we're having to deal with it. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: It's again and again. It's not one time. CHIEF FERREIRA: Yes, and unfortunately, they're dealing with it, like you say, on a daily basis. We have situations when an individual is arrested in the morning, goes to court that afternoon and is back out on the streets that night, and we're dealing with them in the morning. So it's a constant circle and having a mental health worker or having some kind of mental health services is fine, but we also need the backend. Where's the counseling, where's the—who takes them after we take control of them and give them to the mental health worker? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I'd love to see some movement there. CHIEF FERREIRA: There needs to be more facilities on island. We are having those discussions with the Department of Health as well. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, good. Body cams,just an overall—I don't think people understand what you folks deal with every day. I know we have our bodycam program and it's a fairly sizeable line item in here, plus there's maintenance to go over the records and the recordkeeping. I don't know if you can, but I just thought it would be interesting to see if you could take some of that footage and share it. I know there's probably some legal boundaries you have to maneuver, but I just think it really allows the department to show what your officers go through every day. What you guys deal with is heavy. You have the footage there so if there's an ability for you guys to use that to show the community, "Look, this an everyday basis of what the folks in blue are putting up with." It could really help just kind of tie the community in understanding what your needs are and why what you do is so important and so difficult. CHIEF FERREIRA: Believe me, I don't believeI think Police would be the first one to say we would love to put out the videos out there but for privacy interests or privacy reasons, there's a lot we can't show because the body-worn camera does show what the officers are dealing with. They're not capturing just what someone wants to see or just the bad part of it, they're seeing the entire event happen as it unfolds, not just when the officer does something. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I think it would be useful in helping. Page 232 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHIEF FERREIRA: You see it on social media a lot of times. The incident that occurred in Puna at the gas station when the officers that was on social media. It gave a perspective that we cannot give because it was a private video, somebody put it on social media, but it showed what the officers were dealing with from the onset where they just walked up to the vehicle and the guy started ramming the cars. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, I saw that. I actually called the police officers, "Hey, are you guys okay?" They were, but it was the same one, he was like, "I was actually the guy in that video. I'm fine." CHIEF FERREIRA: Thank you very much for calling them. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What you guys deal with is a lot on a lot of different levels, so I want the community to understand that as well. CHIEF FERREIRA: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that's all of my questions. Thank you for filling in and informing me, that was a lot pukas for me, so thank you. I feel comfortable with what you submitted. I also want to touch on you guys really decreased a lot of areas in your budget. I know there's been different reasons for that across the board from the departments but appreciate what you put forward in your budget this year. CHIEF FERREIRA: Thank you very much, sir. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Kona, checking back in. Okay, hearing none, Council Members, thank you very much Police Department. Thank you for your whole team being here today. Sorry,thinking about our next department coming in. Okay, we're going to take brief recess to switch over. Recess: At 2:34 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 2:45 p.m. (6) Office of the Corporation Counsel CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Kona, checking in, how manyI cannot see you with the camera, but how many members do we have in Kona? MR. INABA: Chair, Rebecca and I are here. Chair David is not here at the moment. Page 233 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, neither one of you can leave, because that brings us to five. So, we need five to open. MR. INABA: Copy that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, with that, we're out of recess. Joining us today for our Special Committee on Finance, our next department is the Office of the Corporation Counsel. Thank you for being here today. (Note: At this time, Corporation Counsel Elizabeth Strance and Assistant Corporation Counsel J Yoshimoto came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. STRANCE: Good afternoon, Elizabeth Strance, Corporation Counsel. I'll let everyone else introduce themselves. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Good afternoon, Council Members, J Yoshimoto, Assistant Corporation Counsel. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you for joining us, both, today. MS. STRANCE: And behind us is Stacie Okuda, who is our numbers person extraordinaire. Just preliminarily, thank you for consideration of our budget. I wanted to say a special mahalo to Stacie for her work on this budget for holding our feet to the fire over last year's budget and for all of her insights into the numbers of our budget and keeping us mindful of that throughout the year. I also want to thank J for his wisdom and insight as we've gone through this budget process and his reminders in the value of institutional knowledge within the department. He also always brings a sense of common perspective to every issue. I want to thank our deputies who are incredibly hard-working. I have tremendous respect for their depth of knowledge and their commitment as lawyers, as well as individuals. Also want to thank our staff, who we all know are the backbone of our department, and quite simply, we could not do our work without them. The Charter tasked the Office of Corporation Counsel to be the chief legal advisor and legal representative of all County agencies, the Council, and all officers and employees in matters related to their official powers and duties. Corporation Counsel shall represent the County in all civil legal proceedings and shall perform all other services incident to the office, as may be required by law. The Corporation Counsel shall however, be prohibited from representing elected officials in impeachment proceedings. To put this Charter mandate into context, Page 234 FC-32 April 13,2022 the County currently has 21 Departments and 39 Boards and Commissions plus the County Council and the Mayor's Office. The work of the County is being done by 13 lawyers. That number has not changed, except for periodically, there's been a 10 deputy that's been funded, but it's been funded and unfunded. There are currently 334 open litigation matters. At the time of writing our budget, for last year our Counseling and Drafting Division reviewed 2,076 contracts, reviewed and analyzed 120 general and legal documents, 906 contract reviews, 554 legal opinions, 176 long-term projects, and 118 miscellaneous matters. So within the Counseling and Drafting (C and D) Section that averaged out to 498 projects per deputy, and in the Litigation Division, averaged 55.6 caseloads for our Litigators. I say that just to provide the Council with some context of the work that we perform for the County. If our services are utilized and we do our job well, we're not a department that is seen. We're not forward-facing to the community, and we hope not to be mentioned. That's a sign of our doing a good job. Having said that, we do have a budget, and we do have needs, and there are services and requirements for us to be able to do our job for you well. We currently have 31 positions funded. This year through some budget savings, we were able to fund one of our previously unfunded Legal Assistant positions. A Legal Assistant's position is a paraprofessional position that actually provides support to both attorneys and to our support staff, and so we thought that being able to fill that position would benefit the entire department. This year's budget, we are also requesting funding for the unfunded attorney's position. Last year, we had some discussion about whether the County should have some insurance coverage, because we're completely self-insured for legal claims. We just recently are in the process of securing excess liability coverage, and that's not reflected in our budget because our budget doesn't cover those claims. It will show up, I believe either in the Finance or the General Budget. There are some details to be worked out on that. What we hope is that the excess liability coverage will cover claims over a million dollars and up to $10 million, which would significantly reduce the exposure of the County. My understanding is that it's not a specific line item in the budget. It's lumped into the claims' provisions of the budget, so you're not likely to see it unless you ask. Like several other departments this last year, in order to fill vacant positions, we reallocated positions downward in order to bring people in. Like the Prosecutor's Office, you have to have legal experience to be eligible to join our office in most positions, and yet, they're entry-level paid positions. So we were able to reallocate a position down. I'm happy to report that one of those positions will be Page 235 FC-32 April 13,2022 coming in for a supplementary budget request, because that person now qualifies for the stepped-up position that we were originally trying to fill. To address what I anticipate, maybe several other questions about our budget, there isin terms of our last year's budget on salary and wages to actuals, it will show that we are not at our budget. That's the result of several matters. One, with the change of Administration, there was turnover, which my understanding is pretty standard. There was some retirement. There was some shuffling of staff back to departments from where they came from, as part of the Administration shuffle. Part of it is the result of the way that we have timed in salary increases. So traditionally in this department, salary increases have come on anniversary dates, so they get spread out over the year. So, the budget is set for the entire year, but our deputies will only get the benefit of that raise from their anniversary date forward. My expectation is that when the budget is passed this year, that we'll implement salary increases immediately, so that all deputies get the benefit of immediate salary increases. In addition, the outside counsel number is there's quite a discrepancy in that. My understanding is that is due to there being outstanding—we're expecting some invoicing in two cases. One of them we'll reach out for and hopefully get an invoice and have it paid before the end of the fiscal year. The second one, we'll have to see. Brian De Lima was our outside counsel, and I'm not sure what the winding down process of his law firm will be on that, but we'll be in touch with them and if we're able to work that out, we will. If not, then it would be carried over to next year. In addition, there is an increase, like many other departments, in our travel budget. One thing of note in the way that our travel budget is setup is that it's not just travel for seminars or in things like that. It also includes our travel for cases. So if we have travel expenses to fly to Oahu for depositions and those sorts of things, those will show up in that travel budget. It would include travel of our expert witnesses. So, we're expecting with the lifting of COVID restrictions, that there will be more in-person travel, but we'll have to see. I think the legal profession realized a pretty big savings in travel and the use of Zoom for a lot of things. So, I think the jury is still out, if you will, on how much travel will come back, because I think we all realize there's a fair amount of work that could be done and done well without travel, but we'll just have to see on that. I think some of the judges remain receptive to some in-person appearances. Others are not, but I think we'll have to see, but we did pop that number up to what was comparable pre-COVID. Then we'll just have to see. Page 236 FC-32 April 13,2022 There may be some additional travel, because we're building back in some more opportunities for continuing legal education. As it is now, it's still a very low amount. Lawyers are required to have three hours of continuing legal education a year. The amount that we've budgeted probably doesn't cover paid seminars for all of the lawyers to assist with some of that. One of our subscriptions is to the International Municipal Attorneys Organization (IMLA-International Municipal Lawyers Association); and our subscription called the Kitchen Sink, which allows us access to everything including a lot of online seminars that are particularly geared to Municipal Law lawyers. But we would like to give some of our lawyers some opportunities for some Oahu or mainland travel for some pretty targeted training. I think those are the highlights. I'd like to give J an opportunity to chime in if I missed anything, or Stacie as well. MR. YOSHIMOTO: Thank you Betsy. I wanted to also supplement the things Ms. Strance talked about. In our submission for Fiscal Year 2020-2021, we also wanted to note that we had 1,402 appearances in meetings by attorneys in our office. And you know, divided by the C and D attorneys that are counted towards this statistic, it's approximately 175 meetings; appearances per attorney spread over this timespan. Then to update the Council as far as how we're doing currently in this current fiscal year, we're already at 1,415 appearances. So we've already exceeded the number from the last year, and so, we're basically being tasked with more meetings and things of that nature. Those things are not under our control, but it gives the Council an idea as to, you know, the pressing needs of the County. Because you know, when you look at the County and thenI guess the best way to explain it is, you know, we cover everything that we possibly can under the law, right? For example, we cover contracts, finance, employment law, ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), ethics, code enforcement, Environmental Management, Human Resources, labor laws, liquor laws, land use planning, Parks and Recreation, Police, Fire, procurement, Water Supply, Mass Transit, tax law, bankruptcy. I mean, it's really everything under the sun, except for things that, you know, we either have a special contract for like Workers' Compensation or maybe criminal law. So, the perspective that I'm trying to show is that we need to be covering so much area, and our resources, you know, at this time, I think we're doing the best we can. I think we've done a pretty good job about it, but it's also a time where the world is changing, and you know, with the difficulties in recruitment that was mentioned by other departments earlier, we're facing the same challenges, similar challenges. Page 237 FC-32 April 13,2022 I just wanted to note that it's a changing environment, whether it's work expectations, whether it's salaries, whether it's quality of life. You know, I think the good thing about this County, to me anyway, this is still the best place to live, you know, in terms of affordability, in terms of people. You know, the spirit of Aloha is strong here. Those are things that I know the Department of Human Resources as well as our office and the other departments are trying to promote, because that's who we are as a community, and you Council Members have a keen sense of that, I think. And you know, with your support through the budget process, we'll be able to continue our best efforts. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you very much. Good overview. Council Members, discussion. Mr. Chung, go ahead. MR. CHUNG: Thank you. I just wanted to thank both of you, and Judge Strance, for following up on that, you know, that question that I had last year about I call it the umbrella policy because that's the term that our Special Counsel had used in the past regarding that big lawsuit, that big settlement that we had about a year or so ago. So thank you for that. It looks like it's in—so you guys are working on it. MS. STRANCE: The main thanks for that goes to Dan Chun in Risk Management in the Finance Department. He really did the heavy lifting on it. MR. CHUNG: Yeah, but I mean,just really thank you for the follow-up though. It's been a year ago. I don't have anything to say, except that I thank you guys for your good service. You know, we're like one of your clients. It's the Mayor and the County, but the level of service that you guys provide is really good. I have to go to a meeting now. So I don't have any questions for Liquor either so, sorry I have to go. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Chung. Kona, any questions for Corporation Counsel? MS. DAVID: Chair? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Ms. David, go ahead. MS. DAVID: Thank you, and thank you, Judge Strance and Mr. Yoshimoto for that presentation. I have to echo Vice Chair's comments and thank him for that suggestion on the Access Liability Coverage Insurance that you described. I know, Judge Strance, that you said that it's going to be a line item included in another fund or another budget within the County. Would you have any idea or could you let us know about how much such a coverage will be, a ballpark figure? Do you have any idea? I don't need to know where it goes, but I just wanted to know if there was an amount that you folks understand that coverage would be. Page 238 FC-32 April 13,2022 MS. STRANCE: I'm going to ask Deanna to step up. This has been really spearheaded by the Finance Department. MS. DAVID: Oh yes, thank you, Director Sako. (Note: At the time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. SAKO: Good afternoon. I want to say it's little over $800,000 and it's actually in the Miscellaneous Section already under Claims, Insurance, and Judgements. We just forgot to break it out as a separate line item. So it's just lumped together with everything else in that account. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Director. And will that then be still lumped together with the rest, or will it eventually have its own? MS. SAKO: We'll try and remember to break it out. It will still be in that account, but we'll break it out as a separate line item. MS. DAVID: Yeah, that would be helpful. Thank you very much. That's all the questions I have other than saying thank you, Vice Chair Chung and thank you Corporation Counsel_ Mahalo, I yield. MS. VILLEGAS: I have a quick question. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mahalo, Ms. David. Go ahead, Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Great, thank you. Thank you, Judge Strance for being here today and going over things, simply and succinctly. I have a quick question about—during my first term, the Council supported the County's participation in a lawsuit against opioid manufactures. And there's been a number of cases related to that in the news. I wondered if any of the funds that have been allocated and awarded, have those come through? If and when they do come through, will they come through and go directly to your budget? Or how does that get handled? MS. STRANCE: Thank you for that question. The details of the distribution are still being worked out. I'll have to get back to you if you want to know the exact number and the period of time over which distributions will be made. We're currently involved with discussions with the Attorney General's Office about how the funds will be managed. As you may know, there is a formula that was agreed upon as part of the nationwide settlement, and most of the settlement amounts coming to Hawaii will be going to the State. Then the formula then also separates out some amounts or percentages that will then come to the counties. Page 239 FC-32 April 13,2022 The discussions that are currently being held is whether it makes more sense to have the entire fund managed by the State with commitments on the part of the State, that no less than the amount that would have been distributed directly to the County still gets to us. So there have been a number of discussions and ongoing negotiations on that, which I hope will conclude shortly since I believe the first distribution will be coming out sometime in May. MS. VILLEGAS: Great. Thank you for confirming and helping me understand that potential for resources, but where it will likely kind of have a bit of a hiccup and then gets reallocated to our County. Which brings me to my next question. In my first term, we also passed a resolution encouraging the then Administration to join Maui and Oahu and sign on to the Climate Litigation lawsuit that's currently moving along. I wondered, as we looked at our budgets, and looking forward, if this Administration is continuing to navigate that as the resources' potential can mitigate a number of issues that our County is facing. MS. STRANCE: Okay, before I answer that, I wanted to circle back to the opioid litigation. The settlement that I was discussing is a partial settlement. We still have another lawsuit with claims against another defendant. So even with the settlement that I described, there's still other claims out there. With the respect to the Fossil Fuel litigation that you're talking about, there have been lawsuits filed both in the state and across the country against fossil fuel companies. And currently I believe, the County of Maui, and City and County of Honolulu have lawsuits. We've communicated with both counties as well as the outside Counsel that is representing them about that, and continue to have internal discussions about whether to file that lawsuit, and if so, when? So it's not something that's been tabled but has been part of an ongoing discussion. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay, thank you. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help that discussion and to move things along. I guess then, my last question is, it would be really wonderful, and we talked about this in the past for the County Council to have their own Corp. Counsel. I feel for you guys in your need to and the requirement essentially is that you represent the Administration when you sit as Corp. Counsel, and the different departments. If something like that were to be requested or pursued, would that require adding a new position to the overall Corp. Counsel budget, or would there be—do you think it would be applicable or possible to transition someone currently within Corp. Counsel and assign them specifically to Council to represent our questions? Page 240 FC-32 April 13,2022 I just see there historically have been some challenges if what Council is trying to say or put forward, or argue, for lack of a better term, is not in alignment with what the Administration thinks. And your job is to represent the Administration. MS. STRANCE: I'm going to answer that with a preface, which is, I'm not sure that I agree with your description that our job is to represent the Administration. Our job is to provide legal advice across the County, and part of the County includes the County Council; part of the County includes the Mayor; and part of the County includes departments. There can be policy discussions and disagreements regarding certain matters, but I don't think it would be helpful to have something set up with the idea that you would have a Corporation Counsel as an advocate for the County against the Corporation Counsel that you've viewed to be the advocate of the Administration. I think that just sets up a lot of problems because if a lawsuit is filed as a result of decisions that are made, then it's not clear what decision is the decision of the County and what advice you're relying upon. So you know, the County of Hawaii is a municipal corporation. So, if one was to look at other corporations with, you know, different bodies with different policy- making authorities and different authorities, those departments may have different views on things, but it doesn't prevent a single law firm from representing the corporation. It's just that if two departments don't communicate well with each other, it makes it very difficult to provide legal advice. So I think it's Shakespeare Henry VI that said, "First, let's kill all the lawyers." The context of that—there's a point to this. The context of that statement in that play was that there were characters that wanted to create chaos in the country. They thought that the way to do that was first to kill off all the lawyers because the lawyers advocate for the law, and in some ways provide guardrails for government. It's my view that that's what the role of the Corporation Counsel does in some areas. We try our best to provide legal advice, and when we step over providing legal advice to ask that there are policy pieces of it, that we do our best to identify what's the legal advice and what are the policy questions or implications and then step back and let the Council, department or the Mayor's Office have that discussion about policy. Those are really important, and when it gets reduced to—well, this is legal and this is not legal, it really, is in my view,prevents the really important discussions about policy. So, that's a long way of saying, I don't think it's a good idea. I think if we're not being clear about when something is not legal and when something is policy, and we're not clearly communicating that to you, then we should be doing better, and I hope it will be pointed out to us. But you know, what we strive to do is to Page 241 FC-32 April 13,2022 provide you with, I guess, the framework within which you folks can have your policy discussions, and there's a lot of them. They're not easy. MS. VILLEGAS: Okay, thank you for your answer on that. I might still disagree, and some of the challenges I've had historically have caused a little more trepidation for myself, as I would have liked, and understanding that when you're hired to represent—anyway, we can have another conversation about this offline. I have some more research to do about other municipalities and the practices in those municipalities and Corp. Counsel having kind of their own legal advice. We have LRB (Legislative Research Branch), which is fantastic, but just kind of exploring these opportunities in order for ways to mitigate some of those discrepancies for what may not be seen as illegal. But in my mind, some things would be ill-advised. So just for myself, thank you for taking the opportunity to explore this and this answer with me. I appreciate it, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Judge Strance and Mr. Yoshimoto for being here. You know, I want to thank you, J, for highlighting the work that, you know, this stable of attorneys do. I mean we see you guys here in this meeting, but there's so much more still going on with various departments and just outside of this realm. So thank you very much for elevating that. I also like that paraprofessional addition, because it's a nice kind of bridge between, you know, the clerical staff and then the attorneys. So that's a nice bridge, and if there's ways to try and create more of that, that would be ideal to alleviate some of the workload, having done some of that in another life. We do, they end up doing a lot of the research and the due diligence. So that's great. I was really curious about, Judge Strance, you mentioned the salaries. You know, normally we're here and all the other departments come in waves with big bargaining unit adjustments, but for your department, it's a little different. So they come in and the steps occur at the anniversary dates. Could you expand on that? MS. STRANCE: So, our deputies are all at will,just like the Prosecutor's Office. So we don't have a collective bargaining table that tells us what salaries are. We have the Salary Commission who sets my salary, and then our deputies cannot be paid more than a percentage of my salary. So, there's been a guide in our office that predates me. It's our own table of, you know, based on years of experience, what the salary should be, and we generally try to follow that. Page 242 FC-32 April 13,2022 There have been some exceptions to it, but the goal is to try to have lawyers with comparable experience paid comparably. So we have a range that we can go with. When I was here last year, my hope had been that—and we set aside salary for a high-paid deputy, because I had hoped that we would be able to recruit a lawyer with Environmental Law expertise. But the simple truth is that those are very well compensated lawyers, and we don't have the salary to be competitive. We don't have there's a lot of factors that go into, you know,job satisfaction. There's pay, there's benefits, there's flexibility and schedule. With our office, we can't, at a certain level, I think particularly our entry level salaries for new lawyers is competitive across the State. There's a tier at which we're not competitive, and we don't have a competitive salary. We don't have a lot of flexibility in work, and we have a lot of it. So, we don't struggle so much with hiring, but we struggle with retaining, because frankly the work experience that people get when they come to Corporation Counsel is extraordinary. If somebody wants to go into private practice, and all of what that entails, and they're looking just at salary then it's hard to retain them. If they haven't been in private practice before, you know, sometimes the money looks more than it is, but the salaries are out there, and I think that a lot of times our deputies are very attractive for that. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, and I just wanted to ensure that the money that we have budgeted in salary and wages for this department, although they may be given on an annual basis, whenever their anniversary date, it's still covered for the entire fiscal year is what I'm hearing. MS. STRANCE: We're going to take another look at that, and if we need to make any adjustments it'll be part of a supplementary budget. We did take an initial view of it when we submitted, and the budget submitted does reflect salary increases across the board, I believe, except for maybe one position. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, I have to agree. You know, when you move into Corporation Counsel, as J mentioned, tax law, labor law, environmental law, land use law, roads, I mean, you really—it's a crash course on everything. When you go to the private sector, it tends to be way more focused, and so, your billable hours and your ability to be a subject matter expert, you know, becomes more lucrative in the private sector. So thank you. I just wanted to share my thoughts on, you know, talk about Counsel for Council. I don't see it so much defending against one another, because I actually understand the role is, if we thought of the County as a person, we all have a duty to do what we can to limit liability and risk to that person, and that person is the County. I think I would love to see some subject matter expertise for us as policy makers, as a way to try and navigate better policy or alignment with laws and policy, which LRB does a fantastic job with. Page 243 FC-32 April 13,2022 So, I just wanted to share my thoughts. It's not so much to be combative, it's more of, I look to minimizing risks to the County. The County, if they were a person, that's the taxpayer. So, I just wanted to share my thoughts on that. Thank you Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Going back to Kona; coming back to Hilo. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, quick comment Chair, thank you. Sorry, I had to step out for a quick meeting,paradoxically for the County. Again, appreciate the previous conversations going forward. Echoing a little bit off of what Ms. Lee Loy said, yeah, you have to do a little bit of everything. I truly appreciate the ability to have that advice, and I also agree with what Ms. Lee Loy is saying about it's an entity that we all represent, and how do we go forward with that? So I like that perspective. We also talked about some of your needs when it came to some deputies to maybe get a little bit more support, because you guys must be running to the firewalls just trying to get this stuff done. I fully appreciate that as we start coming through, and it's going to get more complicated. I don't think this County is going to get simpler, especially with everything before us when it comes to climate change and what we're seeing with the evolution of things. So again, appreciate that, and we'll continue to have some of those conversations to see how we can find a way forward. I also want to thank Judge Strance. I appreciate your efforts with animal control. I think we're in a really good place with that. So, with that Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Okay. Thank you very much for the presentation today. I did have a few questions. You actually answered a lot of them already, but one I wanted to check in. You know, with your cellphones, strangely enough, Corporation Counsel OCE (Other Current Expenses) telephone, it's budgeted for this year, but looking back to 2021, it was a lot smaller. It's a difference of about$5,000, but I'm just checking in to see if that's realistic. MS. STRANCE: So the increase is reflected by the number of deputies who've requested them. So in our department, you have the option to use your personal phone or a County cellphone, and we have more deputies that have opted to have a County cellphone. Candidly, I think that's a good idea, so you're not mixing your personal and your work, but that seems to be largely the reason for that. Page 244 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. You had some positions that were expected to start on April 1st of this year. Did those positions get filled yet, or you're still waiting to see what's going to happen? MR. YOSHIMOTO: So, it's the legal technician that was scheduled to start April 1st, that date has been revised to May 1st CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, but on track, it's close. MS. STRANCE: Then there's a couple of start dates that say July 1st, but those are dependent upon funding. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Are you asking for two new positions? MS. STRANCE: We're asking that certain positions that have been on the books be funded. MR. YOSHIMOTO: So, to clarify, those are two vacant positions that were previously not funded that we're asking to be funded. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so they're vacant right now? MR. YOSHIMOTO: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: But they're already funded? MR. YOSHIMOTO: Next year, July 1st CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Funded July I". Okay, thank you. Other than that, your budget looks pretty well rounded, not too over in the category that drew my attention. You did touch on an outside counsel. Is that the same as Special Counsel? I didn't see an outside Counsel category, but the only one that made sense would be Special Counsel. MS. STRANCE: Yes, I apologize. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that explains that one. Okay, that's all I had. MS. STRANCE: Great. Thank you so much. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Wonderful. Thank you very much, appreciate it. Directors, thank you. Thank you for being here as well. With that I'll take a brief recess, and then we'll take up Liquor Control. We are in recess. Page 245 FC-32 April 13,2022 Recess: At 2:35 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 2:45 p.m. (7) Department of Liquor Control CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, we're back from recess. Today, joining us for our Special Committee on Finance `meeting, is the Department of Liquor Control. Thank you for being here today. Any PowerPoint presentation? Go ahead, Director, when you're ready. (Note: At the time Director of Liquor Control Gerald Takase, came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. TAKASE: Good afternoon, Chairman and Council Members in Kona, I'm Gerald Takase, Director for Liquor Control for the County of Hawaii. I have with me on my right Brandon Gonzalez, who's our Administrative Officer and Marcia Matsui, who's our accountant. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you for joining us. MR. TAKASE: In terms of a statement, I'll try to keep it short. I wanted to report that, you know, we all went through COVID, and in terms of liquor and liquor sales, we have seen a great increase from last year. So through the first half of this year, I think we were almost double the amount in sales. So, if you used liquor sales as an indicator, at least on this front, the economy does seem to be coming back. We kind of try to nurse our licensees through and looks like we've done okay. We didn't have too many go out of business due to COVID. We did have some, but it seems like everybody that's gone out, there was somebody right behind them ready to take over. So we are hoping for a good year, and hopefully we'll get back on track. Our biggest challenges in the last year were, you know, we moved out of the West Hawaii Civic Center, so we had a lot of unexpected expenses. But with the help of the Finance Department and others, we tried to make the best of what we had, and we are moving forward at this point in time. That's all I have. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you very much, Director. Council Members, discussion? None in Hilo. Kona you have anything? MS. DAVID: No comments here, Chair. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you very much, Director, appreciate it. I'll ask a couple questions, it feels correct. Account number 115 under the Project Grad, Miscellaneous Contract Services, in the past, I mean we saw it as high as $170,000; we're estimating $42,000 for this coming fiscal year. Page 246 FC-32 April 13,2022 I mean, these are kind of neat projects I think that you guys do in coordination with the community. MR. TAKASE: We have some projects. We didn't do much during COVID, but that Item Number also includes the pass through you know, we do a lot of grants for the Council. So that's lumped into there so, most of that is actually your spending, not so much ours. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so that drop is just different funding sources not coming in, like our CRF's (Contingency Relief Fund), that kind of thing? MR. TAKASE: We don't know how to budget it, so it varies during the year, depending on what we get requested. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then I wanted to make a comment, I've heard this before from some of the folks in the alcohol manufacturing businesses. People drink for two reasons, good times and bad times. So,just because we're seeing a lot of sales, that may not be in honor of a good economy. It could be going the other way too. You know, even in bad times, people drink a lot. So it just came to mind when you mentioned that. There's a lot of sales coming in for alcohol right now. MR. TAKASE: Well you know, so, my staff and I would try to go around the island and check in on them, and you know, we've seen, especially on the Kona side, a lot of business picking up. You know, I see lines outside of the restaurants on Alii Drive. So, you know, a lot of it is tourism, but I think there's a lot of local businesses as well,just people, you know, want to get out. They want to go have dinner at a restaurant or something. So, we're trying to support all of our licensees. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Well, thank you very much, appreciate it, Director. You know, one follow-up question for you. You have some expected start dates, April 1st MR. TAKASE: Yeah, we actually picked up two new investigators in Kona. They're actually going to start on the 18th, and we have one more potential vacancy over there. So, we should be full soon. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you very much, appreciate it. MR. TAKASE: Okay. Page 247 FC-32 April 13,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thanks for being here for Council. MR. TAKASE: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, thank you. That wraps up our day today, Council. Unless there's any further comments or questions. Okay, thank you very much. We are in recess until tomorrow. Thank you. Recess: At 3:35 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Page 248 FC-32 April 14,2022 RECONVENE: The Special Meeting of the Committee on Finance was reconvened in the Council Chambers, Hilo, at 9:05 a.m., Wednesday, April 14, 2022, by Mr. Matt Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Matt Kaneali`i- Kleinfelder, Chair Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member(came in later) Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member (via videoconference from Kona) Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member (via videoconference from Kona) Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards III, Member Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member (via videoconference from Kona) STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: The following individuals registered to speak and came forward when called by the Chair: Amos Gross: Bill 126 (Comm. 645), comment. Jonas Mahoe Bill 126 (Comm. 645), comment. DEPARTMENTAL The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, BUDGET AND Departmental Budget and Program Reviews. PROGRAM REVIEWS: 1) Civil Defense Agency: CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Mr. Magno, if you could. (Note: At this time, Civil Defense Administrator Talmadge Magno and Administrative Officer Barry Periatt came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. MAGNO: Good morning, Chair, Council Members. Thanks for having us here. Again, another year pretty much taken up by coronavirus. Barry Periatt with me to present a PowerPoint and all our updates and what's the projected budget. So what we did last year as far as dealing with coronavirus and the numerous incidents we had to respond to, three of which went to the scale of damage and impacts to the county, where we actually looked at damage assessments and Page 249 FC-32 April 14,2022 FEMA to see if we could get reimbursement or subsidies for folks. But that was the level that three of the incidents went to last year. So what's proposed for next year is, you know, us to maintain that level, some improvements, but to maintain that level of response as well as planning and preparedness. So at this point I'll turn it over to Barry. I'll be around throughout the presentation if there's any questions. Thanks. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much. Please introduce yourself and then proceed. MR. PERIATT: Good morning. I'm Barry Periatt. I'm an Administrative Office with Civil Defense. I sent a slide show. So is that available? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes. We'll do a brief recess and we'll set up your PowerPoint. MR. PERIATT: Okay. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Recess: At 9:12 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 9:17 a.m. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. We're going to come out of recess. We do not have the PowerPoint presentation. Maybe it got lost in the shuffle somewhere. Apologize for that. But let's go ahead anyway. MR. PERIATT: No worries. As was stated, I'm Barry Periatt. I'm an Administrative Officer with Civil Defense. So what we start out with is what our mission statement is: To protect the community and lessen the impact of natural and man-made hazards by improving core capabilities in five mission areas; Prevention, Protection, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery, and to strengthen and promote whole community resilience through the process of collaboration, engagement, and empowerment. So that's our goal. That's our focus. That's what we target our budget to accomplish. This year, as in the past couple years, most of our time has been consumed by response with coronavirus and other incidents happening. This coming budget, 2022-2023 budget, our intent is to focus a little more on the mitigation piece, more in the preparedness area. Hopefully we'll be able to do that. Our program highlights for the last fiscal year is dominated by coronavirus. If you look at it, we did 393 vaccination clinics. This is just the county. This doesn't Page 250 FC-32 April 14,2022 include clinics that maybe KTA did or some other organization or health organization did. We did 538 test sites. So that was testing provided by the county for anyone who needed it. What we procured—well we didn't procure, Finance procured, but we received and distributed over $700,000 of Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) for county employees, and it was also used for folks who couldn't afford protective equipment. Airport screening. The county took on the airport screening priorities. We screened well over 300,000 travelers. We only did interisland screenings. So that's 300,000 people who traveled interisland in that last fiscal year while we were doing that screening process. We issued 41,000 travel exemptions. And a lot of them, I would say for than half, were for individuals traveling to Oahu for medical care. But travel exemptions were a popular thing and medical care was the primary user of that. We had event requests when we were limiting and restricting gathering sizes and indoor activities. One thousand-eight hundred-thirty events were approved. And I believe 22 were not approved out of all the requests we received. We also operated isolation and quarantine sites for folks who needed to be isolated be they travelers coming in, or families who needed to be isolated and couldn't do it in the home. So we had a lot going on with COVID. That consumed most of our staff members' time. We have five operational staff members. That consumed most of their time. So what did we do with our budget then, if we did all this with coronavirus? Well, during the fiscal year we responded—we have 18 activations in the Emergency Operation Center. Now if we're activated for COVID, and now we have 18 additional activations on top of that. Now we've got two operations going on at the same time in the Emergency Operations Center(EOC). That's not the first time it's happened. In 2014, with the Pahoa lava flow and the Hurricane Lane, 2018 with the Kilauea Crater's lava flow and well Hurricane Lane—Hurricane Iselle was 2014. But Lane was 2018. So this is something that's been happening and with a little more frequency, particularly if you have a long event like we've had here. So 18 activations in addition to COVID. And when we activate the EOC, it could just be as simple as Civil Defense staff monitoring the conditions in case public information and warning needs to go out, or it can be a full activation with multiple departments coming in and coordinating their operations in there. We've done a lot of work with the land-mobile radio system. It's the communication between the police and fire dispatch. It's to field units and the ability to field units, first responders, to communicate in the field. We've been improving that system through enhancing the backup power capability to ensure the system remains fully operational. We're continuing to replace the air conditioning systems for the equipment sheds out there. That's part of the preventive maintenance project,preserve that expensive equipment that we put in there. Two towers were completed, which completes thein 2012 we were Page 251 FC-32 April 14,2022 required to convert to narrow-band radio system. So with that whole process we needed to put in two additional towers in order to provide the coverage. And those towers were completed. The last one, we haven't occupied it yet. But it was completed in the fiscal year out in Ocean View with fire station, it's 20 I believe, in Ocean View. And then the other big expense we have is Homeland Security grants. Now that's free money to the county. Right now, for the previous years, there isn't a grant match required to that. And with the Homeland Security funds there's been a change this year, 30 percent has to go to law enforcement activities and then we have leeway as to how we spend the other funds. This year we're going to focus a lot on things that we found lacking, like I said,primarily the mitigation piece, getting studies done that we need to have done so that we can provide better service to the community. Right now all the Homeland Security funds that aren't going to police are going to the EOC renovation, our current Emergency Operations Center. And we're in progress now. We're in Phase 2 now, which is correcting a lot of things that were identified in Phase 1, when they start the demolition and construction process, "Oh, we didn't know this situation was there." And so Phase 2 is correcting a lot of that so the facility becomes viable. So that's what we've been doing in the last year with our money. With our goals, going into this fiscal year, they haven't changed. If you compare this year to last year you'll see that our goals haven't changed at all. A lot of that is a reflection on we didn't accomplish a lot of what we intended to accomplish, because so much of our time was consumed by coronavirus response and 18 other activations. So very little change in the goals. There are a few changes in the program objectives, because we did actually achieve a couple of things last year. Well right now we're completing the revision of Chapter 7, which is long overdue. We have assistance with that. Thank you, Ashley. So we're moving forward with that. That'll be done before this next fiscal year starts. And then the warehouse—we've also reconfigured the warehouse and the warehouse is now in compliance for the most part. It's stuffed full. It's like a burrito, it might explode. But we don't think anyone's gonna get hurt in there. The main things we're focusing on, like the first priority is the Emergency Operations Plan. Terminology changes, that's going to be the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, Hawaii County Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. And that's just the broad outline, kind of the framework of how we operate. We're changing it from our current emergency operation plan, which has emergency support functions and the like and it's aligned with the State plan. That's not how we operate in the County of Hawaii. We operate more of a market system with departmental controls going on. So coordination very key with that. And so that's what the plan's being written reflect. So we're going from a fantasy plan to an actual operational plan. Page 252 FC-32 April 14,2022 Over the last few years it's been very clear that Continuative Operations Plans, that we're required to have in order to be eligible for federal funding, are not adequate to the task. And it's not the fault of the departments, it's a confusing thing like when we first brought it up, particularly finance. "Well why would we fund a non-essential task?" Well you're not funding non-essential tasks, but in an emergency you have essential tasks that you have to do, you're mandated to do. That's what the department needs to be able to maintain. No everything the department does, even though they're necessary in order to support the emergency essential tasks are essential. And so the Continuative Operations Plan allows departments, including our department to plan how we use resources and personnel when something is happening. How do we respond yet still maintain our essential tasks. Tasks that have to be accomplished because they're mandated. And that's what the Continuative Operations Plan does for us. A lot of department heads over just the course of coronavirus have come to realize that, "Hey, yes. This is a very important plan." Civil Defense's role and responsibility in that is to help the departments prepare that plan accurately. Right now we don't have the certifications to do that. We've completed the training we need to complete with the exception of the train-the-trainer course and the actual Continuative Operations course. The intent is to finish those, get that accomplished, so that we can go out and help the departments develop a plan that's going to meet their essential task and also allow them to provide resources to emergency response. One of our major focuses going into this year is Project 360. That's our program for community resilience. That's where we go out, engage the community and help them develop resilience. It's been on hiatus through the coronavirus incident because most of our volunteers who work in Project 360 actually fall into vulnerable categories. A lot of retirees, support CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and that. So we are in the process. We're getting prepared to start training again and see what the CERT teams do, come together, I believe. We're scheduling an event where you're going to speak to all the CERT team leaders, I believe. So get them together and we're going to relaunch that program and get it going. With public information and warning, currently we use a company that's changed its billing cycle. When we went out and procured our mass notification system, one of the requirements in that request for proposal was that we have no additional billing beyond purchasing the service or the ability to use the service. And so like messages being sent would not be billed. The phone carrier, cellular phone companies, have changed their billing style to these companies. And so now these companies are forced because of expenses to bill us. Currently our contract prevents that. So the company we're using is losing money on us with the emergency messaging. So that expense right now we're in Page 253 FC-32 April 14,2022 the third-year of a five-year or a one-year contract with four option years. That expense is going to come up in the future because just simply the way the billing process goes now with these mass-notification companies. What we're trying to do is we're going to do a study on how people in Hawaii County receive their information in mass so we can provide public information and warning more efficiently. And with that, we hope that's going to reduce any cost. We may incur increased costs with our mass notification system. So that's one of the major things we want to accomplish this coming fiscal year. Refining our management procedures and information management process. We process a lot of information. In our current system's archaic. It works but it's not efficient. So it's a lot of paper and we're trying to move to an ArcGIS platform, as we are an ArcGIS platform for information processing and data sharing. And that's also part of our public information and warning. We do have public maps that we display now. And so where we're refining, we intend to refine these processes, and that's part of the EOP (Emergency Operations Plan) revision as well, because it needs to be reflected and what we're doing in there. So we're refining those processes through an ArcGIS system to process information so that we can produce informational products and decision-making products for the County. So that's the key focus there. We spoke about land-mobile radio systems. We continue to make improvements on the system. What you'll find in the budget is, last year we moved most of the funds for the land-mobile radio system out of(Account) 115 into 109, since most of the expenses associated with land mobile systems are maintenance. This year we've broken that large figure out into individual accounts to address what we're actually spending that money on. So it's just more clarity and where all that money is going in supporting the land mobile radio system. I spoke about the Homeland Security grant program and we are only this year funds, we're focusing on getting Civil Defense whole. But there is funds that will go to police. We haven't sat down and spoken with them exactly on what they intend to do with their share of the funds. The last thing we're working on is the integrated preparedness plan. You may know we get EMPG funds, which is another federal grant, Emergency Management Performance Grant. And that helps support the salaries for the staff. So that's the intent behind that. We have requirements placed on us by the State now, training requirements and reporting requirements that didn't previously exist. Part of that is getting an integrated preparedness plan together. Now an integrated preparedness plan is required at the State level. So that's how the State is going to train all their people to be able to respond. It's not required at the county level. But it is an effective tool; one, to make sure that Civil Defense meets all their training requirements so that we're still eligible to receive funds. And two; what training we need to do in the county as far as to prepare the county and make us more efficient in our jobs. So those are what our objectives look like for this Page 254 FC-32 April 14,2022 coming year. They didn't change much from last year either. Again, unfortunately we haven't made much progress because we've been mostly engaged in the response area. So if you look at our changes and adjustments we did in the budget, in the Salary and Wages account, still 10 personnel authorized. Once upon a time, we had all 10 positions filled this year. We now have two vacancies. One we're interviewing for to fill on April 26h; the other, the personnel description is at the Human Resources waiting to be approved. So we've got two positions we need to fill. When we move into the Operational Budget as you'll see and if you look in 109 and 115, there are a lot of new accounts in there. I say a lot, maybe five or six. But that's how we broke out the actual expenditures in the land-mobile radio system. The largest expenditure right now being in our budget being the MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) maintenance contract. The maintenance contract for the radio system is actually covered by CIP funds. It's part of the 10-year contract. And that's why we still have a line for that maintenance in our budget, because one day we're going to have to start funding the maintenance out of our operational account. The radio towers. I've been working the budget for two years now. For electricity on the radio towers in 114, we had $130,000 budgeted for that. I assumed there had to be a reason for it. So I left it. I didn't touch it. We didn't spend the money. Okay. So one year, we didn't spend the money. Next year; okay, maybe the situation didn't arise, like sandbags. We budget$5,000 for sandbags. Sometimes we spend it, sometimes we don't. It all depends on what happens. But this year, looked at that$130,000 budgeted for electricity for radio towers, and moved it out and reduced it down to $20,000, which is what actual expenditures are. And we used that money to create, or to expand the Training and Exercise account. And that's important to us. Again, like I said, with the EMPG we have additional training or requirements that have been placed upon us by the State to remain eligible for federal grants and funds. So we have to do some training on our staff and in additional departments that money is there also. In know last year we talked about—and this feeds into our out of State travel. There's $10,000 there. Why on earth would we want to do that? Well, two reasons; the radio systems manager wants to get some radio techs trained on the Motorola system, and so they can do a lot of the updates and troubleshooting on the system within their perimeters. So they need to go to Illinois for that training, specifically at Motorola. And that also comes out of our training budget. Yeah, they work for the Police Department, but we're responsible for the radio system and it's going to enhance it. So that's why we're going to pay for that. We also send, for the ESRI Conference, as I said, ArcGIS platform is what we intend on doing our information management process through. We send Asia. Page 255 FC-32 April 14,2022 She's only part-time with us. She works for Public Works. But we rely on her a lot with the ArcGIS platform. So the conference is free for them to attend because we have the enterprise contract with ArcGIS, but travel isn't. So we fund, because Asia does so much for ArcGIS platform, we fund her travel to the conference so she can stay up to date on what's happening and find solutions for things we encounter as we experiment with the system as we're moving through. But that Training and Exercise account has expanded and those are two of the reasons why—well three of the reasons why, actually. Training for the radio shop, training for our staff so that we can maintain compliance with the EMPG requirements, and then training for staff to help develop what we're going to, other staff, like Asia. In an end, if we move into the 06 account of equipment purchasing, we're still replacing air conditioning systems at the LMR (Land-Mobile Radio) sites. There's 13 sites that have air conditioners. Over the last two years we've replaced nine air conditioners at nine of those sites. Only one was planned and budgeted for. The rest were all emergency purchases because the system failed. So we're in the process of—we've got a system now to do our end-of-life replacement. We actually, believe it or not, did not have an air conditioner maintenance contract for the LMR system. That is in place now. So we have the new systems in place at a lot of them and now they're being serviced so we can extend their life. And then with the EOC renovation, it is expanding. We do need additional furniture so that we can accommodate folks moving in there and putting the bunk room back in. Our bunks that used to be in the bunk room were donated to a homeless shelter. I believe they're up at Rainbow Drive right now. So we've got to replace those and get that established. So that's what our budget looks like. I know we're rounding here in most of the budget here. But that's what we intend to do with it. Subject to your questions, that's all I have for you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Mr. Periatt. Council Members? Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks, Barry and Talmadge, for being here. Just so confident in your budget. I just had a more forward-thinking question. You mentioned this budget is built and some studies that you have planned, which I'm guessing is the continuation of operations plan and some of your assets. And we also know that a number of our park facilities serve as emergency shelters during events. And so I was wondering if any of these studies bridge or direct us to which park asset serves as an emergency shelter in an opportunity to start to develop a needs assessment and a prioritized list between your department and Parks Department. MR. MAGNO: You know, that's a good idea as far as creating a plan. We have come up with a priority list. The State has a program that they've revamped as far as restoring or looking at hardening facilities that,you know, are in place already. Page 256 FC-32 April 14,2022 DOE (Department of Education), we just got information that DOE is planning a new gym at Kohala High School. And so that discussion has been active. And we could share with you guys as far as what our priority list is as far as the renovation that we came up with on the island. I know we have sites on North Kohala, Hamakua, Kona, and Puna that have been designated on our priority list. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, because I think our intention is to set everybody up for success. And in the time of disasters, right, we want our communities to know that they have areas or facilities that are nearby. But, you know, you also talked about your grant funding piece and I'm just wondering if there's opportunities to braid so much more of the grand funding between Civil Defense resiliency and the assets. And I would love to have that conversation offline a little bit where we can work a little smarter rather than harder, and identify certain CIP projects based on your priority and other priorities that serve the community better. Is that something we could do? MR. MAGNO: Yeah, absolutely. So my next question is, you know, how do we kind of get that rolling? Do you spearhead that or do kind of request? MS. LEE LOY: Well, you know, and that's why I was just curious as to what types of studies you guys are doing and if there's ways through the RFP process to start to identify an asset, a county asset, that needs rehabilitation that actually serves us in a park capacity, too. And so maybe it's something that we could look forward through some of the studies that you guys are planning for in your budget that would begin to comb out some of those other details. That's what I was thinking,just tiny little nuances. MR. MAGNO: Sure. And the study that Barry spoke about is basically how is the community, how are the visitors getting information so that they can respond to emergencies or react appropriately. But, you know, like I said it's a good idea and, you know, I kind of look to Barry because he's been at Civil Defense for a while and; I know there's been some previous state programs as far as assessing the shelter capacity capabilities on the island. So maybe we can share some of that information from the prior studies. You know, definitely moving forward if we coordinate, you know, we can use what was developed there and what the State has. But sheltering is always going to be a hot topic, because in the worst case scenario we're not going to have enough space. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. Thank you for that. Just being open to the idea, I think, does wonders. And you mentioned about visitors making decisions. And that's that decision-making protocols that you talked about right, Barry? Or products. MR. PERIATT: Well some of the products that we want, particularly with the web map we have out there, which we've been using, it needs to be refined, because there's things we need to do as far as getting the information into it. But that's what we intend to be the primary tool out there having a web map. Problem Page 257 FC-32 April 14,2022 with that is it has to live in the cloud because of bandwidth issues. But it also, once we lose connectivity, it's gone. So there has to be another method for doing that. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. Just always thinking. Well that was my only question. I'm just glad that you guys are open to that idea of collaborating. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Kona, gonna check in with you guys? MS. DAVID: Thank you. No. No comments from this side. Chair, thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. Ms. Kierkiewicz, go ahead. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Gentlemen, great to see you. Really have enjoyed spending time with you working on Chapter 7 and other projects. I wanted to just kind of springboard off of what Council Member Lee Loy talked about in terms of grant opportunities. I think when a few of us went to the NACo (National Association of Counties) Conference it was very apparent that federal government wants counties to be prepared for climate change and everything that we can expect in the future with regards to natural disaster. So hardening the infrastructure and just making sure we have community set up to respond so that we can be bouncing forward. Having said that, who is in charge of grants in your office? Is it the two of you, all hands on deck, or is there a dedicated person? MR. MAGNO: We kind of divvy that up. Bill Hansen takes care of the Homeland Security grants. And that's the bulk of it. And the EMPG funding, I kind of work that side of it, but that just goes to the General Fund, and then supports five of our positions. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, that's helpful. I think Council Member Lee Loy and I would be happy to sit down with you and kind of do a scan of different available options and then we can prioritize based on our need what we should be going after. Because this is really a once in a generation opportunity to be securing as many federal funds as possible. Can you help me identify in your budget which account is leveraged to support Neighborhood Watch and CERT Programs and the Project 360? And I say that because these folks provide incredible support to county and Civil Defense, and I just want to make sure that they are being provided funding to get supplies. I know a number of us have supplied some funding through CRF (Contingency Relief Fund)to Neighborhood Watch groups. But can you help me identify the account, because I'd like to see if we could increase that a little bit. Page 258 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. PERIATT: Sure. So most of the funding that goes into CERT and other citizens core programs such as Neighborhood Watch and the Medical Reserve Core, come out of the Homeland Security Grant Funds. Generally there's $25,000 set aside to support that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: $25,000 for the whole island? MR. PERIATT: For the whole island. Yeah. So a lot of that money is spent on equipment, you know, the training and equipment;training classes because the instructors, they're done by Fire, they have to be paid. The equipment that's issued to them once they're certified, then there's a team equipment cash that, you know, there's perishable items in there so we have to replace those. So that's where a lot of that money goes from the Homeland Security. In our budget, if you look at 106, Number 2, Preparedness and Brochures, we set aside—half of is for CERT for printing. So their manuals that they print, the Project 360 pamphlet that's printed and then the other things that they need printed. Neighborhood Watch comes to us for materials and that. That's funded out of that as well. The other line number, Visual Aids, so 115.1, in Visual Aids that's another asset we go after and that's primarily focused on the training piece with CERT and that. So we spend money there to get whatever resources we need for that training piece out of that account. So those are the primary ways we support CERT. We also have, and it's small, but firefighting's one of their things, small fires so it doesn't become a big fire. We budget for propane for the firefighter training apparatus, the fire pan. So that's budgeted out at$500 each cycle. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: So just under $35,000 to support the entire islands CERT and Neighborhood Watch functions. MR. PERIATT: Correct. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. And you probably have a ballpark estimate of what that budget should be looking like? MR. PERIATT: I'd have to defer to Bill for that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Let's talk story about it and maybe we can get something in the May budget or as a kind of amendment to it. I think it's really important to be supporting community, because they are often first on the scene as they wait for kind of government to support them in their response efforts. Looking at your proposed operating budget summary here,program objective 5e (see Comm. 645.1, page 30), Inventory of Disaster Response Resources. Are you talking about some kind of asset vulnerability map? You mentioned ArcGIS earlier. Can you share more? Page 259 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. PERIATT: Okay. The program we use when we purchased it was supposed to interface with our GIS. That company, which is Salamander, doesn't or no longer has plans to interface with ArcGIS. But that doesn't mean we can't extract the data into a spreadsheet, which ArcGIS can turn into visual displays. But we use Salamander for our inventory control. We used it in 2018. That's when we acquired it to account for personnel and resources on shift. And that's what was used when we went to get reimbursement from FEMA, "Hey, here is the man hours, here's the equipment usage and all that." So that's what that's intended to do. What it also does for us is, there's different modules in there. There's a command module where we can set up the command structure so it can spit out an organization and track it— MS. tMS. KIERKIEWICZ: Based on the incident that you're dealing with. MR. PERIATT: For the incident you're dealing with. So it's incident specific when you're doing a command module. And it also has an evac (evacuation) module. And with the evac module, in the case of Leilani Estates when you had displace so many people, if we get them in the system with the evac module, now we can track them, we know who was displaced, we can track them through the system to make sure that when it's all said and done they get the assistance they need to either find a new home or return to their home. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Whose kuleana is it to maintain this system? MR. MAGNO: So right now, Tom Olson, is managing that system. And I'll put a plug-in, May 18'', we're running an operation at Aunty Edith Tennis Stadium to simulate a hurricane event with shelters, EOC, and so forth, working the Salamander system. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Can we come? MR. MAGNO: So if you guys are available come on by. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I think that would be really interesting. I think it's great to be doing those exercises regularly with community, so we can think through how we would respond in those situation so that when do happen, we are prepared. We would love details. May 18''? MR. MAGNO: Yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Can like anybody in the community show up? Because this is being streamed live. I want to manage expectations. Page 260 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. MAGNO: Well we don't want to overwhelm the facility and the exercise. But I invite Council definitely to see so that you can share with the community what's going on. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes. I think that'd be valuable. MR. PERIATT: And I think what you'll find there is you'll see Parks and Recreation Department is providing a lot of people for the resources. When I talk about the evac, that's the module they're going to primarily deal with. And that's one of the one's that's primarily gonna be tested on the 18''. We also see a lot of CERT volunteers there. When we were running the command program down in Puna for the lava flow, CERT volunteers were actually operating the system. So we had a continuity there. And so they'll be there training. So it's not just Civil Defense that's there. We involve a lot of different departments, and primarily our CERT, in making the system work. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: That's wonderful. Thanks for that information. You mentioned alerts, those notifications. How is that going to be dovetailing, interfacing with the app that's being developed for the county? Is there synergy there? MR. MAGNO: So when you talk about an app MS. KIERKIEWICZ: There's a mobile app I think the administration is working on. There was a donation by, I believe, Duane Kurisu to do Phase 1 development. Director Sako I think mentioned when we had the resolution to accept the donation come to Council that it was to support notification during emergency time. So just wondering how that is going to interplay with this, which is something you folks pay for. MR. MAGNO: So at this point we've not had discussion to integrate the two systems. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. MR. MAGNO: Everbridge does have its own app. And then we kind of encourage people to use the system via the app. So, you know, we'll continue to manage our system. In emergency functions it's good to have redundancy. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Absolutely. MR. MAGNO: And so that's the way I look at it. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. I'm speaking of redundancy in communication, who is leading of the communications within Civil Defense? I don't see like a PIO Page 261 FC-32 April 14,2022 (Public Information Officer) listed in your work chart. And is there a need for someone like that? MR. MAGNO: Well as a matter of fact, you know, not this year but in coming years we're kind of planning on growing. And that's one of the positions, the community outreach position, that we're looking at. But at this time, it's myself and the other Administrative Officers that fulfill the communications, working with the Mayor's Office as well—Cyrus (Johnasen), we work to do the communications. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Great. Couple more questions. Moho`uli Civil Defense EOC Design Funding, how much is that? MR. PERIATT: Okay. We're going to ask for $500,000 in the 2023-2024 CIP Budget cycle. That's what we looked at when we looked at our long range plan. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: That's the most appropriate time to designate those funds and complete the activity. MR. PERIATT: For the design, yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, great. And then finally, the funding from FEMA for the radio tower that was lost at PGV(Puna Geothermal Ventures), could you just provide a little bit more detail around that? I know that there was a lot of back and forth to make sure that we were getting all the funding that the county really deserved. And so if the funding's been secured what's the next step to make sure Puna, which you all know does not have all of that important sort of technology that's needed to connect with county and first responders. When can we expect construction of a new tower? MR. MAGNO: I don't have any timeframe as far as when construction will be. It's at the point that we understand that basically the decision was made that it's got to go open-source. And so it's got to go through that process. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: So we have the funding? MR. MAGNO: Yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Can you remind us how much funding you received? Was is around $1 million? MR. MAGNO: I think it's over a million dollars now. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Over that. And that's sufficient? MR. MAGNO: I believe so. Page 262 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. So we have it. I'm sorry, what are we waiting for then? RFP? MR. MAGNO: So yeah, it'll be with purchasing. So we'll see. I guess the next thing is that we've got to work with Public Works because it's a construction project. And those decisions were kind of just finalized recently. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Great to know. Thank you, gentlemen, for fielding all these questions and your presence today. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. And thanks, Civil Defense. Good to see you again, Talmadge. I laughed at the comment about the budget being a rounding error in other budgets. The way I see this, this is a—and Talmadge, you and I talked about this. You're supposed to plan to get ready. One of the problems we've had in the last five years is we have no time to plan because it's just been reaction after reaction after reaction. And so I don't even want to talk about dealing with any issue because I don't want to jinx ourselves. We've gone from one thing to the next. But what I'm hearing, and this is a common theme throughout everybody's budget, we really need to have plans. We're talking end of life planning, end of equipment life planning. We need to talk about planning for the future. You mentioned the hardened facilities. Ms. Kimball, well we share a lot of same challenges for our different districts. But planning for all this and going forward in a master plan going forward, I think that's what you're saying. Because we're talking about this plan, that plan, that plan, and how do we get there. You know, we talked about the CERT plans, we talked about hardening facilities in Kohala. There's a CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) grant to plan hardening the Hisaoka Gymnasium, and I've heard of what you talked about with Kohala High School developing a hardened facility. Yet when I check with all the administration for DOE on this island they hadn't heard anything. So I find that kind of interesting. But when you are talking about the studies, am I interpreting this correctly that you're making a needs assessment and out of that will come a Master Plan going forward of what we need to do. Like for instance, build a hardened facility in Waimea at Kalani Schutte Park, take care of Kohala in whatever capacity, work at Papa`aloa and develop that capacity. Is that what's going to come out of the studies? Is that what I'm hearing? MR. MAGNO: The study that Barry mentioned talks about the communications. As far as the sheltering, unless I'm missing something. We've come up with our priorities and I think that's our plan now. What Ms. Lee Loy kind of refers to is Page 263 FC-32 April 14,2022 probably a pretty good subject to integrate or work together with us to come up with an island-wide plan for sheltering. MR. RICHARDS: Basically a needs assessment, because for us to plan to go forward, we have to figure out how to fund it. But if we don't know what we're funding or what the scope and scale—so that's what I've been hearing as a common theme throughout the county is that we've got to get our arms around a good plan going forward. And so the question on that is do you have enough funding to start working on that? And I don't see that as a short-term deal, probably three-plus years as far as doing a needs assessment, and then scoping that out. And what I'm trying to get at is that in order for you to build the infrastructure that you need to attend to the emergencies going forward, first of all we have to figure out really what capacity, what needs are there. And Civil Defense pretty much is planning until you have to execute. The problem is, like I said, you've been executing continually for the last couple years. Is that's what you're trying to get your arms around to get this done and if so, is the funding there? MR. MAGNO: Not specifically. So if we were going to do a comprehensive plan for the island, review both the county, DOE, maybe even private entities, what's out there, we'd need additional money. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. And is that something that you're looking at now or is that in the future? Because to plan for the future you have to figure out where you are right now and I'm not sure we know that exactly yet. MR. MAGNO: We have some idea, because we're dealing with it every year, we know what DOE—and they give us an update every year. So we kind of know what DOE has available, we work with Parks and Recreation, the different county departments so we know what those aspects are. But, you know, if we're going to define what level we want to be at, that's where the shortfall might be, you know, as far as how much people we gotta shelter and for what kind of event. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Appreciate that and also appreciate the fact with the training for CERT and all that. But that's, you know, in District 9 I know they are chomping at the bit to be ready. And I appreciate the fact that you're working with them to have that level of communication and response. And Heather and I have talked about that, because I'm trying to tie in District 1 with District 9, and that communication. We've talked about the repeaters and all that. I know it's imminent, but it's been a long time coming so we gotta get those things out. MR. MAGNO: I understand. Yeah. We're pushing for that. And everything is set up. It should be happening already. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Page 264 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. MAGNO: And I think there's one other question. In the budget there is no money plan for shelter assessments. So that would have to come at another period or adjustment. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. I just—again, looking to the future where we're taking this department. Okay, I appreciate that. Okay. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. And thank you both for being here. And thank you for the really excellent, concise summary of the program goals and your budget. I just had a couple of time questions with regard to—first of all, CERT and CERT training. Have you guys reinitiated that program training volunteers or are you still on hold with that? MR. MAGNO: So we're active. Pretty much, not sure when we started, but for the last couple months, Bill Hanson and his core group from CERT, they've been reaching out to everybody to get them recertified. I know they're printed out all the pamphlets, they're gonna do the testing. So they're active. We recognize the importance of CERT in the community, you know, as far as community resiliency and our connection with the community. So we want to get them going. MS. KIMBALL: Great. And are you certifying new volunteers? Because we've had a lot of attrition and a couple of the CERT teams in Hamakua. Are you certifying new folks at this point or just recertifying? MR. MAGNO: I think this is just a recertification. We're not having the full, what is that, four week training period. MS. KIMBALL: Right. Do you know when you expect to start that again? MR. PERIATT: I know I just had the manuals printed and they were just assembled. So the exact start date, I don't know. Bill hasn't shared that with us. But I know they do have a plan to restart the training of new members, and part of that's the acquisition we've been doing with the CERT or the Homeland Security grant funds, to make sure we have the equipment to issue them when this training does resume. Unfortunately, as soon as Bill comes back; he's out sick, we can get that information for you. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Yeah, I just want a general timeframe. Is it three months out, is it six months out? And definitely connect with all of our offices when you do that, so we can help recruit people to become members of these teams and share the information about the training. Page 265 FC-32 April 14,2022 Another timeline issue would be the certification that you folks need to get to do the continuation of operations. What time do you expect to have that completed and begin work on working with the departments? MR. PERIATT: We're at the mercy of the trainers right now. We had the training scheduled. It's been cancelled twice already. Okay so right now we don't have a target date, but we're still working on—it's not the Homeland Security—it is the Department of Homeland Security at the State that funds the training for us in this aspect. So we're still working with them to get instructors available to come out and teach us. MS. KIMBALL: Is it something that you expect will happen in the next six months or at least the next fiscal year? MR. PERIATT: It should happen within the next fiscal year. But more realistically, we're six months, which is a good timeline. MS. KIMBALL: And then would you be able to initially—or once you've completed that certification, you'd get started right away on the continuation of operations process with the departments? MR. PERIATT: That's the intent, yes. As soon as they're certified. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. There's no other step or barrier to that at this point? MR. PERIATT: No. The barrier is us being trained to properly do it. MR. MAGNO: Right. And the Mayor totally supports it. So as soon as we can get ourselves certified, and we'll get his support to make sure that the departments are, you know, following us in our recruitment and so forth. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. And are you comfortable that your level of staffing is sufficient to support a heavy investment? Is that something you guys can do contract hires to support or you think you can do it with staff on hand? MR. PERIATT: The existing continuative operation plans were done by contractors. And because of the deficiencies in there I would feel more comfortable—and that's why the intent to get us trained to go out and help write them. To get actionable plans,plans that are actually going to work. So I wouldn't want to contract, because generally you get a very similar product. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, great. That's good to know. And I share your sentiment about that. We want to make sure that these are high quality plans. So my question is, is the current staffing level you have sufficient to take on that effort to the degree that it needs to be done well? Page 266 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. MAGNO: Well it's always subject to what's going to happen. So if we plan a meeting or workshops or whatever, and something's happened, we gotta.respond. So that's the only setback. So, no, to answer your question. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Yeah, I guess I should've expected that answer, right. Just as a last thing, you know, I'm really grateful that you brought up the opportunity on the 18'', to participate in that simulation. You know, one of the first things that happened when I took office was that fire up in Pa`auilo. And one of the lessons learned for me was how I really had no equipment, you know, sense of what am I as a Council Member, as an elected person, supposed to do in this situation? I didn't want to share out information I wasn't confident in. I didn't want to be the resource for folks, because that seemed inappropriate. Is there an opportunity at some point for us to receive specific training for elected officials for a simulation like that, particularly for folks in our role? I know that there's some offered by some of the—at the federal level, I believe through FEMA. Is that something we could organize? MR. MAGNO: Absolutely. Like you said, the federal level. They stress working with local elected officials so we definitely encourage that. So we'll kind of see what's out there and I guess along with the other requests and we'll make that happen and be in touch. MS. KIMBALL: Great. Thank you so much. Go ahead. MR. PERIATT: We actually had the executive training session scheduled, but COVID eliminated that. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. MR. PERIATT: So that's another thing we'll get rescheduled because that's one of the things we've identified. We're not as coordinated as we should be at the county level because there isn't that understanding. And it feeds back into the COOP (Continuity of Operations Planning)plan and the lack of knowledge that, "Okay, the COOP plans there to help me do my job, continue doing my job, while also providing support for the county." MS. KIMBALL: Great. I'm glad you identified that as a concern. And it's certainly something I think we would all benefit from. Let's all knock on wood right now that there is going to be time that we can do some of these proactive things in the next year. Alright. Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Seeing no other lights in Hilo, checking back in on Kona. Looks like it's just Maile David in Kona right now. Page 267 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair. No, no comments. Just thank you to the Civil Defense Department. Mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. Gentlemen, I have a few questions. During COVID it came to my attention that we had just one phone line to Civil Defense. Somebody mentioned that it was a point of frustration, because getting to Civil Defense for answers from the community was difficult. I don't know if that's wrong or right, I just remember hearing that. I want to make sure that we had enough bandwidth for you folks within the department. MR. MAGNO: Alright. So early on we still occupied our main EOC and we've got numerous lines in there because it's set up for that. But because of the situation with coronavirus there's a lot of calls to the point where we ran seven days a week and brought on up to 40 emergency hires to maintain calls. When we had to switch to get out of our EOC for renovations, we did go down to just a couple lines. But by that time I think coronavirus was kind of—people had adjusted already. So I think what the main issue was, early on when the lines were just busy. And we have multiple lines in the EOC, because it was designed for any disaster. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. So we're comfortable. I mean if we had another emergency of that nature or, you know, something like what we had in Puna during the eruption, you guys feel good about your existing infrastructure right now? MR. MAGNO: I do. We're kind of limited. We're not as robust as we would be in our regular EOC. But, you know, we realize when the phones are ringing off the hook that means we gotta get information out to the public. So what is it that we need to do? We need to get on every bridge and get that information out to them. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Yeah, I watched with interest during COVID and during the eruption. I mean we're very unique. We have an active volcano. Nobody else has that. And we have more seismic activity, you know, we're just busy over here. COVID was a whole different thing. But just want to make sure that we're ready, because we tend to have emergencies and you folks tend to be the boots on the ground in going to address it with the community. So making sure you have anything you need and you're talking about a long-range plan. But just sometimes it's as simple as, do you have enough phone lines, do you have what you need, do you have the room? I watched Kauai during their COVID presentations with the Mayor. And I was looking at that room behind them with all the TV screens and I was like, "Huh, I wonder if Talmadge guys would like to have something like that in their department?" Page 268 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. MAGNO: You know, in the long-range, you know, in the long-term we do have plans to move up to Moho`uli area and something like that. Perhaps a little bit more capacity. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. MAGNO: So that EOC was a result of Iniki. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. The one in Kauai? MR. MAGNO: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Interesting. I mean, we've had some big emergencies over here, too. We might warrant that. Okay. Just real quickly, within your guys' budget. So LMR, Land Mobile Radio, correct? You have different references to site maintenance, and it's spread out through your budget. But I just want to, I mean, you got generator maintenance, a/c maintenance, emergency repairs, LMR maintenance is very low, $75. Gas for LMR generators in a different account. Licensing, pest control—none of these are redundant, correct? These are all separate items for the same facilities. MR. PERIATT: They're separate items that manage the entire LMR network. Okay, so that encompasses 17 radio sites, two dispatch centers. And the reason you're seeing all these new LMR accounts is, like I said, we broke out that lump sum figure to actually identify where the money was going so we understand what the expenses are for each item. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you. I heard that discussion, but I just wanted to check back in. So 17 sites and two dispatch centers. MR. PERIATT: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: And these are for—it comes as a whole infrastructure, as a whole? MR. PERIATT: It does. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. PERIATT: That includes the microwave system for the county, which isn't really part of the radio system but uses the same sites. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. That helps. And then radio towers, touch on that one again. So that is just kind of holding a spot. You went over it briefly. Page 269 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. PERIATT: The 114, the electricity. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yup. MR. PERIATT: Okay. That's what our actually annual expenses are, what's listed in there now, $20,000. So for electricity to support the radio towers. We also the radio towers, some of them are solar, some of them have back-up generators, which run on propane. So that's why we have a propane account also, to support the LMR site. So the electricity is just normal usage on the tower and not all the towers have electrical power. Like I said, most of them are solar, and then they have the generator back-up with the gas. So we tookI don't know why it was funded at$130,000, and that's why I left it there. Because I didn't know. So this year's the year we finally said, "Okay, if we're only spending this much, we'll move that money out because we have other places we can use it." CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Is that for the account 114, that was $148,000 this year? Is that what you're talking about? Or is that a different section? MR. PERIATT: Yeah. The $148,000, for this year, yeah. So that includes the $130,000 for the radio towers, warehouse electricity, and electricity for the sirens, which is totally separate. We don't have an electric bill for the EOC, because the police pays that. They pay the entire campus. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, okay. A lot of the departments are prepping to submit higher costs for electricity, gas. Is that built into your budget or are you going to come back with higher costs on that end? MR. PERIATT: We did not build in increased costs for it. Again, like I said, we moved some money around. And I think in the past and budgets we've been able to, within our own budget, to shift money around to cover these expenses. So I don't anticipate a problem doing that this year as well. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Now the a/c systems for the radio sites, these are large systems? MR. PERIATT: Actually, well they're not like what we just put in the EOC. They're not like that. They're like what you would find in a home, a split a/c system. Because the radio sites, it's an equipment shed. It's not very large, but it does have a lot of equipment in it that generate heat. But a normal size air conditioning system, I guess, three-ton or that, is more than capable of providing that cooling. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Page 270 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. PERIATT: So it's more like a home system as opposed to a commercial level system. That's why they're not that expensive. They're still expensive, but not as if we were putting in a commercial system. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. Two for $30,000, so about$15,000, a piece. I was trying to wrap my head around size-wise. I had a little bit of experience with that in my past. And just real briefly, touch on your grants. So the Homeland Security grant for 2022-2023 got$700,000. Is that correct? MR. PERIATT: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. PERIATT: Well that's the estimate. The award hasn't come out yet. So generally that's the range it comes in and if it changes we'll have to come back and get the change processed through here. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then the federal grant match; different, same source of funding? MR. PERIATT: That's the money we have set aside when there is grant-match required. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. PERIATT: So some of the grants we do get require a grant-match. That account was created specifically for Homeland Security, because every year they tell us, you know, because there's no match with it. Every year they tell us, "That's going to change, that's going to change." Don't know yet for this coming year. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, okay. Good explanations. Thank you very much. I don't see any further questions from our Council here. Appreciate you guys time this morning. Thank you. Thanks for coming in. And we'll take a brief recess while we do our department switch. Thank you, Gentlemen. Recess: At 10:15 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 10:20 a.m. 2) Mass Transit Agency: (Note: At this time, Mass Transit Administrator John Andoh came forward to address the members of the Committee.) Page 271 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. We're back from recess. Mahalo for joining us today. At this point we have Director John Andoh from the Department of Mass Transportation. If you'd like to go ahead with your presentation, sir, we would really appreciate it. And then we'll go to questions from the Council. MR. ANDOH: I'd be happy to. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Please introduce yourself, you know, do the thing. MR. ANDOH: Yes. Top of the morning, Chair and Committee Members. John Andoh, Mass Transit Administrator for the Mass Transit Agency. Thank you for your time. And today I'm here to present the Mass Transit Agency proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2022-2023. And I have a PowerPoint presentation I'll be sharing with you. (Note: At this time, Administrator John Andoh provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or navigate to the Council's video archives from the County's homepage at www.hawaiicounty.gov. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 645.6.) MR. ANDOH: So that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have on our upcoming activities for the Mass Transit Agency. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Director Andoh. In Kona, any questions for the Director? MS. VILLEGAS: No thank you, except for thank you, Mr. Andoh, for your very thorough and detailed presentation, as always. And we had really an opportunity to speak with the two gentlemen who were here this morning testifying about the services and the challenges they're having as people with special abilities. So I'm hoping that we could circle back at another time and potentially identify ways in order to mitigate some of the challenges that are happening. It was really wonderful. I just have to say on a personal side it was wonderful to have a conversation with these gentlemen and have full confidence that when we all sat downanyway, to have your back and just say, yes, I know that there are opportunities and solutions and that you will help us find those. So thank you for your leadership and your,just ability to take our Mass Transit System light years from where it used to be. Every system still needs work. Every system it seems, especially in county government, has financial challenges, equipment challenges, and staffing challenges. But I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart Page 272 FC-32 April 14,2022 for all the work you've done to bring our Mass Transit system into a capacity that everyone on our island, I think, can look at and see the future of it and be really proud of. So thank you. I yield. MR. ANDOH: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Here in Hilo? Ms. Kimball. Ladies first. Go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thanks, Chair. And thank you, Director Andoh, for being here today. And as always, a very thorough and compelling presentation. And I appreciate just the real transparency with the numbers, particularly with the subsidy per rider that we're paying at this point. Because I think it always helps us to have that solid basis and very clear metrics. I do have one request for the slides. Can you put it into two so that it's a little more readable? MR. ANDOH: Be happy to. MS. KIMBALL: Those numbers are quite small. And also the main question I wanted to ask had to do with, what sort of response are you seeing from the zero-fare, zero-cost fare, are we seeing any bump in ridership as a direct result from that? I know we're still in some COVID times. MR. ANDOH: Yes. We're actually starting to see ridership increases on many of the routes, particularly on our routes to South Kohala Resorts, locally within the Hilo area as well as locally within the Kailua-Kona area. And the express route particularly between Hilo and Kailua-Kona on the blue line, definitely we're starting to see more heads in the seats. MS. KIMBALL: Great. So I think an additional element that I'd like to see to your reporting in the future is a line chart of where that is and breaking it up by some of the key-lines actually might be really helpful as far as information to us. I wanted to ask about your shelter replacement construction. Do you have a priority list of those in those locations already established? MR. ANDOH: We do. We're focusing on ten right now; one in Kawaihae, one on Moho`uli Street, in Waimea, in Hilo, and Kailua-Kona, and Pahoa. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Does that include there's the one by Mudd Lane there that was ? MR. ANDOH: Yes. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Page 273 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. ANDOH: Some of these, we're noticing that are constantly getting damaged. We just lost one at Hawaii Community College (HCC). So some of these will actually have bollards installed in front of them to protect the shelters from getting hit, like what happened at HCC and by Mudd Lane. MS. KIMBALL: And have you established like a branding around our bus stops as well; is there a common model that we're going to have throughout the County? MR. ANDOH: Yes. We're working on our request for proposals to purchase bus shelters that will be fairly attractive. They would have solar panels for lighting, map cases so we can put schedules in them, seats, and trash cans. MS. KIMBALL: Wonderful. You actually answered my next set of questions. So very excited to see that forward thinking. And I'll just say, very nice to see your smile. I think this is the first time I've actually seen his face without a mask and it's nice to really get a sense of your very enthusiastic smile. So thank you, Chair. I yield. MR. ANDOH: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. And thank you, Captain Mass Transit, for bringing your proposal before us. Excellent presentation. I really appreciate the fact that you're plotting out how we're going to go forward with this. And quick recap. When we first took office, budget was $10 million, upped it to $20 million, now it's at$30 million, and it's not coming out of General Fund. It's coming out of the tax. And the work you've don't with the grant and grant writing, and grant receiving is stellar. On some of this, some questions for your, John. You coat your roots like song and verse. I mean, you really understand where all your roots are going. But we're still having some tweaking concerns. And talking to some people that work in the resorts. They haveI was told to pass long, they really appreciate the no-fee riding. They really appreciate that. But there's some timing issues and there's some reliability issues. Can you address that? MR. ANDOH: Yeah. Particularly on the Route 80, we're seeing as we see increases in ridership and we're serving close to, I believe, seven resorts with an eighth one on line I believe early next year, we're having to juggle how to stagger the ridership appropriately and time them with start to end times of those resorts. Our Transit Program Manager for fixed routes is working with the resorts as well as the South, I believe it's the Kohala Resort Association Page 274 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. RICHARDS: Yeah. MR. ANDOH: So that we can assure that we have those routes timed appropriately. We're also trying to see how we can shift some of the 80 ridership, which is the route from Hilo to South Kohala Resorts via the Hamakua Coast, to seeing if we could have some of those riders use the Blue Line, via Daniel K. Inouye Highway to also help with balancing out those demands to get from east to west. So we are working to address those scheduling challenges that have occurred. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. And on the ridership they also raised a concern about safe park-and-ride facilities. One concern raised in Kona, I guess at the old K-Mart parking area. And looking in your Capital Budget looks like that is part of the future, but not this year or next year. Can you answer to that? MR. ANDOH: Yeah. So we presently have three official park-and-ride lots. And the goal is to start identifying more park-and-ride lots that are formal island- wide with designated signage and appropriate security that could potentially patrol those. We are out to bid for a security guard that would provide general security to the Mass Transit Agency. That would include riding buses, driving to Mass Transit Agency facilities, to ensure that things are safe and just basically can be the eyes and ears for transit system. These are things that FTA has been wanting transit agencies to make more aggressive with: safety and security related items. So park-and-ride lots are definitely on the list. Unfortunately we have a lot of unofficial locations and we want to start formalizing those locations where we have a grievance, so that they can have the appropriate signage and people can have that comfort that they leave their vehicle there that they'll come back and everything will be okay. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Because that is a concern that was raised. I guess some cars had disappeared or something. MR. ANDOH: And also, I want to add too, our transit hubs, as we build transit hubs they'll also be park-and-ride facilities as well on County-owned property. MR. RICHARDS: And timeline for that, are we talking this upcoming fiscal year, or a year from now? When are we talking? MR. ANDOH: Started the planning work this upcoming fiscal year, with construction to occur the year thereafter. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So we're looking at 2023-2024, when actual construction, that type of deal. Page 275 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. ANDOH: Correct. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Alright. You've worked real hard on branding and rebranding with the lehua blossom. When is this paint going on the buses? When do we see this? MR. ANDOH: I've prepared a draft bus-wrap RFP. That's right now being reviewed by Purchasing. And I'm just waiting for purchasing to be able to release that IFB (Invitation for Bid). So I'm hoping that will be done before June 30''. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So we conceivably could start seeing these buses painted alike within the summertime? MR. ANDOH: The summertime, yes. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. ANDOH: And so as a result, the funds for the wrapping versus putting it in this fiscal year, it's actually in next fiscal year's budget. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So wait till the July 1, date before you start—okay. MR. ANDOH: But we're at least getting the procurement done now so that we're ready to have the project start. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. ANDOH: And basically the entire Hele-On fleet, paratransit, fixed routes, support vehicles, will have the new lehua brand, so we have one consistent brand across the system. MR. RICHARDS: Which brings up another question. There's been some concerns, complaints about the—and I'm not sure if it's paratransit or aging services, getting basically our retirees, our kupuna to the doctors. And I know it's kind of a little bit a bridge between Mass Transit and Office of Aging. Are we coordinating these things, because I know in Waimea this is a problem? MR. ANDOH: Yeah. So we recently had meetings with Parks and Recreation and Office of Aging about this particular manner. And Office of Aging and Parks and Recreation, they're the suited departments for providing that service. So to prevent confusion, what we're going to be doing is restructuring our agreement with HCEOC (Hawai`i County Economic Opportunity Council), as part of the improvement to demand-response services that we're providing island-wide, and we're going to make it so that those services are open broadly to the general public in particular the rural areas of the island. And then for seniors that need like specific transportation needs, either that they can participate in the newly Page 276 FC-32 April 14,2022 restructured HCEOC program, which tentatively we're calling Hele-On Rural, or the can utilize Coordinated Services for the Elderly and then they'll be responsible for providing that transportation. We'll also continue to then promote our shared-ride program that's going to be expanded island-wide as well as if they have a disability that fundamentally prevents them from riding buses, our Hele- On Kakoa Paratransit Program. MR. RICHARDS: Timeline? MR. ANDOH: Timeline? We're in process of doing those now with full implementation starting next fiscal year. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So probably rolling out pretty well by end of summer? MR. ANDOH: I would say that, yeah. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Alright. MR. ANDOH: And if I may ask, if there are specific riders that are having transportation challenges, if you could refer them to my office and we can work with them on getting them the appropriate transportation. MR. RICHARDS: Your office or your cell phone? MR. ANDOH: Either or. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Alright. Actually I do appreciate that. I say that poking fun little bit. But we have some concerns that are not being attended to. So I'll follow up with them and contact you. Help them out through that. I think that touches on all the concerns I had. So I'll yield at this point, Chair. Thank you very much. I really appreciate all the work you've put into this. MR. ANDOH: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Ms. Kierkiewicz, go ahead. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Administrator Andoh, great to see you. Thanks for everything that you're doing. You're just a breath of fresh air and so energy. Really do support the additional personnel that you'd like to bring on to support all the amazing work that you're leading. I'll just say that I'm impressed by you, but I'm also worried about you spreading yourself so thin. You've really hit the ground running and I just want to make sure that you have adequate staff to support you in getting the Mass Transit Master Plan implemented. So I'll be supporting personnel for your office. Page 277 FC-32 April 14,2022 I also just want to take a moment to recognize the work that you've done in partnership with the Finance Department to remedy some of the grants management, establishing those policies and procedures to ensure that we are not in jeopardy of losing any of those grant funds. I think it was my first budget hearing where we discovered there was some potential mismanagement. And so just thank you for taking the time working with Director Sako to just resolve that. MR. ANDOH: Her team has been amazing to guide me with County processes and procedures, because they are definitely different from working on a traditional transit authority. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes they are. Director Sako is a wizard. I wanted to follow up on the shelter discussion. Glad to see that there's $300,000 being set aside to support ten bus shelters around the island. Love knowing that there are all these amenities that are part of it. How many folks can be—what's the capacity of people for it to serve? Five or ten or twelve? MR. ANDOH: Depends on the size of the shelter. But normally they could be five to fifteen. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. MR. ANDOH: So we're gonna be mindful of that as we place shelters at these particular locations on the island that we're putting the right size shelter for the facility at hand. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Perfect. Sounds great. Wanted to follow up on some constituent correspondence that we've been part of. Robert's Hawaii is currently one of our vendors and there have been some reports of, you know, driver's speeding through neighborhoods. Just wondering what are ways in which you're ensuring that our contractors are ensuring that the buses run on time but not, you know, speeding? MR. ANDOH: Of course. And for that particular issue we're actually going to schedule a meeting with that constituent to better understand the concerns. We've asked Robert's Hawaii to put more supervision out in that area. My understanding is they bought a radar gun and they'll be having their supervisor go out and monitor that area particularly to ensure that the driver's, both contracted Hele-On service as well as their contracted school bus services with DOE, are driving within the speed limits. We've also engaged the Police Department to also help provide additional patrols to ensure that our drivers are following the proper speed requirements. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks for that. Are there any devices that we can add to a bus to just kind of monitor the speed? Page 278 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. ANDOH: Yes. And actually as part of the proposal that Robert's Hawaii gave to the County in 2020, they offered to install a system called Green Road. And Green Road can track the buses as well as the speed of the buses and who's driving the bus. Right now it's on about 50 percent of the Hele-On fleet, and we're working with our Maintenance Department to get it on the balance 50 percent, so that system-wide we'll be able to better monitor drivers as well as the speed. And as well as our future AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) System that we're undergoing right now to install the fleet, they will also have that capabilities for us to see how fast the bus is going so county staff can be able to also monitor as well. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Great to know. Thank you. Last question. Pahoa Bus Hub, I think when you were last before us you had talked about being really close to finalizing contract, am I right, with a potential vendor. Are we there yet? MR. ANDOH: Yes. So I go the final contract back from Corporation Counsel yesterday. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Great. MR. ANDOH: With changes that they've accepted from the proposed consultant SSFM International. So that has been sent to them, awaiting execution, and I'll do the appropriate routing processes through the County and we'll get them on board ASAP. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. So an announcement is coming within the next few weeks once the contract is signed. And then they'll be able to start connecting with community on the EA (Environmental Assessment)process to identify ideal location for Pahoa bus hub, and what I'm also understanding is potentially co-locating with the library? MR. ANDOH: That is correct. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. MR. ANDOH: We did get the MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) from the library as well. And I'll be working on circulating that to Corporation Counsel for their review. And then we'll get that executed based on Counsel's authorization to allow us to have that MOA. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Really, really wonderful. That's great news. Please keep in touch with us in terms of when public meetings are being scheduled, because I know that a lot of residents really would like to provide some comment and direction throughout this process. MR. ANDOH: Definitely. Page 279 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks so much for everything. MR. ANDOH: What I could do is I could also schedule, coordinate with Committee Chair Lee Loy, maybe have another meeting with the Mass Transit and Public Works Committee next month and we could talk about the concerns that were brought up about ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) as well as the Pahoa transit hub implementation and management process. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Sounds great. Thanks for being here today. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Director Andoh, thank you so much for being here. I think like my colleague, Mr. Richards, you know, where we started when we started as freshman colleagues with an audit and then as Ms. Kierkiewicz mentioned about her first term with the grants from the federal government, you know, this department has transformed. And with your direction and leadership it's really exciting on where this actually provides a lot for our community. I just wanted to dive a little bit deeper into the grant that we have right now that provides free bus and the sunset of that, and the funds that you will look to, or fares you will look to implement at that time, is the first question. And then the second question, where those funds go and how you intent to kind of create that circular economy within the Mass Transit Division. MR. ANDOH: To answer your first question, the CRRSAA (Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations) funds, which was $4.5 million, that's being used to cover the deficit of approximately $560,000 in lost-fare revenue. And the CRRSAA funds are stored within the General Fund. And how we basically access those revenues is when we get our invoices from Roberts Hawaii, we then do a draw down with HDOT (Hawai`i Department of Transportation) for basically those funds. So basically it's covering 100 percent of the operational costs versus 50 percent of the expense and then the fare revenue, and then the 50 percent of the match revenue. Does that make sense? MS. LEE LOY: Absolutely. MR. ANDOH: Okay. So that will take us through December 31, of 2023. We are awaiting a memorandum of agreement with HDOT for $1.8 million in American Rescue Plan funds, which is my intent as I previously reported to come before Council to ask for an extension of the fare-free to December 31, 2024. And within that$1.8 million, which is 100 percent no local match, would cover the $560,000 deficit from loss fares that were not obtained. And those funds would also be stored within the General Fund. Those revenues are reflected in the General Funds budget Page 280 FC-32 April 14,2022 for upcoming fiscal year, because we anticipate the MOA should be here around June or early July timeframe. In relation to a new fare structure going forward, assuming Council authorizes us to extent to 2024, so starting January 1, 2025, we are working with Corporation Counsel on amendments to Chapter 18 that will have a more streamlined fare structure that will come before our transportation commission as well as this Council for ultimate approval. And then on January 1, 2025, that new fare structure will take into effect and will be done a manner to where it would increase to help sustain ridership, increase ridership, but also help spur economic recovery so that the fares are still affordable, but yet can cover any operation deficits that the agency may face. MS. LEE LOY: Great. Thank you. And then in addition to any rule adjustments or code adjustments, I know—and thank you for the invitation to sit in on your transportation committee—was a new language and new opportunities within the rules of the road that we're going to make adjustments to within Chapter 18. Eighteen right? MR. ANDOH: Correct. MS. LEE LOY: And then folding that in and dovetailing that together with the Mass Transit Master Plan, which is I think 2025, and then we'll have another five-year plan to take us to 2030, correct? MR. ANDOH: 2032. MS. LEE LOY: 2032. But we know GE ends at 2030. MR. ANDOH: Correct. MS. LEE LOY: What kind of thoughts are being given around ? MR. ANDOH: So that draft Master Plan is currently under development right now by SSFM. They are basically looking at two scenarios. One, if the GET (General Excise Tax) was to continue, how the agency will continue to sustain and if the GET was not to continue, what the General Fund and Highway Fund subsidy would be needed to continue operations. This document which will come before your committee, the Public Works and Mass Transit Committee again, for Council input would ask for direction on if this is going to be—if GET was not increased, this is going to be the proposed subsidy. Is this something that the Council wants to continue to do or should we structure the Master Plan document to make any adjustments to reflect what the County could potentially afford with not having a GET. Page 281 FC-32 April 14,2022 We are hopeful that with the investments that are being made with the Mass Transit Agency between now and 2030, we can build a case similar to what Honolulu has done with that permanent GET for their rail operations, that we can use that story to ask the Legislature that we need this GET funding to continue to sustain the transit so it can still remain that economic driver for this island. Because I have concern that if we did have GET and we had to make reductions, that the system won't be of value to many of our residents and our visitors. MS. LEE LOY: Right. And there's a lot of value in our transportation systems. Real quick, I'm just throwing it out there. For edits to Chapter 18, rules of the road; in parallel, I sponsored a code adjustment for sponsorship of our County assets. Are we looking at opportunities for Mass Transit to have similar like advertising opportunities as a way to maybe generate revenues or some coverage? MR. ANDOH: Yes. The proposed code amendments will discuss interior and exterior advertisements that will flow well with the brand that we have on the new buses so that we can generate that additional revenue, as well as even on assets as allowable under the HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes), like bus shelters and transit facility buildings. MS. LEE LOY: Great. Thank you. Thank you for always thinking ahead,just providing a lot of confidences for us that this department is really on the right track. Pun intended. MR. ANDOH: Thank you. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Mr. Richards, back to you. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. As soon as I released it I realized a couple other questions. So first of all, John, we've talked about some sort of app or something that people would be able to track where the bus is, so real time updates on where we are. Where are we with that? MR. ANDOH: So the GMV app has been completed. It's basically, myheleonbus.org, on the website. And I should say that's actually more of a website-based. They are in the process of developing the app, a branded Hele-On app that people would be able to download. Right now it's available on four buses that were purchased in 2019. It will be expanded into another four buses later on this year. And then it'll be expanded, as we buy new buses, we'll continue to install that system until all 55 buses have the system. We also have a partnership with a vendor called Moovit. And we're working on a partnership with Transit, which is basically what is called a mobility as a service Page 282 FC-32 April 14,2022 app. And this app allows for trip planning, real-time vehicle locator, being able to unlock and reserve HI-Bike, being able to get information on our overall agency services. And that app is available right now and is connected to the transit system. MR. RICHARDS: And that's called Moovit? MR. ANDOH: Moovit and Transit. So if you go to app store or google play and look for Transit or Moovit, you'll be able to download and be able to see the Hele-On system. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Appreciate that. So just to reiterate, for the real-time tracking, that will be implemented over time as the new equipment comes online. MR. ANDOH: Correct. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Drivers going forward as we purchase more buses, so it's are equipment. Are we going to be running our own buses or are we contracting with Robert's? MR. ANDOH: We'll still continue to contract with Robert's to provide the bus operator's, but they'll be utilizing county-owned fleet and not Robert's own fleet. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Are we going to have enough drivers? MR. ANDOH: Yes. Actually, we've been doing great on drivers. System-wide we're at about 72 bus operators. And that's kind of why we've not been able to implement all of the elements of the Master Plan, because we need a way for Robert's to get drivers to help us in being able to meet those service needs. MR. RICHARDS: But that is forth where we're not running into shortage? MR. ANDOH: Yes. MR. RICHARDS: Which folds into the next thing. I know you've been trying to work with Department of Education (DOE) in trying to help as we run through all that. Are those conversations ongoing? I know you and I need to catch up on some things. But working with not changing our schedule but just making sure we can help if we need to. MR. ANDOH: Yes. We've been engaging the Administrator for school bus transportation at DOE, and we just recently had some conversations with her on being able to help in providing some of those tripper services as needed as well as aggressively promoting what we have available with the existing Hele-On system. She started to reach out to the principals to let them know, based on a matrix that we put together, to show every route serving every school on island. And actually I Page 283 FC-32 April 14,2022 have a presentation to the principals in West Hawaii today about Hele-On service. So continuing that relationship. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, great. Glad you followed up on that. So again, thank you very much. And appreciate getting those—when you're talking about the bus shelters and the bus stops. I was going to say they're all in District 9, but just kidding. Okay. Appreciate that. Thanks. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Going back to Kona. Any more questions from Kona? MR. INABA: No, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you. Seeing no lights on in Hilo. Thank you very much, Mr. Andoh. You did a great presentation, very informative, very detailed as usual. I have a few follow up questions for you. I think about the Robert's, the Robert's contract. So it's $135 for a Robert's bus driver to drive their bus per hour. MR. ANDOH: $138, yes. $138 per hour. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: $138. It's $80 per hour for a county bus with a Robert's employee. MR. ANDOH: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What does it cost per hour for a county employee to drive a county bus? MR. ANDOH: That hasn't been calculated. If we were to use, we could do an analysis like that. But if we were to bring the operation in-house the cost could potentially be more than contracting out the operation. So we would have to prepare that analysis to see what that would look like. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Let me see, what drive is the Robert's contract? MR. ANDOH: When you say, "what drive is the Robert's contract like,"what is the mechanism on why we contract out the transit system versus in-house operation? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. MR. ANDOH: This has been a historical practice since the start of Hele-On system in October of 1975, where there's always been a contractor to operate the system. I think it's just historic county practices on this. There's nothing precluding us from Page 284 FC-32 April 14,2022 bringing the operation in-house like what the County of Kaua`i has done. But we do have to be prepared for additional operational costs as a result of making the transit system in-house. I do want to add that under HRS the wages of the contracted staff has to equal the wages as if they were county employees. So those drivers, even though they're contracted they're still making the same amount of money as if we had made them county employees. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. ANDOH: But we do get more synergies from a contracted operation such as the training abilities, the drug and alcohol compliance, and shared resources by having an operations contractor versus bring it in-house. Maui and Honolulu are two islands that contract out their transit operations as well. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Just would be interesting in understanding what the difference would be. If it's not worthwhile, it's not worthwhile. But always good to look at historical things to see if they're still good for us currently. MR. ANDOH: Definitely. I can work with Department of Finance to see just what would it be if we were to bring it in-house, what that cost would look like. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. And then I see a lot of big increases across the budget regarding the GE Fund. But you explained a lot of them. You know, you're moving towards doing vehicle decals within your printing budget and you're stepping up the amount of buses and so you're seeing associated costs with those. I want to check in on your Mass Transit OCE (Other Current Expenses). That's a pretty substantial change over the last three years. What are some of the big items that are going up there from theI mean $6.9 million in 2021, $11.1 million this year, and $19.5 this year. MR. ANDOH: Yes. I'll highlight all the major changes in the OCE accounts that you're aware. Starting with 104, there's increase to travel funds. And that's because as we procure buses we do need to visit the factories to ensure that the buses are being built properly, as well as participating in various training activities that cannot be covered under the HDOT Rural Transit Assistance Program (RTAP) Grant. Any conference or training that can be covered under RTAP we'll definitely pursue. And that would be charged in the General Fund account. As you recall, we've come to Council, increased that from $10,000 to $90,000, based on some of our recent activities. Printing has increased. That's because of increased marketing, a new riders guide, and vehicle decals for the transit system. Advertising has increased so we can start Page 285 FC-32 April 14,2022 promoting the Hele-On system and the Hele-On brand island-wide to visitors and residents. Equipment repairs have increased because there are times when we have to obtain maintenance vendors to do maintenance on some of the transit system's assets that cannot be done by county mechanics, such as maintenance of our destination signs, security cameras, our AVL system and other technology. We've increased repairs to facilities as we continue to improve our base yard and our Mo`oheau Bus Terminal. We are going to be making some modifications to water, gas, and sewer as well as electricity and fuel just because of the recent conflict that's going on that's causing energy prices to increase and we want to make sure that we have those costs appropriately covered. The biggest is the Miscellaneous Contract Services, the 115 account. And that's because Robert's contract significantly increasing, the new mobility programs that we're doing, making sure we have the appropriate federal match to match the grants that are in the General Fund, and procurement of professional services, scrapping and towing of buses as new buses get delivered, and purchasing technology to support the agency operations. The next line item that you'll see an increase is in Motor Vehicle Heavy Equipment and Parts. And that's to ensure that we have ample revenue for our replacement bus parts for our aging fleet. I anticipate that will start to come down as we buy new buses. That would be under warranty. Obtaining those relief and additional shop vehicles to support non-revenue operations, purchasing a gasoline fuel tank for our non-revenue vehicles to be fueled at the Hilo base yard, and then replacement security cameras and destination signs on buses where they're failing. And those are the significant changes that are in the OCE appointment account. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Equipment wise for buses, a lot of people are using different methods for transportation. Do all of our buses have bike rack? MR. ANDOH: Yes. The entire Hele-On fleet including the contracted Robert's provided fleet has bike racks. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. ANDOH: And the future buses, instead of having two bike racks, will have three. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Nice, nice. Then you mentioned it briefly, capital projects funds. Can you give me some ideas of what that transfer is going to Page 286 FC-32 April 14,2022 cover as far as that, the GE portion that went to Public Works, Mass Transportation? MR. ANDOH: I can speak more to the Mass Transit Agency. Maybe I could ask Director Sako to talk on the Public Works side. But as it relates to the Mass Transit Agency, going to the CIP, which I'll show on the screen, we have basically $300,000 on the bus shelters that would be from the Capital Project Fund; $625,000 for bus stop ADA compliance; $751,000 for zero emissions infrastructure; $125,000 that would be for Hilo maintenance facility expansion; and then $400,000 for bus stop signage, that would come out of the Capital Projects Funds particularly for Mass Transit. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Deanna, I'll follow up with the Public Works side after. Thank you. Thank you. MR. ANDOH: Okay. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Well Mr. Andoh. Thank you very much. I think you're doing a wonderful job in your position. MR. RICHARDS: Chair? Real quick. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Actually,just let me finish up. Thank you very much. Always a wonderful presentation, very detailed. Like Mr. Richards stated, you're just able to regurgitate the information, because you know it so well, in such a wonderful way. So mahalo. Thank you. MR. ANDOH: Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Yes,just a quick question. Wi-Fi on the buses, is that in the plans to have Wi-Fi on all the buses? MR. ANDOH: Yes. The GMV Syncromatic's system that we're starting to install. The first four new MCI coaches that are going to be delivered will have Wi-Fi and every bus that we buy thereafter will have Wi-Fi until the entire fleet has Wi-Fi. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. So same deal, as we get the new equipment we'll be installing the technology. MR. ANDOH: Correct. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Thank you. Page 287 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. ANDOH: I've debated about should we buy the technology now, retrofit them in these buses, and then remove them and put them in the new buses. And I just thought from a financial standpoint it just didn't make sense especially that we're trying to be aggressive with bus replacements to have the entire fleet replaced in two years. So that's why we haven't opted to retrofit the older buses with that. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. That's a good answer. Okay. Thanks, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Good question. Okay, seeing no further questions from the Council. Thank you very much, Mr. Andoh. Wonderful job. MR. ANDOH: Thank you for having me. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: We're going to take a brief recess and move over to Parks and Rec next. Recess: At 11:41 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 11:35 a.m. (3) Department of Parks and Recreation: CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. We're out of recess. Joining us at this time is the Department of Parks and Recreation. Director, if you would. (Note: At this time, Director Maurice Messina came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. MESSINA: Thank you, Chair. Maurice Messina. Director of Parks and Recreation. Also joined by Reid Sewake, our Business Manager, and Michele Hiraishi, our Deputy Director. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. Please proceed. There's no PowerPoint today, correct? MR. MESSINA: Correct. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So just go ahead when you're ready. MR. MESSINA: Okay. Thank you. Our overall proposed Operating Budget's $32.7 million this year. A slight increase over last year. My plan is to go through real quick about, you know, what we're dealing with in our department. I'm not going to rehash what the other departments have talked about, you know, about Page 288 FC-32 April 14,2022 shortfalls and everything that they're running into. I think that's been made perfectly clear. But I will get into a few details about a few of our divisions. Right now recreation is really opening up on our island. This last Monday was our biggest trash clean-up in the last few years. And what we're seeing is people are really getting out there and starting to enjoy the facilities. If our business is recreation, business is good right now. And so what we're trying to do is within our budget see what we can do to make sure that our facilities are maintained, trash is picked up, classes, recreation opportunities are out there, and our facilities are operating at maximum capacity. Right now our Fiscal Year 2023 position count is 568. We have 66 unfunded positions, which 25 are temporary positions. Right now our total funded positions are 430, and we have 55 vacancies. I will talk about the vacancies as we continue on through. These totals however don't include our Recreation Directors and Summer Fun folks, which will increase anywhere between 75 and 100 staff members during the summer. For our administration, we have an increase of about$1.8 million. A lot of that is due to our matching funds for matching appropriations for our FEMA alternate projects, because of the lava. We are also increasing our security at our facilities. Right now we are paying approximately $977,000 a year for security services. And I think that's between eight or ten facilities that's running at. We need security at other facilities. We need security at Bay Front. I have transferred security from Hale Halawai in Kona to Old Kona Airport, Kailua Park. And there was an increase in that because we had one security personnel, security guard at Hale Halawai, but I had to increase it to two for Old A's, because it gets kind of dangerous out there at night and just having one person out there is just not smart. We're running the West Hawaii golf subsidy program again out of our administration budget, $250,000. Everything that we're hearing, all the feedback, is that's working really well. We have no issues, no concerns. We continue to get better at it. We did run into a few issues this year with people being able to prove that they were a resident with expired licenses and such. But worked throughout all those issues. One of the new positions that we're creating or that's getting funded again in our department is our Information and Education Specialist. There's been a lot of talk about grant writing, how do we shore that up, how do we handle that in our department. This person is going to help us with the grant writing. Michelle is also a grant writer. But managing our department the way we are we just don't have the capacity right now to even go for those grants. We did get one this year. Thank you, Ashley, for your help with that. But there's a lot more opportunities out there for Parks and Recs in municipalities. And we need to find those funds. We're also going to be working with R&D (Research and Development) to make sure that we use the best of our abilities that we have. Page 289 FC-32 April 14,2022 We are also going to be, in-house, we're going to be bringing up hiring a draftsperson. We got an architect position that is unfunded—or not is unfunded, but that's open right now, and another Project Manager. What we're seeing with this, with our ADA projects right now, they're taking up about six days of work from each one of our project managers and it's really putting everything else that we have to the backburner,just so that we can get these mandated ADA projects going. With the addition of these staff members we'll be able to draft our own plans. We'll have an architect who can sign off on them. Get our Project Managers who can run the projects. And we'll be able to help, when we turn over those documents to DPW and Planning, we'll be a little bit ahead of the game. Parks Maintenance. It does sometimes feel like our department revolves around our parks maintenance. These are the guys out making sure every one of our facilities are up to standards that the public expects. We do see some costly increases with our portable restrooms, our tree trimming needs, and we have been deferring maintenance for a while for fumigation and termite treatments. We're bringing those back on line so that we can ensure that our facilities can maintain and last a little longer. We do have some equipment purchases that have been in our budget and equipment leases that have been in our budget for the last few years. With the FEMA funds that we're going to be using out of lava recovery money and alternate projects money, we feel that in our next couple year's budgets we're going to be able to decrease those leases in the rental of that equipment. Our biggest issue right now in Parks Maintenance is vandalism, homelessness. We had to shut down Kawamoto Pool this morning because somebody threw broken glass into the pool. The homelessness in the parks, the ones that are causing us issues are the ones that don't listen to the rules. It's the drug use, it's the alcohol use, it's the fights, loose dogs, and this is battle that we are battling with every single day. We get calls constantly. I can guarantee almost a daily call from the Hilo Canoe area, Old Airport area. We're doing our best. I'll tell you, HPD is really stepping up to help us. When we make the phone call, somebody answers. The community policing officers are just such a big help to us. We had about fifteen abandoned cars just in Hilo Bayfront last week and there's zero right now. So they've been a big help to us. I don't know what the future is going to be on our island. But I can tell you that we're establishing a taskforce, a homeless in our parks taskforce, to see what we can do. We're not going to solve the homeless problem ourselves. But how can we handle it at least in our parks and how can we ensure that our facilities are safe for everyone's enjoyment. Page 290 FC-32 April 14,2022 With the increase in our budget and our Parks Maintenance budget and just to give you an idea, the public an idea, when we came into office our Parks Maintenance Repair budget for 300 facilities was $425,000. We were able to get that up to $799,000 last year, and our proposed budget this year is raised at about $1,074,000. It's not where we need to be, but we are very appreciative of your efforts and helping us get at least to that point. That's going to help us with not just the maintaining of our facilities but a lot of projects that we do as far as electrical upgrades, LED lighting, fencing projects. We're dealing with a large feral pig, feral chicken population that's killing us. And so by fencing off those certain areas that we can, like Alae Cemetery, it's going to be better for us and we're just going to keep working through that. One of the things that I was trying to get to you folks by today was our maintenance plan for our department. I believe I was a bit naive in thinking I could do that by now. When I started looking at everything that's involved and then having a couple of meetings with our asset management team and listening to what DEM and DPW are doing, we started researching and seeing, "Okay, what's good for our department?" Our maintenance plan is not just a plan for simple maintenance. It's got to include all of our swimming pools, it's got to include the golf course, all of our cemeteries, our veterans cemeteries, all of our assets. We're very proud that we finally were able to submit to Council, it's coming up soon, a total list of all of our facilities. And that was a big undertaking. So we have a listing now of every one of our facilities, what's in these facilities, the restrooms, even all the way down to the backstops, what's ADA compliant, what's not ADA compliant. And when we start our asset management portfolio, that's going to be part of it, and we're going to be able to show exactly what we have, we're going to put it online so everybody can track our progress. Also a part of our maintenance plan is going to be an electronic work order system so that any of our staff can see where the work orders are and a very strong preventive maintenance plan. Right now that's where we're lacking the most and that's what's hurting us the most. Even though we're doing all that we couldn't do it without the public-private partnerships that we're doing right now. We're working with the public on Higashihara Park. We've got a hundred people out there. I believe Council Member Villegas was even out there on a work day. We were able to open up a Honoka`a swimming pool this week. We would not be able to do that without the public. We're working on a plan right now with some public members to shore up our Kohala swimming pool. We thing we've got a good plan and we can get that open soon. And we can keep it open until we get to our plan of actually refurbishing that whole facility. Pu`unui Park, we met with a whole group out there on Tuesday and community members, contractors were out there. They're going to help us fix up that park. Just a lot of parks that we're working on. And the community is really stepping up to help us. So we appreciate that. Page 291 FC-32 April 14,2022 We currently manage 13 cemeteries as well, including three veterans cemeteries. Right now our biggest budget issue that we have is our West Hawaii Veterans Cemetery, and that is because of water issues, water needs. It's a beautiful cemetery, and because of all the planting and everything that was done out there, there's water issues. We're working with the State Veteran's Cemetery Advisory Panel right now to see if there's a way we can dig a well out in West Hawaii Veteran's Cemetery. If we can do that, our costs are going to go down. Our Recreation Division, we got a slight increase for about$25,000 right now. And our budget is pretty good in this division when we look at our salary and wages, because we had a lot of people retire over the last year and a half, which is good. But it does leave a couple of gaps in professionals that have been in this department for quite a while and know how to run it. So we're showing that up as best as we can. We do have a small decrease because of the status quo budget. But for the most part the recreation division is running well. Part of that division is our Summer Fun Program. We're very excited to bring about 1,500 kids back into Summer Fun this year. That's going to be awesome. We do have some issues with funding of our transportation program as part of the Summer Fun. We feel especially in the rural areas these kids should be able to go on field trips, they should be able to go to the beaches. We're trying to be very sure that our Summer Fun Program is just not centered on Hilo and Kona, but in all our outlined areas. I think we have either 23 or 26 programs running this year, Summer Fun Programs running this year. Our Aquatics Division, Aquatics is probably one of our heaviest utilized and hardest to manage areas that we have right now in our department. We put increases in our budget for electricity, for SAN Media replacement, and things of that nature. We're also working with all of our pools to see if we can increase the hours of availability, the days of availability. We do have a bunch of folks that have been hired during the pandemic and have never seen a pool operate at its full capacity. In recreation alone we have numerous folks who are running large facilities and have never seen a facility at its full capacity. So it's a little bit of a learning curve there for those guys. We have NAS pool and Pahala pool going under ADA project renovations. I can tell you without these ADA projects I don't know how we would be able to maintain NAS pool. But that's going to be another pool in Hilo that we're going to be able to utilize. Ho`olulu Complex seems to be running well. We are seeing a tremendous need right now for usage of Ho`olulu Complex. We got the circus coming this week starting tonight. Right after that it's going to be Merrie Monarch. And then we have Little League is just blowing up all over the island. Rugby is blowing up. Pickle ball is out of control. Tennis. You name it. And so like when we think about like how can we provide more opportunities for everyone when we look at pickle ball. The issue that we're having is how do we bring those guys because Page 292 FC-32 April 14,2022 a lot of them are seniors, how do we bring them into our indoor facilities especially like in the Kona area. So we recently purchased a bunch of indoor pickle ball lines that are movable and they don't have to paint them or anything like that and that we can move around to the different facilities. What we're trying to do is we're trying to make it fair for everyone who wants to recreate not just the three or four major sports. So we're trying to do our best on that. Culture and Education. So we'll be bringing back the Hilo Bay Blast and the Kona fireworks full bore this year. We want to do the classic car show. We want to do everything just like it was before the pandemic to get folks out there and have them come and enjoy everything that we're doing. The 30'h Annual Cherry Blossom Festival will be coming back again. And small budget, small division. But they have a large impact on what we do. County Band. Running. No issues. Elderly Activities Division (EAD). We're doing fairly well here as well. We're bringing back all of our congregate meal sites. The Meals on Wheels is running fine. I'm working with Horace (Farr) in Office of Aging. They're providing a lot of services to us. We do work with Office of Aging, Mass Transit, Civil Defense, and all these other agencies in a lot of the things that we do. But one of our most important is our kupuna, and the programs that we're running for that seems to be working well and I don't have any issues right now with that. Pana`ewa Zoo. We finished our $10 million project. It's going up. It's looking good. We're in the process of hiring our Zoo Administrator. We just hired our Zoo Supervisor from internal. We have some good candidates. And as soon as we can get that going we will. We see the zoo really stepping up through education, getting more kids out there, getting more programs out there, night time zoo, early morning feeding hours, things like that, that are really exciting for kids. So we want to get that going too. And lastly, the golf course. Golf course is doing pretty good. We got a couple of revenue streams that are starting. The restaurant is going full bore now. We're finalizing the contract for the golf course pro shop, which is also good. Those are good revenue generating sources. And the other large revenue generating source that we're working on is Gilbert Kahele Park. We're working with DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources) to get it taken out of the forest reserve. And as soon as that happens we can open up our concession RFP and we can star-gazing. Also this fiscal year we'll have our plan together for a fee schedule for our swimming pools. And we're going to start the work on our fee schedule for our Pana`ewa Zoo. That one's going to be probably next year because we're going to have to hire a couple more people in next year's budget to run that program. Page 293 FC-32 April 14,2022 Other than that, that's a brief overview of what we're looking at. Positions are good. It does look like, you know, with those 50-plus positions, a lot of them are entry level positions that we're hiring, because we are doing our best to promote from within as we can. And we also have a lot of open positions in our Elderly Activities Division. A lot of that is drivers and such, and part time positions. And ready for your questions if you have any. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Director. I'll start here in Hilo. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chair. Director, thanks. You know, I really wanted to walk back to that needs assessment and our asset management, because we're sitting here listening to everybody else also with needs for their physical assets. And so what I heard you say is we now have an inventory by TMK and all the different assets that's going to be coming over to the Council. And so we can use that as a foundation to start assessing the different assets and the conditions of it. Is that the goal? MR. MESSINA: Yes. Correct. MS. LEE LOY: So building off of that, have we begun to prioritize them in any way shape or form, using besides the good, fair,poor, assessment. We're still trying to figure that out. As far as its relationship to community or we have a conversation with Civil Defense, right, as it being a facility for sheltering. Has any thought been given to that? MR. MESSINA: Yes. Even when we're looking at like the possible replacement of Papa`aloa Gym and how we're going to do that. For us my understanding is we're the only county in the state that its Parks and Rec Department is running the emergency shelter systems, or partnering with Civil Defense to handle those. We are looking at the plans for, like Talmadge said, hardening of Hisaoka Gym. Right now the only hardened facility we have that's a Park and Rec asset is Pahala Gym. We are going to continue to work with Civil Defense. We think it's important. We're now looking all the way from Hilo all the way out to Kohala and around to Waimea. There's not really any hardened facilities other than a few DOE facilities here and there, and they're far and few in between. So right now we're going to continue with the practice of, you know, our office getting to DOE facilities when an incoming storm or something like that happens. And then our facilities turn into post impact facilities. But it's a lot of money to harden a facility. We're very happy that Civil Defense and Planning Department has come up with a plan for Hisaoka Gym. But Ka`u Gym alone,just to create a hardened facility is $17-$25 million. Page 294 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. LEE LOY: Okay. You know, because we're looking at the budget. We understand the function. Function drags form. We get the people cutting the grass, cleaning the bathrooms. But we're also trying to set you up for the bigger needs, right, fixing the assets. When we start looking at new facilities or hardening facilities is there any request to the cost of maintenance once it's rehabilitated, and if there's a way to begin to forecast a maintenance plan. MR. MESSINA: Yes. So if we look at Hisaoka Gym, one of the planning components of that is, okay, if we do this hardening what's going to be the cost increase for maintenance and repair. So that's one of the first things that we talk about. You know, there's been practices where facilities have been built and we haven't given anything to take care of those facilities. So it was really good having that conversation with the Planning Department and that being the biggest part of the conversation. What is this going to mean for your maintenance and repair budget? MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. I think that's where so much of the money we're trying to secure, right. We have money for salary and wages and doing all that other stuff. It's the planning and the maintenance. So around, you mentioned adjusting the fee structure for different facilities, are we looking at adjusting fee structures for the use of gyms and ballparks also? MR. MESSINA: Not at this time. If we were going to adjust anything it would be the security deposits. Like it has been brought up that we should increase the fees for our pavilion rentals and stuff, things of that nature. I don't necessarily agree with that. I believe that a lot of our pavilion use and rentalsI mean, it's not necessarily the richest people in the world that are coming to use those facilities. I would like to keep that where it is. I do want to increase, like I said, some of the deposits. But I don't want the cost of our facilities to be a deterrent to a family that doesn't necessarily have the means to be able to come out and do a first birthday parry or something like that. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Sure that. So then that walks me into the sponsorship agreement. Where are we with the utilization of the sponsorship agreement in an effort to help rehabilitate some of the park assets? MR. MESSINA: So we're currently in the talks of two sponsorship agreements. One is at KCAC (Kona Community Aquatics Center)pool. There's a conglomerate that wants to come in, you know, for the $20,000 minimum and help with the starting blocks and a few other things. That one's a little tricky and little dicey because there's a lot of people putting in small pots of money. So we want to make sure that when that comes to you folks for review that we have a good plan in place. The other one is DJ, the dive coach. We were actually emailing just this week about sponsorship. This really needs to be a push. And I'm really counting on our Information Specialist, when they come in, to assist with this. This is one of those things where our capacity right now, we just don't Page 295 FC-32 April 14,2022 have it. Just managing of the people and the personnel and the facilities is putting us behind. But we are working on a couple, yes. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Fifty-five vacancies in your department? MR. MESSINA: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Have you prioritized them? MR. MESSINA: Yes. Right now our biggest priorities is filling our supervisor positions. A lot of these vacancies, for instance, I think we have 13 in our Elderly Activities Division, and we have a lot that are entry level positions in our Parks Maintenance, Park Caretakers, Laborers. The one's that we need to prioritize first are our parks Project Coordinators, our Information Specialists, the Maintenance Worker at our zoo, and Lifeguards. Lifeguards is our biggest issue right now. But we don't have as many openings as people would think. I mean, we've got two new lifeguard positions, but we also have people out on sick leave, maternity leave, and we also have people that need to take vacations. So we're working through priority. Right now my biggest priority is trying to get our Zoo Administrator done. Because once we do that it's going to free up Michelle, free up some of her hours. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. You know, I like that idea of prioritizing the zoo, only because I think that is a gem for us and an economic opportunity, whether it be with the fees, visitors, kids. And Council Member Richards and I actually toured a zoo in Atlanta. And the ability to have sponsorships within the zoo is huge, where we could actually see that become an asset begin to take care of itself. I probably have a lot more questions, but we can take them offline and just go ahead and listen to the rest of my colleagues. MR. MESSINA: But I will agree with you on the utilization of the sponsorship program. That is one of our biggest shortcomings right now, is the ability to do that and the ability to get it off the ground. And so we really need to get moving on that. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. We traveled a bit and really, these parks across so many other municipals are really being couched with a lot of private funding. And that sponsorship agreement could really help get our assets back to some fair conditions rather than some of where they're at with the poor conditions. And I really want to see a lot more funding get focused into the KCAC Pool, for the starting blocks for the kids. You know, if we want to set our kids up for success, they need those tiny little tools to, you know, get scholarships and go to college and have good paying jobs. MR. MESSINA: Agreed. Page 296 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. LEE LOY: Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Going to Kona. MS. VILLEGAS: Yes please. Thank you, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Ms. Villegas, go ahead. MS. VILLEGAS: Alright. Aloha, Mo and your fantastic team. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the time you've taken all year actually, to talk about a lot of the park projects in District 7. It's been a joy to see you at the Higashihara Park workdays. I think that that's just a really shining example of community groups and Friends of the Park agreements who show up and put in the sweat equity and bring the resources and turned it into a really great day. The generations of people who've been able to enjoy it when they were children and now their children or grandchildren are enjoying that facility. Couldn't do that without your support and without your team and your staff, which have been fantastic. Also super excited about the projects at Wai`aha and the planting. And moving forward, thank you again for your kindness and collaboration in working with some of these new opportunities with partnerships, public and private funding, to put in those blocks at the Kona Pool and get that facility operating at its full capacity. Thank you to the community members who are standing up and getting in line for some of these sponsorship opportunities. Also really excited in this year as Parks and Rec will be transitioning away from utilizing any products. Already I know you use minimal, minimal. But getting a weed steamer online and I'm just really grateful forI mean everything goes, it seems really slow but then when it picks up it really goes. Your leadership, your visioning, your support of your team and providing them the equipment that they need, the guidance, the training, and I just want to speak on behalf of District 7 and say mahalo to you and your incredible maintenance guys. Jay has just done a really great j ob. So I'm really looking forward to this new fiscal year and this increase in resources and how we can collaborate and match funds to help things to go that much further and then ideally replicate the templates that get put into place and processes and procedures, which are challenging. You know, some of them are still new and trying to figure out the best way to do it. But then those could be replicated even in our more rural areas where the funding just, you know, the pools. And anyway more diversified distribution of resources to ensure that we are taking care of our facilities island-wide, and all of our people. So thank you for every effort that you continue to make to make sure that happens. Appreciate it. I yield. Page 297 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. MR. INABA: Chair? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes, Mr. Inaba. Go ahead. MR. INABA: Thank you. Director Messina, thank you so much for the presentation. Just a quick question regarding the golf subsidies. Are we using all of those subsidies here in West Hawaii every year, or do we have extras, what the situation with that? MR. MESSINA: Yes. For the most part I believe we had—Reid, it was just at Makalei, right? Yeah. Makalei. I don't know if we used 100 percent last year. But right now we're on pace to use 100 percent. MR. INABA: Okay. And then what about Waikoloa? MR. MESSINA: Yup. We're still on pace. We used 100 percent last year and it's looking good again this year. MR. INABA: Are we using 100 percent with months left in the budget or in the budget fiscal year? You know, I'm wondering if we have enough of those subsidies here for the community. MR. MESSINA: I'm going to let Reid take this one. (Note: At this time, Business Manager Reid Sewake came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. INABA: Let me just say it's just from the point of I know golf is expensive on this side. I don't golf personally, but I just wanted to make sure that there's some equity across the County and opportunity even in East Hawaii to come out this way as well. MR. SEWAKE: $250,000, they have budgeted for the program. We split it up to two golf courses as of last fiscal year. So Waikoloa has been able to exhaust their rounds pretty quickly. Usually by the 10h or I Ph of the month it's fully exhausted. Makalei, it takes them roughly one month. So I guess if you look at it that way it's not enough funds. But, you know, it is helpful for the community out there. MR. INABA: Okay. So we're allocating those subsidies on a monthly basis with a certain because I know it's per year we have, what, 1,200 rounds at Makalei, but we break that down by 1,000 rounds per month. Page 298 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. SEWAKE: Yes. It's divided equally per month. That's just the way we had the contract written up. MR. INABA: Okay. Alright. I'll follow up with you folks about that. Thank you so much, Mo, Michelle, Reid, for all you folks do for the community. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Come back to Hilo. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. Thank you, Mo. This is just a continuation of one conversation we had, and I appreciate what you guys are doing for District 9, sure, but actually the whole county, because it's needed everywhere. I wanted to focus in on something that Council Woman Lee Loy was talking about, the sponsorship. And we have the enabling legislation that allows us to do this. And again, for most Council Members, when you travel now you look at things a little bit differently. You look at things from a civic perspective and how do they get things done and then how do they afford to get things done. And what Sue brought up about sponsorship—and I can see where our zoo could be a revenue generator. Fund itself, but actually probably contribute for your maintenance budget. How do we as a body help you move that forward? Because they had, you know, healthcare sponsoring stuff, and private businesses sponsoring the panda cage and things like that. So how do we do that? It's not a cage, it's a display. But how do we help you? MR. MESSINA: So I have these meetings and, you know, I get texts from folks and emails and phone calls from folks, "Well, such and such person wants to help you guys." "Such and such person wants to see what they can do." And sponsor this and sponsor that. All I ask is if that happens just send them to me. You know, there's that sponsorship agreement, it's not as simple, right. It's got to come through County Council. The money has to come through the County. There's some folks who want to give the money for a nonprofit instead of actually going through the sponsorship agreement. They look at the sponsorship agreement like it's a very daunting task. If you look at it, it's not that hard. As far as I'm concerned it's not hard at all. And in fact the one that we're doing right now with KCAC Pool, $20,000 minimum, right. And we talked with Corporation Counsel just yesterday and they said, "You know what, no, if these guys, like four or five people want to give $5,000, and they want to put a sign or a sponsorship or something like that. That's all great." Our problem right now is I just don't have the capacity to pursue that. You know, come July when I have that information specialist that comes out, we're going to be able to do a lot more. But right now, I mean right now, in our department we're building as we're sailing the boat. We've got so many issues that, you know, if somebody tells me, "You know, I've got$50,000 to take this." First thing I look at is, with that$50,000, is that better to better Page 299 FC-32 April 14,2022 something, or I've got a bathroom that I've got to close out because I don't have the $50,000. I think the sponsorship program is great for the swimming pools, it's great for the golf course, it's great for the dragstrip those real fast cars, and even the Pana`ewa Rodeo Arena, the Honoka`a Rodeo Arena. I mean the capacity is there. What we've got to do is we've got to make sure that this one of our park priorities. And just like I told Council Member Lee Loy, this is a priority. We've just got to figure out a way to just put the time and effort in and to make it happen. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. And where I'm going with that is not so much for that facility, but to remove the financial burden of whatever facility to allow you to use that funding in other places to take care of the bathroom or whatever the case may be. Just a question. I don't know, Reid, you might have the answer, but Deanna's here. Deanna, we set up the situation where a donation's coming to the County, that is a tax deductible donation. And Deanna is nodding her head, yes. So direct donations for a specific project can be listed as a tax deduction for people. So we have the metrics in place to get this done. Alright,because again, you and I've discussed and I think the number you gave me was if we could write you blank check, how big would that check have to be to fix everything? And you said $50 million. So that tells us where we are with the status of our repair and maintenance. And we've got to make a shift for the community. And I'm hoping that we'll have some of this infrastructure money, somehow we can get it to you. Because to me, Parks and Rec is infrastructure. That's the health and wellbeing of our community, which is infrastructure. Okay, I appreciate it, Mo. And there's other things. We can talk story, but we don't have to take up Council time. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Ms. Kimball, I think you were next. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Director, for being here. And Reid and Michelle. Just kind of tying off of Council Member Richards. First of all, let me go back. Thank you guys. Thank you for the pool. I don't know if you folks have heard, but Honoka`a Pool is finally reopened. Really wonderful partnership between you folks and the community. I really appreciate the open-mindedness to make it all happen and it was great to see some of the pictures. So let me start there. And, you know, we're continuing to work on the issue at Papa`aloa Gym. But I'm a little concerned about the grant writing issue tying into what Council Member Richards had said, and how much time you'll actually have, Michelle, when you're done being the Zoo Manager, to fill that. We've talked about this with some of the other departments, about having at least a part-time grant person. Page 300 FC-32 April 14,2022 We know there's going to be support coming from R & D (Research and Development). But when I look at all of the other departments, I mean Public Works obviously has a lot of facilities that they have to deal with. But you folks, I mean just in Hamakua, my concern is particularly Hamakua. We have so much reaching end of life. I mean Papa`aloa is just kind of the tip of the iceberg. We have `O`okala been closed. Hakalau closed. It's concerning to me. And so talking about, you know, thinking about that do you think once you're back on line, Deputy, to work on more of your Deputy capacity that that's going to be sufficient to work on getting some of this infrastructure money? And you can answer that for her. MR. MESSINA: Well that and the information specialist that we have coming in, in the next fiscal year, right. So they're going to be, you know, Michelle's going to be tied at the—or that person is going to be tied at the hip with Michelle. MS. KIMBALL: So you're looking at the information specialist as sort of a mix between Cherise over at DPW and a grant writer? MR. MESSINA: Correct. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Fantastic. MR. MESSINA: You know, Reid and I even had a conversation about it, about making sure that we're sending this person out, you know, to get the training. And then working with R& D and just having because even though R & D does have these grant writers coming up, actually having our own in our department, which is—and we're looking at, at least 50 percent of the capacity of this person as going to be grant writing. And it's super important that we have somebody in our office that's just a couple cubicles away that we can task with this. Michelle has written grants her whole career. And having this person that can come in, and not only assist Michelle but everybody in our department, understands exactly where we need this money to come from, it's going to be a big deal for us. MS. KIMBALL: With that in mind and the level of funding that's out there at the federal level, does it makeI mean you said you're interviewing folks for the manager position. I mean how close are we to actually filling that to free up your deputy's time? MR. MESSINA: We'll know end of the month. We've already went through one round. We did offer the position to someone, but they ended up turning it down because they had another opportunity. And so we have one more person left on our eligibility list. And at the end of the month we're going for that one as well. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. I mean I think the sooner the better. We can get you into doing that. I'm sure you're probably good working at the zoo. The other question I had, so when we did our budget preview meeting we talked a little bit Page 301 FC-32 April 14,2022 about a long-term strategic plan. And you said you had found one from a previous administration and were just reviewing it to see if it was still applicable. Is that, you know, kind of tying into what Council Member Lee Loy was saying about having a plan for all this long-term maintenance and facilities assessment, is that previous assessment plan looking like it's applicable or are you going to have to start fresh? MR. MESSINA: We're definitely using some of it. But, you know, we were able to find an audit from 2011 about maintenance and repair. And then two weeks ago we had a national cemetery training. And they also gave us a bunch of information that we're going to be able to use. For our usage, the strategic plan that we're currently operating with is okay. But we need something that's really deep in the woods that tells us about every one of our facilities, what the capacity of every one of our facilities are. Even though it sounds good, you know, these are all the things we're going to do. We're going to make sure that we have a reduced amount of—what's the best way to say it? There's a lot of things in there that are really nice to look at. A lot of really cool words. But that's not what's making us go to what we need. We need something that we can open up that we can put on our website that people can look at. If somebody's in a district they can say, I can look at all the assets in my district. I can tell you exactly where they are, what's wrong with them. They can look and they can see, okay, I can tell in a year in a half there's going to be a full painting of this gym, or this pavilion is going to be redone; the roof's going to be fixed. Niceties of words in our strategic plan is great. But we need actionable items. And that's our goal. MS. KIMBALL: I agree 100 percent. And so did the previous strategic plan grow out of that 2011 audit? MR. MESSINA: No. MS. KIMBALL: No. Okay so there's room to move from the audit even though that's ten years old now there's probably room to MR. MESSINA: If you were to look at that audit it's like it was written yesterday. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Okay. Is that something maybe we can have a presentation on, like a high level overview of what some of the findings were from that audit? Or maybe you just want to share the whole document with the Council. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. The document's online. But I can email it to all you folks. Page 302 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KIMBALL: That'd be great. Okay, thank you. You guys don't have a GI (Geographic Information) Special Analyst, you don't have a GIS person, right? MR. MESSINA: No we do not. MS. KIMBALL: I am going to suggest that strongly tying into the conversation we just had and the comments you just made. Because all of those data sources are spatial. And looking at all of the other departments, there's Planning has a GIS, DPW (Department of Public Works) has GIS, Real Property Tax has GIS. Now we have two more GIS people coming into IT (Information Technology). You're starting to see a theme here where if we want to share data inter- department, GIS is a good platform for making sure that everybody's using consistent vocabulary as well as thinking about the way that you want to present the information to both us within the County and to the public. Thinking about managing the workflow and thinking about, okay, if you're going to plan your time for your maintenance officers, and they know what they need to do, what facility, you can actually map that out, a daily-weekly basis to the most of their time; all that stuff. So I'm going to suggest before the next budget comes back to us either, you know, maybe getting some time from one of IT's two new GIS Specialist or moving some positions around to open a GIS Specialist in Parks and Rec. I think that would be really important; one, to capturing the data about the facilities; but for the long-term planning. Especially the shelter access. MR. MESSINA: So right now Civil Defense, Josh Blacken and Asia from DPW were working to make sure that all of our sheltering facilities are in GIS. And just last week we sent the schedule of all of our parks to Planning and they're actually working to help us with that as well. So we're actually, you know, other departments are helping us. MS. KIMBALL: Well step one is getting them all in there; step two is leveraging it. And that's where you need at least probably a half time, I would suggest. Because it's an extremely powerful tool. MR. MESSINA: You're getting no arguments from me. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. So suggestingChair, one more question. So you mentioned the initial fees for pools and other things. Is there going to be a way that lower income folks can actually have those fees waived and would you consider raising the fees for facilities rentals if there was also a way to waive that expense for like the folks you said can't afford to do their first baby luau? Is that something you'd consider? MR. MESSINA: Well right now none of our rentals are very expensive. I think they're very affordable right now. And even when we look at our pools, we Page 303 FC-32 April 14,2022 would like to do something like we did with the golf course. You know, over a three-year period we started off very low and then by the time we were done, after three years, and the last increase I believe was January, right, you know, we were able to raise the green fees and everything. And I think doing it incremental is our best way to do it. Even if we just start off at say one dollar, you know, for people to use, you know, the public. And then maybe the next year it goes to two dollars, maybe the next year it goes to $2.50. But there are all kinds of ways. You know, like children, families, family discount days, all that other stuff. We can figure it out. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. I was actually—rather than a waiver from the current fees from facilities rentals if we did consider raising them somewhat, because I think we could if we also offered a discount for folks that needed that discount. Just want to it out there for consideration. I'll yield my time now, Chair. MR. MESSINA: And so, you know, our pool usage is so heavy that it's going to make a good revenue source for us,just the pools themselves. We don't have to charge an arm and a leg to really reel out some good revenue out of it. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Thank you, Mr. Messina. Ms. Kierkiewicz, go ahead. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Great to see you, Director, Deputy, Reid. And just mahalo nui for your continued partnership. Really enjoyed reading through your program highlights and objectives. Thanks for your partnership on the resilience hubs initiative and everything that you've been doing to support Puna, especially following the 2018 flow. You've been really creative and innovative. And so thank you for just taking that step with us. I would be remissive if I didn't say that I wish a bit more of the $4.9 million that we've received from the federal government was going to support Puna directly. But fully understand that you have a responsibility to take care of your parks crew and ensure that they have everything that they need to do their job successfully. They've got a very difficult job maintaining all of these parks and facilities. So seeing that that's a very strategic investment that's going to, I think, open up more funding that can be used elsewhere, as well as just helping with the general preventative and maintenance of facilities. You know, Council Member Lee Loy and I have been working with you folks and other department heads on the asset management system. And I just wanted to elevate, because you now have that inventory—and I can hear Council Member Kimball in wanting to have somebody to kind of lead that through. But I think at the end of the day it's your Parks Maintenance folks who intimately know each of these facilities and sites that are going to be really helpful in terms of tracking the continuous condition of these facilities. What sort of training is going to be Page 304 FC-32 April 14,2022 needed to ensure that they're properly documenting the work that they're doing to maintain sites and facilities, but also to report to you when things need to happen? MR. MESSINA: I think that the first step from having this asset management piece is that we actually bring in a consultant to go through every one of our facilities. Right now all of our folks are they're just stretched thin. We have three plumbers for the entire island, two electricians for the entire island. And a lot of our facilities have to deal with the electric and the plumbing aspects of it. I feel that we need to bring someone in to help us grow and enter into that database, and then train our folks on how to interact with it, you know, get whatever, you know, is it iPads that we need, whatever they think we need. And we have a lot of younger folks, even in Parks Maintenance that are coming up in through the ranks. And I feel that it's not going to be easy. When I listen to DEM (Department of Environmental Management) and DPW, you know, especially for DEM they even have their own GIS person, but it's still taking them a couple years to get where they're at. But I think that if we're going to do something like that we need to bring somebody else in that can work on their own,put all of our information about what do our facilities look like, what are their categories, and then train our folks on it and then just step on from there. How long is that going to take? I don't know. Just listening to what DEM and DPW said, I would say we're still a couple years from not from the maintenance plan, but the asset management piece. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. And your budget, I don't think kind of reflects you guys making that investment right now, yeah. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. Not yet. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Would you be open to exploring some kind of amendment so that you can take action next fiscal year or you just realistically don't feel you have the bandwidth to take that on? MR. MESSINA: I think that if we were to bring in someone to actually MS. KIERKIEWICZ: A consultant to set the baseline. That would be helpful. MR. MESSINA: Yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Thank you for that. MR. MESSINA: Build our database for us. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. I also read in here that you're looking to better track the complaints that come in and resolve for them. How is that being handled so far? What do you envision for that system? Page 305 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. MESSINA: So right now we have just like any other customer service oriented, you know, business or department. A lot of the complaints come in from the Mayor's Office. The Mayor's Office sends them to us, we track them, we answer the complaint, we deal with it, and we send it back to either the Mayor's Office, we send them to whatever division it is, and internally we handle it like that. DPW has a great, for lack of a better word, complaint system that we like, that we would like to utilize. Because even when we're building our maintenance plan and our strategic plan, knowing exactly where because like if we were able to go and look and we say, "Okay, in this last month we had 15 complaints because of Laupahoehoe Point." We say, "Okay, now we realize that there's something going on Laupahoehoe Point." Something will prod us to say we need to go out there and take care of that. If we're just sitting inside of our own offices and we're trying to determine by ourselves what the issues are, that's one thing. But actually having the community come out and say, "You know what, this is what we're noticing as users of these facilities. I think that having those, for lack of a better word again, complaints or suggestions, I think a lot of our maintenance goals and our strategic plan needs to be guided by that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Thank you. By our park users, yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Mo. Looking at the budget as it relates to our aquatic centers, is there enough money in there? I just want to make sure, you know, say with Pahoa Pool, that the pumps are being changed out when they need to be so that we're not having to do any pool closures. Just wanting to make sure. Is there enough money in the budget to take care of all of all our aquatic centers? And if not, I need to know because Pahoa was hosting the state swim championship, which I wish the County was more supportive of. I think we can do a bit more to coordinate with some of these community groups so that we're showing up strongly to support them, to kind of just celebrate how wonderful it is to be hosting that kind of convening. So really what more is needed? And don't be shy. Deanna's not in the room. MR. MESSINA: You know, in fact Deanna and I have conversations about our Aquatics Division. It is our most expensive thing that we have. You know, not just the electricity, but, you know, you were talking about pumps. I mean there's a lifespan on the pumps. You know, the SAN Media replacement, electricity, the chemicals. Chemicals are killing us as well. We are able to more or less maintain what we've got. But if we have one issue at one pool, we're going to be borrowing from Peter to pay Paul within our own department. That's the best way I can say it. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I know. And so I'm just trying to understand how much more do you need so that you don't have to do that. And we can talk offline about what that looks like. Because these are incredible resources. I know that Page 306 FC-32 April 14,2022 prior to the pandemic, Allie and I were trying to figure out how to do these night time pool parties, which I think is just another way that we can be leveraging those assets. And they don't always have to be free. I think some nominal fee to just kind of support the continued maintenance of those assets. So let's talk a little bit more about it. Let's see here. Homeless. I know that a lot of your folks are having to deal with issues, gifts from folks experiencing homelessness. And so I wonder if this question is maybe more appropriate for Director Sako. But the Council did pass Bill 125, related to supporting homeless and housing initiatives. And I just wonder if this might be an opportunity to support some of the work of Parks and Rec Maintenance folks as well as Public Works General Services, right. Just the other day some guy was out here of our Council Building, naked, defecating. Seriously, right. And so I want to make sure that our County employees have what they need to respond appropriately. So Director Sako, is that something that we can be taking a look at to support Parks, Public Works, in some homeless initiatives? (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna S. Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. SAKO: Good morning. Yes. That's something we can look at. Housing is coming up, you know, after the break as well to talk about the homelessness issue. But Mo is putting together a team as well, as he mentioned earlier, to address the issues in the parks. So we can go back to the bill and see how that looks. But given that it was rather broad in nature I would think we should be able to use some of that funding to address those issues. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Some homeless response initiatives. Yeah, we would be interested in seeing what that kind of program would look like. MR. MESSINA: You know, I can tell you that—and I've got to say this for some of our maintenance folks. If we're looking in Hilo, we're looking in Kona side, and some other places as well. For Hilo, a lot of our parks maintenance guys are spending about 80 percent of their time to clean up after the homeless. And that's a large chunk of their time. Because of all the theft and vandalism, we can no longer even keep cleaning supplies at Hilo Bay Front. We can no longer keep cleaning supplies at Mo`oheau. We can no longer keep cleaning supplies at Coconut Island, because we're just constantly getting broken into. You know, in the middle of the night what's happening is in our parks they're unsafe areas. That's the reality. Not here to sugarcoat anything like that. And it's not just, you know, there are homeless out there who are having issues and having problems. But there are also some dangerous folks out there with mental illness, alcohol, drug addicts, that they're living in our parks. I've spent some time going to Oahu and looking at the parks over there. And if that is—and I'm Page 307 FC-32 April 14,2022 just doing everything I can. And luckily I've got the administration. I got Deanna behind me and Susan (Kunz) behind me make sure that our parks don't turn into the scariest zone in all the County, because that's where they're living. They're living in our parks. And even when we trespass someone because they're doing something illegal, what am I doing? I'm pushing them to another park. Or I'm pushing them into the alcoves and the vestibules of business owners. So it's one of those things to where I'm glad that there is some money going towards the homelessness. And I know Susan's been working really hard about what can she do because we're probably the biggest effect of homelessness in our county, is in our parks right now and it's spreading out. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you for not sugarcoating it. I think we really need that honest assessment so that we can determine what are the best sort of treatments, preventative response ones, that can be initiated by the Housing Department. Chair,just one more thing, if I might? Thank you. On the grant writing, Michelle, thank you. Can I share with them? Okay. So we went after another federal grant. We just got awarded by the National Endowment of the Arts to fund a project that actually benefits several county departments. We're looking at diverting some waste plastic. So working with DEM, and using a shredder injection molding system to create a new plastic material and turning that into functional playground equipment that will be installed County Parks island-wide. So really excited that NEA (National Endowment of the Arts) has selected our project. And I just want to say, you can write a grant but it's more than that. Once you get awarded, you should be scared. Because there's a lot of reporting, there's a lot of implementation that comes with that. And so fully support, you know, increasing capacity to write grants. But just want everybody to be aware of there is so much that's needed to actually take these ideas and make them a tangible reality. So just cautionary tale, right. All possible. Lots of money out there, but we want to make sure that we have the correct staffing and community partnerships to really make sure that we can implement and deliver. That way we can go after more federal funding. So fully support everything you folks are doing. Thanks for your presence today. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks, Chair. Mo, I forgot to ask. First of all, Ms. Kierkiewicz, you asked about the pumps and the funding for that. I can answer that one. The answer is no, because we're working on a problem in Kohala right now, and Mo did get the funding, $500,000, for planning and getting things going. But it's a $5 million fix. And we don't have that funded as of yet. But being creative. Page 308 FC-32 April 14,2022 Mo, I meant to ask you, I have a constituent asking about the Junior Lifeguard Program. Where are we with that? MR. MESSINA: We're bringing it back. Yes. And well right now there's a Junior Lifeguard Program that's happening in Oahu. And so we've contacted Waylen at HR and he's because one of the issues, one of the current concerns that has been brought up in the past was, you know, the fingerprinting for underage lifeguards. But as far as we're concerned we're going to work with HR on that because if Oahu can do it, why can't we do it? We're also nowWaylen was also instrumental in ensuring that we can bring in volunteer lifeguards as well to supplement our lifeguards so that we can keep our pools going more hours and more days. MR. RICHARDS: Appreciate that. MR. MESSINA: We do want to bring that. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Because I know there was something about a standard that if you had one lifeguard and there's an issue, that lifeguard couldn't deal with the issue because he had to watch the rest of the pool or some weird idiosyncrasy. So I appreciate expanding that. We've got to get you more money to fix our pools. Thanks, Chair. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Going to Kona. MR. INABA: Nothing at this time, Chair. Mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks. Thanks, Chair for the second round of opportunity to talk to the department. I think, Director, you're getting a sense from this body that we're trying to help in a very systematic and strategic funding way. And, you know, Ms. Kierkiewicz touched upon it about the asset management. And thank you for not sugarcoating, you know, what is exactly going on in the department. But I don't see this budget actually reflecting that ability to take advantage some of the other things that we're trying to line up and/or blend with other departments, because we also had that opportunity to hear everybody. I think I really want to work a little bit more offline with like maybe some prioritizing of funding in very strategic and key locations with the department and some of the other work that Council Member Kierkiewicz, you, and the other departments are doing in the needs assessment. Because the other piece is the CIP projects that actually really will infuse the fixing of the assets. Page 309 FC-32 April 14,2022 And you know, Director, there's the repair and maintenance. But often times that repair and maintenance just doesn't cover what's truly a capital improvement need. And so trying to prioritize what is painting compared to a complete rehab. And I think that's some of the blending and kind of retooling that might need to happen just to get you guys in better alignment with some of the funding that, you know, so many of us, myself, Mr. Richards, Ms. Kierkiewicz, and Ms. Kimball are beginning to see with the Build Back Better monies. MR. MESSINA: I can tell you, we welcome that collaboration. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. You know, I did appreciate you calling it where DPW is receive complaints. Because I have a saying. A complaint is an unarticulated hope. They're complaining because they actually want something to change. And so it is a good way to get feedback on, you know, what we could do better. Yeah, I think that that's also another opportunity for us to really find out what's really going on in our assets, with our assets in the park. Because I absolutely agree with what Ms. Kierkiewicz is saying about the homeless and homeless initiatives that we got with Bill 125, because security is really becoming an issue. Myself and Ms. Kimball has put some money to address security down at just Bayfront alone, and asking them to take a lot of information so we can better map out what the true needs are for just that one asset. And there's so many more. If that's okay, if you're open to that, Director? MR. MESSINA: When we talk about assets, you know, I look at all good minds as an asset. So you guys are definitely an asset to us. So we appreciate that. Yes. MS. LEE LOY: And, you know, I do—Ms. Kierkiewicz wrote a grant. I've actually written a number of others specifically for parks. And we just put it out there without even asking your permission. We just tried. And my 15'h grant request just for parks was the only request for that funding on this entire island. And so I'm really excited about the potential of that money being infused into the department. But as she mentioned, you've got to report on it, you know, they want information to know that that monies turned into an improvement. And so we really want to help in that area. MR. MESSINA: You know what, I'm glad you and Ms. Kierkiewicz both brought that up, because I've also worked for numerous nonprofits. And getting the grant is one thing, but how do you show, you know,just like Algebra I, you know, show your work, right. So how do you prove that you're following up with everything, all your reporting procedures? Because the last thing you want is to have to give money back because you didn't do everything that you said you were going to. So I agree 100 percent with what you're saying. Page 310 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. LEE LOY: Yeah. And the particular grants that I wrote for were $20,000, right,paint the building, trim back the bushes, put up a fence. It really was a lot of what you talked about just to kind of start a baseline around a lot of your assets. And if we could start doing that and then start taking a lot of your budget and prioritizing it into a very systematic process, blending that with the money, blending that with the CIP Projects, I think we could really help turn the department around. Not that the department is broken or anything. Just so much need in that area. Thanks. Thanks for being open for that, Director. MR. MESSINA: You're welcome. Thank you for the help. MS. LEE LOY: I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. Thank you. I'm just going to make one more plug for the GIS person based on Council Member Kierkiewicz said, which Council Member Lee Loy said. Council Member Kierkiewicz was saying, you know, the folks on the ground, your maintenance guys, they're the ones that should report on the current conditions and send alerts. You can do that in an app if you have a GIS-based system for tracking all of your facilities. I mean that's what DPW is doing now for some of their road maintenance. If you want to go do the complaint tracking rather than all this bounce back between Mayor's Office. You guys, you've got a place people go, they make a complaint, goes into the system, it's recorded, you hit a certain threshold, an automatic alert is sent out, "Hey, you guys gotta go check things." I mean these are things we can implement with that background structure. And then just finally with the grant tracking even. You know, if we have that grant tracking tied to the facilities in the database with the alerts and timelines set, you know, there's ways to make all of the things that you guys need to do easier by having this fundamental backbone now that you have all the facilities identified and their TMK's. So I'm happy to work with you on, you know, how to design maybe the structure to be most effective. But I really think we want to look at considering somebody with those skills in your department. I yield, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Kona, touching back on you. MR. INABA: Yeah. Chair, I just wanted to add. You know, I think there's a lot of good recommendations coming from Council Members and we hope that we can have those conversations offline. And it seems that Director Messina is really open to trying out some of these things. But in light of the rest of our day and the other discussions we need to have today, I would like to hear from you and see this part of our day move forward. Thank you. Page 311 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Mr. Inaba. I agree. Okay, we'll wrap it up. You know, Mr. Messina, thank you very much for what you do to your team that you have here today as well as your team that takes care of our entire community. I have a few questions and I'll keep it very brief. MR. RICHARDS: Chair? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes. MR. RICHARDS: Before you wrap it up can I just give one compliment to the director? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes you may. Go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you. Pu`unui Park, Waikoloa. Big shout out from the community. Thanks so much, Mo, for working on that. And also Julie Alos was pretty ticked about the TV interview, because she had complimented you. But that got edited out. So she wanted to make sure to pass that along. So thanks for all the things you did to get that thing rolling. Thanks, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. That's a nice compliment. Kiln repair for EAD (Elderly Activities Division) and the ERS (Elderly Recreation Services), same thing, ceramic kiln and kiln and repair. I used to do ceramics. I'm just wondering if this is an opportunity for the community or what these are; and why the dual placed under EAD and ERS? And what is ERS? MR. MESSINA: So while Reid is looking,just the CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: The General Fund, Department 500. MR. MESSINA: Yes. These are for community senior programs. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. That's what I thought. So looks like we're buying kiln and then repairing one or two more. MR. SEWAKE: Yeah, it is for, like Maurice said, it's for their classes. Sorry, what account are you looking at for the purchase? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: This is the Fund 10, Department 500, under EAD Recreation OCE/ERS Section Activities. MR. SEWAKE: Yeah, so that account, that's one of our offset revenue accounts. So we expend to what we bring in. So we just budgeted that kilnsorry, one second, yeah, for a new kiln using those funds for the classes. Page 312 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Are we offering that on both sides of the island? Or is it just in one location? MR. SEWAKE: It's multiple locations. I have to check on exactly where they're located though. I can get back to you on that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. In a way of ceramic wheels in the Kea`au Community facility but I don't know if we have a kiln there. And I don't even know if those wheels work the more I've thought about it. I've seen them, I've played with them. But I don't remember if they're in working order. Let me know, let me know. Get back to me. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. We'll let you know. I mean I know we've got one in Clem Akina Park and I know we've got a few other ones around. But exactly where they are I'm not sure. I can find out for you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I like that, I like that. It's a neat opportunity for the community and a neat artistic opportunity for our community. I see a lot of equipment under your Parks and Maintenance Miscellaneous equipment. I think that's good. I like to see that. Some of the Parks and Maintenance guys have asked, you know, "We need more weed whackers, more blowers." And I see that request being fulfilled here. Thank you. Skeet range. Where's our skeet range? MR. MESSINA: Where the Hilo transfer station is. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Hilo transfer station. There's been a lot of request to talk of a Hilo shooting range or an east side shooting range. I mean, is there any way to tie in, if we have a skeet range, can we tie that in to being a shooting range? MR. MESSINA: I believe our skeet range is just rated for shot guns only, right. Yeah. Because of the velocity and I forget, you know, the distance. It's only for shot guns right now. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Yeah, the Game Management Advisory Committee, some of them, they've been asking me, "Hey, help us with this request." I asked Mitch. East side, I think we need a shooting range of some kind. Would that fall under Parks and Rec? MR. MESSINA: Possibly. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Okay. MR. MESSINA: We could use personnel and funds to run it. Page 313 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Good to know. Tipping fees; I'm just touching on this. So $285,000, Parks and Maintenance, OCE; refuse disposal. Tipping fees you're paying to DEM? MR. MESSINA: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I keep bringing these up. It's really interesting to see how we pay for our own services as a county. I just keep touching on that, and Deanna's watching me too. Deanna, I just think it's weird. I'm sorry. And then your overtime for Parks and Maintenance, stepping up this year. A lot of departments stepped down and I'm just checking in on that; that amount for S & W Parks and Maintenance. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I can tell you that one of the biggest driving factors is the homeless right now. When we're coming in on, say Saturday and Sunday or a holiday, especially if someone doesn't want to work. Sometimes on those holidays and the weekends we've got to bring in extra personnel, because we'll get one crew stuck at a restroom for say two hours to clean up, you know, feces, urine. You know, no matter what it is we've got to bring in other guys. Night time closing crews, we've got to bring those folks in, too. Parks Maintenance is our largest overtime fund, and there's really no way around it. You know, if we want to clean up all the beaches and parks and bathrooms before people come in to use them over the weekends, we need that overtime. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. I've heard that from the crews too. You know, if they come in and the bathroom's been inappropriately used there is a large MR. MESSINA: You know, imagine, you know, that's your job. When you come in on Friday and that's the last thing you do before you go home. You may not feel like you want to do that the first thing the next morning. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. I think I would feel the same way. MR. MESSINA: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah, that's not easy. Okay. And touching back, you know, more long range. You know, we met at one of our parks in the upper Puna area. And I looked at the park and I realized you guys do a tremendous amount of mowing on grass. Except the facilities really aren't utilized so I think that plan stemming from the audit and your facilities assessment, whatever you want to call that. I think should help guide, too, on what we see as a usable area within a park. Page 314 FC-32 April 14,2022 Because I mean in this park in particular, I forget the size, maybe five-acres, and we mow five-acres. Except we're only using two-acres as a baseball field. The rest is just open grass, which is beautiful. You know, it's a good opportunity for the community to enjoy. But if they were not and we just have these tremendous areas that you folks cut, maintain and clean. I'm just looking at the cost benefit and wanting to find uses for those spaces that maybe aren't so labor intensive. If that's possible. And I know we cannot let it go and you cannot just say, "We're not going to touch it anymore." But there's got to be some kind of a balance there I think that would be more beneficial for the cost for the county and the community good. Just my overall thoughts. I've been thinking about that since we met there and I haven't been able to fix it in my head yet. MR. MESSINA: So just a real quick response on that. I agree with you. We need to get better usage of our rural facilities that aren't used as much. We're going to be doing a lot of work in Pahoa fields coming up. And those fields that aren't utilized right now in Puna to the greatest extent, I believe, is going to be good right now as a back-up for when we have to close down those Pahoa fields. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yup. Those ones, yes. But some of them are more rural, more outlined facilities where it's just a big grass lot, no pavilions, no water, no nothing. It's just, you know, it's like what are we doing with that? What's the best use? Is the community utilizing this space and what is it worth for us to cut and clean and continue to maintain these spaces when no one's utilizing it? So that's my thoughts. Again, thank you for your presentation today. Mr. Chung, did you want to add anything? Nope. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time. And we are in recess. Thank you, Council. MR. MESSINA: Yup. Thank you for your time. Recess: At 12:30 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting was reconvened at 1:34 p.m. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, Council Members, we are back from recess. Mahalo for everyone's patience. Mr. Araceley, I want to touch in. I believe normally, we don't do this but due to the Special Budget Hearing, we did have one person who wanted to provide testimony. She did provide a written testimony. Do we have her online? STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Council to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: The following individual registered to speak and came forward when called by Page 315 FC-32 April 14,2022 The Chair. Jennifer Navarra: Bill 126 (Comm. 645), comment. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much for your testimony, Ms. Navarra. Thank you very much, appreciate it. Thank you for participating, always good to see participation from our community. Thank you, Mr. Araceley, for bringing that to our attention. With that, we'll go back to our department reviews and joining us at this time is the Office of Housing and Community Development. (4) Office of Housing and Community Development: CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Director, when you are ready. I believe we have a PowerPoint or at least a communication from you. Do you have a PowerPoint to go through for us? (Note: At this time, Office of Housing and Community Development Administrator Susan Kunz and Housing and Community Development Specialist V Sharon Hirota came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. KUNZ: The PowerPoint is going to come a little bit later in my presentation. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, go ahead when you're ready. MS. KUNZ: Good afternoon, everyone, Chair, Vice Chair, members of the Hawaii County Finance Committee, my name is Susan Kunz, and I'm the Housing Administrator for the Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD). Thank you for this opportunity to present our proposed budgets for the Office of Housing, Kulaimano Elderly Housing, and Ouli Ekahi Housing for the fiscal year end June 30, 2023. This budget includes estimated revenues and appropriations of$33.8 million. It's about$3.8 million or 12.9 percent over our current year's budget, and these increases are due to some anticipated increases in some of our programs: the Housing Choice Voucher Program, the Mainstream Voucher Program, Family Self-Sufficiency and the Housing Choice Emergency Voucher Programs. So all of these increases are critical to providing essential housing services to our community. Any increases in expenditures are mostly related to meeting these federal mandates, bargaining unit increases, and any cost increases related to employee benefits. I also want to point out that the $33.8 million budget that's being presented does not include $2.6 million in CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds which we do receive annually, and it doesn't include the $9 million that we recently received for the Homelessness Program. These are all appropriated in the General Fund, so including these numbers, it would make OHCD's budget Page 316 FC-32 April 14,2022 $45 million. There are also other additional revenues that I am anticipating getting during fiscal year 2023, and I want to point these out. I really think it's important for this community to know, and for you to know, the volume of federal dollars that comes through our office and that we administer. So some of these additional funds that I do anticipate are an economic development initiative grant that we received from Congress with the help of Senator Schatz and Senator Hirono, and this is going to be for the Kukui Ola project in West Hawaii in the amount of $10 million. There's also going to be, well we're anticipating additional funding for the Emergency Rent Assistance Program, round two for $5 million and the Home ARPA or American Rescue Plan Act funds for $1.8 million. So including these appropriations that we're anticipating, we're looking at a budget of$62 million. That's a lot of money. It's important to recognize that despite the budget increase of$3.8 million, the General Fund subsidy or county funds requested has increased by only $189,000, which is the amount we actually budgeted for bargaining unit increases. This budget this year is going to be 94 percent federally funded. So this budget represents our best effort to meet the goals outlined in our Mission Statement, and to show our commitment to the efficient and successful delivery of programs, and working with our community partners to meet our affordable housing needs. One of the newer programs coming through our office this year will be overseeing the Homelessness Program grant, and I really want to thank Council Member Chung and all of you for your support in passing that ordinance, 22-26. So we want to take some time to talk you through the point in time count that was recently introduced, and then talk about some of our thoughts about our path going forward. So I do want to bring up Sharon Hirota who oversees our Homeless and our Community Engagement Programs and I'll turn it over to her to do this presentation. Thank you. (Note: At this time, Ms. Hirota provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the presentation, please see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or navigate to the Council's video archives online from the County's homepage at www.hawai i county. ov. A hard copy of the presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 645.10.) CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Hirota. Go ahead. Page 317 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KUNZ: I was wondering, before we let Sharon go, if you have any questions about the programs, about next steps moving forward, maybe we can discuss it here, if you have any questions. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Usually we do the whole presentation and then I go to Council Members' questions. MS. KUNZ: That was our presentation. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, wonderful. With that, Council Members? Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, and Sharon, before you go too far, thanks. You know me, I'm all into definitions and vocabulary, so this is a new one. Functional zero, give me that definition of functional zero. MS. HIROTA: The terminology that we always use is we want to end homelessness, right? When you really step back and look at the word"end homelessness," I don't think we will ever end homelessness because people have different circumstances that we be one paycheck away, one medical bill away from having to make decisions. We have people who don't make a living wage and are doubled up, living with parents, two or three generations in one house because of the affordability. So when we talk about functional zero, we talk about ensuring that if somebody is experiencing homelessness or is at the risk of experiencing homelessness, there is a service or an opportunity for them to connect to housing. They can move quickly to shelter or to assistance and not have to spend a night in the car, in the park, or someplace else. So when we talk about functional zero, it's a little bit more realistic because this number will never be zero because there will always be somebody who has a need. So I just want to—we're trying to change the conversation. MS. LEE LOY: I think we keep having this conversation because actually people want actual zero, right? That's actually—when we talk about solving homelessness, it's actual zero where there's nobody on the street, everybody's housed, they're not doubled up. So this feels like a little baby-step approach to get everybody more used to the idea that we're actually going to always have some level of transition, people in, like you said, one paycheck away, one health condition away from being housed to being homeless. But then that walks us into that rapid housing piece. Okay. Ms. Kimball reminded me, you know, we passed that fund from the two-tiered tax and I'm sure there's a lot of people in community saying, "Okay fine, shave that money off because we don't want to see people homeless,"but we're having to change the conversation a little bit. Page 318 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KUNZ: I want to make a comment. You know, we can never control the things that happen in individuals' lives, the jobs, the other types of challenges that they might have. So I think the key is to make sure that we have a system in place with services in place that at any point in time, if something challenges you that puts you in that position, you have a system that you can fall back on. I think that's what we're talking about because to say we're going to end homelessness at zero for any point in time, I don't think is a real situation, but that we have a sufficient program in place that can help anyone should you fall out of housing for a period of time, there's something there for you, and that's what we want to try and create. MS. LEE LOY: Absolutely. So like the example of veterans, the veteran is no longer homeless but living with a family member,that's functional zero, but if we had veterans housing for that individual to go right into their own unit, that's actual zero. Okay, kind of a mind bend. Okay, thank you very much. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, Ms. Lee Loy. Going to Kona. MR. INABA: Not at this time, Chair, mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Okay Sharon, we've had this conversation before and Susan's laughing. The point of time counts, accuracy, especially in face of COVID (coronavirus disease) right now. I'm exceedingly skeptical of the numbers. We've discussed this because we're—and I realize it's a federal mandate whatever you call it, but you know, spring boarding off of what Sue's talking about, what we all want is to end it or minimize it as best as possible. We have to have housing to do that. I realize programs revolve around this, but like I said, I'm skeptical of these numbers because if that night they were staying with family—which I think we're underreporting our homelessness. So maybe you don't want to comment on this in public forum, but this is the chance. MS. HIROTA: You're right. I mean if somebody, that particular night, someone took them in and allowed them to stay in their garage, under roof, yes, you're right, they're not counted. That's why it's just one of many tools that we use to take a snapshot. It is a requirement by HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development), we have to do this in order for our community-based organization to be eligible for federal and then sometimes state funds, but it's just one tool. It's not the only thing we look at when we look at measuring our homelessness here on the island. Page 319 FC-32 April 14,2022 Our databases track people coming in and out of the system on a daily basis. To say whether or not this is understated, I would have to go back, but obviously, this is what is presented and brought forward. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks for stating that. The bigger the number I think the more accurate it becomes but when we're dealing with such a relatively small number compared to something nationally, this is when you can play statistics, then I think Ms. Kimball will start laughing at this, but if you have four people and then you count two, you've reduced homelessness by 50 percent, right? But you haven't becauseI mean you understand. My concern is our success gets reported so then we may lose funding just when we're starting to get our arms around it. Is that a concern coming forward because we're being successful? Definition, right? MS. HIROTA: I think the federal and the state fund, because we put our—we apply together as a consortium, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island. I think when they combine the numbers, we still become an eligible entity to receive federal funds. So the funding is not based on numbers, maybe I should put it that way. It's based on what we plan to do with the numbers, not only to address those experiencing homelessness, but how do we prevent? So the opportunity is to apply for and put forward a program around diversion. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so you're answering my concern, it's not the metric, it is a metric. So you present the program because it's best to prevent it than ever having it happen and try to correct it, which comes back to the whole housing as a whole. So I appreciate that, Sharon. Thanks so much. So coming back to housing, how are we doing? I know we have 5,000 plus in the pipeline, theoretically, right now. Specifically in my district, Kamakoa Nui, where are we with that? MS. KUNZ: Kamakoa Nui, we did hire a consultant that is helping us to relook at the Master Plan. The original Master Plan for Kamakoa Nui are probably about 15 years old, so they've been doing quite a bit of work with my staff. I think they're probably going to be able to finish at the end of summer is what we're looking at, and we'll come out with an entire revised Master Plan. At that time, we want to start going out to RFP (Request for Proposal) and securing developers to come in and help us develop that property. There is a site for a school there that we are relooking at. You know, we attended a meeting a couple of days ago and some of the concerns were, "Okay, you guys got units in the pipeline, what are we doing about schools?" Because we have Waikoloa Elementary School and everybody else—once you finish sixth grade, you're going to Kona. Eventually, that's not going to work. I mean it's just not going to be enough. Page 320 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. RICHARDS: Right. MS. KUNZ: So we are engaging with the DOE(Department of Education) on that. There are statistics for that. Of course, we're going to have to work with the legislators, you know, the DOE is going to have to look at funding to do something like that. We did secure a project for the Waikoloa library, out there at the site so MR. RICHARDS: Forgive me if you're being very skeptical on that one. That's a different conversation. MS. KUNZ: So that is also going on. You know, I think it's just very valuable for the development of the entire community out there, but it is moving along, definitely. I think within the next couple of months we'll see a Master Plan that we can move forward on. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Okay, Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Mahalo, Administrator Kunz and Sharon for your presentation. Just a few follow-up questions, you know, not too many issues with your housing budget, considering that so much of it is derived from federal and state partners, and there's very specific programmatic purpose that you have to meet, but I did have some clarifying questions. American Job Center, what's the current reach for that program? MS. KUNZ: The current what? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Reach. How many folks are you serving through that? MS. KUNZ: I don't have that exact number. Can I get back to you on that? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. MS. KUNZ: But it is fully open, we are serving the community there. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And that's Hilo and Kona or just Hilo? MS. KUNZ: It is just Hilo right now. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. I think a couple of miles down the road from us here, yeah? MS. KUNZ: Yes. Page 321 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. MS. KUNZ: Yes, downtown. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Alright. Then, is there money within this budget to talk about satellite offices around the island? Just considering how massive this island is and wanting to make sure people have access to these opportunities, satellite locations, maybe taking advantage of different county offices. MS. KUNZ: You know, it is something that I recognized and started to talk about when I first came on board last year. It is definitely important to start talking about satellite offices, west Hawaii, Puna area. There are a lot of programmatic issues with the way the workforce program sits at this point. We're working very closely with R & D (Research and Development). There's a lot of inherent, regulatory issues with the way the program is currently set up, that it is sitting in the housing office, that we're administering the federal grant, that we're overseeing the board, and the one stop all under one roof. When you read the federal regulations, that's not how they want it set up. So we are currently working with R & D. They are going to take the board and the administration of the grants and conduct an RFP (Request for Proposal), which we're hoping to do within the next couple of months. So once we secure those pieces, we will be able to start securing those additional sites for the one stop. Does that make sense? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: It does, and I appreciate the continued collaboration with R & D. I think it makes a lot of sense for them to be housing the workforce development board but again, appreciate the collaboration. Do you want to share statistics with us? I might have glazed over it and kind of zooming through the operating budget. A lot of information in there, guys. MS. KUNZ: So this is saying that we provided assistance to 3,749 individuals, so this was for end of 2021. So this was the final status report at the end of fiscal year 21. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. I'd be interested to kind of track that over time. MS. KUNZ: Yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Considering that we're coming out of a pandemic and just seeing if there were more folks that are using this resource because of that. So just curious. Financial Empowerment Center (FEC), I see it here in the budget. Over time, there's going to be funding that is directed to support, you know, Sharon, what Page 322 FC-32 April 14,2022 you have built from scratch. How is that being funded? Is this k6kua from philanthropy or from the—is it Bloomberg Foundation that funds this? MS. HIROTA: Yes. So Bloomberg, we have a two-year commitment from them to help fund. Hawaii Community Foundation stepped in initially. We're coming up for renewal so we're starting to have conversation. Then we also have funding in the budget to support as needed. The FEC and the services offered, the FEC provides a service to those connected to our ERAP (Emergency Rental Assistance Program), our homeowner assistance program. So we've been able to carve money from those federal funds to support the FEC and build capacity around it. So county funds tend to be the last resort so we look at private funding and federal funding to support the program. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Sharon, for being so resourceful and mahalo for your presence at Monday's Revitalize Puna activation. A lot of folks were very happy about all of the resources that you were able to coordinate through the social RCA (Resilience Capacity Area) so thank you for that. People were just so impressed by how much was out there and available to them to kind of support them and make them whole right now, so thank you. Let's see here. Curious about the Community Action list here in the PowerPoint and wondering if there is some kind of strategic plan that identifies who exactly in the community is going to be taking action. Is there like a kuleana matrix where there's a role for government to play, philanthropy, or nonprofit sector,private business? Just wondering if there's a few more details that you can share with us. MS. KUNZ: So we've been having a lot of internal conversations about what this road map is going to look like going forward. You know, this funding is going to come into play July 1, so we have a couple of months to kind of get this together. What I'm envisioning is, you know, we've been very successful in running federal housing programs, so we have many successful templates to look at. What I'm thinking is this is a five-year grant,period. So we would develop a five-year program like a master plan. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And Administrator, you're talking about the $9 million that this body had identified and designated through Bill 125 to support homeless and housing initiatives. MS. KUNZ: Correct. Thank you, yes, I am. So we're talking about the administration of that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Bill 111, I'm sorry. MS. KUNZ: And I think it's Ordinance 22-26. Page 323 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. MS. KUNZ: Okay. So these community action points that Sharon did talk to you about, these are state-wide discussions going on. I think they're very powerful and I think they definitely apply to our community, but some of the steps that we will have to do is engaging with the community, doing a lot of public hearing, and trying to formulate a five-year plan is what I'm hoping that we can do. Whether or not we incorporate all, some, or additional initiatives, is something that's going to roll out within the next couple of months. Then every year when we come to appropriate funding for the programs, I'd like to be able to report back to the Council what we've done, how much we've spent and how much of that five-year plan we're starting to accomplish, so that at the end of the five years we've met those goals. That's the dream, right? That's the goal. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah, it is. I'm just going to advocate for inclusion of all these five bullets. I mean when I take a step back, it's a very holistic approach so I hope there's a way to kind of weave it in because as you say, these are issues that are being dealt with across the state, and so I would just be curious to figure out how our county is taking action on these relative to other counties, and if there is some cross sharing of information that can happen throughout the process. Last thing, how folks can access funding. So prior to you folks being here, earlier this morning, had conversations with Parks and Recreation. Director Messina was talking about 80 percent of parks maintenance crews, time is spent cleaning up after some of the folks that are abusing our county assets, our park assets. You know, talked to Mark Carvalho, Dustin Gomez, about some of the issues they in there, General Services crew, are encountering right here on county property, the defecating, the drug paraphernalia, the sexual intercourse, happening at county facilities. So flagging this because will our county departments have the ability to apply for some of this funding that's been set aside to deal with homelessness issues? MS. KUNZ: I am envisioning yes. You know, this was a very broad use type of fund, but anything that is coming in, any projects coming in that will address homelessness to support the system and the work that we're doing, I mean a lot of that type of work that they would probably be coming in would be interim because we're hoping that the bigger, end all picture of housing individuals and creating a solid system that people can enter into and end up in housing will work. But there are all of these interim type services that we're going to have to fund and support. Maurice has been in touch with me quite a bit. We've been collaborating. He's putting together a group of county departments, homeless in the parks and so we're going to start meeting regularly. I'm very excited about that, and I will Page 324 FC-32 April 14,2022 make sure that they understand that they have the ability, if they have programs that address homelessness that they need funding for, that they could potentially apply, along with everybody else, for these funds. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, that's very reassuring to know. Final question, are you on track with the housing road map, strategic plan development? You kind of gave us an update few meetings ago and just want to make sure that the timeline you articulated in terms of connecting with Keyser Marston and providing to this body, a copy of that plan and that roadmap, that we are on track to getting it. MS. KUNZ: Yes, definitely. So the first initiative in that roadmap, I believe I presented five different strategies. The first one was that comprehensive review of Chapter 11, so we're definitely moving along on that. We are anticipating, I believe I reported like about October or so, we should be coming back with the final report. We are on track to do that. The other initiatives, like our collaboration with the Planning Department to relook at their Chapter 25 and 23, we continue to work on that. That is going to be a partnership with the Planning office. I'm going to have to let them take the lead on that but there's constant conversation about that. You know, it's a bear, right? Some of the more recent conversations with Director Kern has been about taking pieces of it, like the accessory dwelling units for example, and maybe attacking certain pieces of that plan. But we are definitely working on that. As far as securing state and county lands, we probably have identified about eight properties so far, and they're kind of scattered. There's a couple in Hamakua, West Hawaii, East Hawaii, so once we get that processed secured and the executive order in place, we will be looking at trying to secure partners to develop those pieces of property. So that's definitely moving along. The other piece was our collaboration with Public Works. It's streamlining that permitting process. I don't know if you all saw the article that published today in the Star Bulletin, the study from UHERO (University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization). So they were talking about how Hawaii has one of the highest rates of regulations in MS. KIERKIEWICZ: The highest in the nation actually. MS. KUNZ: In the highest in the nation, yeah, you're right. So I felt very encouraged that our strategy number five was definitely along the lines to try and start addressing that. We are going to start with looking at only 100 percent affordable projects, not all projects, but 100 percent affordable projects and how we can streamline the permitting process for those types of projects, and then we'll see how it goes there. So we're definitely moving along on all of those strategy points. Page 325 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: You're on track, lightning speed. I'm just going to go say that dirty word after I read that article, deregulate right? It's something that we really have to take a hard look at, making sure we're removing those regulatory barriers. MS. KUNZ: It was very eye opening to see that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah, it was. Thank you very much to you and your team and I know everybody in the various offices for all the work that they are doing to support our community. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Checking back with Kona. MR. INABA: Not at this time, Chair, mahalo. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you both for being here and for your presentation. Just a quick question, how well did we do on or are we doing on the ERAP funds, and as a percentage of what we were provided in terms of getting them distributed? MS. HIROTA: So we're getting very close. The contract for the first round of emergency rent assistance, as I indicated, we spent$15.4 million. We are on track to spend it down before June 30. In the meantime, we issued an RFP and is in the final stages of selecting a contractor to do the second round. That contract should start as soon as early May, so we'll kind of wind down one and start up the next. ERA has—and the reason why we're doing kind of like a few weeks overlay is there are families that are approaching the 15-month max financial. In round two, it adds an additional three so it kind of provides the family three more months in assistance if they need it. Then the second contract, at least the initial funding will be for an additional five, and then we'll do additional contracts as needed. So we have a total, right now, of$14 million for second round. MS. KIMBALL: Great. So some of those amendments that they made in the final rule about how it could be used seem to be working in terms of getting it flowing out a little bit more effectively than it seemed to be at the beginning. MS. HIROTA: I think in the beginning, there was a lot of question about was that actually real? You know what I mean? The trust within federal government actually handing out money to pay—help me get caught up in my rent, but I think once the word got out—we just celebrated one year anniversary yesterday by Zoom party just to thank the people who are doing the work. Page 326 FC-32 April 14,2022 But I think the other part is that the county took advantage of the US Treasury when they made the modification to allow for the housing stability and really, one of the things that our contractor did was contract out for community navigators. So when they hired people living and working in communities, outreaching in their community, that just was a tremendous effort on their part but it just brought in tons of applications. So yes, we'll continue that. MS. KIMBALL: Great. That's good to hear because I think that keeping people in housing is such an undervalued avenue, and I see that it's under "Expand." I wanted to double check that it was part of the Community Action, it's that preventative piece. It seems so effective from everything I've read, you just the shot in the arm to make it through the crisis situation and that's one really effective, cost-effective strategy for addressing housing issues. Wanted to ask a little bit about just the planning process for those funds that are now in the homeless, the new budget area for us. So you guys are taking over primary administrative role for those funds and any sort of—if you can give us a glimpse of like your planning process of how you might distribute those funds between like services, and it was expanded by amendment to include housing opportunities, things like that. Do you have preliminary ideas that you can share with us on that? MS. KUNZ: I don't have percentages of the total pot that we're going to designate to any category at this point. Let's see. I think that what we have to do is get out into this community and see what exists and what the need is. Thank you for the input for the statewide strategies that are already in place, we were feeling pretty good about those as well. What I'm envisioning is a selection process that would include ranking and rating of projects that would align. So whatever it is this five-year plan comes out looking like, and if it's those strategies, we would rank and rate projects that are based on helping us meet that and the timelines to do it. For example, if you tell me you're going to be able to accomplish this in three years as opposed to someone who's going to accomplish it in six, beyond the period of the fund, well, you're going to get higher points for the shorter period of time that you can carry out something. Things like that. I don't have that at this point, but I think very shortly, within the next couple of months as we're getting close to July 1, we're going to start to see and have a sense of what that looks like. MS. KIMBALL: I realize it's very early and it just passed, and maybe you had dreams about it long before, so I don't know. I think there's going to need to be good mix of different types of things and I just want to provide some feedback, and my colleagues who are also on the GIA (Grant-in-Aid) committee can maybe share some of the challenges when you're ranking and evaluating these sorts of contract services. I mean we're evaluating from the GIA perspective, and we have a certain set of things that those GIA programs are supposed to meet. Page 327 FC-32 April 14,2022 One of the things that we're finding, I think we can say with some of the applications, is it's very important how you ask the question. You know, when people are applying to participate in the program, so you know, I just encourage you to think really about what the metrics are going to be up front that are going to be part of your decision-making process. You mentioned timeliness of delivery, and to make sure that the questions that you answer of your collaborators reveal what you want because a lot of these things are not numerical metrics, right? They're more, are they going to be able to deliver on program goals that align with yours? That's hard to measure on a number one to ten so just encouraging you to be thoughtful about that process. I'm sure you've done it before but it's a lot of money we're talking about, and I think we all want to see it spent wisely, and I'm sure you will. You guys have an excellent track record and have been shown to be able to leverage funds really well. One quick question about the point in time count and I know this is just—strange though, this Hamakua, North Hilo flip. Any ideas why that might have happened? Did the line move? It's possible. MS. HIROTA: We don't know. We don't ask. It's very close, so yeah. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, interesting. I mean obviously, not as significant an issue in the Hamakua/North Hilo area as in Sue's district or over on the west side, but of course wehousing, I view housing as a fundamental right, right? Shelter, food, water, those are basics and so it's heart breaking to see any numbers on this list. Thank you for all you do. I'll yield now, Chair. Thanks. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Richards, follow up? MR. RICHARDS: Thanks Chair. Susan, on the funding for Kamakoa Nui, is this going to be federal or is this all going to be state? The reason I ask has to do with unexploded ordinance. I know HUD, that's what tied up the Hawaiian Homes' stuff near the transfer station for a dozen years now. So where are we with the funding on that? MS. KUNZ: Funding for the cleanup? MR. RICHARDS: No, not for the cleanup. My understanding is HUD, you have to have a 100 percent clearance before HUD will fund housing. MS. KUNZ: Correct. MR. RICHARDS: And statistically, that's not possible unless you excavate and bring in filtered soil. Page 328 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KUNZ: So the Army Corp is currently working to clear Kamakoa Nui. They had actually cleared the piece of property that we have already developed, the 91 single-family homes that we've already built there. Then this parcel that we just recently RFP'd also has a letter of no further action with institutional controls, so those have been issued. It was important for that particular project because we knew they were going to come in for federal funds. MR. RICHARDS: But it's my understanding it has to be 100 percent, not a no further action but 100 percent. MS. KUNZ: No, you will never get 100 percent, right? MR. RICHARDS: Oh, I know that, but that's the problem with the Hawaiian Homes' portion. MS. KUNZ: Well, the guidance that we have from HUD indicates that they will release funding with a no further action letter. MR. RICHARDS: That's different then, something has changed. MS. KUNZ: These letters have been in place through, well, the previous administration before when I was here through 2016. Then there have also been letters issued during the last administration to that effect from HUD policies. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, I'll follow up. MS. KUNZ: I can send you what I have. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, because again, the Hawaiian Homes stuff near the transfer station in Waimea, that has been hung up on exactly this issue for MS. KUNZ: And they're saying that they need 100 percent? MR. RICHARDS: Correct. MS. KUNZ: Well, they're never going to be able to use HUD funding there then. MR. RICHARDS: Well, so then if they can't use it, how can we use it? That's yeah. MS. KUNZ: Well, I can share with you what we have. What we have is not specific to Kamakoa Nui. My understanding is that it covers the whole Waik6loa Maneuver Area. So I'll share that with you. Page 329 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. RICHARDS: Okay, yeah. If we could do that then Sue, maybe you and I can look from the Hawaiian Home standpoint because this is ridiculous to have this track of land that we can't houses on. MS. KUNZ: Sure. MR. RICHARDS: Then following up on the that,just coming back to our library. Since the state's mandate is 100 percent clearance, what's going to happen there? MS. KUNZ: Okay, so I wasn't aware of the state having that, but if that is an issue then I'm sure that's going to come up. We haven't signed any contracts or anything like that. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, because that was a big issue about DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources). MS. KUNZ: So I haven't seen any communication along those lines, but if that is the case then that's going to be a problem, too. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, okay. We'll talk more about that later. Just like I said that library—anyway, I do want to follow up specifically for Hawaiian Homes because it doesn't make sense. If HUD's allowing it, why can't we get the funding for the Hawaiian Homes? MS. KUNZ: I mean, I really cannot speak to that issue. MR. RICHARDS: I got that, yeah. MS. KUNZ: But we could definitely reach out to HUD for that guidance. I think we probably should. MR. RICHARDS: If they're approving you, I'm all for that, but then I want to find out what paperwork you have and then circle back and see if we can move the needle for Hawaiian Homes, because that doesn't make sense. Okay, I appreciate that, thank you so much. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Ms. Kimball, you have a follow up? MS. KIMBALL: No. MR. INABA: Chair? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mr. Inaba, go ahead. Page 330 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. INABA: I just wanted to, not really a question but for the office, really excited for this Homeless Fund. The intention, obviously, is that we're going to not need these funds but realistically, my opinion, we're in it for the long haul. So I'm really excited to see how you folks are able to manage and make best use of this fund so that we can hopefully get this office more funding, which I think the public and all of us really know we need. So best of luck and Godspeed with that. Just a quick follow-up actually, my apologies, with Mr. Richards' questions about Kamakoa Nui. That land, when did we find out that they were ordnances there? Just recently? MS. KUNZ: No. Kamakoa Nui is within the Waikoloa Maneuver area, which is a federal designation area for unexploded ordnances (UXO). This is the largest single UXO area in the United States, actually, and Kamakoa Nui is right in the middle of it. MR. INABA: Okay, and that was land that we accepted as part of an affordable housing requirement, is that right? MS. KUNZ: Correct. MR. INABA: Interesting. Okay. Troubling actually. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Mahalo, Mr. Inaba. Okay, I don't see any more questions from the Council. I think you do have a pretty amazing opportunity with the funds that were created earlier this year. I look forward to seeing how you expend those and what they go towards. I think everyone has some ideas from what I've heard today, and that's a pretty sizable piece of funding to use, so look forward to seeing what you do. Very good presentation, thank you very much. Thank you for having your team here today, maybe you didn't utilize them as much as we could have, but thank you for being here today everybody. Anything else to add? MS. KUNZ: No, that's it. Thank you very much for your support. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you, Ms. Kunz. With that, we're going to take a brief recess while we switch up our departments. Thank you very much. Recess: At 2:31 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 2:39 p.m. (5) Office of the County Auditor: Page 331 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I'm going to call us out of recess. Our director is here. Our next department, for everyone watching is the Office of the County Auditor. Sir, if you would, introduce yourself for everyone for the record, and then proceed with your presentation. (Note: At this time, County Auditor Tyler Benner displayed a dashboard that was created on the County Auditor webpage for the members of the Committee. For viewing of the presentation,please see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or navigate to the Council's video archives online from the County's homepage at www.hawaiicounty.gov. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, sir. Council Members, discussion. Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: I'll just be brief. Your presentation reminds me again why we hired you. It's so useful and your representation of information is really you do really great visualization so just wanted to say I really appreciate you doing that. We've seen some of your work so far and it's been excellent, so no questions about the budget, but I just want to mahalo you for a fine presentation. MR. BENNER: Thank you very much, appreciate it. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Going to Kona. Coming back to Hilo. Kona, can you hear me? MS. DAVID: Yes, we can. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Ms. Kierkiewicz, go ahead. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Mahalo, Chair. I just want to echo the sentiments of my colleague, Ms. Kimball. I think as you were providing your presentation, Auditor Benner, we were getting very giddy because I think I remember when we reviewed your resume, it was displayed in an infographic style which was so intriguing, and over the course of our conversations through the interview process, we were just convinced that your tech background was going to be very beneficial in this role and it really is. It would be great if over time many of our departments could be demonstrating their budget or presenting their budget in this way, not just to the Council, but you know, so that the community can access information over time, of all the different aspects, programs, services that each department delivers. I don't know if you can get into it today because you talked about having to revise scope for the inventory of assets, but can you expand a little bit more about what Page 332 FC-32 April 14,2022 the circumstance is? I mean is it a budgetary constraint? Is it a personnel issue? If you can't get into it, you can say that as well. MR. BENNER: Well, it was a personnel issue. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. MR. BENNER: That created a barrier for us being able to go in and have the discussions we needed to have and evaluate the criteria we needed to evaluate. But that is just a delay and won't stop us from moving forward on work related to that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: So not having enough folks to carry out that work? MR. BENNER: No, no. I didn't mention in my presentation too. We do currently have a vacancy. We do have interviews scheduled for both the end of April and the beginning of May. It's not a capacity issue on our side, it would be on the auditee's side. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Got it. Thank you for that. Then thank you for launching the pilot initiative related to the Whistle Blower Hotline. Just curious to know if there's any additional funding that you need added to your budget to act on some of the things that you are learning about through sharing of information for members of the public as well as county employees. MR. BENNER: I really appreciate that. As I mentioned, we did also stand up a similar dashboard that supports the calls that are coming in related to the Fraud, Waste and Whistle Blower Hotline. We try to go with the most economically efficient options we can. This particular license is $10 a month so this is a low barrier to entry. We're going to try to utilize those things efficiently but if we see that we have major reaches that we need to ask for, I think we've demonstrated that we're quite lean, quite transparent, and we're going to look inside our own organization before we ask you for something. With that, we just ask that if we do reach out to you, know that we've conducted that analysis and we just ask for support at that time. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yeah, thank you for being so fiscally prudent and I think you're coming up on your one-year anniversary being here on Hawaii island. MR. BENNER: Yeah, I started day one of the new fiscal year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: July, okay. Right on. Well, we are happy to have you. MR. BENNER: Thank you, happy to be here. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks for all that you do. Chair, I yield. Page 333 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thanks Chair. I agree with what other Council Members have said concerning your approach, and I think coming forward, you know, you mentioned the funding, that we've received this huge numbers coming forward. I think it's going to be very beneficial for our reporting, and I think Deanna's going to be happy about this as well because we're going to have to be able to justify those expenses. I think having that ability and having that auditing going on just reaffirms what Finance has been doing as far as being very specific on how we do our reporting. So just want to compliment you on that. That's going to help the county going forward. When we started receiving the funding, Deanna was very specific about keeping very tight control of the funding, even though we didn't have to. Of course, then the feds changed the reporting, but we already had things in place. So I think what we have set up here is going to be very good and very safe for the county as far as all that funding, so just compliment you on that. I have no other questions, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Okay Kona, checking in one more time. MS. DAVID: We're good, thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. Very good, sir. Very well done, your presentation. I would expect that of an auditor, to give us a presentation the way that you laid it out. MR. BENNER: Thank you very much and I'll look forward to seeing you guys next week in Kona. Anybody streaming or over there in the Kona side right now, have a great Easter. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, sir. Okay, we're in recess. Recess: At 2:54 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 2:59 p.m. (6) Office of the County Clerk: CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: We're out of recess and we're going to get started. Our next department in front of us today is the Office of the County Page 334 FC-32 April 14,2022 Clerk and Elections Division. Gentlemen, thank you for being here today. Why don't you go ahead and get started, Mr. Henricks. MR. HENRICKS: Sure, no problem. Thanks for having us today to talk about our budget that we share that largely supports the operations of the Council as well, and of course Elections. I don't have a very organized introduction or approach to this. I know that most of you are very familiar with our operations, even people who are newer to the Council because you're active, and you're around, and you ask great questions. So you're very familiar with at least the broader principles and requirements of what we do, pursuant to law and to make sure that the Council has what it needs to operate, and of course the conduct of Elections as required by many, many laws and rules. What we do is we put together a budget that will insure, for the most part, that those needs will be met with a little bit of cushion for those things that we can't anticipate, which is not a phenomena anymore, it's a fact. So, that is the budget that we present to you. We did present a brief analysis that provided discrepancies from the current fiscal year budget where it exceeded a certain amount,just to do that work for you folks if you're interested in the differences between the two budgets. It's really a pretty standard budget. We don't have any real new programs that at least are not, they are not going to be impacted by our operating budget. We have some new things coming and different things, but those funds will be coming from outside of our budget, so there's some few things we're moving towards. Our goal is to continue to provide the services that we've demonstrated that we provide very well to the public, to the Council, to our voters, and this budget will meet those needs. So if you guys have any questions about our operations, you know, finer points of the budget, how monies will be expended, we're happy to take those now and then obfuscate, and then answer them later at a certain point. Thank you so much. That's it. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Henricks, very down to earth and grounded. Thank you. Council Members? Ms. Kimball, go ahead. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Mr. Clerk, and both of you for submitting the budget. I just wanted to, for the benefit of my colleagues, we are going to receive the HSAC (Hawai`i State Association of Counties)budget shortly, so you may there will likely be an amendment in the amount there with an increase in dues and also a shifting of the NACo (National Association of Counties) membership fees to the county's prorated by county population. So we will pay a smaller share. I just talked to our Finance Director about that, but I'll have the official numbers from HSAC shortly. Thank you, I yield Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Kona, checking in with you folks. Page 335 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. INABA: No questions,just mahalo Jon and Aaron, and all of the staff that always ensures our county and all of our departments who run anything through the Council are cared for. So mahalo and look forward to the continued work together. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Coming back to Ms. Kierkiewicz in Hilo. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Clerk Henricks and Deputy Clerk Brown, for all of your k6kua and support, especially during the pandemic ensuring that community members still had access to streaming the meetings but also so that they provide public testimony, which really helped to guide us in our deliberation and decision making. It's great to be open again and that we have satellite offices around the island so that we're increasing access to just people being able to testify and share their mana`o. Thank you. I was going through the budget, and I just wanted to highlight some of the district allowances for each of the Council Members. Did I add it up correctly? Is it $6,200 for each Council district? MR. HENRICKS: It's a little more. I think it's because it's spread out amongst travel, reimbursements MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, I was looking for everything that said DAE(District Allowance Expense). I found a few lines. MR. HENRICKS: It doesn't say that everywhere. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. MR. HENRICKS: But we can get back to you and confirm what the total amount is, but it's closer to $8,000 I believe, maybe eight and change. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, if you could provide us with numbers that would be helpful. MR. HENRICKS: No change from the previous fiscal year, so it's the same amount MS. KIERKIEWICZ: It was just under eight? MR. HENRICKS: As this current fiscal year I should say. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Page 336 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. HENRICKS: Okay yeah, then that's $7,800, $7,500, something like that, correct. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Something off, got it. And then I don't know if you guys are in a position to answer this but just was curious about the contingency relief fund line item. Director Sako, if you want to maybe come and talk story with us about that. MR. HENRICKS: That's a simple one. It's zero. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: No, I know that. That's exactly why we're inquiring. MR. HENRICKS: And you should ask Ms. Sako about that. I'd be glad to have Ms. Sako field that one. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I don't recall it being zeroed out in prior proposed budgets, perhaps it was and then we go in. So I just— (Note: ust(Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. SAKO: I think last year, especially in March, it may have been zero as well. I think we were just coming off the $9 million appropriation for homelessness and a few things, so we'll continue to look at it and discuss with the Mayor. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, we look forward to the May version of the budget. Thank you, Director. MS. VILLEGAS: Chair? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Ms. Villegas, go ahead. MS. VILLEGAS: Aloha. Thank you for being here, Deanna, to answer all these fun inquiries we have. I also had the same question, and I wonder historically, was that something in prior administrations? I know that last year it was zeroed out. The prior year, I don't think it had been but is that the norm for the administration to leave it at zero and then we bring, as a Council, recommendations or suggestions and figure it out? What has that been historically, as far as processes and protocols? MS. SAKO: It's been different a lot of years, especially during the recession. You know, historically, there was never any contingency fund. It's a relatively newer thing and so we do our best. It depends on what the revenue sources are and then the will of each Mayor. Page 337 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. VILLEGAS: Great. Okay, thank you. Well, I'll look forward to what is often referred to on the dais as robust conversations regarding amendments to that budget line item. Thank you. MS. SAKO: Got it. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. Good afternoon. We also support, you know, Elections, LRB (Legislative Research Branch), and Machine Room. I just wanted to focus a little bit on Elections. You know, this year we went through reapportionment, both at the state level and then at the county level. I'm just wondering if we have enough there,just because got some new lines, people needing to really re-evaluate where they're voting, well, who they're voting for because we're at an all-mail ballot. MR. HENRICKS: Right. MS. LEE LOY: Just asking out loud, are we well-prepared in that area? MR. HENRICKS: I'm glad you brought that up because it gives an opportunity and this is one of the things we're going to be doing at Elections, whether advertising, education campaign, is to emphasize that voting by mail was not due to the pandemic. That was going to happen. That was a state law before the pandemic reared itself. So we'd be doing that and this is a good chance to remind people about that, and like you said—so the redistricting, it affects candidates more than voters. The place where you vote won't change. We're hoping most people will vote in a secure location in their home and use USPS or a drop box to cast their ballot safely. But we were aware of the—since it's a 10-year process and we did budget accordingly, it's a good time to reflect that on the process itself, which I think, you know, not commenting on the results of the maps, but the process went very well. We had a really good commission. It was staffed very well, and the process was successful, but we did anticipate it and we anticipated some changes. There already have been a few costs associated with that that we were aware would be there. We have a little more money in our budget for education, not necessarily due to redistricting but just to make sure that people are aware of how to cast their ballots and when to expect things. For instance, the yellow cards that you receive at home, for the vast majority of voters, they don't have much impact. It's just to make sure that if the person—if you get it and it's for somebody who doesn't live there, please let us know. Page 338 FC-32 April 14,2022 We hear about people who talk about getting ballots for their children that have moved or people who have been deceased. If they didn't pass away in this state, we probably won't be aware of it because we work with the Department of Health in Hawaii to be receiving notification. So it's a good time, since you brought it up, to remind people that we need help with the voter rolls. So if you get a yellow card and it's for a person who doesn't live there, write on the card, send it back to us. If somebody has unfortunately passed away, let us know, help us out there, but people should be seeing those coming out soon. I believe they're going out today in the mail. There's great information on there. It talks about the voting dates and different resources that are available. So those are coming out, something to look forward to, and again,just to assist us. For the bulk of our voters they'll get them and it'llsituation doesn't change but one thing to do is just to the best thing voters can do right now is to just make sure that their voter registration is current and is up to date with regard to, of course, your residence address and any name changes, because that's really the most important thing in a vote-by-mail process, is that we get the ballot to you where you live so that you can then participate. But we're prepared from a budgeting standpoint. MS. LEE LOY: Great because I know last time, too, we—drop boxes, are we planning to have more drop boxes in other locations? MR. HENRICKS: Yeah, we're adding one in Waikoloa, and we'll analyze. We did the last time, we took a look at the numbers. I'm skeptical that we'll ever remove one becauseI'm not saying it won't happen but when you offer something to people, you tend to lock yourself in, for better or worse. So that's one reason why, too, we're cautious about where we add them because we would expect once we add them, even if they're not highly used, that we wouldn't remove them. There's other considerations as well. We're very careful about where we locate them. Voter security, you know, everybody should know that when they put their ballot in there that it's going to be there when we come to get it, and that we'll make sure we put it in places where people will have that confidence. So we put it in county locations where it's safe, well lit, security cameras, we tend to them daily. So we did add one, that's a long answer to say there will be one more in Waikoloa. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, thank you. MR. HENRICKS: You're welcome. Thank you. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Mr. Richards, go ahead. Page 339 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. RICHARDS: I just wanted to echo Ms. Lee Loy's conversation about the drop boxes. That was very popular in my district,just for the security reasons you were talking about. I think Waikoloa makes all the sense in the world because it's a good-sized area. You talk about the voter confidence in security going forward, I know we located the other ones in District 9 at the police stations. Waikoloa Village, are you still trying to evaluate where that might be? MR. HENRICKS: No, we have a location. It's at the community center in Waikoloa Village. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, great. MR. HENRICKS: We have an agreement with them. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. HENRICKS: A lot of that—the finer points of that, there are always finer points to things, have been worked out. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, wonderful. That worked exceedingly well, and people felt very confident of that. So I`m just echoing my support of that and if it's only one box, we have enough in the budget to get it done? MR. HENRICKS: We have the box. We're ready to go. It's just a matter of timing to secure it there at the appropriate time. To kind of talk a little bit about voter security, I'll take this opportunity to let people know how we treat the ballots when we get that box. We do have people that meet us there to make sure that when we count the ballots, we actually certify how many we're taking. It's not—there's a redundancy factor in there. Just a kind of chain of custody issue and people don't know that. It's for us internally, but I think there's quite a few steps that our office takes that have been established over the years, including new steps with the elections by mail that we don't necessarily tout but it's important to us. So I just want people to have confidence to know that we're not doing what it takes to get the job done, we're doing more than it takes to get the job done, but not outside of reason to where we're stretching ourselves thin and then compromising the foundation of the process, but right up to the point where it's like almost overachieving. It's important to us because I understand what you're saying. I viewed some Election Commission meetings recently and there are some concerns out there. I don't have any of those personally because I'm privy to seeing the process on a daily basis, but not everybody is and I understand that. I just wanted to make people aware of that, how cautious and careful we are and how much we respect each person's ballot that they submit. Page 340 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. RICHARDS: I appreciate that, and I might suggest that you include that as you go through your educational process about the high level of security that we, in our county, are actually paying very close attention to that. Again, I appreciate that and glad you have the funding for it, so let's get her done. Thanks, I yield. MR. HENRICKS: Thank you, sir. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thanks Mr. Richards. Going back to Kona. MS. DAVID: Chair? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yes. MS. DAVID: Thank you. I just wanted to echo—I have absolutely no questions for Clerk Henricks, and Deputy Clerk. To our new Program Administrator, I'd like to just say thank you to Cori Saiki for her excellent work in assuming the duties of Elections in such a smooth manner, and I want to thank the Clerk's Office and all the staff for going above and beyond, like Jon just said. I really appreciate every single one of you guys because without you folks, we don't function. So far, we've been functioning quite well in my opinion. So,just wanted to say mahalo to everyone, that's all. No questions on the budget. Thank you. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. David. Seeing no other lights, seeing no other discussion, gentlemen, thank you very much. I have one or two questions, mainly regarding our staffing. So we have all of our Council Members' positions filled, well done. MR. HENRICKS: Nine for nine. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: We do see some vacancies within the department that are funded, looks like, for Support Services Clerks. MR. HENRICKS: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Logistical Information and Reference Technician. MR. HENRICKS: We can take these one at a time as we move through the different divisions. We're in the process or almost near recruitment for one position in Support Services. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Page 341 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. HENRICKS: Which would give us four out of five. We're currently at three out of five, so you know, that's not a point of urgency but a primary point of making sure we up our resources in there from a Human Resources standpoint. Council Services, yes, we do have a vacant position there, not a point of urgency at this time, but yes, it is a vacancy and we're looking at how we want to approach that as we move forward. You know, speaking of Elections that Ms. David brought up, I do want to just point out how—appreciate how Cori stepped up. Do we miss Pat? Yeah, we miss Pat, of course we do. That's obvious, but unfortunately, she had every right to retire, but Cori has stepped up. She was prepared and she's done a heck of a job to keep everything moving in the right direction. We've been very fortunate to have two people join us that came already with elections experience, so I feel really good about the team that's in that office right now, especially at this critical time. Then LRB, we do also have a vacant position in there that we are looking to fill. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: The Legal Specialist or MR. HENRICKS: No, that's unfunded. We're not looking to fill—we have one vacant funded position as a Legislative Specialist that we do have a purpose of filling that. It's not an urgency, but it's definitely part of our immediate vision to fill that out, strengthen that team, and get it to where it has a lot of experience moving forward to be able to weather the storms of Council Members needs and whatnot. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That would be good. MR. HENRICKS: Sorry, no one in particular. Nine for nine. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: The Legal Specialist, what is the Legal Specialist, that position? MR. HENRICKS: It doesn't really have an official position description. In the past, it was used to hire somebody that had a law degree and even potentially somebody that was licensed to practice law to perform certain services, research and other things of that nature. We haven't had a Legal Specialist on board probably for I'd say eight to 10 years. Hence, it's been remained unfunded for quite some time I believe. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I was thinking about what Ms. Villegas had said in a previous discussion, and just thinking about that Corporation Counsel type position and looking at this Legal Specialist position within our own department. Thank you. Okay, that was most of my questions. Other than that, your budget is pretty straightforward. I appreciate what you guys do. You take Page 342 FC-32 April 14,2022 good care of the county, you take good care of us, and you've got a lot of good team members that support us and everything that we do in a lot of different ways, so mahalo. MR. HENRICKS: I really appreciate that, and we have had an evolving staff, but I love the new people that we have on board. I'm really excited about, as we move forward, kind of a next generation of people and keeping them on board and keeping them excited about this work and moving towards the future with them. So that's one of the things that really gets me excited to come here, is the people that we have brought on board recently are fantastic. So, thank you for that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Henricks. Thank you, Mr. Brown, I appreciate it. With that, Council, we'll go to a brief recess. Recess: At 3:21 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 3:27 p.m. (7) Department of Environmental Management CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, we're back from recess, and joining us now is the Department of Environmental Management(DEM). Go ahead, Mr. Mansour when you're ready. (Note: At this time, Department of Environmental Management Director Ramzi Mansour and Deputy Director Brenda Iokepa-Moses came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. MANSOUR: Aloha Chairman Kleinfelder and Committee Members. First before I start, I want to thank our staff here. They're going to be around for questions after the presentation, and I want to thank the Mayor's Administration for allowing Wastewater to become one of his top priorities. He assisted us this year, him and Deanna Sako from Finance. Thank you, Deanna, for allowing Wastewater to have one of the highest priorities within the administration this year. Thank you. (Note: At this time, Mr. Mansour and Ms. Iokepa-Moses provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the presentation, please see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office or navigate to the Council's video archives online from the County's homepage at www.hawaiicounty. ov. A hard copy of the presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 645.9.) CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, Director, and thank you for your team being here today—missing some other opportunities not being Page 343 FC-32 April 14,2022 available for those opportunities. Thank you for being here. Going to my Council Members, any discussion or questions? Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thanks Chair. I feel like I always get us started. Director and Deputy Director, thanks for being here. Brenda, thanks for answering that question about the Clerk III and the Accountant, about that position being assigned to track the grants. I also wanted to know a little bit more about the Information and Educational Specialist, what the plans were for that in light of the department needing so many positions. We know that engineers, we just need them all over the place, so I was just wondering what that Information and Educational Specialist was tasked to do, and if maybe some recruitment goals within that position might be an option. MR. MANSOUR: Definitely. Our department lacks public outreach and education, in addition, is also to be able to work with the administration PIO (Public Information Officer) and being ahead of the message. I felt this year we were always reactive to the message. We try and control mismanagement of the messages that goes out because somehow, if you don't control the messages, you get tons of calls, and our goal is to be ahead of that and to be proactive. We have so many programs. We have people just complaining, "I didn't know you guys do oil recycling." So we need to reach out to people about diverging, recycling, our wastewater, how it works so they understand our business. So once we come before you and ask we need to do a rate study and also they're going to assist us on the messaging to do the rate study, it's community meetings, so that position will be there to do all of that. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: And I think they'll also—right now what we're lacking is someone manning that website, getting it to a place where people could actually go and see all the things that they need to see. Right now, we depend on the alert system, people that are in the office. They're coming in at the regular time and reacting to that, so that'll be good. Also, with all of these projects, high and critical projects that we're doing with the Wastewater Treatment facility repairs and maintenance, if there is, knock on wood, any issues that come up with spills, it's not going to happen, I'm just saying, we'll have someone on sight that can get in front of that message to get to the public right now, because right now, we're depending on going through Cyrus. It goes through a whole chain before it gets out thereto the public. Sothis person will not just be doing PIO, they will be doing a lot of things for the department, and they'll be the consistent person in the office that would maintain that website, get the information out so we can minimize the calls to staff. There are a lot of calls to staff, and it could be answered if they just looked at the website or get those alerts. MR. MANSOUR: In addition to that, everything now is controlled by social media, and we don't have a way to get there. That person will get into the Instagram and Facebook to let people know when we're going to close a facility Page 344 FC-32 April 14,2022 in advance rather than people driving up there and say, "Oops, what am I going to do with my load?" MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, because we've heard that, right? People drove up and the gates were locked, so thank you for learning that lesson. We had a number of comments in our comment folder about this particular budget, but there seems to be a lot along recycling and diversion, and I didn't see that highlighted. I heard you talk about it, but what we really saw was some nuts and bolts around Solid Waste and positions. I was wondering how this budget reflects some of that recycling or diversion programs. MR. MANSOUR: Sure. Currently, we have four staff members within that section, two fully funded by the state. It's through the HI-5 program, so we cannot utilize them to do anything else besides the state programs. I had a conversation with the state and asked if there was a possibility that we could extend their responsibilities, and they said no, the fund is dedicated to particular tasks, and they cannot do it. Our goal was, could we have them do more plastic? Could we have them do more cardboard? But they said no, because it's state- funded position. So definitely, the other two and Sanne's been doing a great job within our department, working with some of you and she's really taken that into that's her passion, it is to get into the diversion. We were thinking because it goes back to the title. A name without a business is a business without a name, right? It doesn't exist so you have to have a name to your business. We don't have the diversion so we're thinking about renaming our section and with the public education is to do that. Sometime diversion, you can control it at the source. If we have curb-side collection, that could control the amount of waste that goes into the landfill. Currently, it goes—again, we have 22 transfer stations opened three days or seven days. You could take as much as you want, every day, to that transfer station, so there's no motive or incentive for you to start diverting, even though we have drop off recycling centers with cardboard and heavy bins. Most of the people, from studies, show that they drop everything in one bag, and they take it to the landfill. Construction demolition, this should be diverted from our landfills. It goes straight and gets buried into our landfill. It takes capacity of our landfill. So definitely, there isI'm looking forward to whomever is going to be that Division Chief that we're going to hire. All of that is going to be planned out, how we could give incentives to businesses to come here and start collecting construction demolition, inert material, and put it back to use rather than burying that material. That could be considered a high diversion priority. But you're right, we're not perfect and there's room for improvement. Page 345 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. You know, you walked in offline and said, you know, you guys are last, and this is not sexy work but it's stuff that we really have to take care of. So I really appreciate you being here. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Going to Kona. We're working on our screens over here, but do you have any questions for the Director or his team? MS. DAVID: Not at this time. Thank you, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director, Deputy, and your whole team for being here. I appreciate all the hard work you folks are doing. Just one question, you know, looking at the budget, reuse facilities, $45,000,just want to confirm that's the amount. MR. MANSOUR: Which item was that? MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: Yeah, that was increased by $30,000. It was only $15,000 for a while. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Yes. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: So we do haveSanne that has some projects for some of the refurbishment of those reuse centers. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Perfect. And that's where I was going because these are such incredible resources and when we think about how we divert some of the waste from the landfill, these reuse facilities really help to serve that purpose. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: When we went on our tour together, Deputy, I think we recognized how very valuable these spaces are, but in such disrepair, they seemed to be, too. Is $45,000, is that realistic? Is that enough? MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: No, it's never enough, but we were like that's triple the budget that we had before. We were going through—we didn't know who the successful contractor would be, but luckily, we have the same one that's there, so we have a relationship with them. In working with them, we were lucky to get a donation, well it was a waste for a facility that we could potentially use at one of those sites. It was a K-Span building, but it might be too big. But anyway, we're looking at creative ways to getting those places because I mean just visiting them, it was so good to see that community loves those places and that we talked to the contractor about let's think of some more innovative ways to help you besides just Page 346 FC-32 April 14,2022 the county with our funds, and limited funds, like is there any community groups that can help or whatever means to—we volunteer to come out because it seems like such a great, fun thing to do. So definitely, that was just trying to bump it up to not tenfold it but to triple the budget this year and get some of those things done and I anticipate next year will be a much bigger ask. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, and I know with Parks and Recreation, they're taking a look at different sponsorship opportunities for some of those facilities, so we might want to take a look at a similar model for the reuse centers, and beyond that, also ensuring that they have storage capacity so that folks aren't going in vandalizing. You know, there's also a lot of theft that we know have happened at the Kea`au Station and so just want to make sure that they're fully supported. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: We did poor Rachel at the Pahoa Station, bless her heart. We did get her access to what used to be our HI-5 secured building so she doesn't take the things home with her every night. So we do understand that's a big problem and unfortunately, every time we repair a fence that's been cut, they come right back in and cut it again. So it is a big problem but yeah, we're going to be addressing those issues. MR. MANSOUR: I think in addition to that, because we have a contractual agreement with these people as well that has certain terms and conditions, we could revisit that as well. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, let's take a look at that. Then you know, Director, when you were talking about the diversion of construction materials, I'd love to explore that a little bit more. If there are financial considerations that we need to keep in mind walking into the May budget, I'd like to know or if it's just a policy or program that needs to be established. I'm thinking about the buyout program for Puna and the demolition of many of those homes, and I just think is there a way where we can be salvaging some of these materials and ensuring that folks like Habitat for Humanity are able to reconstruct homes or is this stuff that we can use to say, support some gardening initiatives? I don't know but I'd like to explore it more and see if funding is needed, or if it's just a matter of creating policy. MR. MANSOUR: It's probably both. In addition to that,partnering with the private sector. If we could have a creative mind to come here and start a business of having the right equipment to be able to take these demolitions and convert it into something usable like concrete chunks. You could grind them back up and put them back into the concrete and new concrete structures or use them for roadway access and what have you. So there's definitely opportunities,just to set incentives to these entrepreneurs to come and be willing to spend their money to create a business here on the island. Page 347 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I agree, and I think with our collaboration with the National Endowment of the Arts grant that we got, our town, diverting some of that plastic from the landfill and creating a new material that can be used to support, you know, county facilities, but hopefully, that exposure to that sort of stem experience, that technology, the design thinking really begins to spur some entrepreneurs in community, right? We can take our liabilities and turn them into assets but also create economy. MR. MANSOUR: I agree 100 percent. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I just want to thank you, you and your team. Eric, thank you for taking action on the funding that we received from EDN. The state legislature really enjoy being included in the conversations related to the programmatic EIS (Environmental Impact Statement), studying wastewater facility potential for Puna but also what that could look like in the Pahoa community. So thank you so much for showing up Monday at our event. I was going through some of the comments from community and everybody was just so impressed by the fact that this was happening. So thank you to you and your team for everything. MR. MANSOUR: Thank you for the invite, definitely. Great job yourself for that community and you've shown a lot of good leadership to your district. I definitely will look forward to continuing exploring all the options to get those services for that district. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Director, I think we're all trying as hard as we can. Thank you, Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you. Thank you, Director and Deputy Director for being here today, nice to see both of you. Just two questions, one is a line-item question in the Solid Waste budget. There's an operation study, $500,000, under 115. What is that study and is that a one-time cost? MR. MANSOUR: Hopefully that is a one-time cost. We need to look at our current operation and evaluate the options. Are we doing our business? Things have changed. We need to revisit and figure out what is the next step for our business. The landfill, the west landfill potentially may have 15 to 20 years lifespan remaining, we need to start thinking now. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, so this is for long-term strategic planning for Solid Waste. Is this also going to evaluate the transportation station model versus otherI mean you've brought that up in the MR. MANSOUR: Versus other models. Page 348 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. KIMBALL: Versus other collection models. MR. MANSOUR: Because we're getting so close. It takes about 12 years to sod a landfill so we're almost there. We need to start planning now. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, great. The electronic waste recycling, obviously, we ran out of money this year. Any plans to—I mean I know we're still waiting on the state for maybe a different funding mechanism, but it's not looking totally likely, but is there logic to maybe putting a little more into that so we don't run out next year? MR. MANSOUR: Yeah, this is actually, it's not county-funded, it's a state- funded program. The state used to give a good amount of money but during COVID, they robbed that bank, and they directed the money somewhere else. MS. KIMBALL: The state? Really? MR. MANSOUR: Yes. Believe it or not, they don't want to even give it back. But yeah, we talked to the state representative for that program. They promised that they're working hard trying to get that money back, but it seems like there's no hope. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: I think the legislation that's going in front of them that had as a manufacturer take responsibility to get money into that fund. They should be the ones taking care of those waste products. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, Bill 1640 I think is the one you're referring to which was, unfortunately, amended in the Senate to a study. Many of us MR. MANSOUR: Senate approved, and people objected to it. I think we opposed it if I remember. But you're right, I mean we need to do something. Is that—it goes back again to does the General Fund—you know, you're talking about now additional subsidy to subsidize a state program. I mean we get $99,000. We need to make that work. We did the math, we're looking at the amount of disposal. We only have about 200,000 people within the island so we need to figure out, should we do a bimonthly event or do it like what we do with the hazardous waste. In the state of trying to manage that$99,000 without— differently, ithoutdifferently, maybe we can let it run longer so people could wait on their e-waste. When we have the event quarterly, they could bring it and then maybe that becomes our event, rather than having it open because now we don't have control of the private entities because we're in the middle now. We just take the state money and pay it. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: And there's a delay when we get the invoice so sometimes, like this current situation, there's a shortfall, there's a short gap and Page 349 FC-32 April 14,2022 guess who gets to hold the books for that? The County of Hawaii, and we're just the pass through. So how does that happen where it's a state-funded program and the County of Hawaii has to come up with the shortfall? So these quarterly events will give us a hard number at the end of that event, and we can strategically make it so we don't run out of money, hopefully, and hopefully by that time, the state and the manufacturer will pay back into this so they can fund it. It shouldn't be a county-funded thing. MS. KIMBALL: Right. That makes sense and I think doing it as a collection day, I mean we already do that for commercial e-waste because this is only for residential e-waste. MR. MANSOUR: And currently, we don't have a way to differentiate between business and commercial so it's hard to control a program that we're not in control of. MS. KIMBALL: Right. Okay. And then I just want to mahalo you and Director Sako for, you know, seeing the importance of having a long-term, integrated Wastewater Managment Plan. I see the 500. Now I see it in there. I missed it before, but the $500,000 for that planning process, I think that's super important, and I just want to say mahalo for making that happen. MR. MANSOUR: And just, as we spoke,just to emphasize that 500 is just— because ustbecause we have other state legislative funding on the east side and the west side. For the Puna district we started a study and the facility plan, we're going to start, hopefully, this study as we discussed on the west side that allows that 500 could come in, bring these multiple studies into one unified study called Integrated Waste Management. So the reason I asked for the 500 and not any more is because depending on the other funding that's going to subsidize it. MS. KIMBALL: That's why it's so critical that it's in this budget because those other funding analyses are improved by the fact that it's now part of a more wholistic review because depending on what you do in Kohala, there's different ways you could think about it in terms of what you might end up doing in Puako, which is one of the places where we have state funding. So having the larger picture is really valuable, I think, to us making better decisions about that. So, I was just wondering. Mahalo all of you for investing in that for us. I yield, Chair. Thank you. Thanks again guys, CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Thanks Director and Deputy. We've had so many conversations about all of this stuff, and I was just going to echo what Heather just talked about as far as the planning. We talked about that. The needs of your department, when it comes to Wastewater, you know, I think your CIP Page 350 FC-32 April 14,2022 (Capital Improvement Projects) is about three quarters of a billion dollars for over the next five or six years, if we could get that done. But as we've discussed, having that plan so then we can implement the plan, I think that's the best way forward right now. That being said, we did authorize Finance with that $149.5 million bond potential if we need to get going. With that and going forward, is that$500,000 you just said, Ramzi, that the $500,000 is enough to get started and we have that$1.5 million at Puako. We've discussed combining this, so we come up with an integrated plan to go forward. Is that enough to get the plan because my concern is as we are—and we've had these conversations but we've also kind of put them aside and let them gel for a while. Is this going to be enough to start moving the needle to get that done because west side, Puako, yes, but then the greater Puako, Mauna Lani, things are going to have to change on that side. Nothing is going to happen quick. I agree with your direction and priorities. Let's fix what we have now so then we don't worry about it while we're planning for the next increments of what we need to accomplish. Is that still your thought process and is that$500,000 enough this year to get that ball rolling? MR. MANSOUR: Definitely. The $500,000 will be enough if we could secure the west side, Puako money because today,just to give you the good news, we got the letter from the governor releasing that 1.5 for a comprehensive plan. So it's a good thing if we do a comprehensive plan for the west side. That's going to cover half of the island, and we're working with Council Member Kierkiewicz and Matt, Council Member Kleinfelder on the Puna District Feasibility Study. So now we have most of the east side. Our goal even—one of the options that we're going to look for on the east side is not only providing wastewater treatment as one option, one option is to extend the sewer collection to the east to cover some of the Puna district facilities. So that way, that means they're going to look at the Hilo facility as well, under the $2.2 million. So with that study and the study, if we could do it more comprehensively on the west side, the $500,000 comes in to collect all of these studies and create the Integrated Waste Management Plan for the island. So that's the strategy with the plans, and let's hope that it goes as planned. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so I'm hearing for now that's enough, and for this coming up fiscal year, that's the capacity you can deliver because if that's the case and it makes economic sense because again, we've talked about that. I assume the self-funding aspect, by getting your users up in the system, that increases your revenue, which would then start paying for your maintenance and repair and then looking at setting aside for capital later, something like that. Would that be covered in these plans? Is that the idea? There will be a fiscal side of it as well as just the physical side? MR. MANSOUR: That will be covered, definitely, on the east side and the west. The idea is how can we increase our revenue by having our customers' volume go Page 351 FC-32 April 14,2022 up and providing connection. You've got the cesspool conversion, so we need to start planning now of laying out the roadmap. As we previously talked about, and unfortunately now, we're trying to play catch up. Most of our money, capital investment, is going to get us out of the hot waters just to replace equipment rather than be in place and new investments to expand infrastructure. Once we're out of the hot water and catch up, we need to start finding ways of how we could expand our infrastructure to improve our number of connections so our revenues could go up. We have been discussing it with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). They're willing to fund some of that, so we're sharing information with them. They came and visited with us on April 6, and they understand it's a challenge. The whole cesspool conversion is a challenge to the whole island and the whole state. So the idea is how can we start to generate revenues and put good money, good investment so that we can get the payback and continue being sustainable? (Note: At this time, Wastewater Deputy Division Chief Eric Takamura came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. TAKAMURA: Eric Takamura, Deputy Division Chief for Wastewater. Besides the funding projects that Ramzi mentioned, in the prior years, we put in the CIP to do another facilities plan for Hilo and to do another facilities plan for Kona because we haven't sewered those two communities. So in the facilities plans, if those projects go forward, we can kind of lay out the work that needs to be done to capture the service area of that Wastewater facility. Right now, Hilo, we're only at, I think two and a half million gallons. We're not even close to five MGD (Million Gallons per Day) so where are we supposed to sewer on the north side? We haven't captured all of that. This facility plan will capture that as well as the south side and then what Ramzi was talking about on the Kea`au corridor, that Puna Programmatic EIS, it makes a lot of sense, maybe, to bring all that wastewater north to the Hilo plant because the Hilo plant has an outfall. There's an effluent disposal in place. It's going to be difficult to find how to dispose effluent in these areas so the whole south side of Hilo can be captured in the facilities plan. The facilities plan that we're doing for the Puna district will also be captured. The Kailua-Kona area, there's so much growth being planned in that area. That's why we proposed to do a revised facilities plan. So those monies were in the CIP budgets in prior years, so it's already there. We think with all of this money, we can combine all of these studies and the $500,000 will just summarize into an executive summary type of report, all of these different facilities' plans. We kind of go by facilities plan. We build a treatment plant, what's the service area? So the service area will include pump stations like that, and that's all the treatment plant will handle. So with all of these facilities plan and you bring it all together, then you'll have an integrated Wastewater Master Plan for the entire island. Page 352 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. RICHARDS: I'm glad because this will tie this all together, which is what we need to go forward. You said you met with EPA, are they good with the way we're taking this forward? MR. MANSOUR: We are definitely still working with them. What brought them here is the Maui decision and that's going to probably impact us. MR. RICHARDS: I think it has to. MR. MANSOUR: It has to because now it's a court decision so we're going to see the impact and we may be getting some type of enforcement order as far as projects related to that Maui decision. MR. RICHARDS: And we're talking the injection well? MR. MANSOUR: The injection wells and the Kealakehe Treatment Plant. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so coming back to the budget itself, as it stands right now, based upon the funding for Puna, the funding for Puako and the $500,000, that's enough to gel and put this plan in place so we get the integrated Master Plan, correct? MR. MANSOUR: Yes. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Alright. Any other supplemental—and we've discussed that for any employees. Do you have the capacity to do that? MR. MANSOUR: We have, for the May budget,we've asked for more supplements. I understand—and our conversation with the Mayor, we have a piece of the pie but definitely, we have a lot of challenges. So we added more to the May supplement to the Mayor, and we are hoping that we may get some good response back. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, and I say this to everybody. Everybody is respectful of everybody else's budget, and we understand that but also, it's our job to understand the needs of each department. You're not fighting against each other for budget. That's not how this works, but we have to understand the scale of what you guys are looking at. Granted, your scale is much higher when it comes to the capital improvement side. We got that part,but the operational side is what we're looking at. So the total number, what kind of dollars are we looking at because we've got Sewer Fund, we've got Solid Waste, we've got Vehicle Disposal, we've got just your overall management, total dollars, additional positions? Page 353 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. MANSOUR: Robin may help us. I think she gave me that, but I don't know where I put it. (Note: At this time, Business Manager Robin Bauman came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. BAUMAN: Robin Bauman, Business Manager for the Department of Environmental Management. So we do have additional supplementals that we've submitted,just kind of trying to add them up here. MR. RICHARDS: Ball park. MS. BAUMAN: Just about$2 million, department wide. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, and that's spread across all the different divisions? MS. BAUMAN: Yes. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Alright. That's it, thanks. One of the—how many positions are you looking to add to that? Again, ball park. MS. BAUMAN: That includes about 23 positions. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you. Alright Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Okay, Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Just one more quick comment about the funding for the study. I don't think that an RFP has been generated for that, right? MR. MANSOUR: That's right, it has not. MS. KIMBALL: So when Director Sako— MR. MANSOUR: For the west side it has not, but the Puna side we started it. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, but this additional $500,000, I just wanted to mention to Council Member Richards that Director Sako and I had talked about this. We had identified the funding scheme, the long-term financing scheme as one of the things we wanted included in the RFP. So there is a focus on that. Are we charging the full $10 for the vehicle disposal? MR. MANSOUR: $12. MS. KIMBALL: $12. Are we charging yes? Okay, alright. What's the General Fund balance in there? Page 354 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. MANSOUR: For DAV(Derelict and Abandoned Vehicles)? MS. KIMBALL: Yes. MR. MANSOUR: I think it's $3.3 million for DAV. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: We also have a big construction project with our AV (Abandoned Vehicles)program that will suck a big portion of that in, so I think we have a running balance of$7 million or something. MR. MANSOUR: But that includes the Fund Balance, but revenues is about $3.3 million, 3.4. That's—our revenue is $2.4 million for the vehicles but the Fund Balance from prior year MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: Is $3.9 million. MR. MANSOUR: Yeah, it's almost—that's what makes the $7.1 million. MS. KIMBALL: I'm asking because one of the pieces of HSAC legislation was to up that fee. It didn't live but one of the things was that Kauai wasn't actually charging the full amount. They were allowed to—and so our position, we can significantly with that. MR. MANSOUR: Well definitely, this is a challenge because I was showing you that we have our operation, $3.3 million, our revenue coming in, it's kind of breaking even with two percent staffing, it's not sustainable. MS. KIMBALL: We could certainly see it go up, I just wasn't sureI wanted to confirm we were spending the full amount before I went back again to the legislature. MR. MANSOUR: Let's go back, definitely. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. Okay, thank you. I yield, Chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Go ahead, Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. I wanted to compliment you on one more thing. We've been having these conversations about asset management and someone from your team did a small presentation to other departments on the Next Gen system. I'm really fascinated by that and the fact that you're building up capacity within your team to put in the work orders, to track the progress they're making on, you know, maintenance of systems, and I think that's really Page 355 FC-32 April 14,2022 valuable. It has inspired other departments to take a look at perhaps incorporating that into their practice. Just curious to know, you mentioned needing some additional software, maybe iWorks your team was taking a look at. Does this proposed budget reflect securing that platform? MR. MANSOUR: Yes, it does. I think as part of the additional supplement we asked for an Information Analyst Systems VI to not only concentrate on Wastewater but also to include the Solid Waste assets as well. Our goal is to expand all of that to make sure that we have our equipment inventory for maintenance, for work orders, for any failures so we could respond in a timely manner, and also allow to have spare parts so we don't have to wait six months or a year to be able to get that part. So all of that is going to be part of that program, the asset management. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: It's great to hear. Thank you. Chair, I yield. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Okay, one more time, back to Kona. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair, no comments on this side. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, I'm going to go ahead then. I wanted to touch on one thing you said. The AV Department, you have an amazing asset there with Julie. I don't think there is any supervisor position in that department that I can see in your positions. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: That's going to be on our May budget, definitely. MR. MANSOUR: It's a supplement added to the May budget. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's why I was checking. Good, I'm glad to see that. I think that's a good move there. Thank you. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: She's amazing, yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: E-waste is a revenue source on this budget and also an expense. Are you sure, from previous conversation, is that going to zero out on both sides? MR. MANSOUR: It already zeroed out and that's why we terminated the program effective April 1. Page 356 FC-32 April 14,2022 MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: We expect July 1 to get monies from the state again. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, because it's budgeted here as a revenue and as an expense for $85,000. MS. IOKEPA-MOSES: We're a pass through for the state funds. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so we are going to get funding? It will be there? MR. MANSOUR: Will be there starting July but we're going to figure out how to stretch the $85,000 to the end of the year. If not, the program will be terminated until the new funding cycle from the state. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. I'm going to run real quickly. Wastewater OCE (Other Current Expenses), miscellaneous contract services went up about$1 million. What is that due to? MR. MANSOUR: Well, allow my Division Chiefs to—or Robin. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: While they're here, you might as well MR. MANSOUR: I mean, because sometimes the consultant through the CIP, some of that million dollars probably—Robin or—we brought them here, might as well get them involved. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I think so. Thank you, Robin. (Note: At this time, Business Manager Robin Bauman came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. BAUMAN: Two of the big things in there in that miscellaneous contracts is that$500,000 for the integrated management plan that's already been discussed. We have $200,000 in there for rates study. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: For wastewater rates? MS. BAUMAN: Wastewater rates study. Since we're going to be implementing our, you know, last increase in 2023. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that's $700,000. What else is new or a one-time for this year? Or is it going to hold at about that rate? I see the $500,000, the $500,000 drops off in the next year but these other ones are going to hold going forward? MR. MANSOUR: I mean current rate or ? Page 357 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: No, not the rate, sorry,just everything else in this miscellaneous contract services, budgeting outwards you guys have a maintained budget of$1.3 million. MS. BAUMAN: Well actually, that rate study would drop off as well. We also have money in there for the pretreatment program,the $300,000. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Was there a rate study,just going backwards a little bit. Was there a rate study last time before we were asked to raise the rates? MS. BAUMAN: Yes. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah? Okay. It was based on that because I think they came to us and said we need increased rates, but they didn't have too much direction, from what I remember on what they needed to be,just we need a rate change. MS. BAUMAN: Yeah, the proposed rates were based on the rate study that was performed. MR. MANSOUR: Just as an FYI, that rate study that was done, it kind of played catch up because the last rate increase took place in 2003. MS. BAUMAN: Maybe 2002. MR. MANSOUR: 2002, so we cannot afford to wait 12 years and come back and hit our constituents with 20-30 percent rate fee. My intent is to continue doing the rate study every five years so we'll use a lower percentage, so the constituents don't feel the impact, even if we go cost of living, it's better than nothing because everything is going up. So we need to plan ahead rather than wait 10 or 20 years and hit everybody. It doesn't make sense, so that's the intent of that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I agree. Does that rate study take into account new infrastructure you're looking at? MR. MANSOUR: That is going to cover the actual cost of operation and maintenance, and it's going to look at the current structure we have with what needs to be maintained. The current, actual cost of operation will include that and that's what the rate study is going to cover, the actual cost of doing business. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. I see your refuse disposal here going up pretty substantially, and that's for wastewater itself but it's going up $60,000 this year, or expected, expected to go up about$60,000 this year for tipping fees and solid waste refuse hauling. Page 358 FC-32 April 14,2022 MR. MANSOUR: The tipping fees, we have Mike, if you want to address that. I think we have one more year on the tipping fees because we went back in 2018 and we got four or five years. (Note: At this time, Acting Solid Waste Division Chief Michael Kaha came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. KAHA: Mike Kaha, Acting Solid Waste Chief. Yes, our fee schedule is set to increase one more time in 2023. By then we'll be looking at making some changes to our fee schedule and introducing that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so the raises each year of about $60,000 is due to the tipping fee going up? That's why it's MR. MANSOUR: It went up by a small percentage. And hopefully with that Solid Waste Operational plan they're going to look at evaluating the tipping fees and the possibility of the cost of business and recommend moving forward with what we need to become more sustainable. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay and real quickly, Mike, what was your title? MR. KAHA: Acting Solid Waste Chief. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What happened to the other Solid Waste Chief? MR. KAHA: He found greener pastures somewhere else. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Interesting. I didn't know that. Okay. That's Greg? MR. KAHA: Yeah. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, congratulations, sir. I see also in Wastewater Equipment, six trucks. MR. MANSOUR: Yes, we have asked for six trucks based on that list. We came before you when we asked for the three this current year we have, technically, 44 trucks when we started. We disposed of the majority of these trucks, now we're down to about 24 trucks. We have just recently, one truck, the transmission went down so we've gone down the list, we sat down with our operation. Some of these trucks, like I was mentioning, goes back to 1990, 2006. I mean 20 years old, running—look at the mileage that we put from east to west every day, twice a day. So our goal is to replace at least six out of the 20 that we have to because Page 359 FC-32 April 14,2022 we cannot replace them all. We don't have the funds, so our goal is to break it over the next five years and to be able to get rid of the ones that we utilize its lifespan, so that's the intent. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So the intent is to buy six new trucks each year? MR. MANSOUR: Yes. Well, for this year, for the 2023, we'll have more analysis done as we come to you for 2023-2024. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Yeah, it's not reflected here. MR. MANSOUR: Yeah. Our goal is not to take six, it depends on the analysis we do. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. AV Department or the AV fund, parts and vehicles increased pretty substantially. I want to check what is the departmental the miscellaneous contract fees, and I'm just wondering about that because it went from $1.5 million in 2020 $2.3 million this current fiscal year and then estimated at$3 million next fiscal year. MR. MANSOUR: Which division? I'm sorry. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: This is in your Vehicle Disposal Fund, number 115, Vehicle and Parts Disposal OCE, miscellaneous contract. MR. MANSOUR: Robin? (Note: At this time, Business Manager Robin Bauman came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. BAUMAN: So this account, miscellaneous contracts account covers the disposal of the vehicles and some environmental cleanup related to our closed scrap metal yards, the cost of towing the vehicles, security for our AV lots, and the amnesty program. So this year in the proposed 2022-2023 budget, because the number of vehicles that are being removed have been increasing and the cost of towing has increased, we increased the towing by about$400,000. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so the towing went up, the towing line item. MS. BAUMAN: And the abandon vehicle disposal I believe went up, and I think the security went up as well, based on our actual cost. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I'm looking at the trajectory, I mean it went from $1.5 million last year to $3 million this year. It's almost double so just Page 360 FC-32 April 14,2022 trying to track why it's growing that quickly. Given what you said so far, some of that makes sense but that's a big jump yeah? It's not a small jump. MS. BAUMAN: Yeah, and the environmental cleanup, that's an ongoing process so we don't always spend a million each year. So that's why the actual is a little less, but we need to have those funds available for the next step in the process. MR. MANSOUR: Part of the cost of it is for remediation of the old site to get us—removing all that metal, scrap metals from that site. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Where was that site? MR. MANSOUR: The million dollars MS. BAUMAN: Yeah, so the Kealakehe Scrap Metal yard is mostly remediated. There's still some work to be done there but the Hilo Scrap Metal yard was out there MR. MANSOUR: Where the old landfill is, you know, as you drive into the site you have the chutes and the transfer station. It's just next to that. There is so much auto parts that we need to remediate. We're supposed to start the process with selecting the consultant to do that remediation for that site. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you for that explanation. MR. MANSOUR: You're not going to see it every year. It's kind of—once we're done from remediation, we should drop back to where we, you know,just the actual services we provide. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Below that, line 341, "Departmental Admin Fees,"what is that? MS. BAUMAN: Our DEM Admin budget gets allocated to the three special funds so the Sewer Fund, Solid Waste Fund, and the Vehicle Disposal Fund. That's how our admin costs are covered, even though it's budgeted under General Fund, it's allocated out to the special funds. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Interesting. So this line item goes back to the admin MS. BAUMAN: Goes back into the General Fund to fund our administration. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I didn't know that. Okay. MR. MANSOUR: Somebody's going to pay our payroll. Page 361 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I see one vehicle on here, too, there's a four-by-four SUV here for $45,000. On the next page. MS. BAUMAN: I believe that's a replacement vehicle. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Replacement? MR. MANSOUR: It's a replacement. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Then I wanted to touch on things. So community is askingactually, before I do that, I found this last year, too, but I wanted to ask you, there is one chair in here in one of your departments in the admin section that's $400. There are other chairs on the back side that are $250 apiece. I know it's small but I just—it always catches my attention. I think I brought this up to you guys last year. So I just wanted to ask you guys and give you a hard time. Yeah, it's either $250 or it's $400 or is it admin? Maybe it's Ramzi's chair that's falling apart. MS. BAUMAN: Yeah, his chair costs a little more. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Just checking, looking for continuity across the board. MR. MANSOUR: Sometimes we have to do ergonomically fit chairs because some staff with low backs (chairs) and others you're not going to have the same prices but Brenda this year did a great job to supply our west side office. She actually was able to secure great deals at$99 a chair. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you. MR. MANSOUR: Believe me, we do our homework. This is probably budget- purposed but usually we go tap. We could buy four instead of one. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Just checking. Remind me, where in the Solid Waste budget, because this comes up in the community a lot, Kalapana Transfer Station needing more days a week. We've discussed this in the past, and I'm also going to request for the Glenwood facility to have more days per week as well. Where are those in the budget? I don't see those in here. MR. MANSOUR: I guess I'll cover for mine. Definitely, this isI talked about it when we had the prior chief. We're still talking about it because I know I got an email and they have an event this Saturday as well for Earth Day, and the big question is, "Could we have more days?" If you recall when we did the analysis, per site of cost, that site because the way it's laid out, the number of residence and you have so many transfer stations Page 362 FC-32 April 14,2022 within the vicinity, you know one because we tried to open it, even the tonnage is still the same. So the idea is even if you open it for one more day, you're going to have the waste sit in these bins for three or four days. It's going to smell. We're going to have people complaining about the smell because we cannot send the truck drivers to haul a half-empty trailer. So we have to have enough volume to fill up the trailer to be able to go and pick it up. So if we open an additional day, now you have one-third or one-quarter of the trailer and we cannot have truck drivers keep driving that distance to haul just a quarter trailer. You see what I'm saying? That's the challenges and if we're going to leave it there until the next round, it's going to smell. So we're doing it from a business point of view and an environmental point of view. So the more we have people, if we fill it up every day, you're right, we'll be there but to go and haul a trailer that's one-third full, it doesn't make sense. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. In some areas, maybe in Kalapana that makes sense. In the Glenwood area, we've seen tremendous growth and I know a lot of people have been requesting more open days there. MR. MANSOUR: I can look into Glenwood for sure. We can revisit that. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Just saying, Kalapana, I actually saw a petition going around, and I signed the petition. I'll join forces with them, it's my community. They're asking for—what they used to have, was I think three days, then it was cut down to one day I believe right now. What we're seeing is all the trash ends up on the front gate, and so we have cleanup time now. We have manpower design to cleanup what's being dumped on the front gate because no one's around in the area, so I'd like to find a better balance there for the community. MR. MANSOUR: Sure, and hopefully, that public education officer we're going to have, we could have more public meetings but in just trying to have people rethink how they handle the waste. Like I said, it wouldn't make sense for us, for anybody just to go and travel all that distance, and gas and money and diesel,just to haul one-third of a trailer full. You know, if we have enough people to fill up the trailer, you're right, I'll be the one to come in before you and say we need to add more days. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: One thing that I thought was interesting, the logic behind that argument is there's not enough tonnage, but if we're basing onI mean, when are you checking to see the tonnage amount coming in? Is it when we're opening one day and saying there's not that much tonnage? If we're open two days, we'd see more tonnage. It's kind of a logical argument. MR. MANSOUR: You'd see more tonnage but it's not going to fill up a trailer. You see, you could have a trailer seven days—we have in Kealakehe, but I mean Page 363 FC-32 April 14,2022 we move these trailers twice a day because they get filled so fast. In that community, you put a trailer, if you put it and leave it there, you're probably not going to get it filled up for a week, but if they hauled their waste, they'd all bring it at once then we'd fill it up. Then it makes sense to haul one trailer. It just about—we don't have the staffing and we don't have the equipment just to haul one-third trailer full. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Where in the budget is that line item? MR. MANSOUR: We didn't—to add more staff? CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: No,just for the Kalapana and the Glenwood transfer station. Is that its own item or is it just lumped in with MR. MANSOUR: That's lumped in with the operation costs. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, not a specific ? MR. MANSOUR: Not a specific side-by-side, no. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Keep that in your mind,please, the community is asking. I've asked for two or three years in a row now, I just want to make sure I ask very clearly and plainly. MR. MANSOUR: I know. I hope I couldI don't know what elseI mean we could continue talking about it, definitely. I'd like to find solutions but once again, it's the volume. If we could control the volume and if it makes sense, then we'd do it. So we could talk to the community as well. It's just the ideas. Maybe they'd be better off with collection. Maybe that would be a good pilot program for the community because it's isolated subdivisions. Maybe it would be good to start a pilot program with collection for that, but we could continue to talk about it. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Sounds good. And again, we have our new Solid Waste Acting Chief right here. Thank you, Mike. MR. MANSOUR: You guys could have an arm twist on that to figure out. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you very much, I appreciate it. That's all of my questions and let's just anything else from the Council? No? Okay, seeing none, okay, thank you very much, I appreciate it, Director. Thank you for you and your team coming in. MR. MANSOUR: Thank you. I really love being the last one, by the way,just keep it. I'm serious. Page 364 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That wraps up our departmental reviews. I just want to wrap up the meeting now. So there's the option—we have three options here. We can recess the meeting if there's anything else we feel like we want to discuss with different departments, we want to bring them back in to have more discussion. We can postpone to the Finance Committee on May 3rd. This kind continues to keep the item open for our abilities, or we can forward the budget to the Special Meeting of the Council on May 19 for first reading. So I just want to hear from the Council what the thoughts are. Ms. Lee Loy, go ahead. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. I would prefer the 19d', only because I think the next iteration of the budget is the 5h, so even if we postpone to the 3rd, we really can't do much because we won't have seen the Administration's new adjustments. I did want to ask a question of Ms. Sako if it's ok. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That would be great. Ms. Sako, if you could. (At this time Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. LEE LOY: Thanks Deanna, for sticking around with us for the last three days. MS. SAKO: Oh, it's been fun. MS. LEE LOY: Our options, May 19d', with the next proposed budget on May 5d', ballparking it, when will we have a better understanding of the certified values? MS. SAKO: When we submit them to you. MS. LEE LOY: And that date will be? MS. SAKO: Around early May is when we normally do it. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, so maybe a week or so before the 5d'? MS. SAKO: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Chair, I'm fine with getting it to the 19d', giving us looks like the better part of two chances to make adjustments and amendments before we get into all of the other things that need to happen. That's my preference. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Ms. Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: I'm going to suggest maybe just for the sake of maybe comes up, we'll have a better handle on some of the budget stuff with the Legislature just Page 365 FC-32 April 14,2022 to keep it open as a possibility actually putting on the agenda for the 6h,just in case. We can postpone again there if we need to, but just in case is my thought. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: The 3rd. It would be May 3rd MS. KIMBALL: The 3rd, I'm sorry. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So to the May 3rd Finance Committee? MS. KIMBALL: Yeah,just in case. Then we can postpone it again if there's nothing to talk about. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Council Members in Kona? MS. DAVID: Chair, as for me, I think I support the recommendation or the suggestion by Council Member Lee Loy. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. INABA: I support that as well. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. Thank you very much, Council Members. MS. VILLEGAS: I also. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. Okay, Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: I agree with what Ms. Lee Loy has said. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, that seems pretty smooth then. I think we'll go ahead and then do the postponement. MR. BROWN: So Chair, there are two motions on the floor right now, both of them to forward Bill—one of them to forward Bill 126 to the next meeting with a favorable recommendation, and it's the same as Bill 127. So if you guys take the vote separately on each bill right now, that will forward both the operating and CIP budgets to the next Special Reading of the budget, which is May 19. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, so may I have a motion to forward Bill MR. BROWN: No, it's on the floor. You can take the vote, take one bill at a time, please. Page 366 FC-32 April 14,2022 CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay. MR. BROWN: So Bill 126 would be first. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: All those in favor of forwarding Bill 126 to the Special Meeting of the Council on May 19 on first reading. Vote on Bill 126: The motion to recommend passage of Bill 126 on first reading (Approved) was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Inaba, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder—8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung— 1. Excused: None. CHR KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Then we have a motion on the floor to forward Bill 127 to the Special Meeting of the Council on May 19 for first reading as well. Vote on Bill 127: The motion to recommend passage of Bill 127 on first reading (Approved) was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Inaba, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder—8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung— 1. Excused: None. ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 4:50 p.m., Ms. Kimball moved to adjourn the MENT: meeting. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Inaba, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Lee Loy, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder—8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung— 1. Excused: None. Page 367