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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN FC 2025/09/02 (2024-2026)Committee on Finance 181' Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii 96720 September 2, 2025 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Finance was called to order at ORDER: 1:31 p.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Mr. James E. Hustace, Acting Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. James E. Hustace, Vice Chair Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Heather Kimball, Member Mr. Dennis "Fresh" Onishi, Member (came in later) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member (came in later) Absent & Excused: Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Chair 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.) COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 23.18: REPORT OF FUND TRANSFERS AUTHORIZED: JUNE 16 — 30 AND JULY 1-15, 2025 From Controller Jon Arbles, dated August 4, 2025. Vote on Comm. 23.18: Mr. Inaba moved to close file on Comm. 23.18. Seconded Filed by Ms. Kierkiewicz and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, and Acting Chair Hustace — 6. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Onishi, Villegas, and Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 3. Excused: None. FC-18 September 2, 2025 Comm. 23.19: REPORT OF FUND TRANSFERS AUTHORIZED: JULY 16 — 31, 2025 From Controller Jon Arbles, dated August 4, 2025. Vote on Comm. 23.19: Mr. Inaba moved to close file on Comm. 23.19. Seconded Filed by Ms. Kagiwada and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, and Acting Chair Hustace — 6. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Onishi, Villegas, and Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 3. Excused: None. Comm. 73.7: MONTHLY BUDGET STATUS REPORT FOR THE MONTHS ENDED FEBRUARY 25 AND MARCH 31, 2025 From Finance Director Diane Nakagawa, dated August 7, 2025, transmitting the above reports pursuant to Section 6-6.3(h) of the Hawaii County Charter. Vote on Comm. 73.7: Mr. Inaba moved to close file on Comm. 73.7. Seconded Filed by Ms. Galimba and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, and Acting Chair Hustace — 6. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Members Onishi, Villegas, and Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 3. Excused: None. Comm. 441: COUNTY OF HAWAI`I INVENTORY AS OF JUNE 30, 2025 From Finance Director Diane Nakagawa, dated August 13, 2025, submitting the above inventory report pursuant to Section 103D-1208 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to close file on Comm. 441. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Any questions? Mr. Inaba. MR. INABA: Yeah. I don't see the actual report here. Was it provided in a booklet or a link? Got it. Okay. It seems that it's available online. Director Nakagawa, can you just give us an overview of what the report says? Page 2 FC-18 September 2, 2025 MR. BROWN: We do have it. I think based on the length and size of the report, we did not want to print out 9, 10, 11, 12 copies. I apologize. If any Council Members wants a copy, we can get one for you though. (Note: At this time, Finance Director Diane Nakagawa and Deputy Director Malia Kekai came forward to address the members of the Committee) MS. NAKAGAWA: Good afternoon, Council Members. Diane Nakagawa, Finance Department. Malia Kekai, Deputy Finance Director. Happy to be here today. This is our annual inventory report that we go through each year. It is a very lengthy report. This is all of it here in this binder, and we'd be more than happy to share our copy as well if you want to take a look at it, instead of online. So I'll just go quickly through the report, a summary. The summary will have the building and structures report, land and easement, streets and roads, materials, tools, and supplies, and then our fixed asset detail report. So we'll go through all of our equipment and all of our inventory, and then we'll go through each of them as far as our additions, transfers, and disposals. So I take a look at the three-year history. There's not a lot of significant changes in increases in most of the items except our additions. Our additions have a fairly significant increase from the prior year; it was an increase of $22 million. So two things happened here. One, $9 million of that was supposed to be included in the previous year. Also, in this last year, as you know, when we had a transition in administration, a physical inventory was done by Property Management as required. And so they went out and took eyes on everything. So I think what happened just also brought into light some of the things that should have been included in the list and will be included in the list. There are also some; $14 million of pretty large purchases. We've talked a lot about equipment that some of the departments had. So there are fire trucks, dozers, generators, trailers, compactors, and four ambulances included in that increase in additions. z So one of the things is we have some clean up that we've done. The good news is we've put a lot of work into making this report as complete as possible because this is now going to be transferred into the new system. So transfers, additions, disposals, were all done on paper forms, department to department, to Finance and back. So a lot of room for error, missed paperwork, and less accurate reporting. So now these are all going to be done in the system; all approvals in the system, reports generated in the system, and the best part is that because the work was done to get it where it is today, this information is now in the new system as of today. I'm happy to take any questions. I want to thank our Property Management team. It is a lot of work to get through today. So I just appreciate all their and the departments and all their help to get us an accurate a list as we can. Page 3 FC-18 September 2, 2025 MR. INABA: Thank you, Director. Is there any; in going through this inventory, did we find any kind of significant missing property at all? MS. NAKAGAWA: I would say, you know, every department we go through there's some, right, there's some lost items. And so for each of those things we have to address in different ways. I'd say we're working really hard with a couple of the larger departments who have a bigger inventory to make sure these things are tracked, and different policies and procedures are put in place to minimize any potential loss in equipment. MR. INABA: Great. Thank you for that overview. Chair, I yield. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. Ms. Kierkiewicz. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Finance Director, Deputy, for being here. I'm glad to know that an even more thorough job was done to make sure all of our assets are listed here. How long does it actually take to go through this inventory list on an annual basis? Because it sounds like you're deploying Property Management out into the field to document that things are there or if they've been transferred noting that. How long does that take? MS. NAKAGAWA: So inventory is a year -long process. What we were pushing to do is work with the departments to get these additions and transfers and disposals done throughout the year. What gets really difficult is when all of this happens at the end of the year. And so the team is struggling to do a whole bunch of additions and disposals and transfers at the end of the year. So we're pushing really hard with the departments to get it done and hopefully within the system it makes it a lot easier to do. And so we're going to be kind of monitoring that more closely and really pushing so that the work is spread throughout the year. But when a department head or agency head leaves, that's also another time when we do a full inventory as well. So on transition years it is a bit more intensive. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Got it. And I don't have the inventory list in front of me, but can you just maybe walk me through how things are coded? So like if there's a laptop that is supposed to be in a particular room; is it noted to be in that room or that the department or division has that particular laptop? I'm just trying to understand how we are coding the assets, so you know where to look. MS. KEKAI: So right now how the list you have now is coded is it just tells you like which department it is at. But with the new system it will actually have a location. So our program managers work very hard to collect all the locations from all the different departments, so we have to mahalo them because they took the extra effort to basically locate each one and then put in the addresses. So going forward we will have location. Page 4 FC-18 September 2, 2025 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: That's fantastic. And then on the inventory list we're noting when the item was acquired and then when it was transferred. Does it also note its condition, like good, fair, poor? MS. KEKAI: It does not. It'll show you when it was purchased and the cost and stuff, but it doesn't say what condition it was in. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Like if there was any maintenance done, just because I'm thinking about the life cycle of each of our assets and when we build our budget, making sure that we are keeping that in mind so that we can have the asset in good working condition for as long as possible. MS. KEKAI: Yeah. I think for our fixed assets moving forward there will be that sort of useful life calculation and depreciation live in the system. We didn't have that before; we will have that now. For equipment I think it's a little bit harder. I think we're still kind of working out the kinks of how we track, you know, those things that aren't like vehicles and stuff, like what is the use for life of those things. So I think as the years go on, we'll get better and better at like, this is how long this should last us, and this is how we should budget it. But currently it's not on the list. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Great to know that we are working towards getting there. Director, one more time with the numbers. So certain items were missing from previous year's list, like various apparatus? MS. NAKAGAWA: Yes. They were not included in the additions for that year. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: You said like $14 million worth. MS. NAKAGAWA: $9 million. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: What was the $14 million? MS. NAKAGAWA: Those were the large purchases; increase in purchases like fire trucks. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: And then the question that Council Member Inaba had about losses. So things that were on a previous list, no longer there, what was that total? MS. NAKAGAWA: I don't have that in front of us. That's not included in here. But we can get it. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: If you can just send an email? MS. NAKAGAWA: Sure. Page 5 FC-18 September 2, 2025 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I'm curious. MS. NAKAGAWA: Sure. Yeah. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Great. And then any significant changes to the SOPS (Standard Operating Procedure)? Because you kind of hinted at it earlier but I'm curious to know specifically what is now put into place so that we can ensure that what we count on this year is there next year. MS. NAKAGAWA: Sure. So for one of the departments, in looking at the previous year and last year's list of missing items, kind of worked very closely with that department head on what is happening. If it's turnover, if those employees have left, then what is the protocol for collecting items, equipment, uniform, tools, things like that. And also more on the process and procedure for when pieces of tools or equipment are used between different employees or transferred between areas, how is that tracked more closely. So a little bit different discussions between various departments because they operate a lot differently. But we have really worked to have those discussions with the departments that we are seeing more issues with. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Very insightful. But is sounds like despite all of that, there's kind of a clear working relationship with making sure that at the end of the day we can track where that asset is going. MS. NAKAGAWA: Absolutely. Yes. We are all working together to get this, you know, as accurate as we can and also to make sure that all of our assets are tracked. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Thank you so much for being here. I just want to acknowledge that this takes so much work. So thank you, Property Management, all the departments. I'm glad to know that this process is going to be digitized. I think it'll make it so much easier going forward to kind of track where everything is going. Thank you. Chair, I yield. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Kimball. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. Just a couple of quick questions. This list only includes things that are wholly owned by the County, not anything that we lease. MS. KEKAI: You're correct. MS. KIMBALL: Do we have a similar list for vehicles; they're not included in here, right? MS. KEKAI: They are included as equipment. Page 6 FC-18 September 2, 2025 MS. KIMBALL: They are. I missed that. Curious also about this, I see that there's the purchase cost, the book value, the depreciation, which might kind of talk to, speak to the quality of any given thing. You know, just having it come up about our solar panels not working and I think that there is going to be a need to track the current functional status of things. So is that included in the new system that there will be some sort of, like Council Member Kierkiewicz said, fair? MS. KEKAI: I think that's a multi -faceted question and I think that County has multiple ways of tracking it, right? Like DPW (Department of Public Works) has their new facilities manager, they should be tracking kind of the fixed assets. We till have a CIP (Capital Improvement Projects) manager, hopefully in the near future and that person will be tracking projects and assets as they're made. And then the system itself is kind of tracking useful life in its own way. So I think we'll have to figure out how to like combine that data to get the full picture and hopefully it'll result in a really cool dashboard, something to that effect. But yeah, I don't think just one thing right now captures all of that. MS. KDABALL: Okay. Is there, like back to the vehicles and now I see that I didn't download all 1,000 pages. My download must've frozen at some point and that's why I don't see the vehicles. Is there an effort to sort of consolidate and organize our pool? I did speak to Finance Director a little bit about this. But I'm curious what you folks are thinking going forward about the vehicle access of the County and how we might better utilize what we have and not have to purchase or lease so many more vehicles? MS. NAKAGAWA: Yes. That has been a very active discussion internally as well. Just recently had a conversation with our Acting Public Works Director about running some reports on those vehicles that haven't been utilized in a while, haven't filled their gas in a while, haven't moved in a while. So that is the next step there. But definitely looking at. I know we've talked in the past about being able to pool our vehicles, so that's also probably the next step after cleaning them up and making sure that the vehicles that we have sitting out in the lot are working and usable, and the next step would be to look at how we can share those vehicles. That probably also be a discussion at our budget review as well. When we get a lot of requests for new vehicles, even lately, we're really directing departments to share when they can because there are vehicles that do sit when they are unused. MS. KIMBALL: I just bring it up in context just so folks are aware. Riley (Saito), when he was still at R&D (Research and Development) had a whole plan about consolidating usage of the fleet and allowing us to transition to EVs (Electric Vehicles) and having pulled electric charging resources. And the plan had been there ever since I can recall but I never saw us making steps towards that and we still do have our technical mandate to transition. So I want to see that. If not, that plan some plan moving forward to minimize the number of vehicles we need and hopefully encourage us to transition. Thanks. Page 7 FC-18 September 2, 2025 ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Onishi. MR. ONISHI: Thank you, Chair. First, I want to thank Public Work and Acting Director Niel Azevedo on some of the cars that are being removed in the parking lot at Aupuni. I see now there's opening stalls there, which is great. And hopefully we can have our employees taking those stalls, right. But I think there's a couple more vehicles that that could be removed. And as Ms. Kimball had mentioned during budget time, I've been always mentioning those vehicles. But then one problem was about the auction, right. But now we can move forward on that? MS. NAKAGAWA: Yes. You know, we do admit that the auction should've happened this past year. It is on our priority now. It's just due to our resources and staffing, but we are working on getting some additional help to get that done hopefully in the next few months. MR. ONISHI: Great. Good to hear. Thank you. And so is that the list of everything in our County inventory? MS. NAKAGAWA: This is the list. MR. ONISHI: Wow. Okay. MS. NAKAGAWA: If you want to borrow it for your reading, bedtime reading. MR. ONISHI: You know, I worked in the Recreation Division, right, with Parks and Recreation. I mean, we did at our facilities have an inventory list. But even that would be outdated, and we would have things on the list that was no longer there. We would check the inventory, but it would still stay on, and they wouldn't remove it for some reason, right. And so it's good to hear that you folks are moving forward and getting it more, I guess, up to date. So thank you very much. MS. NAKAGAWA: The paper -based manual process does scream a lot for missing forms and things like that. So we did see and hear a lot of why is it still on the list or why is it not on the list. Electronically the system should improve that significantly. MR. ONISHI: Great. And just to say, I mean, I've been with the State too, and the State is just as bad. So we shouldn't feel too bad for Hawaii County. Okay. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions? Just one question. Director, does this list include items that have been donated to the County and are they coded differently, if that makes sense? Page 8 FC-18 September 2, 2025 MS. NAKAGAWA: I believe so. And I don't think they're coded as donations, but they do include any item that is now County -owned. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Okay. Okay. And then they would just be, those donated things are just coded with their department that they've been kind of granted to? MS. NAKAGAWA: Yes. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Any other discussions? Alright. MS. KEKAI: Sorry, Chair. Could I just mention one more thing? ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Please. MS. KEKAI: As you all mentioned, this is huge feat to get done on time and especially when you're trying to get everything right. So I just want to say thank you to DPW, Parks and Recreation, and the Clerk's Office, actually. They lent us people, you know, to help us get this done. So without them we would never had gotten it done. So we just want to send our appreciation to them, proving flexible. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you for that sentiment, Deputy. I appreciate that. All those in favor of filing Communication 441, please say "aye." Vote on Comm. 441: The motion to close file on Comm. 441 was carried by the Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali`i -Kleinfelder — 1. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Next item. ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, RESOLUTIONS: Order of Resolutions. Page 9 FC-18 September 2, 2025 Res. 284-25: AUTHORIZES THE PAYMENT OF FUNDS OF LATER FISCAL YEARS TO ENTER A MULTI -YEAR AGREEMENT FOR ETHERNET COMPUTER NETWORK SERVICES TO BE USED BY THE OFFICE OF THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY Authorizes the Mayor to enter into a three-year agreement with an estimated cost of $49,200 per year for wide area network services that would allow the department to network and share data and resources between its four locations. Reference: Comm.455 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend adoption of Res. 284-25. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Any discussion? I did have one question is no one else has any. Let's see, really for the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA). Is a rep here? Mr. Nagata. So it's definitely for your office but it has that IT (Information Technology) component. I'm just curious if you could give us details on this wide area network versus our other systems we have at the County, what is the difference, and yeah, just a little bit of insight into this? Thank you. (Note: At this time, Prosecuting Attorney's Business Manager Grant Nagata came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. NAGATA: Okay. Good afternoon. I'm Grant Nagata, Business Administrator for the Prosecutor's Office. So for our office, we operate a little bit different from the other departments. We have our own internal IT staff. We have our own servers, networking, and whatnot. And the reason for that is just because of the type of data that we store on our servers; the criminal history, you know, all that kinds of stuff, videos, evidence, documents, and that kind of thing. So we have to abide by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations) standard for securing all of these types of data that we have. So for this service, our networking service, it's just to continue the agreement that we have, just to extend. We have had this agreement in place for a while so we're just extending another three years, and it allows our four locations to include our Hilo, Kona, Waimea, and we also have a small workroom office in the Kona Judiciary Building, where our attorneys, say if they're in court all day they can go into that office and access all the data files and whatnot. So this service allows all four sites to be able to communicate with each other, all the printer servers. So if you store data on one site, wherever you are in our office, you'd be able to access that. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Mr. Nagata. Question, Ms. Kierkiewicz? Page 10 FC-18 September 2, 2025 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. Just quickly for your education. OPA and Police Department have their own IT and servers because of the confidentiality piece that Mr. Nagata describes. Grant, I want to commend you. The Whereas clause is very clear on what this is going to cost us on a monthly basis and the totality for the multi -year agreement, so I really appreciate that. Has there been a cost increase over time with this particular service that you're able to share with us? MR. NAGATA: Okay. That's actually a really good question. So when we got the quote for these next three years, it's actually a little bit less than what I was expecting. So in our budget we have this service for our four locations. The total in our budget is $16,200; and per site with this quote is $12,300. So there's a little bit of saving this contract period. I'm not too sure why there was a drop in the price, but it worked out good. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: So no changes in service. MR. NAGATA: Yeah, no change. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay. Well that's fantastic. It's nice to save here and there. In full support of the resolution. Thanks for being here. MR. NAGATA: Thank you. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions? All those in favor of forwarding Resolution 284-25 to Council with a favorable recommendation please say "aye." Vote on Res. 284-25: The motion to recommend adoption of Res. 284-25 was A roved carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 1. Excused: None. Page 11 FC-18 September 2, 2025 Res. 285-25: AUTHORIZES THE PAYMENT OF FUNDS OF LATER FISCAL YEARS TO ENTER A MULTI -YEAR AGREEMENT FOR INTERNET TELEPHONE SERVICES TO BE USED BY THE OFFICE OF THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY Authorizes the Mayor to enter into a five-year agreement with an estimated cost of $260 per year for Voice -over -Internet -Protocol phone service at the office's workroom located in the Kona Judiciary Complex. Reference: Comm.456 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Vote on Res. 285-25: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend adoption of Res. 285-25. (Approved) Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 1. Excused: None. BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, ORDINANCES: Bills for Ordinances. Bill 76: AMENDS ORDINANCE NO.25-45, AS AMENDED, THE OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAI`I FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 2026 Appropriates revenues in the Hawaii Community Foundation — Financial Empowerment Services (Private) account ($125,000); and appropriates the same to the Hawaii Community Foundation — Financial Empowerment Services — Program account. Funds would be used to provide no -cost financial and homeownership counseling through a certified U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development counseling service provider. Reference: Comm.442 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend passage of Bill 76. Seconded by Ms. Villegas. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Any discussion? Ms. Kierkiewicz, you have a question to start us off? MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. Is there anyone from Housing here? There she is. Hey, Administrator Costa. Great to see you. Okay. So we have been Page 12 FC-18 September 2, 2025 supporting this program for a number of years. I think this came out of the pandemic. This was one of Sharon Hirota's brainchild. I was just wondering if you could maybe expand upon the program, the reach that it's had over the few years we've been supporting it and if there have been any changes based on resident needs? (Note: At this time, Housing Administrator Kehaulani Costa came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. COSTA: Housing Administrator Kehau Costa. We can provide you with more information on the program. We partner with Hawaiian Community Assets (HCA). They are a HUD (Housing and Urban Development) certified counseling homebuyer program. We use the program. It's free and it's available to the community; it's available to County employees, budgeting, credit score improvements. We use it primarily in our Section 8 program in our family self- sufficiency program where we are working on action plans with our Section 8 participants to build self-sufficiency so that they're moving off of Section 8 and rent subsidies. But I can give you, in an email, stats on how many families are using this service. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: When you have a chance it would be great to just see the impact. I, you know, completely trust all of the work that is happening with Hawaiian Community Assets. They do so much to just empower local families so that they're making the best decisions to set themselves up for homeownership. And it sounds like the County wants to continue this partnership with HCA. So just grateful for the grant funds that are being provided from Hawaii Community Foundation to continue the program. MS. COSTA: Yes. Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks for being here. MS. COSTA: Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: I yield. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions with Administrator here? Thank you, Administrator. MS. COSTA: Thank you. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: All those in favor of forwarding Bill 76 to Council with a favorable recommendation, please say "aye." Page 13 FC-18 Vote on Bill 76: (Approved) Bill 77: September 2, 2025 The motion to recommend passage of Bill 76 was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 1. Excused: None. AMENDS ORDINANCE NO.25-45, AS AMENDED, THE OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE COUNTY OF HAWAI`I FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ING JUNE 30.2026 Increases revenues in the Fund Balance from Previous Year account ($350,000); and appropriates the same to the Kulaimano Operating Maintenance account. Funds would be used for the Kulaimano Elderly Housing Project for operating and maintenance activities. Reference: Comm.443 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Vote on Bill 77: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend passage of Bill 77. (Approved) Seconded by Ms. Galimba and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 1. Excused: None. Bill 78: AMENDS ORDINANCE NO.25-46, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2025, TO JUNE 30, 2026 Adds the Finance Land/Facility Acquisitions Project ($1,150,000) and the Land/Facility Acquisitions — Federal Project ($850,000) to the Capital Budget. Funds for these projects shall be provided from General Obligation Bonds, Capital Projects Fund — Fund Balance and/or other Sources $1,150,0000) and Federal Grants Receivable ($850,000), to acquire land for legally mandated projects and/or County Agency needs. Reference: Comm.457 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Page 14 FC-18 September 2, 2025 Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend passage of Bill 78. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Any discussion? Council Member Galimba, please. MS. GAL]MBA: Thank you. Can I just get a little more detail on this? (Note: At this time, Finance Director Diane Nakagawa and Deputy Director Malia Kekai came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. KEKAI: Malia Kekai, Deputy Finance Director. Basically, I think you guys know. We have a space study at this point that's been going on for the last year. It's near its conclusion. It probably will be wrapping up around February. And just with the anticipation of if we have space needs and that kind of stuff, we realized that we don't have an appropriation. If we did need to go out and get space, I think the other thing that we've been looking at a lot is now that I've been looking at the property management stuff, it's just how much storage space the County needs. So that was the other thing that kind of came to mind was maybe we need to buy land to build our own storage facilities instead of paying all these other landowner or landlords I should say. So those were the big considerations of just like, "Hey, if we needed to act on this, we don't have anything to act on at this point." So that's basically what brought us to the table. MS. GALIMBA: Thank you. Do you have an idea of how much we are spending on space for storage right now? MS. KEKAI: Storage space alone, I'd have to go look at the numbers. I think the entire budget for all rentals across the County is a little over $2 million. So including office space and storage and everything, yeah. MS. GALRWBA: Okay. Thanks very much. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions? Okay. Seeing none. All those in favor of forwarding Bill 78 to Council, please say "aye." Vote on Bill 78: The motion to recommend passage of Bill 78 was carried (Approved) by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 1. Excused: None. Page 15 FC-18 September 2, 2025 Bill 79: AMENDS ORDINANCE NO.25-46, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2025, TO JUNE 30, 2026 Adds the Environmental Management Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant R-1 Upgrade Project ($31,000,000) to the Capital Budget. Funds for this project shall be provided from General Obligation Bonds, Capital Projects Fund — Fund Balance and/or other Sources, to comply with a recent lawsuit settlement which requires the County to upgrade the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant to produce R-1 quality water for re -use. Reference: Comm.458 Intr. by: Council Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder (B/R) Motion to Approve: Mr. Inaba moved to recommend passage of Bill 79. Seconded by Ms. Galimba. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Any discussion? Council Member Kimball, please start us off. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, if we can have DPW — ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: We have our DEM (Department of Environmental Management) team here. MS. KIMBALL: DEM. Sorry. DEM. Sorry, it's not even that late in the day. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: If you could join us at the front here, please? MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. Thank you. So if I could just have you go over what this $31 million specifically covers with respect to the R-1 and where we are within the process of doing this upgrade. Specifically have we changed our approach to the technological approach to getting to R-1 from what was presented under the previous administration? They said that you'd know. I'm recalling a conversation about the R-1 for reuse being more around the order of $60 million. So I'm wondering, is this just a portion of that original project or have we changed our technological approach to something more cost effective? ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: If you could just push the green button and then introduce yourself? Thank you. (Note: At this time, Acting Wastewater Division Chief Chris Laude came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. LAUDE: Chris Laude, Acting Wastewater Division Chief. There're some slight changes in technology from what was previously proposed. Also, the technology we're proposing is modular and expandable. So for this to satisfy the Page 16 FC-18 September 2, 2025 requirements that we have we're going to phase this. So the first phase would handle about 1.4 million gallons a day and then we had to capacity upgrade that to the full 2.8 million gallons a day in the future. MS. KIlVIBALL: So are we no longer using the sand filter? MR. LAUDE: We are no longer using the sand filter. MS. KIlVIBALL: Okay. MR. LAUDE: So the sand filter is problematic in that it's, how can I describe it? It's labor intensive and the size is enormous. I know we got a free sand filter, but that filter can handle maybe 100,000 gallons a day. So to ramp that up to the size we need would have been an enormous effort. So we change slightly in that we're going to have membrane bioreactors going to ultraviolet disinfection. Ultraviolet disinfection has less issues with the chlorinated byproducts when you use chlorine. So it'll facilitate reuse of the water. MS. KD BALL: Thank you for that clarification. So the $31 million is just to treat to the R-1 and doesn't cover the distribution piece of that R-1? MR. LAUDE: Correct. MS. KIlVMALL: Okay. And so when, in this case with this new approach, where does the R-1 water go after the treatment; is it going into the injection well or what's happening to it after the treatment? MR. LAUDE: The next phase of the work would be to do a feasibility study for reuse. While we're doing that, we're going to reuse the water to irrigate around the site; we're going to use it to clean up. The wastewater treatment plant has six pods, so five of them were in use. So we're going to use the R-1 water to clean up for the pond so that there is no more sludge in the bottom and they just contain clean R-1 water so that the birds have better habitat to live in. MS. KM4BALL: So for the capacity per day of R-1 being produced that'll be enough to sustain, either use or store it? MR. LAUDE: Yes. And we'll shoot for at least 1.4 million gallons a day. The timeframe for this is really compressed. MS. KIM BALL: Right. MR. LAUDE: So staff worked really hard to come up with a feasible technology to get us to R-1 and quickly. And we tried to produce inceptual design that contractors here are familiar with so we can hopefully get the construction done on budget and on time. Page 17 FC-18 September 2, 2025 MS. KIMBALL: Great. So the R-1 treatment is not dependent on the outcome of the feasibility study for any sort of distribution offsite? MR. LAUDS: Correct. MS. KIMBALL: It will proceed regardless of that. MR. LAUDE: It will proceed regardless. MS. KEYMALL: Okay. Okay. MR. LAUDE: And we do have plans to extend a distribution system offsite. But realistically the further away you go with the R-1 pipeline or if you have to truck it somewhere, that increases the cost. So that's something we're cognizant of. MS. K MBALL: So timeline wise, we approve this now, moves to Council, approved there; then going out to bid for the work? MR. LAUDE: The work is currently out for bid. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. It's currently out for bid. MR. LAUDE: It was published Friday. MS. KIMBALL: Okay. And when does the bid close; do you know? Three months? MR. LAUDE: December; I think December l" MS. KIMBALL: Okay. Okay. So I asked specifically about the dates and maybe I can just get a nod from Corporation Counsel in the back. Are we still on target to meet our obligations with respect to the settlement agreement? Okay. Perfect. Thank you. For the record, she gave it the thumbs up. That was my concern. Alright. Thank you for that. I appreciate getting an update on the status of this project. I'm supportive of the bill. Thank you. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: Thank you, Council Member. Any other discussions or questions while we have DEM here? Okay. All those in favor of forwarding Bill 79 to Council with a favorable recommendation, please say "aye." Page 18 FC-18 September 2, 2025 Vote on Bill 79: The motion to recommend passage of Bill 79 was carried (Approved) by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Galimba, Inaba, Kagiwada, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Onishi, Villegas, and Acting Chair Hustace — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder — 1. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. HUSTACE: With that being the last item on our agenda, we are adjourned. ADJOURN- There being no further business on our agenda today, Acting Chair Hustace MENT: adjourned the meeting at 2:14 p.m. Thank you very much. Approved: l 0 Mr. Matt X eali`i-Kleinfeld , Chair (Date) Finance Co tee MK/tk Page 19