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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-01-14 Cost of Government Commission Minutes COST OF GOVERNMENT COMMISSION c/o Office of the Corporation Counsel, 101 Aupuni Street, Suite 325, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720 MINUTES Wednesday, January 14, 2011 –10:00 a.m. Department of Liquor Control Conference Room 101 Aupuni Street, Suite 230 Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720 CALL TO ORDER MS. NICHOLSON: I’d like to call the meeting to order at 10:05. Present: Excused: Kenneth Armour Glen Matsuda Eileen O’Hara Guest: Marilyn Nicholson Patricia Provalenko Pete Hoffmann Gloria Wong Bill Takaba, ex-officio Kathy Garson Shanell Sarsuelo Sandy Arriola STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC: MS. NICHOLSON: Do we have any statements from the public? Obviously we don’t. We have no public here. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: MS. NICHOLSON: I’d like to move on right into Agenda item 3, Approval of the minutes from our December 10, 2010 meeting. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes? MOTION: MS. O’HARA: So moved. MS. PROVALENKO: Second. MS. NICHOLSON: Any discussion? MS. GARSON: Madam Chair, I have just a couple of corrections. On page 15, under Ms. Garson, the second line, it says there’s bankruptcy court laws allow about. I think it Hawai‘i County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer should be there’s bankruptcy court laws, and you take out the allow. So it should be – there’s bankruptcy court laws about being able to choose. On page 21, under Ms. Garson, at the middle of the page, the last line, it says restitution as part of a criminal campaign. It should be restitution as part of a criminal complaint. MS. NICHOLSON: Any other corrections to the minutes? MS. WONG: I have one on Page 27, the middle of the page, Ms. Wong, my point in that kind of flip an. Should be flippant, not flip an. MS. NICHOLSON: Any other corrections to the minutes? If not do I have a motion to accept the, first we have to do the first one. Or can we just go in a motion to accept the minutes as amended? MS. GARSON: Technically speaking you want to amend the minutes. Second, approve the amendments. MS. NICHOLSON: A motion to amend the minutes as corrected? MOTION: MS. WONG: So moved. MS. PROVALENKO: Second MS. NICHOLSON: All in favor, say aye? ACTION ON MOTION: All: Aye. MS. NICHOLSON: Any opposed? None. MS. GARSON: So, that was approve the amendments. Now you vote on the minutes as amended. MS. NICHOLSON: Do I have a motion to approve the minutes as amended? MS. O’HARA: That motion is on the table. MS. NICHOLSON: Well, the first one was just to approve as submitted. MS. GARSON: The minutes are now a part of it, so now MS. NICHOLSON: So now we need to do it again to do it as amended. MS. O’HARA: No, we have a motion. MS. GARSON: No, you already did the amendment. Just vote on the minutes now that are amended. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. We have a motion to approve the minutes as they have been amended. 2 MS. O’HARA: We just did that. MS. GARSON: Just vote. ACTION ON MOTION: All:Aye. MS. NICHOLSON: Any opposed? None. CORRESPONDENCE: MS. NICHOLSON: All right. Since Mr. Hoffmann is not here, let’s just jump right into Correspondence. And actually rather than take these all at once, I kind of like to take them one-by-one. So if he appears in the middle of this then we’ll go back to where we started. So the first one was MS. WONG: Are we discussing them at this time or are we MS. GARSON: I think you should discuss them as they come up. This is the opportunity to discuss this. MS. NICHOLSON: So the first one is 2010-145, Response from Guy Toyama, Energy Advisory Commission. Do we have…Oh, there he is. So, we will for now, table the discussion on Correspondence, and go back to Agenda Item 4, which is Discussion, and question and answer session with Councilmember Pete Hoffmann regarding response to questions from the Cost of Government Commission. Ready to go? Thank you for coming. MR. HOFFMANN: Well, thank you for being tolerant. I have a car and the car is not being very friendly, I’m sorry to say. And I appreciate the latitude of being late. And I don’t mean to do that normally. Thank you. And I thank the commission for the opportunity to present just testimony rather than trying to answer questions in an e-mail response. And I say that because quite frankly folks, over the past six years that I’ve served on the council, I’m an advocate for many different ways of trying to conduct business. But I’m also a little bit disappointed at the manner of which we, the council, have conducted some of that business. And I think there are a number of things that can be done. I’m a little more passionate and perhaps a little bit less objective than I should be about some of the comments that I’ll make. But please bear with me. And I couldn’t try to put that, I think, properly, in an e-mail. And that’s why I thought perhaps a general explanation would be good and then I’m of course open for any questions that you might have as well. And thank you Kathy for setting this up, for letting me have comments. Madam Chair, I don’t know how much time you want me to commit me to comment or make a presentation. MS. NICHOLSON: I believe we’re ready to give you as much time as you feel. MR. HOFFMANN: Never, never, absolutely never approach a public official or an elected official in that manner. But thank you. 3 MS. NICHOLSON: Let’s put it this way. Your response could have been multiple pages. MR. HOFFMANN: Yes, it could have been. And that would have made for absolutely boring reading. I think I’d like to discuss this from two different aspects. And I see this from two different problems or perspective. The difficulty,and I hearken to the mayor’s comments made just made just a couple of days ago at the State Legislature, when he commented that we now have a government or county government that we cannot afford. Folks, some of us anyway on the council, have been reminding everyone of that for a number of years. And that’s part of the problem that we have. And I consider this from two, as I say, from two aspects. One is the obvious budget crunching things. How can we take the budget we got? How can we start slicing and reducing it and making it smaller? I’ll go through some suggestions I have on that. That’s a numbers again. I don’t mean that derogatorily at all. These are important things that we, hi Bill, good morning. These are important things, I think that the council and the administration, working together, okay, please emphasize the cooperation on this particular point. And I don’t mean to demean that, but I don’t think after looking or trying to study this from my perspective as a council representative, I’m not quite certain that that’s the most important way of trying to look at how to reduce and be more effective in the manner in which we do our job. I think there’s a much more fundamental and underlining problem we have. And that problem as I see it rests with an attitude that we have in government and outside of government. And that attitude, perhaps can be explained in a number of different things. I hate to use sound bites because I’m not certain that those adequately We’ve always done it this way explain either. But let me put it in this way –. And somewhere along the line we have to be smart enough, and courageous enough politically, in order to say to ourselves, that ain’t good enough. Now if it isn’t evident to anyone in elected office that over the past three or four years this county and the residents are suffering. Please take a look at some of the statistics you have on home foreclosures, on people going to the Food Basket and using their services. These are basic necessities. These are basic priorities for government. And the idea and the approach that we use that –well we’ve always done it this way, isn’t good enough at this point. You ask in your questions, what are essential priorities for government? I look at of course, it’s the obvious, public health and safety. We all say that. I go one step further and maybe you can put that under public health. There were two other basic necessities that I think any government who have people under their jurisdiction must provide for. And that’s adequate food and housing. So when I look at the situation the county is faced with, this idea, well, it’s always the way done we’ve done it. And dog gone it, it’s hard to make changes. I recognize that. But until we’re willing, as elected officials, the mayor and the council, working together. And until the administration and the council is willing to work together as a team to address this and to make the real tough decisions, then we don’t make the progress that we need to. You, members of this particular commission, have a much more tough job, I think, because your approach will always remain. It’s so easy to do the dollar and cents, the budget crunching numbers and so forth. Everybody can find ways of trying to cut the budget. But until we change that basic attitude that I mentioned, I think we’ve gotten off or we’re not going to achieve the type of cuts, the type of effectiveness we should. Also, let me put this too in another perspective. I don’t necessarily view all of our cost of government as being bad. I don’t think a bureaucracy is illogical. And I don’t think it’s ineffective. It’s how we use those resources that we have of course that is the key to 4 this. So I’m not against increases in government. I’m not necessarily opposed to seeing some departments have an increase in personnel if we can see some results coming from that in a fairly short period of time. Let’s go back to a few things as far as suggestions are concerned. There are time-honored ways of saying, ladies and gentlemen, this county has got to eliminate all vacant funded positions. Bill had heard my mantra on this almost ever since I joined the council. It’s as valid today as it was five years ago. And I absolutely accept the fact that when we had 480 vacant funded positions under Harry Kim’s administration, I think that term is right at one time. And we’re only down to, I think the numbers, don’t hold me, Bill can tell me if I’m right or wrong, 50 or so at the moment in the current budget. That’s 50 too much as far as I’m concerned. I’m sorry. We are in a tough situation. You want to address some type of a way to look at how we can do our job better, and to make the cost savings that we must have, I suggest to you that eliminating vacant funded positions is necessary. Now please, I’m not going to get into why we didn’t do that before. I’m not going to try to, as some people have mentioned, well that was the county slush fund. I have not made that statement publicly ever. And I’m not doing that here. What I’m saying is, we don’t have the latitude for the advantage or the opportunity to see any funded vacant position at the moment. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was at the way the mayor and the administration handled the budget for the previous two years. I’m sure you well know the number of things that Mr. Yagong and I working, not together, but obviously in tandem, looked at the different budget aspects of the county. And again we center on personnel. We’ve always done it that way is a mantra that continue to plague us as we went through the number of opportunities we looked at in the previous budget cycle. In May before the mayor submitted his final budget, he and I were on a platform over in Kona, and I presented a number of different proposals to the people there. We had about 120 people there. Most of the cabinet, by the way, showed up. And there were a number of suggestions. All of them were thrown in the waste paper basket and considered foul, not good at this time. In a way, I’m happy to see that maybe the mayor, if I read his comments correctly, coming back to several of those. I think he’s coming back he’s coming back a year late. But let me proposal that a hiring freeze is not out of the question right now. Folks we have a difficulty. The choice is either find another source of revenue. And that means, unless I missed the boat, raising the property taxes which as you well know probably would drag some of us under the wheels of the nearest truck being driven by most of our constituents because they’re hurting out there. Or in some way, trying to make sure that we do our job properly. Here is a suggestion for you. I don’t mean to go back and say I can use experiences that I’ve had in other jobs or in other venues and try to apply them in whole or even in part in the County of Hawai‘i. But I did spend a couple of years in the federal government in the Pentagon in Washington with the Department of Defense. And yes, I guess you could consider me a budget cruncher. And yes, I appeared every year for two years before four congressional subcommittees. Two in the House and two in the Senate. And our thing was to try to advocate and explain the Department of Defense Intelligence budget. It’s not an oxymoron. I know the jokes about that. But what we did, and one of the basic perimeters of trying to do our budget homework at the time and we were on a very, very strenuous scrutiny by an oversight by the Congress. This was just after the intelligence problems and difficulties we had in the ‘70s, so Congress was really beating us out. 5 And they had every right to as far as I’m concerned. Since I was a part of that machination back in the ‘70s, I could always claim I came to the budget process in a different light. In doing so, we had a way that I think might apply at this particular time in our budget effort here. And that’s have the mayor decide that he assesses each one of the departments and tells each one of the departments to have three different budget submissions by department heads. One in which provides absolutely no increases in revenue resources. Another one, if we had it, what would an increment of 5% mean to your department? Where would you put it? And of course the other side of that house is, what would you do if you had to take a 10% cut today? Now, you can do whatever you want with the figures. You can make those figures be whatever you wish. But the point that we had to provide was I thought a very sound principle. We provide a no increase in resource budget. That is status quo. And then one a little bit higher, and one somewhat lower. What that forced the departments to do particularly in the Pentagon, was to insure that there was a prioritization of effort in each department providing that service across the board. And then allowing the Secretary of Defense and others to do their homework and due diligence to make certain that we were getting the proper bang for the dollar. Believe or not, Reagan’s administration did that very well. I know he doesn’t probably get the credit for it, but his Secretary of the Treasury and the economic people he had working for him at that time were really effective in that. It was one of the first times that the department, the Defense anyway, had looked at a budget in quite that manner. By the way, that allowed a lot of flexibility if there was a windfall somewhere along the line as well as providing reasonable perimeters for constraints that department was under initially in the Reagan administration. And it worked to the department’s benefit later when some of the revenues began to flow in. And there was a different attitude as to how we were to treat defense issues. Now I’m looking at this from a different perspective. But somewhere along the line we have to do better. And we have to make an effort to remember that what we don’t want to do may have to be done here. I’m not advocating we have to cut our budget and thereby make drastic cuts. I’m simply saying that I’m not certain we have the adequate plan available to us in case that opportunity or that eventuality was here on our doorstep. We don’t do that at all. And we tend to react. We’ve got to change that thinking. Again, let me go back. I know it’s the way we’ve always done it before. We need to change that attitude. Number two –or along the same lines. One of the things I’ve noticed, a t least it’s my thinking anyway, and again I take a little page from what we did in the Department of Defense –every so often we had a review of the budget each year. You may not have known that in paper, but believe it or not, it’s a dynamic document. The budget is a planning tool and a dynamic document. It changes. It’s supposed to change. It’s not supposed to be put out there, and that makes the only thing you do for the next year or two we have another rehash of the mayor’s budget and we receive the papers on the first of March. That’s nonsense. That’s an inflexible way of trying to handle a very dynamic issue, the issue of revenue resources and expenditures. I’ve suggested it before. I’ll suggest it again. The budget should be reviewed at least semi-annually, every six months. And maybe in the time that we have now where revenues are tough and we know the economy is probably not going to improve substantially, we do it even on a quarterly basis. I proposed that to Nancy Crawford and others and boy you know,I understand. That’s more work, and it’s more work for us if we’re doing it cooperatively on the council. But quite frankly, we need to do that in these times. The policies that 6 we lay down in May and June of the particular year for the next fiscal year may not be applicable by the time you reach November and December of that fiscal year. We need too look at changes. And the current system in the manner in which do it, really doesn’t provide adequately for that review. Let me give you an example too of what I’ve st proposed. We put a hiring freeze, for instance, form the first of July to the 31of December and then review that particular policy somewhere in November or December and see how we’re doing. Why not? Maybe we need to review other things that seemed to stick out in the budget. But we can do that and not be reticent to take a hard, fast look at how our finances are doing. How well we’re following the budget. How well our revenue source and stream is coming. Where can we use our fund balance for instance, if there is any excess in addition to what was indicated in the budget? Regardless of how you wish to review this particular effort, a top to bottom review in every department, I believe, needs to be done. And must be a continuous process as we move ahead. It’s just not one person doing the job. By the way, I’m all in favor of these efforts that are being taken and mentioned publicly by some to make sure we know where the cars are going at night and everything else. And that’s important. I don’t mean to diminish or demean that effort. In fact, I compliment the council individuals who are leading that charge, and the departments who are doing that on their own. But come to think of it, isn’t that what the department head is supposed to do in the first place? Is it up to us on the council to try to initiate some legislation to remind the department heads of their responsibilities? I almost feel embarrassed that we do that. Is it necessary for instance, to jump up and down and to pass a resolution that says we want to see your Change Orders 30 days after you make any approved change orders. Hey folks, somewhere along the line, I think we should not be just looking at 30 days after the particular change order, but try to get to the root of the problem as to why those change orders were required in the first place. Those are the tough decisions. That’s where we save money. And by the way, as the Cost of Government Commission, Madam Chair, do you have any idea how many change orders were accepted by the administration in 2010? I don’t know. I’ve asked the question and I’m hoping to get an answer. But it may be interesting to go back a couple of years to find out how the county has done and how much money went out the window. I don’t mean that derogatorily because some of those change orders were required. But that’s where we need to make the changes. To change the thinking, the attitude, the experience, the performance of people on both sides, both in the development community and in the administration in trying to address change order problems, not to give us simply a report. And by the way, that report is public knowledge if we want to go after it. Anyway you have to do a little digging. But I think a good question is to try to find out what the county’s record was for change orders in the last year, not just the one that Belt Collins got nailed on for $350,000. There are a number of different aspects that we could look at. Let me close these general remarks. Again going back to, this is the way we’ve always done it before. I e alluded to the fact that in this particular effort, tough decisions must be made. If I had my way, I’d not simply do a top to bottom review. But I’d go back to each department and identify those jobs and those responsibilities that are good to have but maybe not fundamental to the success or failure of that particular department. I’m going to tell you that there’s probably some reports we do in the County Council office for instance, that are really important. They’re good to have, but maybe we can’t do those reports for the next couple of years because we need to reduce our administrative staff and our costs 7 in trying to meet this particular economic problem. I’d go back, quite frankly, and try to identify all those jobs and tasks that are mandated by state and federal governments as well as those by our own Charter. And if it doesn’t fall within one of those mandates, I have a very, very strong motive to see whether it’s possible that we shouldn’t eliminate it. Not because it’s not good to have, please don’t get me wrong, but because we can’t afford them. I’d go back and look at responsibilities of jobs, particularly in things like Department of Environmental Management, sorry Eileen, as well as other departments. They’re doing good work. Please don’t get me wrong. But maybe, maybe for a period of time, we can’t continue down that same road. I can offer some suggestions and ideas on that as well. We can continue to follow the idea of we’ve always done it this way and expect to make the type of cuts and efficiencies that this county government demands. And again, I allude to exactly what the mayor said –we found ourselves in a situation now in which we can’t perhaps afford the government we have. Tough decisions have to be made. And although I certainly don’t want to see it, those tough decisions may be reductions of staff. I don’t want that to happen. I’ve argued again. I’m being a little bit facetious so please don’t take this too much at heart. We’re all furloughed for two days a month. I don’t know. I’ve looked around and while there have been, I think, some hardships on the different departments, and maybe even some hardships on the residents of the island in finding the services they were accustomed to find, this county government has not lost too much of it’s effectiveness because of the two day layoff. And I wonder whether we shouldn’t go to four-day work week, not in hours but simply four days. And yeah, as a councilman, I’m willing to take that cut. I know it’s an inconvenience on others, and it’s a much more economic hardship then I’d like to admit maybe for some people, but the jobs are still in place. And the benefits which I think are almost as important for many of our families, our younger families, today, would still be intact. Would we loose much effectiveness and service? We might have to cut some jobs. We might not be able to do everything we’re accustomed to doing. But wouldn’t that be better than seeing people being laid off? And wouldn’t that perhaps even make us do our work just a little better to make sure that department heads and middle management, more carefully and more effectively, scrutinize the efforts of their employees and the expenditures associated with their departments. I raise that as a suggestion, not as something that I necessarily have figures and everything to pursue, although we did some of that work even last year. Again, as a final statement I guess, I look at this as I say, from two different perspectives. One is a change of attitude that needs to be done. And I don’t know that I can quantify that for you, but over an extended period of time, I think we’ll see much more effective results. And the second one for course is the budget crunching numbers. The tough decisions need to be made. Are we willing to do that? Personally I don’t think the council or the mayor’s, at least in a couple of the administrations, have made those types of tough decisions that need to be made in this context. I’m hoping for much better cooperation this year as we move ahead. Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate it. And that’s why I probably couldn’t synthesize all that in an e-mail. MS. NICHOLSON: All right. Do we have any questions or comments? MS. O’HARA: Many. Thank you, Mr. Hoffmann for that presentation. I wanted to explain where this commission has gone with our approach this year to look into the cost of government and how we might be able to reduce those costs and increase revenues. What you had to say about –we have always done it that way –the 8 attitudinal or behavioral issues that underlie some of the problems that we have here on the financial front. And that is why as it seems we decided to look at what services the county is really responsible for providing. What are essential services? And perhaps some of the services that we are currently providing are not essential and should not be provided especially in tough budget times as we face today. So thank you for bringing that forward cause we have looked at that as well as a theme. We also have identified some overarching policy issues, most of which you touched upon. One of which was the contracting process. And we did have presentation by the Procurement Division and others on the contracting process, and looking at the inefficiencies that occur because of the type of process that we are using. And I’m not referring just to the fact that we have to abide by state law, just the inefficiencies of our internal processes and the result in change orders and contracts that do not get renewed on time, other types of lapses. We also see as an overarching policy issue of collection and fees. And we had good presentation by the Real Property Tax office and others on our collections there, real property taxes being the majority of the funds that we receive to conduct business as a government. We have some recommendations moving forward there that I would like to ask you about and your opinion about. Then the third overarching policy issue is this technology plan, countywide technology plan. There are so many technologies within the county, and agencies are not talking to each other. Departments are not talking to each other. We’re not talking to the public, interfacing with the public well. We, as a county, do not have a countywide technology plan and that could enhance our abilities to collect revenues. It could enhance our efficiency interacting with the public and it might be able to allow us to function better with perhaps elimination of these vacant funded positions if we have better technology available to us and our staff is trained in that technology. So those are the three overarching policy issues that we’ve identified. And then as a commission we have created some subcommittees, focus areas, one being Operations, Budget and Consolidation of departments. And we’re looking at some things such as perhaps consolidating enforcement into its own department which in turn creates better efficiencies and perhaps increases fees that we recover. We also have a subcommittee on Revenue Enhancement and Collections. And we have a subcommittee on Technology Recommendations. So this is how this committee has been looking at the issue of cost of government. We’re not just focused on crunching numbers in the budget, eliminating positions and that sort of thing. We’re trying to take a broader focus to see how government can change behaviorally that attitude of, this is the way we’ve done it, and this is the way we’re going to continue to do it. That does need to be addressed. And also efficiency. How can we operate more efficiently? So that’s what we’ve been looking at. So getting back to MR. HOFFMANN: Can I just make a comment before I forget it. There was another one liner I had here in my notes and I failed to mention it. Consolidating. And you mentioned it when you said enforcement. I thing there’s a need to look at the possibility of consolidation of functions and the admin functions and some others that are, I think, could be consolidated among various departments. I don’t mean to say we need to end up with the old idea of a stenography pool. But the idea of trying to consolidate functions that are common to all departments, I think there’s more in there than I think that could be looked at. I don’t know of any effort that, and this is not my idea, I must tell you, I’ve been approached by a couple of people, residents in my district, business people, retired, and say they’ve achieved significant results. And believe it or not, an 9 improvement in morale. I’m not quite certain how that works but the idea of a consolidation of functions across the county may also be something to think about. I just wanted to mention that before I lost that train of thought again. MS. O’HARA: Thank you. I have some specific questions for you. You had brought up property tax. Of course it’s never the case that as an elected official you want to raise property taxes. But we have some situations that leave us with glaring holes in terms of collections. One is the homeowner exemption and how it is applied. As you are aware the Real Property Tax Office applies homeowner exemption to unpermitted structures. Changing that could make a great deal of difference in tax collections. And in fact, we might even be able to lower our tax rates if we were to move in that direction. Another is the use of ag exemptions and how they are documented. We aren’t requesting any financial information to show that people who are taking ag exemptions are actually earning some money from their agricultural endeavors or subsistence farming. We’re taking no financial information. So these are some things that we are looking at in terms of suggestions, and I’m curious to know, as a legislator, how you would respond to making those types of changes. MR. HOFFMANN: Well, specifically, to the two areas that you mentioned, and then I’ll respond on a much broader basis. The idea of going back to unpermitted buildings and things like that, we should do a much better job at tightening up on that. And I see no reason that we shouldn’t pursue that. I don’t know how much. Somebody used to tell me, is it worth the strain and the effort in order to see those changes made, and how much you think we will estimate to receive as a result of that. The ag issue is one that’s froth with all types problems. What we need to do in agriculture is a crime. I don’t mean that quite like that. We have a potential for an industry here on this island that we haven’t even begun to tap. I’ve got farmers in my district, Kohala and Waimea, who are very willing to expand the amount of land that they have in production but they are not ready to try to do any of that at the moment because of the cost of making that happen and the inability to establish or secure even to hold them, a good market somewhere on this island for their products. There’s a whole number of things regarding this. I’m less supportive of changes in the agricultural situation until we go back to the one important question that’s been pending in this state for the last 34 years, and that’s the resolution of the important ag land issues. Since the 1978 State constitution, we’ve had the authority and the mandate to do this. And we as well as other counties have set on our thumbs and not done this. Let me also go back, I think, to the heart of the problem. We’ve come up with an ag plan about a year ago and we’re just, and an ag advisory commission which is there. By the way our office did that so I’m a little bit familiar with some of that aspect. We need to move along on this. We still have only one person in the county government for the past 30 years, 28 years, I’ve forgotten how long DayDay has been around, doing agricultural issues. We can’t support an expansion of this most critical area with just one person. It’s impossible. We need a group of people to do that job. The Agricultural Advisory Commission is just one. We could expand expedientially I think, our revenues as well as our tax base. And we haven’t. We would be well along the way for food self-sufficiency. I’ve often made the comment, we can be food self-sufficient in my lifetime. I believe that folks. I believe that. We have some good ideas. The administration has some good ideas. We aren’t going to get it done with only one person or with an advisory commission. We need a hell of a lot more legislation. And finally, you’re right. Tinkering with the property tax rates, particularly in 10 the election year, usually gets some reaction both from the administration and the council. I think most people, let me say, I think that a large number of people in my district, and I think on the west side of the island, would not be opposed to a property tax increase if they knew they were getting some benefit for the taxes that they pay. MS. O’HARA: Okay with that said, to address my question specifically, if we were to make the suggestion that homeowners exemptions are only allowed for permitted buildings, is this a legislation that you would support? MR. HOFFMANN: I would advocate it immediately. MS. O’HARA: Because it would give incredible increase. MR. HOFFMANN: In fact, again, I don’t need to see it as something that came from us, but I would be the first one jumping up and down and saying let’s move ahead on this. MS. O’HARA: Okay. Now, I understand your concerns about agriculture, and you know I agree with you. Agriculture is very important to me and to the businesses I work with. But what I’m asking here is the use of agricultural exemptions on property tax liability. You can at this point, get away with throwing a one border of fence line and tethering a goat and take an agricultural exemption. So, I’m asking whether or not you would support a more strident review of whether or not agriculture is occurring on a particular real property piece in order to obtain that exemption. MR. HOFFMANN: I would absolutely support a strident review, a much more aggressive policy of checking on that. But I would do that before I would begin to go to the next step that you’re looking at which maybe trying to see if there are additional changes that we can make in tax revenues or anything else. I would support a much more aggressive review by an independent agency, by a check by the county of specific five or 10% of the ag lands that each one of the districts or however you want to do that as a survey to see what’s being done and whether there is a loophole here that needs to be closed. MS. O’HARA: Well isn’t ag exemptions different then agricultural designation? MR. HOFFMANN: Yeah. MS. O’HARA: So that’s what we’re looking at. So, I just wanted to be sure how you would react to something like that. You also mentioned that you would recommend reviewing something like the hiring freeze on a semi-annual basis. What would such a review look like in terms of evaluating efficiency of not hiring people relative to county services being provided? Please explain how you would conduct such a review. MR. HOFFMANN: I’m aware that the mayor currently has an administration review of all those people that are being hired at the moment. But if I had a hiring freeze at the present time, in order to see at least for a six month period of time where we’re going to be particularly with our revenue collections and how that would address some of our budget difficulties, balance budget and all of that. What I would do is if I were saying it would be six months, in November I would have the administration come back to the 11 council and say, look, we’re really hurting in these five or six positions and we need to have those filled, and the others we understand. Here’s another level of five or six positions that we really feel are important and pursue it in that matter. And then have a council ad hoc committee to really review the effort and go to the department heads involved and try to get better information. Or have our legislative assistants do some of that work. There’s nothing wrong with legislative assistants in taking some of the work so to speak. And I don’t know that all of us use our leg assistants as competently as we could in that regard. That would be one way of looking at it. MS. O’HARA: Thank you. MS. NICHOLSON: Any questions? I have questions. You have talked about each department doing three budget scenarios. And that was based on department heads? MR. HOFFMANN: I’m sorry. Yes. I’m looking at a three level budget. MS. NICHOLSON: Basically to determine what their priorities are. Where does public input fit in all that? MR. HOFFMANN: Well initially, I’m not sure Madam Chair, that the initial documents, I think should be done in-house by the administration first. After all it is their budget to begin. It’s only when that budget is then handed to the council that I feel, then becomes the council budget and it’s the council’s responsibility then to seek public input and go further. So, initially much as we did in DOD and in government today at federal level, things are done in-house initially, and then subject to review after it is presented. Only the administration would know initially where those cuts might come and what their prioritization of effort is. And you hit exactly on the point too, that I think underlies a lot of this –that’s a prioritization by the departments. And that’s important. A lot of times we don’t see that. And even in the council’s budget reviews when we come up with this, I don’t think the council does as good a job as they should in tackling the review of each department’s budget process. We get three days. And let me tell you, we’re whipped by the end of two days. And there’s only in my experience anyway since I’ve been on the council, there have been several department’s that have done very well in budget reviews or in presentations to us. And other departments I would just have not done the job. And to mention I think, Darryl Oliveira in the Fire Department, that certainly, if you’ve ever seen his budget process, at least the ones he’s presented the past couple of years, I think those are outstanding. My questions are answered if I read what he gives me and if I ask him a couple of questions, I walk away feeling he’s at least told me where his priorities are and where he’s going in the next year. I don’t get that from every department. That’s just me. I don’t know what others have. But in answer to your initial question, I think the departments should set the priorities and move ahead on this and decide how that’s going to look. And then it’s up to the council to decide and to try to work with the administration cooperatively, and then see whether we shouldn’t have, don’t forget we do have public hearings, theoretically. And that’s supposed to elicit the public response. By Charter we have to do that if I’m not mistaken. MR. TAKABA: I’m sorry, I missed part of it. The three level budget, is it a three level budget review or three level … 12 MR. HOFFMANN: A three level budget submission, Bill. What I’m saying is the DOD type thing. A status quo budget in which you have no more resources. MR. TAKABA: Oh, submission. MR. HOFFMANN: The DOD type thing, a status quo budget in which you had no more resources. Whatever percentage the mayor wants. If you had five percent more or 10% more, where would that go? If you had to take a cut of 10% where would that go? Much like the Department of Defense does with their budget. MR. TAKABA: So there would be three types of budgets? MR. HOFFMANN: Three levels of budget. Same budget for the department, but if I had an extra five percent, where would I put that? If you were going to mandate a 10% cut, these are instructions from the mayor to the individual departments, what would you have to cut? That type of thing. Where would you recommend the cut? MS. NICHOLSON: Another question I had was about collective bargaining. We had Ron Takahashi and Ian Takashiba, we were talking about some of the suggestions that have come forward that would involve union changes. And so we learned, at least I learned, perhaps other people already knew it, that all of the collective bargaining contracts are statewide. MR. HOFFMANN: That’s why I didn’t mention it because I know we can’t. The administration’s hands to a certain degree are tied. Mr. Kenoi can’t go and say, okay, we’re going to take a 10% cut in contracts. He can’t do that. Even if he wanted to, he can’t do that. MS. NICHOLSON: So, it sounds like the only negotiating room is some supplemental agreements that can be made under the very specific circumstances. But Mr.Takahashi, I asked him if this was sort of common that there would be collective bargaining agreements that would span counties. And he said actually probably it’s quite unusual on the mainland, that most counties do it separately. And he had some good reasons why we do it that way here. But I was just wondering what your take is on that. MR. HOFFMANN: The reason that I didn’t mention it as far as contract negotiations are concerned is because of the situation I mentioned and you mentioned it, that it’s done at the state with the governor by the way. The situation with the furlough days is a clear example of that. Again this is the result of the union, I think, being in a very strong position in this state and we’ve always done it this way. I’m sorry, but that’s it. We’ve always done it this way. Until that attitude changes also with the union and with the state, we’ll probably have difficulty with that. I would love to see the changes made so that there would be collective bargaining maybe key to individual counties rather than just the collective bargaining at the state level. The mayor can hopefully and he might want to look at that as one of those tough nuts to crack. I’m not certain of the success of that. For a much long-range program and savings, this would certainly be an area in which we would save considerable money. The idea of some of the retirement benefits and adding overtime and so forth to some of the contracts that we have are things that 13 should be looked at. But they’re rooted as we understand it anyway, in concrete, unless there is a change at the state level with all the mayors working together with the governor. I’d love to see some adjustments made. But we all would at this time. I think where I was disappointed in the fact that we had an opportunity last year to forego with at least a contract and raise in the SHOPO contract. And I know there was some talk certainly in our level to please beg the union not to ahead with this. And they did. And the cost to the county of course were increased. I’m sorry they didn’t consider that in a slightly different way, although they had every right to proceed in the manner in which they did. But that goes back to my question on trying to get additional furlough days. MS. NICHOLSON: Do you think there would be some will on the part of the county to try to negotiate these contracts on it’s own versus this statewide collective bargaining? MR. HOFFMANN: I think most council members, my guess would be, would look at that as we should at least try to see what we can do along that way. Yeah, and I think you would get pretty much general support on the part of the residents in each one of the districts overall. If you’d put that question on the ballot, would you want to see this happen or not? Yeah, I think you would. To what extent or degree, I don’t know. I don’t know how the mayor or the administration would look at such an issue. But in a way it’s saying is it time to change the perception, the attitude I mentioned and you mentioned before, we’ve always done it this way. We have to change that type of thinking. So, yeah, I would think that there would be support for that. Resolution might work. We thought about that even last year when we were doing it. You know resolutions are nice to have. In a political year or an election year, that smacks, at least in my estimation, too much posturing. And that doesn’t help anybody. MS. NICHOLSON: You just brought up another thing –you were talking about things happening in election year. And I think that one of the suggestions that we got from someone was to have the council terms be longer. MS. O’HARA: Back to four years. MS. NICHOLSON: Yeah, back to four years rather than two years. And we haven’t really discussed that or considered that, but since you brought up, in an election year a couple of times… MR. HOFFMANN: Well, I’m a victim of four elections every two years. I certainly see the advantage of going to longer terms. But then I look at our Congress and if our Congress can do it every two years, I wonder why us, at local level, can’t. On the other hand, I’m sure there’d be a lot of residents who would look at us and say, boy, I don’t want that yo yo there for another two years. Maybe it’s good to have that type of a review. Regardless of how individual council members look at, I look at it as a report card. And the assessment of the people in my district anyway, is important to me. I’m not opposed to a two-year term. Although as I say, I can see the advantages, that there are some advantages. If you want people, certainly in this county, to enhance their credibility for the county government to have some general support for the issues that their representatives are pushing, and the administration is pushing, I think a two-year term is not unusual, and not the wrong way to go at the moment. I want to make sure in one way shape or form that we get the maximum participation in government. I’m not 14 certain by isolating us in a position for four years at our level that we do that. And if somehow while it’s a bother, it’s a pain, it’s also an advantage if the council members do it correctly. And I’m not saying my approach is the best approach. But you know what every two year does? It forces me to walk my neighborhoods and knock on doors. Oh my, imagine council man actually going down and knocking on doors. I don’t think that’s bad. And after some of the back and forth we’ve had, council reorganization and everything else, council credibility, credibility of government, our county government at all levels is questioned by the people, certainly in my district. I’ve heard an ear full. So if I waited for another two years to get out there and try to do that, I’m not certain I’d be assisting in having a more effective and a more credible county government. MS. NICHOLSON: Thank you. MR. ARMOUR: Going back to the discussion about the statewide negotiation of contracts. One of the things that amazed me was the pay for each counties is exactly the same for the same worker, same amount of time, same job. MR. HOFFMANN: Would that they do that, Mr. Armour, for council members, huh. MR. ARMOUR: So, coming from the mainland, living in Colorado, Denver had higher taxes. The property values were a lot higher and the pay was a lot higher. 50 miles away in a smaller town, huge county, had a lot lower pay for their employees. And it just made sense that the county employees as well as the private sector employees got paid to kind of to the cost of living and also for the job they’re doing. So I was kind of shocked that especially on this island pays the same wages as Honolulu. MR. HOFFMANN: Yeah. And that’s one of the advantages that I see of county collective bargaining instead of statewide, particularly on things exactly like that. You’ve hit the very common disadvantage of our current, one of the disadvantages of our current system and how it reflects and how it could save the county considerable money. That’s true. Again, there are a number of things we can do, you can do as a commission, in addition to trying to look at that. And I think that’s an issue that’s gotta work through our state legislators. That’s something we get, everyone from the Senate and the Leg together in a caucus and say, look, let’s see what we can do here. Tough issue. As I said, I honestly don’t know how Mayor Kenoi would look at that. I do think it would be looked upon very favorably by individual council members though. MR. ARMOUR: Another question, since I’ve move here, the Building Department seems to be a little hang up on getting permits issued for people to start construction. And I would think that in a slow time like now, they could become more efficient and allow the people to start building quicker which would cause more jobs being had and the revenue would be coming in to the state. We have friends that have been waiting three to four months on a simple change to get approved before they start construction. We’ve had other people say that they’ve waited over a year to get from the initial type of their plans to when they get approved. And looking at the houses, they’re not looking like something that hasn’t been built a hundred times before. You have any comments about that? 15 MR. HOFFMANN: Well, I must spend a couple of hours a week with residents in my district with the same complaint. The mayor did two years ago, promise that he was going to take a look at that issue. And I think more recently, if I’m not mistaken, there havebeen some efforts being taken within the Department of Public Works to address that concern particularly. I think there’s been some effort to at least try to make that happen. It’s always been a shortfall here. I’m not certain why it doesn’t go down from the Mayor through the Department of Public Works and say fix the darn thing. And I’ll give you 90 days to do it. That’s easier said than done. But I’m of the opinion that some effort is being spent at this time trying to address that long-standing issue. And yes, I will tell you at least for some residents in my district, it continues to be a problem. You’re correct, I do think it would assist. I do think that it would certainly accelerate the process and make it more user friendly. And you would wonder why at a time when we have obviously less building permits than we did say back in 2005 and ‘06,why the process doesn’t accelerate itself. On the other hand, I’m not quite certain that it might be a problem of not having enough educated or committed people working in the department too. And would one or two more people help that process? Or if you put one or two more people there, are we then generating exactly the thing we’re trying to cut down on inflation in staff and so on. Do we have a trade off here? I leave that to you. I haven’t looked at the particulars. I’m under the impression as I say that the mayor is taking some action on this point. MR. ARMOUR: It might also cut down on the unpermitted building that goes on. MR. HOFFMANN: Next question sir. MR. ARMOUR: That’s all I have. MS. NICHOLSON: Any other questions? MS. WONG: I do. First I’d like to thank you for coming to the meeting. I think it’s a statement for a councilman to come in response to our letter. I appreciate that. And I appreciate that you narrowed your points down to two. It makes it simple. I also appreciate, Eileen did such a good job of summarizing where we are. Wow, aren’t we good when she summarizes. MR. HOFFMANN: Until she said that though, Ms. Wong, I didn’t know where you were. Your letter didn’t exactly say except to provide us the questions, where you happen to be of course at this time, or what your direction and purpose was to be. We haven’t heard too much from the Cost of Government Commission in the past, so this is say, a statement I think by all of you, that you’re willing to be much more involved and participate in this problem and this issue which we feel very keenly each time we get beaten up by either the administration or our own constituents. So, we salute you for trying to take the initiative. MS. WONG: Thank you. And that’s one of our concerns that we want to make sure that people know what we’re about so that they can respond and we can do our job. My committee that I sit on is the Operations, Budget and Consolidation. We’ve split up into three separate committees. Knowing that, I’d like to ask three questions that are related to that area. I’m intrigued that you comewith suggesting the attitude of -it’s always 16 been done that way. That needs to change. And in our discussions in this committee, we’ve looked at things just totally out of the box. Some things we know we can’t even touch, but it doesn’t hurt to think about it. One of the things that we’ll be discussing later today in commission and we’ve discussed in our committee, is the boards and commissions. And we’ve talked about, might it be some of the boards and/or commissions consolidated? And I’ve sort ofdone a mock up on possibles. I know that they’re set up by Charter, but might they have less meetings than they do now? And the reason suggesting for that is that although the members are public citizens and it’s free, the staffing of these meetings are costly. As a councilman, how would you see consolidating boards and commissions and/or deleting boards and commissions? And/or deleting like this commission. Just as an example. MR. HOFFMANN: Well, I hadn’t thought of it until you mentioned it, the idea of consolidating commissions. Let me take it from that perspective. Energy and agriculture are two areas in which I think this county has done a deplorable job up to this point. I don’t know how else to put it. And I’ve been a persistent critic if you will, of how we address those two issues. Because in both of those areas, if we honestly had a very good vision of where we wanted to go, a small investment in time, effort and resources could, I think, save the county and the county residents a tremendous amount of money. And I think of this in the energy field. The idea of the Energy Advisory Commission and the Agricultural Advisory Commission, one of the purposes in my mind since I was the guy who was principally responsible to see those things become established, was to supplement the non-staff that the county has in both of these areas. I was hoping for a group of people in the energy field who, as volunteers, yes as citizens, what would be smart individuals who knew a hell of lot more about this task than I did and would be able to supplement a non-staff -we still have only one person on the county staff for energy I think at the moment, and we only have one person as I mentioned before in agriculture. Both of these commissions were supposed to supplement the lack of staffing that the county has in order to provide reasonable advice and assistance to the mayor. And at the same time provide the legislature or the council if you will, an opportunity to take a look at good ideas we can implement.In those areas where the commissions, as I see them being technical in nature, I couldn’t see them being consolidated with Planning Commission or Transportation or something like that. So, my perception and use, or how I would envision these commissions being used, and again I think it’s more of a philosophical thing. If I were in Mr. Kenoi’s seat for instance, I’d use the much more aggressively and with a very fixed policy and statement of how I want tosee the commissions react. And I would get feedback. And I would be, I think more aggressive in my use of that in that manner. It may not be possible in every instance, I understand, but I’m hard over on both energy and agriculture as two areas in which this county has not done its work well. And by the way, we have plans for both of those subjects. Both of them recommend the hiring of competent staff and people to do this job, three or four people, actually, not one. The other thing about commissions, believe it or not, is that you actually enhance participation of county government to a local resident. You might say, there’s not enough of those people. But quite frankly before I became a councilman I was on the Transportation Commission. It gave me an insight to a different approach to how things were done or not done depending on how you want to look at it. I was certainly encouraged because of my participation on that commission to seek public office, or one of the reasons. I’m not completely looking at it and never thinking of it in that vein before, Ms. Wong. I can’t give you a better answer 17 right at the moment. I may need more study, or you may need to come back to me and show me the disadvantages and things, and maybe I’ll have a different perspective on it. MS. WONG: Okay. MS. O’HARA: Can I ask a question? The commission on agriculture is separate than the commission on energy? MR. HOFFMANN: Yes. You have two advisory commissions at the moment. MS. O’HARA: I just wanted to be clear on that. MR. HOFFMANN: Both of them were set up separately. I sponsored the legislation for both. The Agricultural Commission has been in effect for about a year and they’re working on the plan of a couple of things. They’re there, yes, and it is separate from the Energy Commission. MS. WONG: Another question. Mr. Yagong had sent a query out to the employees, I think it was a couple of years ago. It got a lot of responses MR. HOFFMANN: Last year I think. MS. WONG: What did the council do with that information when the report was shared, if anything? MR. HOFFMANN: Well, I can’t speak for other council members. I looked at it as a very good initial recap, summary of valid ideas from people inside the system and how they would look at changes from within. Not from the public perspective but from the individuals in the government. I was pleased. I thought it was good initiative. I recognized there’s political content and purpose. I mean almost every thing we do, I guess has that. Some of the responses were less than encouraging, or less than what I would want to see. But overall I thought it was a good idea. And if it was done consistently on a regular basis with maybe the survey indicating not just, what the heck do you feel down in the Mail Room for instance, but rather in a previous survey the general comments can be best summarized in three or four areas. What do you think about that now? What changes have been made? Have the council done anything? Have the administration done anything to address your concerns? Have there been some in-house issues? That would be interesting. I might also say we have an independent auditor’s office. We need to use them more than we have. And the origin of the performance based audits, I think was a good initiative. I’m happy to have tried to take that one off in the right direction when I was chair of council. We need to do more of that. MS. WONG: Essentially you’re saying the results of that query, council basically said, oh that’s interesting, and did nothing further than that? Cause it’s a one time information. 18 MR. HOFFMANN: Well, again, from my perspective, I used the information that I got. I’m not certain that the council ever put out a public statement. I don’t remember that happening. I don’t know how the other council members used it. I know I did. In one or two areas, that came out as I remember, in November, December, January of last year, and was part of the reason I included two things on my list of proposed suggestions for budget changes when I was a member of the ad hoc committee, which my other two colleagues didn’t sign. They didn’t want to make any changes so I was overruled. And also ended up on the list of things that I had for that May session that we had out in Kona with Mayor Kenoi. So, I got value out of it. MS. WONG: One last question that’s way out there. This island is, a lot of it is East and West Hawai‘i discussions. The county council people are elected by districts. What if it were changed to just North, South, East, and West so that there would be four council members. Would that be a bad choice? And not even a doable choice at this point. Would that be a bad choice to cut down the amount of council representation? MR. HOFFMANN: Yes. First of all, I wouldn’t recommend that. First of all you have to have of course by Charter as well as by State constitution, there’s got to be adequate representation at local level for numbers of people. So, you’d need more than four. I think that’s true. I have to go back and look at that. But this island is not a geographic. It cannot be subdivided into geography, despite what you hear. I don’t think you’ve ever heard me talk about an East, West divide. In fact I’ve avoided it for a number of reasons. I don’t believe in it. First of all, I thinkits poison to cooperation by everyone on this island. Unfortunately, in my opinion, a lot of the East, West rancor comes and is generated by the East side members, not certainly by us. That being said, I don’t want to see any division of the island, you know, into separate counties and different things. That’s nonsense. We are one island. The system isn’t broken. Some of the people need to be changed maybe. And some of the people have got to change the attitude as to how things could be done. But the system is not wrong. The system ain’t broken. We need to work more effectively. We need to cooperate more effectively and remember that many of the things that we put forward are not here just for political posturing and everything, but are the honest and sincere assessments that we receive from the people in our district. I can say that. And I know several of my members on the council who had done their homework and were out there knocking on doors and attending the town meetings feel the same way. We’re disappointed when we don’t get that type of cooperation from our other council members. In my opinion, bad idea. MS. WONG: Bad idea. MS. NICHOLSON: Patricia, did you have anything? MS. PROVALENKO: I have a couple of questions. One is our subcommittee is based on revenue enhancement and collections, so we’re currently looking at what the other counties are charging for various fees. So, we were kind analyzing that. And something that has been brought up to me by several people is the real property tax. And my understanding and Bill can correct me if I’m wrong, is that we can start charging real property tax as construction starts instead of waiting till the building permit to be completed. I understand that there could be sizeable money out there that hasn’t been addressed, that’s waiting. Because you can have building permits that are out there 19 that may be the inaudible before it’s completed. And it’s been completed for years, but not gotten MR. HOFFMANN: Well, what you’re saying of course is this is a tool that the county government can use to make sure the person pulling the building permit actually does the job in the time which he or she is supposed to do it. Oh wow, what a theory that would be, huh. And then maybe the county wouldn’t have to try to extend all these things so frequently as we do. MS. PROVALENKO: And we would be getting revenues in from the get-go. MR. HOFFMANN: Yes. It’s a possibility. But don’t forget the basis of my arguments or my discussion on the impact fees, I’m sorry Bill, bases collection of those fees on, if you will, as a suggestion, at building permit, not at subdivision code. So, by doing that, you’re basically forcing or trying to put a spur to the developer or the builder to not dawdle on his jobs and his efforts and to do that. And by the way, I’d forgotten, can I digress just a little bit as long as I brought one of my favorite subjects of impact fees. Again, if you’re looking for cost of government, I suggest to you that a lack of an effective fair share system. I’m not arguing whether it’s right or wrong or indifferent. My opinions on that matter are public knowledge. I’m just saying the effectiveness of the system we have is causing us to not obtain substantial revenues over a period of time that would address our infrastructure. And as you know, that’s translated into a much more of a burden on the individual taxpayers, and much more burden on our budget because then we have to increase debt service and repay them the bonds because that’s one of the only fee simple matter of financing any of our infrastructure projects regardless of whether they happen to appear on the Capital Improvements Project Budget or not. So the idea of having an effective fair share system, if you don’t want to say that’s an impact fee, call it whatever you want, but an effective impact fee system that allows collections and insures collections at the time of building permit is certainly a revenue stream we have not tapped adequately. Let me just leave it that. MS. PROVALENKO: Basically you said the same thing or you told me what I was asking, is that there’s a source of revenue out there we are not getting. And we should be getting. I mean, we should be getting it from the time you purchase the property till you put your foundation in, as the process goes on, if it takes a year to build, those real property taxes should be increasing based on that value. MR. HOFFMANN: As I understand it, although I don’t know that we’ve ever really examined it, I happened to examine that in much detail. I was more concentrated on the impact fee and a substantial change in that. Bill, here,with his experience in finance and everything of course,is well aware of what we can, I know we can do what you’re saying. I’d like to hear what the advantages and disadvantages of that are. MS. PROVALENKO: We talked about raising taxes or maybe if we collected everything that’s outstanding to us, we wouldn’t have to be thinking … MR. HOFFMANN: Don’t forget now. You’re absolutely correct, but I also look at it from another perspective which we proposed in council. Jacobson, Pilago and myself, three years ago, was to do a top to bottom assessment of properties in the county and to 20 begin to do a better job of assessing commercial and industrial properties and hotel properties and resort. I’m sorry folks. I think we’re missing a hell of a lot more money there than in non-collection of taxes early because of building permit. So, if I had a choice of where I would want to address some of the collection shortfalls, it would be in having a top to bottom review. We had a proposal that looked at spending the money in order to provide that assessment by outside sources for a reassessment of our property tax base. But I don’t disagree, Pat. It is an area I know we can do it, but I’m not sure the legal things,and Corp Counsel and Mr. Takaba would have to do some work on that. MS. PROVALENKO: Thank you. MS. NICHOLSON: Any other questions? MS. O’HARA: I just have one small point that I’d like to ask Mr. Hoffman about. You’d made a suggestion of a four-day work week. But in discussion about union collective bargaining, this is something that’s hard to make a reality out of. MR. HOFFMANN: Yes. And that’s why although it sounds good, and a lot of times in discussions like this, council members do posture a little where we do say this is a great idea. Boy we got to do it. And everybody says, yeah, yeah. But a lot of us know that’s not probably realistic. MS. O’HARA: And it’s unfortunate that it can’t be more flexible because there is a lot of modifications one can make to the county work schedule, staggered hours, other things that could really benefit the county at large. You also mentioned that you feel that boards and commissions should be used more pro-actively to bring in the expertise that does not reside in the county. Most boards and commissions are volunteers and a little bit taxed to bring their expertise there on a volunteer basis, but we do seem to have sufficient membership, barely, on this commission. MR. HOFFMANN: You’re a five-member commission? MS. O’HARA: Six. We’re missing three members. I believe your district is not represented. MS. PROVALENKO: No, it is. I’m from his district. MS. O’HARA: I’m sorry. It’s the other West Hawai‘i. MR. HOFFMANN: This is my district member. MS. O’HARA: Sorry. But one of the concerns I have here about shifting some of the strategic planning that boards and commissions can address is whether or not they will be listened to. I believe that the legislative side of county government, the county council, is respectful and interested in the information that it receives from boards and commissions. I’m not so sure that it’s viewed in the same manner, and this gets back to the way we’ve always done things, and the way we do business. I’m not so sure that the opinions and recommendations set forth by boards and commissions who are 21 nondiscretionary, discretionary being like the Planning Commission, but the nondiscretionary commissions is really listened to by the departments and the administration because they kind of view these commissions as very short time. They’re not integrated into county government. What they say is all very nice and well, but we’re going to continue doing business as usual. So, how do we ramp up these boards and commissions so that they actually get the value out of them that the expertise that we gathered, the opinions that were put forth, have an impact on how we govern? MR. HOFFMANN: First of all, you may not, without a substantial change in attitude on the part of the administration and the department heads. Let’s face it, you’re absolutely correct. These are advisory. Most of the boards and commissions are advisory. If some suggestions were made, would the managing director of the county for instance, take a look, not just reading what these recommendations were, but would he actually take action on that? It depends how the mayor and the managing director and the department heads view the results from the different commissions. You’re absolutely correct. For technical commissions, particularly in energy and advisory, we try to put people on there who have a background in that area. I don’t know that that’s been successful entirely. But it really goes back to what we said initially. We’ve always done it this way. We have to change that attitude. And that’s not something we can legislate. It’s honestly got to be absolutely, from the top down. The Mayor’s got to sit down and say, we can’t continue to do business in this manner. And I’m going to accept this. I’m going to move ahead. I want the commission to do it this way or I want to work with the council in this area and so on and so forth. I do believe though that if the credibility of county government is enhanced, if we can get over this idea that some of the boards and commissions are manned by people who are just there for a free lunch or they want to have their name on the commission or so, if we can get over that somehow and actually see competent people at all times in order to make sure that we do have it. And to have the council members aggressively pursue individuals to join the boards. That doesn’t happen all the time. I think the Corp Counsel does a very good job of trying to keep us informed. We have to change that so that more people in the community will seek this, not as a sort of an extra job, but as something in which they can share their experiences and their expertise for the benefit of the community. That enhances county government, and participation in government, but it’s got to start with all of us. And each time the council goes through one of those reorganization nonsense, each time we’re there and the credibility of the council or the administration is undermined by this nonsense, it makes it much more difficult to get the people to come forward to do what you’re asking for nothing or for next to nothing. Again, I don’t think the system is broken. I think we just have to keep working. Some people need to change the attitudes. MS. O’HARA: And one kind of humorous but recognized comment that we’ve received from some of the staff of the county, one being Kathy’s boss, was the video taping of the County Council and the extent to which we taxpayers pay for that, and how much of the actions that are taped and broadcast are not jurisdictional, meaning the council is not focused on it’s jurisdictional actions. How would you feel about reining that in? Cause this is a fairly large contract that we pay for. 22 MR. HOFFMANN: Well, again, I guess, it goes back to the things that I mentioned before. Anything that enhances public participation in government is not bad. I’m amazed and continue to be almost everyday that I go to some type of a meeting and someone would come up to me and say, Oh,I saw you on TV the other night. Regardless of what the comment was, good, bad or indifferent, I’m amazed at how many people do that. And then my comment is, oh, the programming at that time must have been really poor for you to turn to public access TV to see us in action. It’s almost like watching grass grow. But the comments that I received from them, from most of my constituents who do tell me that, then come up with the discussion of a particular issue that they saw. So they remember that. I’m surprised as many people look at that as I’ve experienced in the six years I’ve been on the council. And that goes to the heart. I recognize some people will say and have told me since the new council is on board, well, we’re not going to get so much comic relief as we had before. And it hurts me to think that way or that they would say that. Because you know what that does? Think of how badly that reflects on all of us in county government. Regardless of who did it or why, or what the issue was, that type of behavior and conduct, the reorganization I go back to as being the low point of, certainly my council career up to this point. It reflects on everybody in county government. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the council doing this or anything else. It reflects on the mayor. It reflects on the administration. That the figment of no leadership or lack of strong leadership at this point to stop that nonsense, that's reflected on the TV too. I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed for myself. I’m embarrassed for each and every one of my colleagues who are trying to do the job. And I’m embarrassed for you who are part of county government in some way shape or form. Now would I want to see it reigned in? No. The system is not broken. Some people need to be changed and their attitudes need to be altered. This is a good tool and a good vehicle. And I would never see or never advocate a change in our public access contract. I think that’s a worthwhile investment. And over an extended period of time, it will be reflected that way. MS. WONG: Then to take a different tack, it’s contracted at this point. If you want that continuous service, might it be advisable to assess the cost of creating a position, buying the equipment, and then having it done in-house as an employee? MR. HOFFMANN: I don’t think I’ve thought of that, but yes, it certainly would be worthwhile to examine that. MS. WONG: I’ve heard of the rates of the contract and I’ve been a video crew and it’s somuch cheaper to have an employee than a contract. MR. HOFFMANN: Again, I must admit I don’t remember having thought of that. When I was chair, I didn’t think of that. I don’t think I did or if so, I’ve forgotten it. We went ahead with what we had. Although in my time we were up in the Ben Franklin building so we were working with a different type of a set up for a while. And maybe that restricted my initiatives on that a little bit. I would not want to see that service terminated or restricted in any way. In the long run, if we can get a more educated populace, regardless of whether they agree or disagree with all the things you see with the administration or the council members are coming up, that’s good. I can’t imagine that that’s a disadvantage in any way. And I can’t think that that’s a bad investment for us as a county government to have. 23 MS.NICHOLSON: Any other questions? Dare I ask any more comments, Mr.Hoffmann? MR. HOFFMANN: Hey. Normally I don’t have that type of an opportunity. We only have three minutes, five minutes in council. Madam Chairman, I obviously appreciate the opportunity to come before you in person. You can understand why I feel I couldn’t have done this adequately by e-mail or a short piece of paper. I feel very strongly on many of these issues obviously. I hope, in any case that the issues that I’m trying to strongly advocate for and continue to push reflect that sensitivity that we have. I continue to stress and hope and always expect and anticipate that we’re going to have better cooperation from the administration to the council on many of these things. We are, I would hope, sharing the need and the necessity to view it in that manner. We don’t have the luxury of budget that we had when economic times were good. And unless I missed my assessments, I don’t see too much of an improvement. Working with the Food Basket as I do, I can tell you that when one out of every six of residents of this island use the services of the Food Basket each and every year for the past two or three years, folks, we’ve got a problem. The responsibility of government remains public health and safety. Food and housing are critical to meeting those responsibilities. We’ve got to do a better job. And we’ve go to stop trying to look upon this only from a political perspective. And I think we’ve gotten wrapped around that axle too much. So anything you can do to help us in that regard, I certainly salute your efforts and I salute the initiative that this commission is taking in this regard. I would only hope you had done that five years ago, but I’m happy you’re doing it today. Thank you. MS. NICHOLSON: Thank you. We’ll take a five minute break. BREAK: 11:45-11:50 MS. NICHOLSON: We have a quorum now so we can reconvene. We have a lot to go through. I think we want to go ahead and continue discussion among ourselves that any points that Mr. Hoffmann brought up that we might want to include, pick them up right now, things that we might want to put forward in our draft. I noted down nine specific suggestions that he had, some of which may already be on our list or they are things that we’re already going to discuss later. So, would you like me to just name them off? MS. PROVALENKO: Yes. Please. MS. NICHOLSON: The first one, and you may have some more that you captured. These are just the ones I noted down. 1.Eliminate vacant funded positions. Is that something you would like to continue to keep on our list, on our draft? 2.Introduce a hiring freeze for six months and then review that hiring freeze to see if it should be lifted. 3.The four day work week. Which is actually in another format on something else we’re going to discuss already. So, should we just carry that forward? But we’ll 24 . sort of roll it into the other one MS. O’HARA: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: The fourth one was: Request the department heads to do three different budget scenarios. One 4. based on continuing with the current budget. Another budget would be reflecting five percent increase. And the other would be a 10% decrease. And really use this as a way for the departments to prioritize their budgets. 5.Do budget reviews either semi-annually or quarterly to make needed adjustments . I was actually really stunned that they didn’t do that already. 6.Another was review all mandated jobs rather than positions and consider eliminating non-mandated jobs even if those are valuable. That’s what he said. And he said that’s for in the crunch time, and then perhaps it would be some expansion later on. But this was in the shorter time. MS. PROVALENKO: I think that’s where he reflected on environmental. MS. NICHOLSON: In the shorter term, look at government really doing the mandated jobs and determine which ones are non-mandated. And then it would become I assume, part of the budget scenarios to add those back in. Yes, we want to carry that one forward? MS. PROVALENKO: Yes. MS. O’HARA: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: Another one was to: 7.Put forward a resolution allowing the counties to negotiate collective bargaining contracts instead of doing all those on a statewide basis. MR. ARMOUR: Can I add something? MS. NICHOLSON: Certainly. MR. ARMOUR: He didn’t bring it up but also maybe allow the counties to have more flexibility, still do it by state but allow the counties to do, like my pet peeve is differential in pay, instead of having it all. Cause that might be easier instead of having the whole state on the same pay scale as an example, have each county negotiate something. MS. O’HARA: I think that’s what she’s saying is that have a resolution such that it would be just at the county level. MS. NICHOLSON: if that’s not possible maybe give the counties Maybe saying more flexibility , so maybe it’s more flexibility within the supplemental agreements that county can already… 25 MR. ARMOUR: Right. Because I don’t think you’ll get it to go in one quick motion to eliminate the state negotiation and just have it by counties, maybe give the counties more flexibility. MS. O’HARA: Do you remember in that presentation, for those supplementals, if the county wanted something different, they had to get the state on board to go into that negotiation. Is that the process as I recall? MS. PROVALENKO: That’s what I thought he said. Because it has to go to the governor. MS. O’HARA: It can’t be singly any one county and so they have to also MS. NICHOLSON: They have to recruit someone else. MR. ARMOUR: Because the governor has six votes and each county has one vote. MS. O’HARA: So, they have to bring in the state. MR. ARMOUR: So if the governor is not onboard nothing can get done. MS. NICHOLSON: The example he gave was very specific to the fact that Hawai‘i County does not have county police cars, and so they needed to negotiate a separate agreement because I guess Maui is all county police vehicles. So there was no commonality. So, I think that what Ken is suggesting is relaxing that even more so it’s not necessarily things where there’s no commonality, but in fact specific county issues. MS. O’HARA: Yeah. I agree. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. 8.Putting in place an effective fair share system that allows collections at the time of permitting. MS. O’HARA: Well, he waivered back and forth between using fair share and impact fee. Impact fee MS. PROVALENKO: Because he’s pushing that. MS. O’HARA: I believe all of the commissioners are aware of the status of our fair share contribution system, which has been called out as illegal by the courts. MS. NICHOLSON: but put in place of Maybe we shouldn’t use the words fair share, an effective system that allows collections at the time of permitting. MS. O’HARA: It’s impact fee. MS. NICHOLSON: Well, whatever you call it. 26 MS. O’HARA: Well, it’s infrastructure fees. MS. NICHOLSON: And we can either carry this forward or we can refer it back to Ken and Patricia’s committee because it’s part of revenue enhancement and they can see how it might fit in with their committee. Should we do that rather than carry that one forward? MS. PROVALENKO: Yeah. MS. O’HARA: Yeah. Remand it to the subcommittee. MS. NICHOLSON: And the last one that I noted down we might also want to hand to the subcommittee unless we’re going to carry it. 9.Do a top to bottom review of the property tax base. MS. PROVALENKO: I don’t think that’s within our jurisdiction to be able to pull that together. MS. O’HARA: That’s a recommendation. MS. PROVALENKO: I mean, you’re sending it down to the subcommittee, but I think overall that’s a good recommendation but not in subcommittee level, being that it needs to stay as part of the recommendations. Especially if it’s got an audit. You got an auditing agency, why not use them. Like he said, it’s not being used. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay, so we’ll carry it out on the report. So one of these nine we will refer back to a subcommittee, and the other eight are going forward as recommendations in our draft. Now, anyone else has something they believe that MS. WONG: I think he spoke about consolidation of functions. MS. O’HARA: Oh yes. MR. ARMOUR: Yeah, different departments. MS. NICHOLSON: And how would you like to phrase that? MS. WONG: Consolidation of functions. MR. ARMOUR: A review of like consolidation of functions from different departments . MS. O’HARA: Could that be put with your subcommittee? Consolidation was your committee. MS. NICHOLSON: Or would you rather just carry it forward as is now? MS. WONG: Seems simple. 27 MS. NICHOLSON: Are there other points from his discussion? MS. WONG: Another point not necessarily that he made but I’d like to pose to the commission. MS. NICHOLSON: Well, I think we can stick with what he said because that’s our topic that we’re on. MS. WONG: But it’s related to what he said. We talked about he was not really aware of what the commission had been doing. And we have been calling people in to see us so we could collect information from them and have discussion. But towards the end when he was talking for the consideration that before we end, after we get the draft, before we end this commission, that we could call in the department directors and verbally tell them what we’d like to in jest, advise them or recommend to them. And instead of collecting information tell them what we’re advising. MS. NICHOLSON: Individually or as one big group? MS. WONG: I think one big group so they can hear what each department is being told, but I’m not real clear on the how, just that I’d like to pose that to the commission to consider maybe for the next meeting or something. MS. NICHOLSON: I think we already have an agenda item that talks about how we’re going to proceed. MS. GARSON: It’s item 10, Discussion regarding approach to take to timely accomplish mandate of the cost of government commission. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay, that’s a good point and we need to capture it and maybe we can talk more about it when we get to the agenda item. Anything else from Mr.Hoffmann’s comments? Are we ready to move on to agenda item 8? MS. GARSON: So, Madam Chairman, just so I’m clear. So the items that you listed, in the future you will want that under Discussion regarding items previously recommended to be placed in draft report? MS. NICHOLSON: They are I think items that we just want to carry directly into the draft report. MS. GARSON: Okay. CORRESPONDENCE: MS. NICHOLSON: So our process with the Correspondence is we will move to accept and file and therefore have the ability to discuss each one of these individually. And hopefully we can move through this quickly. First one is Comm. 2010-145: Response form Guy Toyama, Energy Advisory Commission. Do we want to move to accept and file? Do I hear a motion? 28 MOTION: MS. O’HARA: I move to accept and file. MR. ARMOUR: I second. MS. NICHOLSON: You all right on this? Do we have any discussion or we’ll call for the motion. All in favor of accepting to file and no discussion? ACTION ON MOTION:All: Aye. MS. NICHOLSON: Any opposed? None. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay, the next one Comm. 2010-146: Response from Fred Blas, Council Member. Can I hear a motion to accept and file? MOTION: MS. PROVALENKO: I move. MS. O’HARA: I second. MS. NICHOLSON: Any discussion? All in favor? ACTION ON MOTION: All: Aye. MS. NICHOLSON: Any opposed? None. MS. NICHOLSON: Comm. 2010-147: Response from Eric Tanouye, Agricultural Advisory Commission. A motion to accept and file? MOTION: MS. WONG: Move to accept and file. MS. PROVALENKO: Second. MS. NICHOLSON: Discussion? I actually had some discussion on this. Under item 2 on his suggestions. I thought these were all excellent suggestions and I think we might want to consider moving them into our draft report. First on is combine agriculture product to move this into one office. In other words building permits, water permits and make sure the various regulations are not in conflict with their demands. I’m not sure I totally understand this one. MS. O’HARA: Having worked in Planning, I’m kind of curious how that would work. I’m not really sure what he means. MR. ARMOUR: I think what he means is that when somebody wants to do something related to agriculture like build a new greenhouse, that they can go to one office and get the building permits for the greenhouse, get the water and whether it’s catchment or drill a well or hook up to the county water, all of that’s done at one time instead of jumping between different departments. 29 MS. O’HARA: Well, that would be nice for all of our building projects, but we’re not set up to function that way right now. And I don’t know how water permits come through us semi-autonomous, Board of Water Supply. How that’s all going to fit into one office is challenging. MS. NICHOLSON: What would you think of inviting Mr. Tanouye to come in and elaborate on these suggestions? I feel a little uncomfortable about moving them into the report because I’m not quite sure what they’re all about. But obviously there have been some discussions and these came out of the subcommittee, and if we can give them a little more importance by putting it in the report, but I’d like to know a little bit more about them. And they’re well thought out suggestions. MS. O’HARA: I just see them as, C for instance –Planning Department collaborate with Public Works, Real Property Tax Office to create efficiency and opportunity incentives for important agricultural lands. It is the state that is identifying what are important agricultural lands at this point in time. In other words there is some crossover here between state and county functions and how we will be able to carry that out. MR. ARMOUR: I think, if I understand this correctly, he’s on the Agricultural Advisory Commission, so they will be making recommendations. And maybe with us asking these questions, they thought of something that they might have been thinking of before, and so that they would be recommending these. MS. NICHOLSON: So, and I think again cause it’s what we will be discussing under the same agenda item that Gloria brought up is probably suggestions that come like this. Do we want to put them in our report or do we just want to submit they’re putting it in some other report that they’re already making? I don’t know. I just thought like there were some real validity and some contemplation that took place in these, and I’m not quite sure what they are, but I would like to know more to see if there are things that we should include in our report. MS. PROVALENKO: I agree with you Marilyn. After looking a this a little bit more as we’re talking, I think we should bring him in, ask him to come in and explain, because as you had said, difference between agricultural lands is state designate lands and what the county’s is, is two different things. And so we need to find out what he was really referring to, or if they took that into consideration. And the only way we’re going to find that out is if he explains it. MS. NICHOLSON: And for instance, he has under 3D, decrease purchase of imports. I’d really like to know more about that. What are they talking about and is it something that we should be considering. MS. WONG: So, you’d want to invite him to the next meeting? MS. NICHOLSON: If you are interested in it also in hearing more from him. I would like to hear more from him specifically addressing this document. What’s your feelings? MS. PROVALENKO: I agree. I would like to hear more from him. 30 MS. WONG: Yes. MS. O’HARA: I’m indifferent. MR. ARMOUR: Eric is also in charge of, or he’s an ad hoc president of the new organizational group for agriculture for the landscape and flora, so a lot of things he has inhere, they’re also pushing on that commission, so I think it would be a good thing to have him come in. MS. NICHOLSON: Can we invite Mr. Tanouye to one of our meetings? MS. GARSON: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: Anything else on Comm. 2010-147? Comm. 2010-148: Response from Department of Information Technology. Can I have a motion to accept and file? MOTION: MS. O’HARA: Motion. MS. PROVALENKO: Second. MS. GARSON: On your last communication, somebody moved and seconded, but you didn’t file. MS. NICHOLSON: Back very quickly, we move to accept and file, can we vote on 147? ACTION ON MOTION: All: Aye. MS. NICHOLSON: Any opposed? None. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. Back to 148. We have a motion to accept and file. We have a second. We’re into discussion. Eileen is this the report we asked for? It’s not quite what I expected though. MS. O’HARA: Yes. After all that time, it’s not quite what I expected either. But it does lay out on the first page, Department of Information Technology. What they are proposing here is a different set up than what we currently have for the department we call Data Systems. It’s still the name of the department, Bill? MR. TAKABA: It changed in the last Charter. MS. O’HARA: Okay, so it’s Information Technology now. So they’re basically laying out a new structure in how they see that working. In discussions with these folks, they also suggested that perhaps we need a high level administrative position like Chief Information Officer just as we have a Chief Financial Officer. So that it interacts within all of the county and not just a separate department. So there is that oversight. The develop a countywide IT strategic plan as it relates to recommendations, first one, Information Technology . I think this is something that we want to adopt into our Better utilize video conferencing, which we want to accept this. recommendations. Better utilize Laser fiche. Redesign the county website to be more user friendly . 31 These respond to many of the comments that we have received from the county employees. So I see no problem adopting those recommendations directly. MS. NICHOLSON: Discussion on moving these recommendations forward into the draft. Can we have a vote on this one? All those in favor? ACTION ON MOTION:All: Aye. MS. NICHOLSON: Any opposed? None. MS. NICHOLSON: Comm. 2010-149: Response from Brittany Smart, Council Member. Motion to accept and file? MOTION: MR. ARMOUR: So moved. MS. PROVALENKO: Second. MS. NICHOLSON: Any discussion? If not, can I call for a vote? All in favor? ACTION ON MOTION: All: Aye. MS. NICHOLSON: Any opposed? None. REPORTS FROM SUBCOMMITTEES: MS. NICHOLSON: Reports from subcommittees. Do we have a report from the Operations, Budget and Consolidation subcommittee? MS. WONG: No. MS. NICHOLSON: Do we have a report from Revenue Enhancement and Collection? MS. PROVALENKO: No. MR. ARMOUR: No, but we had received the information that we were waiting on and we should be able to start working on it. MS. PROVALENKO: We have a little bit more to come though, then we’ll be able to put it all together. MS. NICHOLSON: Will you be able to submit something in advance of the next agenda deadline so that we can actually discuss it at the next meeting? MS. PROVALENKO: Well we still, like I said have one more piece of information that we’re waiting on. So until we receive that, then we’re going to meet, so I can’t really commit to that. MS. NICHOLSON: Any report from the Technology Recommendation and Adoption group? 32 MS. O’HARA: Nothing other than we finally received the information we were requesting from the Department of Information Technology. DISCUSSION REGARDING ITEMS PREVIOUSLY RECOMMENDED TO BE PLACEDIN DRAFT REPORT: MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. On to agenda 7, rather lengthy. It is all of the items that we are carrying forward. Do we want to make any changes or corrections to any of the existing items that we’re carrying forward on our draft report? If not, we can move on right to item 8. DISCUSSION REGARDING ITEMS TO BE ADDED TO THE LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS TO BE PLACED INDRAFT REPORT: MS. NICHOLSON: Item 8, Discussion regarding items to be added to the list of recommendations. This would be from the handout for, actually since I did the handout, it’s reproduced in the agenda, but the handout does include the source of the various comments. And by including them in item 8 it doesn’t mean that I am necessarily putting them forward as recommendations. It means that someone put them forward as recommendations. And I think we can probably knock some of them out. So which means we go through them one-by-one. Under Work hours benefits pay. A.Do we want to retain –allow employees to work 10 hour four days a week? Yes. Institute performance-based reward program. B.Keep that in for now. Use flex time to reduce overtime costs. C.Leave that one in. D.Make employees accountable for their full day of work. This is a direct quote. This was not my wording. Abuse of lunch hours, break times and clean-up time is rampant. I don’t know quite how we would handle that one. MS. O’HARA: It’s an operational issue and I’m not really sure how to push that forward as a recommendation. MS. NICHOLSON: You want to leave that in or take it out? This would be as a suggestion from our committee. MR. ARMOUR: I would say take it out. MS. PROVALENKO: It should probably come out. MS. NICHOLSON: D is out. Link pay cuts to an economic index that would restore cuts as the E. economy improves. That’s an interesting concept. MS. O’HARA: Iguess it is. 33 MS. NICHOLSON: I think it has to be flushed out a little bit more if we really want to keep it in. But we could keep it in for now and when we group all of those kinds of things together, we can MS. PROVALENKO: It’s kind of like a COLA thing. MS. O’HARA: All of these items are union negotiated, so we can make the recommendations. MS. NICHOLSON: Should we leave it in for now? MS. O’HARA: Sure. MS. PROVALENKO: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. F.Focus work-hour cuts on positions that have a less direct impact on county revenues. This, in a way might get back to what Mr. Hoffmann said about mandating jobs. MS. O’HARA: It’s interesting. MR. ARMOUR: But when you look at it, the way I read it is, if it doesn’t affect the county revenues, then it’s something you focus on where there are a lot of jobs that have nothing to do with revenues that are very important and it will be in the County Charter. MS. O’HARA: Essential services, that sort of thing do not necessarily create revenues. Do we want to cut the police and fire? MS. NICHOLSON: Shall we take this one out? MS. PROVALENKO: Yes. I think so too. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay, it’s gone. G.Focus work-hour cuts on personnel in departments that have less demand for their services in a slow economy. MS. O’HARA: Okay, let’s see how that would work. Slow economy, less building permits. MS. PROVALENKO: At the same time they’re not being processed any faster. MR. ARMOUR: If you keep it in I’d like to maybe add something to reallocate the personnel. We talked about it and it’s probably in a different one, that if you have one department that’s slow, like Building Department, the Unemployment Department even 34 though that’s the state function, is a lot busier so you could shift personnel back between departments like that. MS. O’HARA: I like that suggestion. It’s something that keeps coming to my mind all the time in terms of there are people actually sitting at desks twiddling their thumbs while there are other departments that are so swamped they can’t keep they can’t keep their head above water. MS. NICHOLSON: So, it’s not necessarily work-hour cuts. It’s focus work-hour cuts or shift personnel. MS. PROVALENKO: Or shift personnel. That would be better. MS. O’HARA: Or shift personnel to achieve better efficiency. MS. PROVALENKO: Especially on the administrative side. It really seems to be an issue. MS. NICHOLSON: Focus work-hour cuts or shift So, right now, it’s saying, personnel in departments that have less demand for their services in a slow economy to department and tasks MS. O’HARA: Requiring more man hours. MS. NICHOLSON: To departments or tasks requiring assistance. MS. O’HARA: Acquiring additional man hours or assistance. MS. GARSON: Is it acquiring assistance or additional assistance? MS. O’HARA: Assistance. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. H.Focus efforts at controlling overtime pay on those who are higher on the pay scale. This one came from, I think it might have come from the fact that some supervisors got to take more overtime. MR. ARMOUR: This came from the suggestions given to Dominic. MS. O’HARA: It’s hard to apply it without it appearing somewhat discriminatory. So, I’m not really sure how that would roll out as a recommendation. MS. NICHOLSON: It almost seems like it’s really something that department heads are the ones who need to control and get a handle on it. MS. O’HARA: Absolutely. 35 MS. NICHOLSON: The implication was that some of those department heads might be trying to take some of the overtime. MS. O’HARA: No, they’re salary. MS. PROVALENKO: That’s what I thought, they were salary so that wouldn’t apply. MS. NICHOLSON: So, shall we take that one out? MS. O’HARA: Sure. MS. PROVALENKO: Yeah. MS. NICHOLSON: The next one is: I.Voluntary temporary furlough program. MS. O’HARA: I wonder how the unions would feel about it. MS. NICHOLSON: We have a lot that the unions are going to not particularly support but I don’t think it should stop us from making suggestions. MS. O’HARA: Sounds great. MS. NICHOLSON: Should we leave this one in for now? MS. O’HARA: Sure. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. J.Reduction of paid holidays by eliminating Good Friday and Prince Kuhio Day. Should we leave this one in or take it out? Leave it in? I don’t know how many paid holidays the county workers get now. MS. O’HARA: Thirteen I believe. MS. GARSON: And there is some that are statutory, right? MR. TAKABA: Yes. And collective bargaining. MS. O’HARA: But private business gets about seven or nine. MS. NICHOLSON: Should we leave this one in for now. MR. ARMOUR: If we leave this in, I suggest changing it to review of paid holidays instead of recommending Good Friday. MS. NICHOLSON: So, what would it say now? Is it review with and to reducing. 36 MS. O’HARA: Review and reduce number of paid holidays . MS. PROVALENKO: But nothing as far a particular days. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. Reduce monthly accrual of vacation or sick leave. K.Is this true that it’s 14 hours per month, 4.5 weeks per year for each? MS. O’HARA: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: That is what the county has? I wouldn’t want to put this in if that’s To 10 hours per month (3 weeks per year) not true. in place of the current furloughs. I don’t know about in place of the current furloughs. That locks it into this particular time and place. So what’s your pleasure on this one? It seems like awfully generous, having been in the nonprofit sector my entire life, this is just astounding. MS. PROVALENKO: But you have to remember it’s union. MS. O’HARA: in place of current I would vote to move it forward and just cut out furloughs. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. L.Instead of lay offs, require all county employees to take a uniform pay cut. I have a problem with that one. MS. O’HARA: I do too. MS. NICHOLSON: Should we take that one out? MS. O’HARA: Yeah. MS. NICHOLSON: M.Establish an early retirement incentive plan. MS. O’HARA: Do we have one currently? MR. TAKABA: No. A lot of it is the retirement system. We have no control over it. Depends on what the incentive is. If it’s related to retirement system benefits, then we don’t have control over that. If it’s like to give a bonus or something to somebody to retire, maybe something like that could be like a inaudible. MS. NICHOLSON: So it is worth exploring then? It would be worth exploring? MR. TAKABA: Yeah. 37 MS. PROVALENKO: Based on that idea, the bonus idea. I know a lot of companies do that. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. Let’s leave that one in. N.Require employees to take one work day off per month, with the employee choosing to use vacation time or leave without pay. Is there some merit in it? MS. PROVALENKO: But does this include furlough days or is this separate from furlough? MS. NICHOLSON: I think it’s separate from furlough. Remember the suggestions that came in through Yagong were made before the furloughs. So we have some pre-furlough someplace. What do you want to do with this one? Leave it in? Take it out? MS. PROVALENKO: Take it out. MS. NICHOLSON: O.Inplace of the current furlough system, require all employees to take one day off per month, but allow an optional three days for employees who want to work less. MS. O’HARA: There appears to be some employees that would rather not work. MS. NICHOLSON: Actually I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that from some DOE teachers after the furloughs that they actually really enjoyed it, and they’d be happy to have it. It was worth it having a reduction. And I’ve heard a couple of county employees say something similar to this, so there apparently are some people who MR. ARMOUR: Well, our speaker pointed out that a lot of people were just there for the benefits and the pay is nice but it’s also nice to be off. MS. O’HARA: But he also pointed out that with the furloughs there hasn’t been a big decrease in county government services or any great big outcry about it. MS. PROVALENKO: On either side, whether it be from the public or the employees. MS. O’HARA: I just don’t conduct business that involves government on any Friday. MS. NICHOLSON: So, let’s get back to this suggestion. Do we want toleave this in for now or modify it? MR. ARMOUR: Leave it in for now and we can change the language later. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. P.Freeze pay increases until the economy improves. 38 MS. PROVALENKO: Hasn’t that been done already? In the Salary Commission we did that. MR. TAKABA: Yeah. And it’s collective bargaining. That’s something we can recommend but it’s part of collective bargaining and I think like currently, it’s been frozen except for police and fire. But those are collective bargaining agreements that were done prior to the recession. MS. O’HARA: It’s a little too general the way it’s worded. And I don’t know when we know the economy has improved. MS. PROVALENKO: I would say take it out. Inaudible some mechanics in place as it is now. MS. NICHOLSON: Take it out. Q.Change overtimes so that it is triggered after working 40 hours per week, not after 8 hours a day. MS. PROVALENKO: Well that we were already told we can’t. MS. O’HARA: That’s a union issue. MR. TAKABA: Yeah. MS. O’HARA: But it’s still something to recommend. MS. NICHOLSON: Leave it in. R.Consider consolidating vacation and sick time into personal time off. MS. O’HARA: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: Leave it in. Okay. We’re into Reimbursements/Per Diem. This one I didn’t really understand. A.Eliminate meal reimbursement when travel is in more than two districts. MR. TAKABA: Maybe I can explain. If I travel from Hilo and I go two districts out like Laupahoehoe, may be one, and Honokaa may be another, so you can get meal allowance when you travel. If it’s during the lunch hour that you’re working, and you’re two districts away from your base, then you can get reimbursed for meals when you eat when you’re traveling. But I don’t know. I think that’s a good suggestion. Even Finance Department was saying that we need to change. I guess it’s in the Code, so we need to change the Code, but that’s something within the county’s jurisdiction. It’s not a collective bargaining agreement. MS. O’HARA: Oh good. Let’s keep it in then. 39 MS. NICHOLSON: Thank you for the explanation. I had not a clue what that was about. MS. O’HARA: Because if you bring your lunch to work, you can carry it with you two districts away. And if you’re going to eat out, you’re going to eat out either way. MR. TAKABA: It’s not a bad recommendation. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. B.Replace set per diem with actual expenses, capped at a per diem amount. MS. NICHOLSON: I think that’s reasonable. MS. PROVALENKO: I’d leave that in. MS. NICHOLSON: Travel/vehicle use. This is getting a little bit out of personnel but in a way it’s still is personnel. And we had talked about it. Limit attendance at off-island conferences and/or hold off-island A. conferences via Skype or video conferencing. MS. NICHOLSON: We have that already so far. Or we just put it in a see if it’s a duplicate. MS. O’HARA: We can review later if it’s a duplicate. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. B.Eliminate county take-home vehicles. Replace with vehicle pool that would allow employees to check out a vehicle if needed. MS. PROVALENKO: The only thought I have on that is the way it read, it’s saying eliminate all take home vehicles. What about essential services like Civil Defense? So we need to be careful on that. MS. O’HARA: You’re right. MS. NICHOLSON: So do we want to fine tune it now or do we want to fine tune it later? MS. PROVALENKO: I think we fine tune it later. MS. NICHOLSON: So, we’ll just leave it in like this for now. C.Hold all department and division meetings via video conferencing . I don’t think this necessarily makes sense. MS. O’HARA: The word all, I would strike it out. 40 MR. ARMOUR: Or maybe when possible. MS. O’HARA: When appropriate When it makes sense. . MS. NICHOLSON: When appropriate. Okay. D.When on-island travel is required, send a qualified lower paid staff to represent the department. Take this out? MS. PROVALENKO: Yes, please. Well, they may not even be qualified in that sense to discuss what may be the approach what we’re talking about. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. Then we have lots of suggestions which really were specific to departments. It might actually be easier to look at by looking at the original document because it says exactly what department it is. So A and B are Parks and Recreation. The next three, C, D, E are Environmental Management. The next two, F and G are Human Resources. The next four, H, I, J, K, are the Police Department. L is County Clerk. Fire Department is M. And the last two, N, O are Planning. So we’re looking at Parks and Recreation. A.Streamline the recontracting process for continuing, part-time temporary staff; and B.Eliminate the yearly physical exam requirement for continuing, recontracted temporary employees. Keep those in for Park and Rec? MS. O’HARA: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay, Environmental Management. C.Consolidate at least one DEM division’s administrative offices with the primary DEM Administrative and Business Services section. Anyone can shed some light on that? MS. O’HARA: I’m not really sure. I think they might be referring to Solid Waste and Wastewater which are divisions within the department. MS. NICHOLSON: So does each division have its own administrative staff? And the suggestion is to combine. MS. O’HARA: I think that’s what the suggestion is. MS. NICHOLSON: Does it make any sense? I guess that’s the ultimate question. MS. O’HARA: There’s a lot about DEM that makes no sense. 41 MS. NICHOLSON: Well, do we want to give them this specific suggestion that they look at combining their administrative offices and presumably staff among their divisions? MS. O’HARA: Yeah. We can just keep this in. It’s hard to make sense of the way it’s currently organized because the main functions being solid waste and wastewater having a separate DEM administrative deputy and director of DEM and who primarily do nothing but attend County Council and meetings. It does free up the divisions to do their work which is essential services. MS. NICHOLSON: So is there a way we can more clearly word this? MS. O’HARA: I don’t know. MS. NICHOLSON: Or should we just forward as is? MS. O’HARA: We can just carry it forward as is for the time being. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. D.In the Solid Waste Division, create separate position for heavy equipment operators who work only at landfills and don’t need a CDL license from those who drive off-site and do need a CDL license. This went back on here because the response was we’re still thinking about this. Do we want them to continue to still think about this? MS. PROVALENKO: I think so, because it’s two different categories and pay grades too. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. Oh here was the one with the supervisor overtime. E.Reduce Solid Waste supervisor overtime abuses through better scheduling. To me this is really a department thing. MS. O’HARA: It is a department thing. MS. NICHOLSON: Should we leave this one out? MS. O’HARA: I would. It’s picking on “a” individual. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. Human Resources. F.Eliminate the Personnel Officer position for smaller departments and centralize this task with a specialist in Human Resources. MS. PROVALENKO: I think we should keep that one in. 42 MS. NICHOLSON: Leave it in. Okay. G.Reorganize the Human Resources Department to decrease staffing needs. This actually came from the department. The suggestion came from the department, not me. MS. O’HARA: That’s good. They must have some knowledge where they can save some money. MS. NICHOLSON: Police Department. H.Base fuel reimbursement for all Police Department personnel on actual mileage rather than an open mileage for higher ranking officers. MS. O’HARA: Absolutely. MS. NICHOLSON: Keep that one in. I.Use private security in place of extra duty police for traffic control. MS. PROVALENKO: I have a question about that. I don’t quite understand that because extra duty police officers with traffic control are generally paid by the entity that’s doing the job. MS. GARSON: I think they’re special duty officers. MS. PROVALENKO: Right. And I’ve done this in the past. I’ve hired special duty and it’s my cost. MS. GARSON: The business requesting the service pays the special duty fees not the county. MS. PROVALENKO: And so, when I do that, I prefer to have the police officers versus private security. Private security doesn’t have the same controls. They can’t be out on the street directing traffic. MR. ARMOUR: Also, I think this means like when they clean up the rocks along the highway, you have traffic police out there, and I think they’re talking about using flaggers. I know in Colorado and California, the police did not flag for state roads and highways and stuff. It was always a private company doing all the flagging. So, I think that’s what they’re referring to. Instead of paying an off-duty police officer,just use them. MS. NICHOLSON: The county would still incur the cost, so the question is, is the cost less by subcontractor to use private security, MS. O’HARA: There may be some legal issues about doing traffic control where you have to use an off-duty policeman. I don’t know. 43 MS. PROVALENKO: I’m not sure about that because the county still does use their own flaggers sometimes. MS. NICHOLSON: Bill, can you shed any light on this one? MR. TAKABA: I’m not sure at what they’re getting at because this would be external. Unless they’re saying the police department, when they do traffic control, should be using private security instead of extra duty. But we don’t use extra so it must be private. MS. NICHOLSON: Let’s just take it out. J.Develop a notification system for police officers who have been subpoenaed for court hearings to let them know if the hearing has been cancelled or postponed. MS. PROVALENKO: That’s a good one. MS. NICHOLSON: Frequently police do show up for something and they’re told that was postponed. MS. PROVALENKO: I think we keep that in. MS. NICHOLSON: Next. K.Cut the monthly car allowance for police officers and replace it with a yearly servicing and maintenance allowance. I don’t know enough about this to say MS. O’HARA: Let’s leave it in then for now. MS. NICHOLSON: Leave it in for now. L.Use a hiring agency to staff temporary election clerk positions. Apparently, as I recall, when this was written they actually had tried that and they wanted to continue doing that. Bill, is this true that this is something that’s done? MR. TAKABA: During election year, they actually hire temporary help and I guess by using a hiring agency, I’m assuming that there are some agencies that actually assign workers to the county instead of the county hiring temporary workers. I don’t know how much it will save, but it must have been submitted by somebody at elections. MS. NICHOLSON: It was. It was the former County Clerk. MR. TAKABA: You can leave it in. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. Fire Department. 44 M.Examine overtime policies within the Fire Department to determine if the policies are fair, unambiguous, and effective in reducing overtime. MS. O’HARA: Leave it in. MS. NICHOLSON: This was several pages long thing if you may recall from the Fire Department which I tried to sort of summarize. Should we just leave this in? MS. O’HARA: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: The last two were Planning Department. N.Require applicants for permits to pay private engineers/architects for reviews, inspections, and certificates of occupancy, rather than having the County provide these services. MS. PROVALENKO: I have one question. I agree with it to the point of certificates of occupancy because the bottom line is a private engineer or architects can say yeah, but I think we still need to have our county go in,do a final, and issue the certificate of occupancy. MS. O’HARA: Plus the county has no control over the rates that would be charged for these services so the public could get a raking over. MS. PROVALENKO: Or it might go the other way. It might be more competitive. MS. NICHOLSON: And I would assume that the cost of permit sort of includes some of the cost of doing some of these things. MS. O’HARA: Well, that’s something that should be reviewed as to whether the cost of permits are actually covering a portion of that services. MS. NICHOLSON: So what do we feel about this one? MS. O’HARA: I don’t support it. MS. PROVALENKO: Yeah. I don’t either. I think we need to take it out. MS. NICHOLSON: Take it out. But do we want to sort of re-express that as a review of the cost of the permit? MS. O’HARA: Isn’t that something your subcommittee is doing to some degree? MS. PROVALENKO: We’re looking at fees and revenues, but I don’t think we’ve ever approached this because this is different. But what they’re saying is to have an independent contractor do all of that. What I would like to do is leave it in for now and then readdress it. 45 MS. O’HARA: Okay. MR. TAKABA: Public Works Department did explore that and a lot of the engineers and the people who are involved didn’t want to assume the liability of approving something. They could stamp it and say it meets all the county requirements, but that makes them liable for the life of the structure. And I was told that there weren’t any engineers who were willing to do that. MS. O’HARA: Take on that liability. I agree. I’m going through that process right now. MS. NICHOLSON: If it’s a good idea, we should leave it in. We shouldn’t be stopped by the fact that there might not be an engineer who is willing to do it, if there’s still some merit to considering it. MS. PROVALENKO: The only thing I don’t like about it is I still think the county should have final on it. So the certificates of occupancy should not be part of that. MS. NICHOLSON: The county wouldn’t want to assume the final, if they haven’t taken responsibility. MS. PROVALENKO: This is where they do the final review and issues the certificate of occupancy. MS. O’HARA: She’s saying up until then. But the other thing that is going to happen because of the liability issues, the cost of insurance for those parties go way up which drives up the overall cost. The county is self-insured. MS. PROVALENKO: But my understanding is when you go in there anyways, when you hire an architect or an engineer, they’re going in there with the stamp set of plans regardless. And so these are supposed to be to county code. So they are stamped that way. MS. NICHOLSON: So where are we with this? MS. O’HARA: I’m for taking it out. She’s for leaving it in for now. MS. PROVALENKO: Well, I don’t like it. Take it out. MS. NICHOLSON: All right. O.Consolidate enforcement functions for zoning, subdivision, SMA and building code violations. MS. O’HARA: We already have this as our recommendations. MS. NICHOLSON: We sort of have it. I don’t know if we’ve got those particular ones named in our existing one, so we might want to keep it in and keep it next to the other one so we can decide which one to keep in. 46 Staffing/consolidations A.Work with the unions to make it easier to release non-productive workers. Rather broad. In or out? So broad, I’m not sure it really means anything. It’s still a good suggestion. MS. O’HARA: It’s a good suggestion but how do you define non-productive worker and measure that? MR. ARMOUR: I look at it as if the supervisor is doing his job and you really do have a non-productive worker, it’s documented and you fire him, and if they’ve done their work, the union has no recourse. MS. NICHOLSON: But there’s still some merit in here that that maybe if you follow all the procedures that you actually can dismiss someone. MS. PROVALENKO: Yeah. Actually I’d keep it in, looking at it like that. Because all it is, is giving a little broader range, a little more latitude. You might not have to cross one T or dot one I in that aspect. MS. NICHOLSON: Leave in. B.Cross train employees to improve efficiencies. MS. PROVALENKO: Yeah MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. C.Implement a web-based recruitment program for all County jobs. MS. O’HARA: I think we have that. MR. TAKABA: There is one. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay, so take that one out. D.Pool clerical staff where possible. MS. PROVALENKO: Isn’t it similar to one of the other ones we just went through? MS. NICHOLSON: The cross training? MS. PROVALENKO: No, clerical staff. MS. NICHOLSON: This was more general. I think we had one with the DEM, but this is more general. 47 E.Encourage the recruitment and use of volunteers and volunteer groups at all levels of County operations. MS. NICHOLSON: Leave that one in? MS. O’HARA: Yes. MS. NICHOLSON: F.Designate one Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) officer for the entire County, rather than having multiple EEO officers in various departments. MS. O’HARA: How much need is there for the services of the EEO officer? Does anyone know? MR. TAKABA: We have one, Teri Spinola-Campbell. I don’t know how accurate this statement is. MS. O’HARA: You mean we only have one currently? MR. TAKABA: We have one. Each department has a HR person that kind of oversees their own department, but there is a central EEO Affirmative Action Officer in the county. MS. O’HARA: Okay. So, let’s take this out. MS. NICHOLSON: Take that one out. G.Centralize complaint processing for all County complaints, which would then be referred to the appropriate department for response/action. Impacts: better serve the public, better follow-up. MS. O’HARA: Doesn’t the mayor already have a complaints office? MR. TAKABA: Yes. That’s what we do now. MS. NICHOLSON: I think the point was some people complained to the department and never hear anything back. They should be calling the centralized office. H.Outsource more services to the private sector, such as park maintenance and trash hauling. I. MR. TAKABA: That’s union. There’s this Act 90 that the county is bound by. There’s only certain contracts, the dollar amount has to be within a certain amount. MS. NICHOLSON: Well, we haven’t shied away from other union issues. If we think it’s a good idea, we could keep it in. It doesn’t mean it could never be accomplished, but in or out? MS. O’HARA: I’d take it out. 48 MS. NICHOLSON: Take it out. I.Eliminate positions that have been vacant for more than 12 months. Which is one of our recommendations that we moved forward from Mr. Hoffmann. So, take it out because we already have it in? This says specifically 12 months. MS. O’HARA: Yeah. Let’s take it out. MS. NICHOLSON: Take this one out. Miscellaneous suggestions. A.Human Resources and/or Management should solicit employee input on a regular basis. And actually, Council member Hoffmann essentially said the same thing. Should we leave this one in? MS. O’HARA: Yeah MS. NICHOLSON: B.Eliminate the Annual Clerical Appreciation Conference. MR. TAKABA: They have a training once a year. It’s a training conference. MS. NICHOLSON: Is it something we want to put our name to? Eliminating the conference? MS. PROVALENKO: In this time, in this economy, yes. MS. NICHOLSON: Yes. Leave it in for now. C.Eliminate the Public Works, Planning and Corporation Counsel’s annual conference. MS. O’HARA: Corporation Counsel has an annual conference? MS. GARSON: We didn’t last year. MR. TAKABA: And I think Planning and Public Works, it’s like a statewide thing that they rotate between counties. I don’t know if it’s annual. I don’t think it’s annually, but I’m not sure. MS. GARSON: All of the Corp Counsels and their staff and some department heads provide a training session. That was what our conference was. MS. PROVALENKO: So then what you’re saying is this conference is really a training session whether they’re clerical or? 49 MR. TAKABA: They have workshops. MS. O’HARA: I would suggest just eliminating it because it’s really a departmental decision whether they need to train. MS. NICHOLSON: So, we’re keeping B and eliminating C? MS. PROVALENKO: I think we should eliminate both. MS. O’HARA: B and C should be eliminated. I understood we were eliminating B and C. MS. PROVALENKO: That’s what I thought too. B and C should be eliminated. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. D.Review the minimum qualifications to determine which position really should trigger State licensing as a requirement for employment. MS. O’HARA: Very general. I wish we knew what positions. MS. NICHOLSON: That one did seem to come from, 086 was the correspondence number. It was from an employee. It says –Question –How come the minimum th qualification for a mechanic is an 8grade education? All other trades in the county must be state licensed. Audit the Automotive Department. Management need to be up to date with current situations. MR. TAKABA: Is that a Cost of Government recommendation? Licensing? I guess it’s more qualification. MS. NICHOLSON: I’m guessing it would be because it’s part of a job, minimum qualifications. MS. O’HARA: Yeah. I don’t really feel this is something that we need to keep in. MS. NICHOLSON: Out.? MS. PROVALENKO: Yeah. I think it’s out because I think it’s really determined by the departments to make sure everything is right. E.All County employees should be subject to random drug testing. MS. O’HARA: And all county employees the next oneshould be subject to random drug testing. Aren’t they already? MR. TAKABA: No, not all. Like Public Safety, DEM, CDL drivers. MS. NICHOLSON: I don’t see what this has to do with Cost of Government. 50 MR. ARMOUR: I agree with the statement but I don’t think MS. O’HARA: I was going to say I don’t feel like it needs to be in here. MS. NICHOLSON: So that’s out. So now the last one. F.Reduce the use of temporary assignments among County employees. MS. PROVALENKO: I don’t understand that. MS. NICHOLSON: I didn’t really understand it too. MR. TAKABA: When somebody goes on vacation or is not available, the responsibilities have to be taken on by somebody else. So whoever moves into that position gets what they call a temporary assignment pay. MS. NICHOLSON: One of the questions though had to do with benefits and vacations pay and stuff on that one? MS. O’HARA: Well, it would if it’s a temporary assignment and you get bumped up to take over some supervisory role because it’s empty. I mean if the position is vacant then you’re going to be getting a different pay scale. It’s almost like necessary to do. MR. TAKABA: To carry out the function. Because somebody could say, I don’t want to do it unless I get paid. The responsibilities are still there. MS. O’HARA: And union doesn’t allow somebody to change responsibilities without being properly compensated. MS. PROVALENKO: This could maybe also include like somebody traveling from Hilo to Kona and then that mileage and maybe to stay someplace, and hotel facilities, wouldn’t that be part of that cost too? MR. TAKABA: No. It will affect overtime and regular pay, but not travel. MS. NICHOLSON: So is there anything in this one that we think has some validity that maybe we could re-express? MS. O’HARA: I don’t see how. MS. NICHOLSON: So we take that one out? MS. O’HARA: I vote to take it out. MS. PROVALENKO: I vote to take it out too. 51 MS. NICHOLSON: Okay. So we have substantially expanded our draft to include more items. And I think very soon we’re going to have to start grouping these things so we can get out some redundancies. MS. GARSON: So, all the things that you’ve decided to leave in are going to be bumped up now to 7. Do you want us to then keep your subheadings in? Keep it grouped this way? You have the subheadings in there, work hours/benefits, pay, reimbursement/per diem. If we just leave those in as we bump them up and try to organize them. MS. NICHOLSON: It would help us probably organize things. Everyone agree? For right now we’ll keep sort of those subheadings. Can you guys then look at some of the other things and stick them in there so we can MS. GARSON: The ones that are presently in 7? MS. NICHOLSON: They’re already in and those that came from Council member Hoffmann’s suggestions today? Because some of those had to do with the same things. MS. GARSON: We can do that. MS. NICHOLSON: Then we can eliminate some next time from the draft. You have to leave? Okay, so we can’t do anything else. MS. GARSON: Well you’re almost done. MS. PROVALENKO: Yeah. We’re almost done, so just go really quick. That’s why I’m just sitting here waiting. DISCUSSION REGADING CONSOLIDATION OF BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS: MS. NICHOLSON: Okay really quick. Discussion regarding consolidation of boards and commissions. And I’m so glad that you asked him that question. But Bill, we particularly wanted you here in order to have this discussion. MS. WONG: But we don’t have time now. MS. NICHOLSON: She said keep going. MS. PROVALENKO: Well, yeah, I’ve got about five minutes. MS. WONG: And I was going to suggest that if Bill will be here at the next meeting, I should have prepared on of these, a list of boards and commissions. We can discuss it at the next meeting so that you’ll have something to look at in front of you. Will you be here at the next meeting, do you think? MR. TAKABA: When is the next meeting? 52 th MS. WONG: The 28. MR. TAKABA: Yes, unless something comes up. But so far I have it on the calendar. MS. WONG: And Ken’s going to be here. And I’ll send it in to you, but I mopped it up, some of the things that we’ve discussed so you’ll have input on what we talked about so we can discuss it more. DISCUSSION REGARDING APPROACH TO TAKE TO TIMELY ACCOMPLISH MANDATE OF THE COST OF GOVERNMENT COMMISISON MS. NICHOLSON: Okay, we’re now on to item 10, Discussion regarding approach to take. I’ve already forgotten, there was something you had and something else. MS. WONG: I know, I remember what I had. At one of the sessions before we terminate our commission that we bring in department heads and give them a summary of what our recommendations are especially for their own departments. MS. NICHOLSON: We have discussed sending out a draft to the department heads and then asking for their comments. My fear in doing that is that when they get the final report they’ll say, I’ve already looked at this and just sort of toss it aside. So in a way I kind of like the more direct discussion, but it seems we have to sort of do it one-by-one, and at this point, so many of our discussions are general. MS. WONG: I liked her summary today. If we make a face-to-face presentation, they can’t say next year, they didn’t know. They seem to be very aware now of the commission. And if they don’t like any of our recommendations they can voice it at that time. And then we’ll be more clear. MS. O’HARA: So we’re sending a draft out to get their feedback and at some point we finalize the draft and it goes to the County Council and the Mayor. Is this correct? And it’s taken up at the County Council? Do they just file it or do they discuss it? In the past, what was done? MS. NICHOLSON: Well that’s not the draft we’re sending to the Council. That’s the final. MS. O’HARA: No, the final. We’ve already sent out the draft, gotten some feedback from the directors, and then the final goes to the council. Did they ever have a discussion on this? MR. TAKABA: They probably will. When it goes to council it’s like a communication. So they can take up the contents of the report. They probably would like someone there, like maybe the chairman to explain. They might ask about the process, maybe some specific questions from the report. MS. O’HARA: Is it possible to present that and do it as a presentation to the council? MR. TAKABA: You could. You could do it as a presentation. 53 MS. O’HARA: As a presentation to the council -maybe have four or five power points on it or something and put an invite to all of the directors when that occurs. Maybe that would be a way to kill two birds with one stone. MS. WONG: So it would be there instead of MS. O’HARA: Instead of having a separate meeting here and trying to invite all the directors. They may not attend, but at least we’ve made the effort to MR. TAKABA: That’s the final report already, right? Theywon’t have a chance to see it then. MS. O’HARA: Yeah. They’ll have a chance. They’re going to get the draft, and if they read it, they have a chance to provide feedback. MS. WONG: If we invite them here, we have control of the time. If we present it there, we have no control over the time. MS. O’HARA: That’s true. MS. NICHOLSON: I think we want to continue to talk about this. I kind of want to see what it’s shaping up to look like and try to determine what the best tact is for presentation and feedback. MS. O’HARA: And getting buy-inI think that’s really what we’re trying to do here is to get buy-in. Back to my concern I expressed about boards and commissions not really being listened to. MS. NICHOLSON: Okay, anything else on agenda item 10? FUTURE MEETING DATES: MS. NICHOLSON: Future meeting dates. We have gone through and confirmed th through March. Do we feel the need to move into April? For April, we have the 8and th the 20. And I will be gone then. May 13, May 27. Still sound okay? So the June one needs to be rescheduled since it’s on a holiday. So do we want to move that to June 8, th Wednesday the 8? MS. O’HARA: Sure. MS. NICHOLSON: And June 24, which will hopefully be our final meeting. ITEMS TO BE PLACED ON THE NEXT AGENDA: MS. NICHOLSON: Anything we want to put on the next agenda? We’ll have Mr.Tanouye if he’s available. If not maybe we can really go through our draft and start to organize it. The next meeting we really have a focus on that. 54 MS. O’HARA: And the discussion on the boards and commissions as well as our normal agenda items. Anything else for the agenda? MS. WONG: I have a question. Did we still not get a response from Mr. Yagong? MS. NICHOLSON: We did. Cause a lot of what I did was based on his. MS. O’HARA: And I believe that there are some outstanding work to do for myself such as Marilyn presented at this meeting. MS. GARSON: So again, if you can get that to us before, actually it’s Wednesday, and it’s a short time period between meetings. So if you get it to use by next Wednesday, it th can get on the agenda. Now, will everybody be here on the 28? Okay. ANNOUNCEMENTS: MS. NICHOLSON: The next meeting of the Cost of Government Commission will be held on Friday, January 28, 2011, at 10:00 a.m., at the Liquor Control Conference Room, Hilo Lagoon Centre, 101 Aupuni Street, Suite 230,Hilo, H 96720. ADJOURNMENT: MS. NICHOLSON: The meeting is adjourned. Meeting was adjourned at 1:10 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sandra Arriola 55