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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-12-04 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 1 MINUTES December 4, 2014 – 1:00 p.m. Puna Conference Room, County Building 25 Aupuni Street, Suite 1501 Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720 Commission Members present: Susan Maddox, Chair Ashley Kierkiewicz, Vice Chair Douglas Espejo Delan Perry Glen Matsuda (via videoconference from Kona Council Room, Conference Room A) John Mitchell Also present: Katherine A. Garson, Deputy Corporation Counsel Jennifer M. Kualii, Secretary Shanell Sarsuelo (assisting/observing) 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chair Maddox at 1:03 p.m. 2. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC No statements from the public. 3. DISCUSSION, QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH DIRECTOR BOBBY JEAN LEITHEAD-TODD, WASTEWATER DIVISION CHIEF DORA BECK AND SOLID WASTE DIVISION CHIEF GREGORY GOODALE, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT Ms. Maddox: Introduced Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd, Director of Environmental Management, Dora Beck, Wastewater Division Chief and John Medeiros, Deputy Director filled in for Gregory Goodale, Solid Waste Chief. 1 Minutes in italics are verbatim. Hawai‘i County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer Ms. Maddox: Thank you very much for joining us. At this point I would like to let Delan and Glen, even though you haven’t been here, I know you’ve kept up with what we’re doing. This was actually your particular group to talk with, so if you would like to help lead our discussion that would be great. Mr. Matsuda: I just have a few questions that Bobby’s letter here answered some of the questions that I had. What my main concern is the, as we discussed before, how are the delinquencies on the, for DEM, ‘cause I know that the delinquencies are very or were very, very high and there was a push to go in and try to decrease it and since then, you know I know you we’re saying here, but what have you done? Ms. Leithead-Todd: We’ve significantly decreased delinquencies in Solid Waste by cutting off access to the haulers. If you’re running behind we don’t let you go to the landfill and so we’ve caught up or they either paid us or entered into payment plans. And I think we reduced that by twenty-five, thirty percent and then with water we, our problem is always been we don’t have a hammer to kind of force people. It’s expensive to take them to court, we’ve tried in the past to, we, our strategy for Wastewater delinquencies was to try and get the ability to shut water off. The department has been trying to do that for more than ten years in all honesty. This was an issue when I was on the County Council. We just got Bill 194, first we took it through Board of Water Supply and we came up with basically they didn’t have an objection to the Bill as we proposed. It gives us, if somebody is delinquent, after we have given them notice that of potential water shut off, and they’ll have an opportunity to appeal that notice, which would go to our Environmental Management Commission, we can then request the Department of Water Supply to go and turn off people’s water and this is the way many other jurisdictions do it. We think we’re more likely to get people willing to come in and enter into either paying us or a payment plan with the threaten loss of their water because they sure seem to go and pay their water bill when they’re threatened with the water being shut off. So we thought that would be a more cost effective mechanism because we’ve tried collection agencies in the past, it hasn’t been effective. It’s very expensive and time consuming to try and take every account through the court system and then even if you get a judgment in court, then you get a lien on the property and you still don’t get payment. We went through this when I was at the Planning Department. We had an $80,000 judgment against somebody for zoning violations and the guys, you know that was like four or five years ago and he still has not paid. It’s still a lien on his property, so you have to wait for somebody to die or sell their property to collect and we need money to operate. So we think this will help us a lot, however, Councilmember Willie amended the Bill so that the implementation date is not until December 2015. Yes, so it gives us a year to advertise and notify people and set the procedures into place. We needed both so we agreed to whatever the, as long as we could get the Bill passed. Other questions? Mr. Matsuda: Do you have just an idea of aging schedule, how old are these delinquencies? Ms. Leithead-Todd: For some of the water bills, they’re six years old, people who have never paid. So at some point you end up having to write off accounts because if you haven’t reduced it to a judgment you’ve lost the ability to go and get enforcement of it. There’s also an issue that some of the people have not connected to the sewer 2 system. So we’re going to probably have to be more aggressive about going after people to fine them for not hooking up to the system. Mr. Matsuda: When they do not hook up to the sewer system, what is the process that you would go through? Ms. Leithead-Todd: When we put a new sewer line in, everybody along the line you know, we’re required to put a lateral to the property. We send out notices that they have 180 days to hook up into the sewer system and then what we do at the end of the 180 days, we start billing them for sewer service. Ms. Leithead-Todd: So what we do is we start billing them, but what we have not done is gone after people and fined them for failing to hook up. We’ve just started charging them the sewer fee and some of those people have never paid. We’d have to set up some rules like we are going to do with the water shut off. Mr. Perry: Is that a significant number of places that did not hook up? Ms. Leithead-Todd: There’s a significant number that didn’t hook up. Some of it because people feel like they shouldn’t have to, like in Hawaiian Homestead properties, some because the cost of hooking up is prohibitive. So we’re going to have to take a look at that, but right now we’re going to be setting the procedures up for the water shut off, the notice letters, the language that’s going to go in and we think that will help us a lot with collections. And we also in terms of revenue are still in the process of finalizing a sewer rate increase study. The rates have not been raised since 2002. Mr. Perry: Is there any way to, are you working on a way to get the people that did not connect and have a problem with the cost to have a monthly fee or something like that. I guess you would have to take on responsibility for putting it in. Are there some alternatives there? Ms. Leithead-Todd: Currently we just charge them the fee that we would charge you as if you were hooked up which right now for the residential customers $27 a month, so we send them a bill for $27 a month. What we have not done is what something like with what the Planning Department does with zoning violations. We give you a notice of violation, you give them an opportunity to correct the violation and then give them notice that you know in 30 days if you have not responded, have not corrected the violation then you’re going to start getting a $500 a day or a $100 a day fine and we haven’t done that. I don’t know if I’d want to be that ornery because a lot of the problem for people is financial. We have directed people in the past to, for low income, that they can go to Housing there’s like a loan program where you can borrow money for home repairs and about a $15,000 loan and that would help a lot of them because that would cover the cost and that typically they have either a no payment or you don’t pay until many, many years later with those loans that Housing has. For commercial guys, I don’t think they can get, they have to do it because of the Department of Health so there’s some enforcement there. Mr. Matsuda: So commercial aren’t required to do that then? 3 Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well, they have to get licensed every year for whatever they’re doing typically and so, you know, they get scrutinized differently. And anything new obviously that comes in with a new building permit, Department of Health would require them that they couldn’t get a certificate of occupancy until they hooked up. Mr. Matsuda: So commercial rate would be higher too, like $44 or something? Ms. Leithead-Todd: We do consumption for commercial. It’s based on the amount of water that you use. It’s only the residential properties that have the flat monthly rate. And that was a change instituted by the County Council as oppose to the Department, many years ago. I’ve often wondered whether the rates for our fees should be handled either administratively just like Parks and Recreation, that administratively can set the fees for park facilities or if the Environmental Management Commission like the Board of Water Supply can set the rates for water whether you should empower the Environmental Management Commission by giving them the authority to set the fees rather than having everything go through the County Council and have it in the County Code. Mr. Matsuda: Do they have the authority to do that? Ms. Garson: Not Now. Ms. Leithead-Todd: It can be given to them by ordinance. Mr. Matsuda: Oh it could be given to them. Okay, alright. Mr. Medeiros: There’d be an advantage to that because of the political situation of the Council. I think it would be a good advantage. Ms. Leithead-Todd: And also because it’s a Commission that meets every month with the Department, they spend a lot more time and attention on the operations, they’re much more familiar with our facilities. We do regular visits where they get to go see what our operations are like at our Wastewater facilities, they get to go see what our transfer stations are like, what our landfills are like and so they’re probably much more aware of what’s actually going on in the department then the individual Councilmembers would be. Mr. Espejo: Is that something you recommended to the Council already? Ms. Leithead-Todd: No, I have not and I’ve been back at the Department now for not quite a year and a half and we’re looking at the fact that rates have not been increased for wastewater since 2002, rates have not been increased for tipping fees for solid waste since 2007, those costs need to be addressed. If you just think of it in terms of, since 2002 to 2014, how much of our wages and salaries have gone up, how much is our electricity bill to run our Wastewater facilities have gone up. Equipment, Dora can tell you what a vehicle from 2002 to 2014 for her to replace vehicles has gone up significantly. 4 Ms. Beck: Especially when we’re told not to buy any more new vehicles, so we just use the same vehicles over and over. Ms. Leithead-Todd: We’re doing a lot of repairs and maintenance. Ms. Maddox: So you just have to keep repairs and maintenance, increasing. Ms. Beck: So then right. And then the repair and maintenance obviously goes up each year as your vehicle gets older. Ms. Leithead-Todd: We need to address revenues for the department, in particularly for wastewater because they are, it’s been so long and they have lots of projects ahead of them. And the other reason that you need to address it is, if we want to add additional staff, their salaries and wages need to be covered by an increase in the fees too. Ms. Maddox: So if you look at the increase in demand for your services in that same period of time, the additional homes that have been built or the additional facilities or the additional haulers and trash. Ms. Beck: It’s not so much the demand because demand, the population isn’t really growing that fast. I think what it is, is the infrastructure like when I say infrastructure I’m talking about the sewer pipes and the treatment facilities and the pump stations, they’re getting older and so we basically need some revenues to do some upgrades or replacements or repairs and that’s what our repair and replacement account budget is for to address those kinds of situations. But if you, but if there’s the need is just in routine maintenance operation of the plants and the facilities then that kind of takes away from the repair and replacement line item of the budget. Ms. Maddox: Thank you. Ms. Leithead-Todd: You have to think of her pipes as kind of a hostile environment and so you have corrosive environment and because of our permits and the concern over any leaks, she’s got to go in with cameras, they have to go check the lines all the time and if there’s a leak you got to go in and repair it, you can’t say we’ll put it on our list of projects to get to and so you need the ability to have funds that you can go to, to handle that, but that also means that you have to routinely go out and try to get ahead of the curve before stuff corrodes, before it becomes an issue otherwise you’re in danger of sewer leak, sewage spill. Ms. Beck: Just to give you a perspective, the age of the collection system, sewer collection systems in downtown Hilo, those were built in 1900s, early 1900s. So I guarantee you a lot of the problem, a good portion of those, for example, the laterals which are made of cast iron pipe which gets brittle, very brittle over time. A lot of those are probably compromised and leaking. Ms. Leithead-Todd: If you take an area like Hāla‘i Hill, you’re talking ceramic pipes because those go back to the 1930s I think, when we were looking at some of the documents. 5 Mr. Perry: And they have ductile line now? Ms. Beck: They’re PVC. Mr. Perry: PVC now? Ms. Beck: Yeah. We put PVC in, but back then they didn’t have that kind of material. Ms. Leithead-Todd: You can even see one pipe that they made out of red brick. It’s not in use now, but you know they created materials based on whatever they had available, but it, Hilo was, it didn’t go to a sewage treatment plant back then, but the pipes went out to the ocean. But as you build a sewage treatment plant you use the same pipe system that was there, you just redirected the ultimate flow from the ocean to a wastewater treatment facility. Mr. Espejo: Getting back to the collections part, it’s not going to get any better I don’t think because you don’t have that hammer especially for the residential side. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well, next December we will. Next December I get to shut off water if people don’t pay their bills. Mr. Espejo: And then they’ll go to a payment plan if they can’t? They’ll have to put a minimum or something like that? Ms. Leithead-Todd: You know the experience in Detroit which is not necessarily a good example; however, they had 17,000 customers that were not paying their water bills. They shut the water off. Unfortunately, they shut it off with no notice to anybody. Fifty percent of the customers came in within 24 hours and paid their bills. So obviously when it became important enough to people, they came in and paid the bill. Now we’re not proposing to do that, we’re proposing to get notice out to people, give them the option of a payment plan that they can’t pay all of the arrears at one time, but we needed that option and we finally got that passed through the County Council, but it is effective next December. Mr. Medeiros: That’s a whole year though. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Better than never. Mr. Espejo: But that’s the right way to do it you have to have, let people know. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Yeah. So we’re going to do an education program, we’re going to be putting information out in the bills that effective next December and that if they’re in arrears that you probably better off to come in and do some kind of plan with us now. And by the way our rates are extremely low. They don’t cover our cost, that’s why we have to look at the rate increase. Mr. Espejo: You’re building a buffer zone then in your rate increase. 6 Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well, what we would like to do, ultimately I think, is what we did the last time around, which is where you set a schedule out and you say in year one the fee will go to let’s say $40, in year two it would go to $45, in year three and rather than having to go back every year and fight over whether it should go up five bucks or ten bucks, is set out a schedule and you do that in your study and then you have it planned and then you get it approved all at one time so you don’t have to go back every year to change your rates and you have an automatic adjustment. Just to keep up with the increase in expenses you almost need to have that set into your rates. Mr. Perry: Like the Water Department which is I think is a three year. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well, one thing that we thought about when we looked at Water, is the ability to pass through our increased electric costs. Right now the cost of gas and everything is going down, but there been times when our bills have gone up significantly because the cost of electricity has gone up and we have no ability to pass that through, but if you look at your electric bill if you get it your house, if you look at your water bill, there is a pass through for the additional expenses that the Department of Water Supply does not have control over or that HELCO does not. If it costs them more to purchase fuel or pay for electricity, they’re able to pass that cost on. Down the road I would love to have that ability for Wastewater that if for some reason the electricity bill goes up or the cost of diesel goes up to operate our machinery that we’re able to pass that cost on. Mr. Perry: When the Water Department, I was on the Board. So when the Water Department needs to raise electricity rates nobody argues about it. So everybody sort of assumes that that’s going to happen, but it makes it much easier to do. Mr. Medeiros: The people that are not hooked up, they’re the ones that is hard to take control of because they have a cesspool unless the Board of Health comes down with a ruling that they can’t use them no more. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well for those people we’re going to have to go after them to force them to hook up. That’s going to have to be the other half of this, is that for those who are hooked up we can shut off water, for those who are not hooked up I’m going to have to pursue them to force them to hook up to the system. Mr. Matsuda: How’s the tipping fee going at the scale house at Solid, going back to Solid Waste, but the collection of monies. Ms. Leithead-Todd: The collections are much better since we instituted cutting off access to the landfill for the haulers. They have a business, they can’t come and dump the rubbish, then they come in and they enter into a payment plan and we’ve done that and its dramatically reduced delinquencies. Mr. Matsuda: And it’s collected right there? The person can do their collecting right there? 7 Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well they have to come into our office, typically. That has to do basically with who can handle money and who can process payments. So basically you have to come into our office to take care of it. Mr. Matsuda: Okay. Ms. Maddox: John, do you have any questions? Mr. Mitchell: Thank you very much and thank you very much for your time in being here, I’m sure that you’re very, very busy, thank you very much. So one of the things that I looked at and I’m pretty old fashioned I just look at the County of Hawai‘i and the comprehensive annual budget that they handed us and as I went through this and I mentioned this to some of my colleagues in other meetings, is your guys budget, for me, sort of jumped out. And in addition, one of the notes here is that since we’ve been cutting budgets in the County, that sanitation capital grants are the only thing that’s gone up from 2012, but the fees haven’t gone up, they’re still actually less than one percent, the fees that are collected in comparison to our budget. And then the next thing that sort of jumps out is the incredible amount of deficiencies, and thank you very much for your honesty, the fact that there are a lot of folks that owe a big chunk of money. We’re talking almost $18 million, $18 million now that’s not counting the interest, that’s a lot of money in interest compounded daily. So the fact there’s so much money there we could literally even be the bank of Solid Waste fund with this amount of money you could literally loan people and that’s not what I’m recommending, but just to give you an idea of the amount of money we’re talking. We could make money by financing the people their debt and they pay you back, your department, with an interest. So we’re talking a very sizable amount of money I’m sure this obviously isn’t news to you. We’re talking $18 million. Have you folks thought about ways to help these folks? And I love and I appreciate you saying, we’re going to bring a hammer to these folks and we’ll cut off their water or their access to the landfill that’s wonderful, but to me just as a business person, if you have $18 million in arrears, you can take $5 million of that help finance these people their payments and they could pay your department back. As I say this, does this make sense to you or do you think this is not within the realm of your jurisdiction and maybe we should turn this over to Corporation Counsel, because we’re talking $18 million, that’s a lot of money. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Up until recently we were charging 18% per annum on bills that people have not paid. Mr. Mitchell: Beautiful. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Which was not consistent with what other departments were, so that’s recently been reduced to 12%, so some of those delinquencies that you see reflect interest on the delinquent accounts and earlier it was at 18% and so what we would do when we setup a payment plan, we might suspend future interest, but we still collect for the interest on the past due. Mr. Mitchell: It seems as if you have a lot of leverage and I’m really pleased to hear it seems as if you’re, you folks are being sort of creative in the variety of hammers you can use to get people to pay up. Does that make, does that sound about right? 8 Ms. Leithead-Todd: We’ve become more aggressive and Corporation Counsel has taken people to court to get judgments and we have gone in that route in the past. It’s just that because of the number, if you talking, you’ve got 500 delinquent accounts, to take 500 accounts to court is just, Corp Counsel would have to hire another one or two attorneys just to handle that and so that’s why we went the route of trying to turn off water because we thought that that would be easier to get people’s attention and it wouldn’t be as time consuming in terms of prepping the case and going to court. Going forward, we are hoping that partially through education and then also we have to be prepared that when we do raise fees eventually because we’re going to have to, that that’s going to possible create more delinquencies which is one reason why we needed to have the ability to shut off water in place in some of our procedures on the landfill. The biggest loss of revenue, it depends on how you are looking at our departments, our divisions. Wastewater is supposed to be paying for itself through fees as opposed to Solid Waste, where we only charge the commercial haulers a tipping fee. Residents who take their rubbish to transfer stations do not pay a fee; their portion I guess of our budget is paid through real property taxes. There’s been many recommendations for us to do some kind of a pay as you throw, to do a fee that’s included on real property taxes, but it’s a question of how you view that. Is that a service that gets paid for out of real property taxes just like Police and Fire and everything else or is that division, is my department, supposed to be self-sustaining, in other words not on real property taxes and through fees, if you’re going to do a fee system for residents, then you either have to have a system where we can collect fees at transfer stations, assess a fee through the real property tax bill, or require people to pay for the bags that they throw their rubbish away which is how some people do it. Rather than collect money at the transfer station, you can only dump your rubbish in the bright pink County of Hawai‘i bag that you had to pay $3 a bag for because we don’t do residential pick up and that’s the difference that the other counties do offer in the urban areas where they actually go door to door and pick up rubbish from people and they’ve been trying to figure out how to do a fee on that too. Mr. Mitchell: Looks like on the fees we’re bringing in about almost little about $6.4 million on our tipping fees and that’s a good amount of money, but again how much we’re spending? You know for counties there’s only it seems like there’s four ways to make money as a county. You have the property taxes, it’s revenue sharing from the federal government or the state and fees. I’m so pleased you’re really nailing this sort of fees item because if we’re not increasing the amount of fees we’re bringing in from the public this County’s going to have a difficult time sustaining its growth. Ms. Leithead-Todd: I think it partially, like I said, Wastewater has always been setup to be kind of like Water Supply in that the fees you charge are supposed to pay for all your operations. Right now we’re falling behind that target because we haven’t raised the fees in so long which is one reason why we’re having that sewer rate study being done. Solid Waste there’s never been a mandate from the Council or the administration that solid waste pays for itself. So we charge the commercial haulers a fee, but we do not charge residents so if there’s going to be a change in that, the big issue becomes how do you implement a fee on property owners and residents. Nobody has really wanted to deal with that because part of the problem is if I’m collecting through 22 transfer stations, then do I issue a bill when people come in, do I need a scale in order to weigh the trash, do I charge them by the bag, do I have to have a 9 cashier at each transfer station to collect the money? And that’s one of the reasons why prior director had suggested that we have those prepaid bags and you could only throw away trash in the bags and then they then if you have to charge a, one of the rationales for charging a fee is not about revenue, it’s about getting people to reduce the amount of trash they create because if you have to pay for it then you reduce the amount and then you start doing more recycling or more reuse and that’s frequently one of the rationales for a fee, it’s not just revenue it’s about changing people’s habits. Mr. Mitchell: I have an enormous respect for what you’re doing, it’s a very unique world because you’re blending the science and the business world and I think your sort of touch upon that really well. One of my final concerns is that it looks like we’re trying to within your, moving to the vision 2015 green government action plan, how far along are we in meeting the target of saving 20% by 2015? So I appreciate because you’re talking about changing habits and that’s very much in a way we’re trying to help do. Are we on mark or is that still a current target to save 20% by 2015? Ms. Leithead-Todd: For the entire County or for my department? Mr. Mitchell: Your department. That we’re looking to development and greener island economy, that we reduce energy cost and energy use by 20%, in addition, fuel, energy and waste technologies or waste diversion. That’s waste diversion and conservation practices one comma apart so I imagine its two pieces of that pie. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well you know one thing was we had put some PV, photovoltaic panels, which we recently removed because the lava was coming out at the Pāhoa transfer station. We are also, just did a contract for Kealakehe for sludge removal which will reduce our electric costs there significantly. Long range as you get new infrastructure I think it’s easier to incorporate some of the savings. On old infrastructure I think we’re so tied up with just making sure it still runs that we haven’t really gotten around to doing photovoltaic, but at the County, as a whole, has tried when we renovate so you’ll see PV on the County building, you’ll see PV at West Hawai‘i Civic Center, Water Supply is doing windmills to try and reduce their electric and I think as the technologies improve we’ll be able to incorporate them more into our buildings, but the most recent thing we’re doing and I’m not sure whether this will have a real change on the bottom line in terms of money, but we haven’t announced it yet, but we are about to switch to biodiesel and that announcement will be coming out of the Mayor’s office shortly and that is part of the, that would mean that we can probably help support the local producer of biodiesel which is out in the Kea‘au shipment industrial area and that will help sustainability because he is using plants that he grows here. His plan is to grow his facility by actually having an agricultural base plants here that he can use to produce diesel, the biodiesel, not just the used cooking oil and so the County is looking to move our entire diesel fleet over to that, so expecting some kind of announcement out of the Mayor’s office within a week or two probably. On other things you know I think we try to do energy efficiency, but part of it is just you know what projects can you get to and that’s one of the reasons when Dora has facilities designed everything is trying to do gravity flow so you don’t have to use electricity for pumps. More than any other department I think other than Water Supply, you try to do your infrastructure in a means that you’re taking advantage of terrain so things just flow downhill and that department’s been doing that for a long time. We have a few pump 10 stations where we have to pump things through and that’s where we get electricity costs and then you have to have redundancy because in the event of the electricity going out Dora has generators that she has to haul out in some cases, some places we have the generator there, but in some places she has to haul the generators out so that we can avoid sewage spills. Mr. Mitchell: Thank you very, very much. Mr. Matsuda: Lastly, I just have a question and this is regarding green waste. I understand that the green waste people are subcontracted there? They’re not… Ms. Leithead-Todd: They’re not County employees, they’re subcontracted. We issue usually either a bid or an RFP every so many years and then we get an outside contractor to handle that. Mr. Matsuda: Alright, so it’s, they’re bidding for, so we’re getting some revenues? Ms. Leithead-Todd: Typically we pay. I think we’re paying, we’re paying less than what it would cost the tipping fee. Mr. Matsuda: Okay. Ms. Leithead-Todd: And then I think the real question is when will the County move towards looking at composting as oppose to just mulch. And part of that is in Hilo, typically as much mulch as we produce, people come pick it up its gone. What’s happening on the other side of the island is that we’ve got too much mulch and so we’ve actually been hauling mulch back to Hilo which is why some people were a little surprise that they saw some mounds of mulch in Hilo because usually it disappears and that’s because we’ve been hauling it back from the other side of the island. So one of the things that we’re looking at and we’re hoping to start in the next fiscal year, that would be the fiscal 15 – 16 year is to see if we can do small grinders, get a contract for small grinders at some of our transfer stations. So in other words, if we could do that in Ka‘ū, we wouldn’t have to haul the green, we would avoid the cost of hauling the green waste to Pu‘uanahulu. People would bring their green waste let’s say to Wai‘ōhinu as a potential example. We would periodically take a small grinder out there, we would grind it there and then the mulch would be available to people in Ka‘ū. If we can do that in different parts of the island, then we avoid the hauling cost so it’s more efficient for us, it means that we would be able to provide mulch to more people in more remote locations than we currently, currently now you either have to go to Kealakehe, Pu‘uanahulu or to the Hilo landfill area to get mulch. It would also potentially I think quiet the concerns over hauling bugs and pests from one part of the island to another if we can farm this out. So that’s one thing that we’re trying to put into next year’s budget and we think that it will both save us some money, but also provide more service to the public in the long run. Mr. Perry: How many places will there be then? 11 Ms. Leithead-Todd: We are initially looking at Kealakehe, Ke‘ei, Hawi, Wai‘ōhinu and Waimea were the ones that we were looking at and part of this is driven by whether we have the available space to set up both the drop off as well as the mulching. Mr. Medeiros: We have to be permitted for that also so it takes a lot with the permitting process to approve us to have a certain amount at a particular site. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Our permit limitations are by cubic yards. You’re only allowed to have so many cubic yards of green waste at any site and then you got to manage it, but we think that we can better manage what we have a Pu‘uanahulu if we can basically farm out some of the green waste collection and mulching to remote areas. And I think it also in the long run gives people a kind of service that they really would like to have. So we’re hoping to roll that out in the 15 – 16 year budget. Mr. Matsuda: So right now I know Kea‘au is a, you can drop off green waste, trimmings or whatever. Only Kea‘au is the only one that has that available? Ms. Leithead-Todd: You can drop off green waste in Pāhoa, you can drop it off in Kea‘au, you can drop off at Ke‘ei, close to Kealakekua. You can drop off at Kealakehe, Puakō and then you can go to the two landfills. Mr. Matsuda: But that is all, right now this is hauled to the…. Ms. Leithead-Todd: And then everything gets hauled to Hilo or Pu‘uanahulu to mulch. What we’re trying to do is see if we can mulch out at transfer stations and so we’re going to put a program together and try to roll it out next fiscal year assuming we get through the budget process because we have to budget some expenses for that for the contract, but we’re putting that together and initial feedback that we have is the that administrations very supportive of that. So we’re, I think it will be a good direction for us to go. Mr. Perry: Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the total is green waste? Ms. Leithead-Todd: We do about a 100 tons of green waste a day I think it is, whereas we do about 450 tons of rubbish, this is island wide, so that’s a significant diversion from stuff going into the landfill. Mr. Matsuda: So you have those numbers, you guys implemented the weighing of the rubbish before it goes into the fill, right? Mr. Medeiros: We weigh all of it. Mr. Matsuda: Yeah, okay. Thank you. Mr. Medeiros: Basically, it’s in and out. When it goes out as mulch also it’s weighed and stuff, it’s not just… Mr. Matsuda: Oh really. Mulch too? 12 Mr. Medeiros: It goes through the scales. Ms. Maddox: You mentioned the sewer fees study. How far a long into that study are you? Ms. Beck: Roughly about 75%. Ms. Maddox: That’s better than 5%, so about three quarters of the way through the study. Ms. Beck: Yeah. Ms. Maddox: Okay, thank you. Ms. Leithead-Todd: And we, the other thing is, we haven’t announced it yet, but we are in discussions with the administration about implementing the green waste fee. It was put into the County Code back in 2005, it wasn’t intended to be implemented right away, but it basically it’s a charge of about one-fourth of what the tipping fee would be. If we get to implement it, it would provide us with about half a million dollars a year in revenue. Our current contract for the green waste diversion runs us about 1.5 million, so we would be able to collect about one-third of the cost of the program. Mr. Perry: And that’s going to be for commercial? Mr. Medeiros: All commercial. Ms. Leithead-Todd: Yeah all commercial. Just the commercial, residents are still free, it would be just for the commercial haulers so it’s basically targeted at landscapers, golf courses and we think it’s a bargain because it’s one-fourth of what the tipping fee is, but there’s a cost for us for taking all their green waste. So we think that it makes it worthwhile for them to pay a little bit. Ms. Maddox: Other questions, Ashley? Ms. Kierkiewicz: How would a waste reduction facility impact the County budget if the Council decides to pass such a project? Ms. Leithead-Todd: A lot of it will depend on the efficiency of the waste reduction technology in terms of producing a product that you can get money for. So if you, the intent is to produce electricity a lot of that would be tagged to your power purchase agreement that you could get with HELCO. And you also have to, it’s difficult to answer that in terms of the impact on the budget because one it would be a question of how expensive the facility is to build and how you structure paying for the facility. And also you have to look at whether you’re reducing other costs. The reality is that the Hilo landfill at some point in time is going to be closed and you have limited options. I know there are a lot of people who think we can recycle our way out of the rubbish and that there will be no rubbish left, but that costs money to. Recycling is not free. So you can either haul all the rubbish to the other side of the island and that has a couple of impacts. One is that because the volume per day goes up then the amount you pay per 13 ton to waste management who runs the landfill goes down, but you’re shortening the life of the landfill by increasing the amount that goes in there. So you’re hastening the point in time when you have to build a new landfill on that side of the island. So you have to do something and one of the reasons we were looking at a waste reduction technology is the clear direction from the County Council was thou shalt not haul rubbish to the other side of the island. And the feedback we were getting from basically from State Department of Transportation and also FFA is that you will not be able to build a new landfill within six miles of the airport and that’s because of bird strikes. So if you take a landfill off the table and you take hauling rubbish to the other side of the island off the table, then what you’re left with is either shipping it on a barge to Honolulu or the Mainland which people have tried, we seriously had to evaluate that once upon a time. Honolulu tried, they were never able to get the permit, and they had a year’s worth rubbish in some warehouse that they got fined for because they were never able to get the permits to barge it out of the state. Recycling has a cost because you don’t have the markets here for recycling. You got to ship it so typically we pay to have stuff recycled because it’s got to be shipped out of the state and that’s, and the vendors that bid on those contracts have to calculate in their operating expenses in their cost of shipping stuff out. The recycling’s not free, yes it creates jobs, but it creates jobs because we pay for the recycling. So we decided to go and take a look at waste reduction technology. Waste reduction technology has the potential to produce electricity based on the PPA, you would have the potential to offset some of the costs of the facility through the sale of energy. The sale of energy will not pay 100% of the cost of that facility, but you are going to have to manage or compare that against what would the other costs be. What would the cost be to haul it? What would the cost be to build a new landfill? If you can build another landfill, but you can’t build it within six miles, then are you building a landfill somewhere in Puna? Are you building a landfill somewhere in Ka‘ū which is nice and dry or are you just going with the one landfill? So it’s, you have to look at what are your avoided costs as well as the actual cost of a waste reduction technology and a landfill will be more expensive because it wouldn’t be more expensive upfront because you build the landfill in increments. We build a cell this year, so many months from now we build another cell. So over a 30-year period you would have construction costs every single year with the landfill. With a waste reduction technology, all of that construction cost is upfront and so on paper you would look and say oh, well we’re going to have to pay $10 million initially for the landfill and then we’re going, and I’m pulling these are not real numbers, I’m just pulling these numbers as an example, say $10 million for the initial construction and then you’re going to spend $2 million every year or $3 million every year for the life of the landfill, for construction, and then you have the post closure costs of a landfill because you’re required to close it and monitor it and test the ground water for 30-year period after you close a landfill. So you have to put all those costs in. With a waste reduction technology, if the plant, let’s say has a usable life 40 to 50 years, your construction costs are upfront, you’re going to amortize that over 25 to 30 years and then after that your numbers change dramatically, because once you’ve paid for the construction, then your electric sales either pay for the facility or actually make you a profit and that is what happened to H Power on Oahu, is that it actually generates revenue. Of course it’s a much larger facility and the question is whether when we get actual bids in from the potential vendors, we’re going to have to take a look at those costs and compare those costs against other options and then the County Council’s going to have to decide. I don’t have numbers to date, back in 2007 based on the Wheelabrator proposal I think they were looking at a cost of about $11 14 million a year, but when we factored it out over the life of a landfill or the life of a waste reduction facility we felt that over the long run that it was a better fiscal option then a landfill. Hauling I think is initially cheaper, but you have to look at whether you’re shortening the life of the landfill on the other side of the island and then incurring a new expense over there. So I’m sorry I wasn’t able to really give you a finite answer, it’s partially we got to get the bid in then you have to do that cost comparison of what your other alternatives are. Ms. Maddox: Any other last questions for any of the three? No, John, you’re good? Mr. Mitchell: All good. Thank you very much, well done. Thank you. Ms. Maddox: Anyone else? No, then thank you very much, we appreciate you taking so much time. At 1:58 p.m., Chair Maddox called for a five minute recess. Meeting reconvened at 2:03 p.m. 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (11-06-14) Motion and Vote: Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to approve the minutes of the November 6, 2014. The motion was seconded by Mr. Espejo and all commissioners present voted aye. 5. DISCUSSION REGARDING SUBCOMMITTEE MEETINGS WITH VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES FOR THE PURPOSE OF GATHERING INFORMATION FOR THE FINAL REPORT Mr. Perry asked to defer his report on the Department of Water Supply to the next meeting on December 11, 2014. 6. DISCUSSION/ACTION REGARDING PROPOSED RECOMMENDATIONS AND FORMAT AND CONTENTS OF FINAL REPORT A. Develop and implement a computer tracking system for County vehicles within significant departments and/or County-wide. Mileage reports are to be mandated and timely. Mr. Mitchell stated this was a carry over and that they were going to look at Maui’s model. He said the Maui Managing Director had very good information; a lot of the information put in the Maui news is authenticated meaning those numbers is very accurate. He needs to get an update and will be ready for the next meeting. 15 B. Modify overly burdensome form policies within County departments to increase the flow of communication. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated this was a carry over and the Commission wanted to investigate exactly what forms were overly burdensome in order to be specific in the recommendation. She asked if the recommendation could be moved off of the agenda and create it as a recommendation with a note of massaging the language. Mr. Mitchell stated he feels keeping it in a more general form will assist the Commission and also serve the public better. Ms. Garson replied the language can be changed to be more specific, for example, to have the departments go through their forms and see what can be modified and that she is not sure if this is related to communication; everyone should be reviewing forms and policies to see what can be streamlined even with the use of technology. Motion and Vote : Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to include the recommendation that departments continuously review forms and polices and to look at streamlining where possible and incorporating technology into the draft report subject to revised language. The motion was seconded by Mr. Perry and all commissioners present voted aye. Ms. Garson confirmed this is basically to carry it forward into the draft report. C. Add a bus line for the Kona-Kealakehe-Airport corridor. This region also includes the West Hawai‘i Civic Center, Honokōhau Harbor, the new Kaiser Permanente building, and the planned West Hawai‘i Community College at Palamanui, on schedule to open for the fall of 2015 to serve approximately 700 students. Ms. Maddox stated Mr. Mitchell brought this recommendation forward and it’s a carry over from the last meeting. Ms. Kierkiewicz said she sent a note to Tiffany Kai and she hasn’t heard back from her. Ms. Maddox spoke to Ms. Kai regarding the consolidation of Mass Transit and Automotive for more of a streamline process and Ms. Kai indicated this issue was discussed under Tom Brown’s administration and it is something she would support. They talked about bus routes and Ms. Kai also indicated they have been looking at the idea of hubs in general. Ms. Maddox asked if the Commission wants to recommend a specific bus route in the report; serving the general area of the West Hawai‘i campus is already on the table for discussion. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated the recommendation could be re-worded to include something about growing population centers; with the growing population, people are going to want to access public transportation and this recommendation can be modified to reflect that. Ms. Garson gave an example that for Mass Transit, they could explore the use of hubs at major areas where population growth is at its highest. Mr. Espejo stated to not limit certain areas. 16 Ms. Maddox asked if everyone wanted to move this recommendation forward into the draft with word modifications. Ms. Garson stated this one is real specific so it’s a little different. Ms. Kierkiewicz asked if this could be provided as an example to the recommendation. Ms. Garson replied, yes. Ms. Maddox confirmed that this becomes an example. Ms. Garson suggested that if everyone agrees on the hub concept, articulate it better, such as, explore the use of hubs in areas where there are major population growth, for example, Kona-Kealakehe-Airport corridor, have it on the next agenda, the Commission can vote and move it forward into the draft. Everyone agreed. D. Implement a vehicle pool program, using computer/internet based reservation system to reduce number of department fleets and gain improved efficiency of vehicle use. Ms. Maddox stated as she understands it, a lot of departments have their own fleets and automotive, it is quasi-independent. Each department does maintenance and repair on vehicles and this was to physically reallocate all of the vehicles into a single department with a centralized reservation system. She said in some cases, employees were noting that vehicles sat unused for periods of time in one department, but other departments were short; the idea is that it would be a consolidated function for all departments with the exception of Water Supply. Mr. Perry stated Water Supply was the one exception because they have their own fleet. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated she is comfortable moving this as recommendation because of the numerous letters received advocating for this and believes one or two department heads suggested the idea of implementing this type of vehicle pool. She asked Ms. Garson if she thinks the language is strong enough or if it needs to be a little more specific. Ms. Garson replied that it’s fine; if Ms. Kai said it makes sense for it to be under Mass Transit it can be added. Ms. Kierkiewicz recalled that about two meetings ago the Commission agreed the vehicle pool program would happen through Mass Transit. Ms. Maddox asked if Ms. Kai would be able to review the language and see if she would have suggestions or more relevant information before putting this recommendation into the draft. Mr. Perry and Mr. Mitchell agreed. Ms. Garson said specifically the language for item D. Ms. Kualii can email the wording to Ms. Kai and if she doesn’t come up with anything, this recommendation can be carried forward. E. Allocate funds from the general operating budget to purchase personnel/HR software to accurately and efficiently manage County employee/personnel records/actions and time sheet submission/payroll processing. Ms. Maddox said this came from the department head and deputy at Human Resources and would replace the use of outdated Access data base and Excel spreadsheets to keep track of personnel information. Ms. Kierkiewicz said she thought this was moved to the draft. 17 Motion and Vote : Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to include this recommendation into the draft report subject to additional language consideration. The motion was seconded by Mr. Perry and all commissioners present voted aye. F. Explore a flexible schedule model for employees. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated this recommendation came from looking through all the letters and reflecting on the meetings they’ve had with the different department heads. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated Ms. Kelly wanted to know how employees would be kept accountable for their flex time and thinks it’s something the Commission should consider recommending. Mr. Espejo thinks its fine as written. Ms. Maddox thinks there are a number of employees that already take advantage of flexible schedules and Ms. Kelly’s concern was the accountability factor, if employees are doing that. Mr. Perry stated he asked this question to the Water Department and would favor trying out a 4-day week, with some people working on Fridays and some people working on Mondays. Ms. Kierkiewicz doesn’t want to get too specific and thinks the more general the better. Ms. Garson replied the 4-day/10-hour is part of collective bargaining, it is not in the agreements now but it can be explored which is what the recommendation says. Ms. Kierkiewicz asked Ms. Garson if the Commission needed to be more specific then what is stated. Ms. Garson replied the Commission can provide examples for the report. Ms. Maddox agrees with the way it reads now with the inclusion of examples. Mr. Mitchell thinks it’s wonderful and in looking at page 11 of the last report, it gives specific language they could use. Ms. Kierkiewicz said they could also highlight the success in certain departments, like Research and Development, who have flex schedules. Ms. Maddox clarified this recommendation will be carried forward to the next meeting. Ms. Garson asked if the recommendation should be moved into the draft report. Ms. Kierkiewicz asked if they could still talk about examples at the next meeting. Ms. Garson replied, yes, and it can also be discussed in the draft report. Motion and Vote : Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to include this recommendation into the draft report subject to additional language consideration. The motion was seconded by Mr. Matsuda and all commissioners present voted aye. G. Explore use of debit and credit cards at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Ms. Maddox asked Ms. Kierkiewicz if she wanted to continue with this recommendation. Ms. Kierkiewicz said she believes this came up during one of their discussions on the inability to pay for vehicle stickers with a debit or credit card; only cash or checks is accepted. She said this does not need to recommend a specific system, but to explore this. Motion and Vote : Mr. Matsuda moved to include this recommendation into the draft report subject to additional language consideration. The motion was seconded by Mr. Perry and all commissioners present voted aye. 18 H. Explore the implementation of employee punch clocks. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated they talked a little about flex schedule and asked Mr. Matsuda if it was talked about at the last Commission. Mr. Matsuda stated not at length, but feels it’s not a good recommendation. He also stated it’s a good concept, but would be complicated to have it implemented and have someone make sure it’s being done. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated that when she wrote this, it wasn’t coming from a place of wanting to keep people accountable, but rather making it easier for people that do the weekly time service reports, like accounting. Ms. Maddox stated it might eliminate paper work, but then it would require someone to collect the cards and calculate the hours; rules and regulations would have to be put in place to implement this. Ms. Kierkiewicz suggested the recommendation be withdrawn. Mr. Mitchell stated their interview with Don Jacobs said that e-time cards are being looked at and it is feasible. He’s not sure about a time clock, but e-time cards are looked at. Ms. Maddox stated that an e-time sheet is significantly different than a time clock and asked if it would have to come back on as a potential new recommendation in next week’s meeting. Ms. Garson said it depends on what Mr. Jacobs meant. It could go as an example under your overly burdensome forms. Ms. Maddox asked if it could be an example under item B, modifying overly burdensome forms such as manual timesheets. Ms. Maddox said this will be an example under item B and item H will be withdrawn. I. Explore the implementation of a County of Hawai‘i information hotline. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated this recommendation is basically getting a 411 number for the County where the public can call and be routed to the appropriate department. She noted it was discussed at previous meetings and feels everyone is against it. Ms. Maddox replied they are not against it, just trying to figure it out. Ms. Kelly talked about the Police Department having an information line which is a non-emergency inquiry line but they have difficulty staffing it. Mr. Espejo asked if the County information is in the phone book. Mr. Matsuda asked if the volunteers could do this. Ms. Garson thinks the volunteers are for walk-ins at the County building and not sure if they answer phones. She thinks certain departments have information lines and asked if this idea was to have one number that can give all the information with a live person answering versus an automated system. Ms. Kierkiewicz relied yes, one general County operator line. Ms. Garson said as far as she knows that doesn’t exit; the Mayor’s Office used to have a number for Information and Complaints. Ms. Maddox recommended to make an inquiry if an information line exists before putting this into a recommendation and will carry this forward to next week. 19 J. Explore combining Hawai‘i County and West Hawai‘i bands or contracting to non-profit to oversee. Mr. Mitchell stated the Hawai‘i County bands’ budget is $240,000; West Hawai‘i is $26,000 and if combining the two bands, the County is spending a whole lot of money for the two bands. Ms. Maddox noted the West Hawai‘i contingent does a lot of fundraisers and grant writing and things like that to keep their 12 – 13 members afloat. Mr. Mitchell reiterated their budget is only $26,000, which is not much. He thinks the $240,000 was a little much in his personal opinion and it should be consolidated. Mr. Espejo said this is just a recommendation and ask them to explore this Motion and Vote : Mr. Mitchell moved to include this recommendation into the draft report subject to additional language consideration. The motion was seconded by Mr. Espejo and all commissioners present voted aye. K. Suggestions for improving County of Hawai‘i communications with public. Ms. Maddox asked if there are any discussions regarding this recommendation. Ms. Kierkiewicz said they could talk about different ways to improve communication. Mr. Mitchell stated this recommendation might have come from the discussion about kiosks and appreciates the input. Ms. Maddox clarified that it is to explore ways to improve County of Hawai‘i’s communication with the public. Mr. Mitchell thinks one of the things to improve communication is to talk stories, like the Mayor does. It’s a great way for people in the community and maybe the department heads or their deputies can do annual talk story sessions in the community. Ms. Garson said when the Mayor went around to all the different communities; the department heads and deputies went. Ms. Maddox noted the Chief of Police does that and takes his watch command staff with him regularly around the island to communities. Ms. Garson suggested language such as, to continually improve or something similar because the talk stories sessions are already being done. Mr. Espejo suggested, continuing to improve communications. Mr. Mitchell suggested making it uniform if possible so people can plan ahead and they can meet with these department heads with their questions. Ms. Maddox clarified the recommendation to be: Continue to improve County of Hawai‘i’s communications with the public. Motion and Vote : Ms. Kierkiewicz moved to include this recommendation into the draft report subject to additional language consideration. The motion was seconded by Mr. Matsuda and all commissioners present voted aye. 20 L. Explore the possibility of shortening police reports for minor traffic incidents. Ms. Kierkiewicz stated she wrote this recommendation because it came up in one of the letters and it seemed like a really long process to fill out these reports. Mr. Matsuda noted police reports are more specific, it’s not burdensome. The police reports would have to be more specific and asked Ms. Kierkiewicz if she was talking about minor fender benders. Ms. Kierkiewicz replied yes. Ms. Maddox said the officer used that as a potential example. She indicated there were a couple of other things in terms of the volume of paper work that has to be completed and maybe more language needs to be pulled from the letter or the examples from the letter. Ms. Maddox asked what type of action the Commission would like to take on this particular item and Ms. Kierkiewicz suggested carrying it over to the next agenda. Ms. Garson asked if someone checked with the Police department. Ms. Maddox thought the recommendation was not going to be put on the agenda until she got feedback from the Chief and asked that items L, M and N be carried over. Ms. Garson asked if it should be put on the agenda for December 11, 2014. Ms. Maddox replied she would prefer it on the December 18, 2014 agenda to give her sufficient time to talk to the Chief or his Deputy. 7. ITEMS TO BE PLACED ON NEXT AGENDA Ms. Maddox stated there are several carry over recommendations and the standard items. Ms. Kierkiewicz has not heard back from Will Rolston, the County’s Energy Coordinator. Mr. Mr. Perry will report on the Department of Water Supply and Mr. Mitchell will report on Parks and Recreation. Ms. Garson asked Mr. Mitchell if the standard format of vehicle, overtime, energy, etc. Mr. Mitchell replied yes. Ms. Garson suggested using park facilities instead of land and Mr. Mitchell agreed. Ms. Kualii stated the deadline to have items placed on the next agenda needs to be submitted to her by 9:00 a.m. on December 5, 2014. Ms. Kierkiewicz needs to meet with Housing. Ms. Maddox stated the other departments were covered as best as possible except for Civil Defense, the Commission agreed that Pele takes precedence over the Commission’s questions. Mr. Mitchell clarified is he able to assist Ms. Kierkiewicz for Housing or continue the lead for Public Works. Ms. Kierkiewicz said she will handle Housing and send her notes to Mr. Mitchell. Ms. Maddox asked if Mr. Lee or one of his deputies might consider coming to the th next meeting or the one the 18. 21 Mr. Matsuda has a appointment on December 11, 2014 at 2:00 p.m.. 8. DISCUSSION REGARDING LOCATIONS/DATES/TIMES OF FUTURE MEETINGS/VIDEO CONFERENCING 9. ANNOUNCEMENTS The next meeting of the Cost of Government Commission will be held on December 11, 2014 at 1:00 p.m. at the Puna Conference Room, 25 Aupuni Street, Suite 1501, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720. 10. ADJOURNMENT Motion and Vote: Mr. Mitchell moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion was seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz and all commissioners present voted aye. Meeting adjourned at 2:48 p.m. Respectfully submitted: /s/ Jennifer M. Kualii Jennifer M. Kualii, Secretary 22