House Standing Committee on Finance

Okay, we're going to convene the Committee on Finance to continue our second day of informational briefings. Today we have before us Department of DLE.

So welcome. Good morning. First of all, Happy New Year's to everybody. Chair, Vice Chair, thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak about our priorities for the Department of Law Enforcement. First, I would like to introduce my ASO. To my right, Durazo Fong.

And behind him is Jarrett Radula, the Deputy Director for Law Enforcement, Michael Vincent, Deputy Director for Administration, Thomas Yamamoto, our Fiscal Officer, and Brandon Asuka, our Executive officer. So on January 12024 all of the law enforcement assets came over to DLE officially.

And that would be the Sheriff's Division, Narcotics Enforcement Division, Criminal Investigation Division, Office of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General's Office. So our priorities continue to be to increase public safety, improve our decision making, promote accountability, streamline communications, and provide uniform training and standards for the Department.

One of the things that we actually have 15 objectives here, if I can briefly go through them rather quickly. The first one is enhancing our partnership, you know, with the federal agencies and the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force to protect the state from domestic and foreign threats.

The second one is to eliminate the narcotics epidemic that plagues Hawaii's communities through the commitment of investigators in various federal drug task force, particularly with Haida. The third one is to expand a narcotics and explosive canine program.

Number four is to reduce gun violence and other violent acts throughout the island communities through our participations with various Project Safe Neighborhoods and Ghost Gun Task forces. We would also like to implement an agricultural crime enforcement program throughout the state. Implement a traffic enforcement program to include commercial vehicle inspections throughout the state.

Implement an explosive enforcement section to combat the illegal use of fireworks, to include the importation and distribution. We will continue to try to reduce the available firearms for use in crimes by continuing the gun buyback program throughout the state.

We would like in terms of a CIP project to build a police facility in the airport area that will house our Special Operations Section, the airport Patrol section and our cell block. Particularly with the cell block, we would like to have the capability to have overnight holds, long term holds for detainees.

We still need to complete or start the design and plan for a state training center and to support the various initiatives such as the traffic enforcement Program, the Agriculture Crime Program and the explosives enforcement program.

We would like to construct a police facility in central Oahu as a staging area because it's not practical to always dispatch our officers from downtown Honolulu to respond to crimes.

We would also like to construct A police facility on the Leeward side, again, for the same reason, so that we can respond to some of or assist in some of the violent crimes in the Leeward coast. And to address the agricultural crimes and traffic enforcement.

We would like to invest in the next generation of law enforcement Internet technology solutions that will allow DLE to prioritize innovation and how to leverage IT to address our staffing needs. The IT enhancement will promote an open, interoperable, reliable, secure data management source for our communication infrastructure.

And finally, we are still trying to reduce the salary disparity between state law enforcement and our county counterparts in an effort to fill our staffing needs and fulfill our law enforcement obligations. I am available for any questions if you have on the particular costs of each item. Thank you.

Is there. Okay. These are your highlights. Is there anything in particular you want to highlight for us in any of the tables that you haven't mentioned?

No, our tables provide the detailed costs.

But anything you want to highlight?

Only that for the initial cost for the enforcement, the explosive enforcement section is the cost of a forensic laboratory. The initial startup cost on that is approximately $2 million. And that is absolutely necessary for us to be able to timely prosecute these cases because the analysis is necessary.

Okay, thank you, Members. We'll open up to questions. Questions. Representative Moykow, thank you.

I'm just curious to know what your relationship is with the local police departments. Are there duplications or do you work together, or are there areas that you can work together on? I mean, how is your relationship? I'm just seeing some overlapping.

There is overlap, but we work hand in hand in many of our enforcement efforts. For example, even during New Year's Eve, we have patrol officers with HPD trying to keep H1 clear from people stopping at the fireworks.

When people were shooting off fireworks in the neighborhoods, we worked hand in hand with them at the EDDI Surf Competition, you know, the Honolulu Marathon. And then in terms of actual enforcement work, we work hand in hand with their investigative sections. For example, if there was an undercover buy of fireworks, we're usually there.

They are helping us, as with other agencies, such as the Department of Attorney General in this Fireworks Amnesty Take Back event this Saturday.

So if the public saw a sheriff or your department, an officer, they would be able to request the same type of help that they would request from a police officer?

It depends on the circumstances. If they needed immediate help. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we will be contacting HPD dispatch at the same time.

Okay, thank you, Chair.

Okay. Thank you for the questions, Chair Tarnas.

Thank you, Chair. And welcome. I wanted to understand, you know, with this last, most recent tragedy of the fireworks explosion and all kinds of public attention on fireworks enforcement, your report from the illegal fireworks task force just was released.

Could you speak to that and speak to what you are requesting for additional resources to carry out these recommendations? Sure.

So currently our illegal firework task force really only consists of two narcotics enforcement investigators. And whenever we have a planned operation, we would basically rally the troops from hpd, the ags, our criminal investigation division and sheriffs to complete that operation. The problem with that is it's really not sustainable.

Even when we make a seizure at the docks now, we have to process 30,000 pounds of explosive material or fireworks, which require the actual unloading of the container, inventorying it, making sure all the evidence procedures are followed, then it has to be reloaded into a container for transport, for storage.

Then we have to go through the same inventory process. After we do that, then the investigation starts. We have to start looking at a historical investigation on who was on the Bill, the lading, how was it paid for, and who was the distributor on the mainland.

And even when that is done, then we need to determine whether the case is prosecutable. So we would have to complete the investigation, prepare a prosecution report, and present it to the state Attorney General's Office for prosecution.

While we're doing all of that, you know, we still need to test the product to make sure it contains explosive material. And even that in itself. There's only. HPD is the only lab that, that can do that testing right now. And they've been very good with us, but they're also overwhelmed.

And it's not simply, you know, here's for example, here's a 3 inch shell for us to test it. Somebody has to cut it open.

So maybe you could just cut to the chase and tell us what you're asking for in terms of resources, positions, in order to carry out the recommendations that you are presenting in your illegal fireworks task force report.

We're asking for eight full time FTE positions, which includes one administrator, two Clerico, and six investigators.

And also funding for analytical labs, correct storage. Could you just go through the whole thing? Just because everyone's got this on their mind right now. So if you could tell us, what are you requesting? The full range of things.

Okay, so again, in addition to the personnel, you know, we are going to need a location which we're going to have to lease. You know, for that laboratory. We're going to need the equipment, we're going to have to hire criminalists to do the analysis for the laboratory. And then in terms of.

For the actual investigators, they're going to need safety equipment, they're going to need vehicles to be out on the street to conduct these investigations. And at the conclusion of these investigations, now we have to look at disposal, you know, and there's. And the storage.

So, you know, right now we, you know, we lease, you know, more than one storage bunker. And I think It's. Is it 19,000amonth? Yes. 3,000amonth. 3,000amonth per bunker. But we're going to have, you know, we're going to need resources for that and the resource for disposal because now we're dealing with hazardous material. Understood? Understood.

Maybe if you. It would help us and others want to ask questions. Where can we find the information in your request and if you can point me to it and the other representatives so that we can evaluate that, because that's going to be top of mind. We want to make sure that we understand what the request is.

Is it part of your budget or is there something that's in a separate Bill that you're requesting? Help us understand that. You don't have to go through all the details now, but I would like to get that information and I think others would be interested as well.

I'd like to, if I may, chair move to a different topic outside of fireworks. Maybe you could follow up with us afterward to provide us the details on the fireworks task force recommendations.

I want to now move over to positions vacancies you've had now, I guess just a few days ago, all these new positions have transferred over to you from the various different departments. I think that's the timing. Was January 1st, right?

Correct.

So talk to us about your efforts to recruit to fill these vacancies because you've got a lot of vacancies. Talk to us about your challenges because you mentioned pay differential as being an issue. If you could speak to that. Because I know that there's always a risk of losing vacant positions.

And so talk to us about that, please.

Sure. We have approximately, probably 119 vacant positions right now. And again, they are very difficult to fill. Part of it, as I indicated before, is this salary disparity between the counties. You know, our deputies, when they first start, there's a differential of almost $28,000 that the PD pays above what we pay. So that's a huge issue.

We're still getting applicants, but we're only getting. Well, we have quite a few applicants, but by the time we test them and put them through suitability. Our academy classes are down to like 12 to 14 and we need more. And that's why I've been working the last two years to try to reduce that disparity.

I think that once we can get closer to the counties and just be more aggressive in streamlining our recruitment efforts, we should be able to make some progress. But it is going to take time.

And the other issue that we're going to have is, you know, for example, when the Waihiawa Civic center and Courthouse complex opens, then we're going to have to fill those positions too. On a lot of these programs that we're asking for the investigator positions and that's the same thing.

So we're probably so going back to your previous question. Representative, we will send you the Form A for the, for the explosive enforcement sections. We have that and we'll send that to you. Thank you.

And in terms of filling the positions, we, you know, we're just going to continue just to make the effort and have continuous recruitments, you know, and again, part of it is to streamline the recruitment process.

When we, for example, when we do have a recruitment event, you know, with, with the other departments, you know, we'll have a QR code that people can scan with their phone and they can start the application process so we can at least start accumulating a list of interested applicants.

Thank you. And if I could request it, whatever information you send, could you send it to Finance Chair as well as to me as Judiciary Chair? I think that's appropriate. Chair okay, absolutely. Thank you. I don't want to dominate the discussion here. I'll turn it back to you.

Chair thank you for the questions. Members. Yeah.

Vice Chair, I have a follow up. Question about the vacancies. Director so I guess it sounds like I understand and we've talked about the pay disparity, right? A big barrier.

So even though you're still having, I guess, difficulty recruiting, it also seems like the department's trying to start up all these other initiatives like on the ag lands or the highway thing.

Do we think that maybe if it's more specialized that will help with recruitment or are we just going to, you know, be creating more positions that you guys aren't going to be able to fill.

So we're going to take the approach that these are specialized positions that you are actually going to be applying to be part of, for example, the Agricultural Crime section.

And we're going to do it for all three of these initiatives because we have to build the frame first so that we can start in phases, try to complete these missions.

Has that been, I guess, something as you're talking to potential recruits that they're interested in and that's why you're trying to do these really specific things instead of, you know, filling the existing positions and then maybe redeploying them afterwards.

So once, I guess once there started to be some media coverage on the Department of Law Enforcement trying to create this explosive enforcement section, I'm getting calls by people that, you know, are qualified wanting to join that section. So I'm hoping that's going to be the same for all these other units.

Okay.

And sorry, can I do a follow up on Chair Tarnas question? You know, so the resources that you're looking for for like the lab for testing the illegal fireworks and all of that, that's a new facility that you would be starting up or expanding and funding an existing facility that you guys are already operating.

It's an existing facility.

Okay, so just continue the work that you guys are already doing to help with the prosecutions.

Correct. We actually, we were actually in discussions to try to create a state forensic laboratory even prior to the session. I mean, starting and unfortunately the tragic incident on January 1st. So that was always in our plans to expand the laboratory. Correct.

Okay, I have one more. So could we get an update on the Silver Alert program? And how's that working? Is it rolled out? Have you guys had to implement it yet or send out any alerts? And how's that just working in General?

Okay, so the Silver Alert, we have mouse or, I'm sorry, moas out to the various counties and we are going to hire, I'm hoping to hire our coordinator later this month. We have reached out already to hyima to either gain access or to see whether day one issue the alerts. So. And we're close to completing it.

And. Sorry, what kind of so in the counties is that? There are moas with each of the emergency services in counties or who's the moas with that you're working on with the police departments?

Yeah.

And so just you're at the point where we're just putting that last step in who's going to be doing the actual alerts for in what situations.

Right. So we're talking to all the counties to see what their criterias are, how we can tweak or fine tune the criterias. And then from there we would determine with HYIMA whether they actually want to activate the state system or they're going to give us access and we'll have our coordinator push out the alerts.

Okay.

And when you say close this year soon, before the.

Zero, no, it'll be this year.

First part of the year.

It'll be before the end of this fiscal year.

Okay. Just because it's January. So that's a big roundup. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Representative.

Aloha. Director. Mahalo for being here today. I just had a question about your special duty officers. I don't know if it's similar to how HPD runs it, but I just wanted to see as far as, you know, revenue. Have you guys been generating any through that? Because I've been seeing them at like, Oknown center.

Or do you guys, like, how are you guys operating that, I guess, program?

So the special duty program has been around for a while, you know, with HPD and, you know, all the county police departments and, you know, with the sheriff's division. What we did just recently, and we're almost ready to roll it out, is we have a vendor who would manage it for us and it would be web based.

So what happens is if there's a vendor, for example, say Punahou School needs special duty officers for one of their events, they would make the request on the website and then all the officers that wanted to participate on it would go on an app and register.

And if they get, you know, if they get the nod that they can fulfill that special duty, then they will. Now, it doesn't generate any income for the state, though, because the vendor charges what the solution vendor charges the people that, you know, needs the special duty and then they. They pay them directly. Yeah.

I guess I had a follow up. What is, what is the cost of using that web.

For. For the Department of Law Enforcement is free. Yes.

Thank you. Any further questions, Members? Vice Chair.

What'S the work that DLE is doing with the safety program in the public schools? The $5 million.

Is that just sheriffs in the schools to help with security or what's going on with that?

Yes.

That's a technology solution that we, we just procured what it is. It's safer watch and it's an alert system. So, you know, we have it here in the Capitol.

We're trying to deploy it in all of the schools statewide where if there's an incident, you know, and obviously there's going to be different rules on who gets notified and when, but it's basically a stationary panic button and an LTE panic button where if they hit the button or activate it, it goes to a 24.

7 monitoring center and it makes the notifications to our sheriffs, HPD and the principals of the school to make a determination what they want to do. We're also looking at it eventually to see whether it can get implemented with the fire alarm systems that the schools have.

And we also are trying to integrate it with the outward facing cameras that the schools have. So whenever officers respond, they'll have additional information, tactical information, before they actually get there.

What's the cost like per school or per installation, I guess in the classroom? Does it depend on the size of the school or how does it scale up?

The base cost per school for the actual software is 3500 a year. And then depending on the hardware required per school, there's different costs. So I can provide you with a price list of like the base installation that we're going to be doing for the schools.

But in General we're trying to create personnel and critical infrastructure situational awareness platform where teachers, administrators, parents can get notified of critical incidents and can be kept in the loop of what's going on.

So a lot of times when something's happening at a school, a lot of outsiders are left in the dark and I mean, even if you're in the school, you don't know what's going on.

We're creating a platform through SAFER Watch that will allow us to immediately notify all of the parties, the parents, and even give teachers, I guess, recommendations on how to keep the kids safest. Right.

If the incident is on the east side of a school and the teacher is far enough on the west side, you know, we can begin to evacuate portions of the school where if you're closer to the incident, you know, hang tight, bunker down and help is on the way.

But I think being in the loop as a teacher or being outside as a parent, just having that information immediately at your fingertips kind of puts you at ease. And that's kind of what DLE is trying to provide for not only schools, but for state buildings and state personnel as well.

So 3,500 for installation, for the software.

Per school, for all the services.

And then what's the follow up maintenance or the to continue?

Like subscription, I guess annual subscription is 2500. So first year, 3500. Every other year 2500. And then equipment, there's different prices for the LTE and then the stationary buttons, but we can provide you the exact cost of those.

Okay, and then, sorry, after the school has it installed, is the school then responsible for that $2,500 follow up? Are you guys going to be with.

Our previous technology Budget we have covered the DOE for five years in total as soon as the program goes live. And the additional school safety money will go towards basically building that situational awareness platform. So we're also helping the DOE with their tips for bullying abuse. So we're close on the leeward side to releasing the tip line.

It'll probably go live at the end of this month. And then we're also working like the Director said on integrating the cameras with the statewide kind of monitoring platform to get all the DOE cameras into our real time crime center so that we can actively monitor through AI. I believe we're estimating about 13,000 total cameras.

So you can't have individual personnel watching. So we have to have some kind of AI monitoring to flag for certain types of events.

Okay. And sorry, one more problem. So is this, is this the kind of your guys request for the 25 million for software that didn't make into the budget? Was that for the same other thing in state buildings but for state.

Yeah, so we're also. And then on top of state critical infrastructure. Our Department has been working on streamlining a lot of the administrative functions in our Department. So positions that we have been having trouble filling for vacancies, replacing or attempting to replace those vacancies with technology so we could possibly alleviate long term personnel costs for the state.

So we looked at like say the travel approval form. We're close to going live at least for internally in our Department to streamline that process where I mean typically it takes maybe a day for an employee to go through and fill out all the requirements.

We trying to cut that down to an hour, 30 minutes so that our staff on the admin side are more free to do the critical types of day to day work.

Thank you, thank you for the questions. Members represent Kush.

Thank you Chair. I'm new so forgive me if I ask the obvious questions here. Just if you can walk me through maybe like how maybe the agricultural unit or your commercial vehicle investigation unit might work. Like are you through 911 or is it referred by county? Or like how might an incident come up?

Someone steals£1,000 of lychee. How do you respond over a farmer calling 911 and a police officer, county police show up and document the case. Like where does your integration come? And I'm just trying to.

So the first thing is physical presence or deterrence. So part of this agricultural crime section will actually patrol ag lands, you know the farming community and the ranches. That's the first thing. The other thing is if they do call 911 or they contact us, we will be able to respond faster.

And one of the other things is by leveraging technology, while we might not be be able to stop the theft right there, we would be able to hold the person accountable through our technology and through our investigative efforts and by.

Technology cam, like trail cam, cameras, drones.

Just various things that we, that we have available already that we plan to implement.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Further questions Members? Okay, I have a couple. So the, and this is just for an update for me. So along those lines, one of the things that in the inception of creating DLE was moving everybody over right to you. The one entity that didn't make it was DOE Care. Is that conversation continuing?

Because some of this thing that, you know, with your AG enforcement, some of it could have crossover. Are you guys continuing conversations just ended?

No, we talked to DOE Care on a case by case basis in terms of.

Okay, but moving it over to you.

Is not a conversation anymore, not at this time. Because they are resistant to it. I understand, but there is, yeah, I understand.

You know, their argument about they have a different mission and they're also caretakers of certain things. But at the same time there is overlap. So I've always believed that something needs to be worked out.

You know, I agree with you. DLE would welcome docare, you know, if they wanted to come over. But at this time, you know, they are resistant to it. So, you know, we're not going to push it. There's no conversation at this time about it.

Well, it just makes it more difficult. Like I said, I think there's overlap and then you're right. One of the things that departments don't do well but maybe, hopefully it will get better is communicate with each other to coordinate certain things that does overlap.

Yeah, that's one of my pet peeves is that you guys don't talk to each other enough. The other part is that a large part on table four, many things didn't make it into the Governor's Budget. Is there. Can I assume that it is in the same priority order that you.

That whatever didn't make it is in that priority order or. Yes, yes, yes.

Okay. So when we spoke to the governor's office regarding this, some of it was a misunderstanding. For example, the, the funding for the prescription monitoring, that's an ongoing database, an ongoing fee that we pay. I was advised they thought it was a brand new solution.

So they thought that we had to go through ETS first and that's why that one didn't make It, I mean, didn't come over under final decision making things like the, you know, funding the salary increases for the deputies.

You know, they advise me that they have a placekeeper in the budget for that and they just have to finish the process, I guess, or they're going through the process to make it happen.

So there's a possibility of a governance message coming down.

Yes. Okay. Okay.

Can you. Yeah, okay. Make us aware of which ones actually you think will happen or not. Give us a. I mean we can wait for it, but if you kind of give us some insight, that'll be helpful.

Well, the only one that I think will happen is, is the placeholder for the salary increases, the CIP projects. I think it was just a matter of numbers. They indicated that there was a bond cap that they had to adhere by and that's why, you know, our CIP.

Is just shifting priorities. Right. So we always have to stay within the ceiling. Yeah. So you know it. So is there hope for the future for some of your things that we can wait on some of them or you need it?

Well, the building out, the facility at the airport, we really need. You know, again, you know, when we looked at that, the planning and design on that, the initial cost from our consultants was 53 million.

And that would satisfy a lot of our needs in terms of, you know, having a JIC with a joint information center, having a multi agency command center and actually even having putting a firing range there.

Because we're having so much problems right now with, you know, the county range at Koko Head, Pua Loa and the military range and we don't have a place to qualify our officers before long. That's why we were trying to think ahead. But you know, we realized that $53 million is quite a sum.

So you know, we looked at it in terms of what can we actually survive with and that's why we came up with the 17 million over two years. We think we could build a facility that will hold, that can house our deputies and also house the inmates properly. Okay.

But if you were to give us 53 million, we'll be really happy because we can do everything else. Okay.

So I think the other part is. Okay, so I appreciate the comments about trying to use technology to cover some of the vacancies that you have. I think that has to be the solution throughout the state because it just. Workforce population is shrinking so everybody has to be a little innovative in that area.

But to vacancy issue, is it pretty much your problem throughout the whole state? About the same or Is it.

Primarily, it's more on Oahu, but the majority of the vacancies are on Oahu.

Is it because, okay, probably HPD is taking and things like that. Do you know if each county, I'd assume, because we hear this over and over and over, they have vacancies also. Right. So is their vacancy percentage the same as yours or is theirs a lot less?

And then the disparity is the issue, or is it just an issue of.

That Everybody has vacancies, Their percentage is probably less because they follow the Showpo contract. Right. So the disparity they. That we have in Honolulu, we're going to have on a neighborhood.

We hear over and over that there is a shortage of police officers everywhere, everywhere in the county level. And they were taking them. People were coming in and taking them to the mainland and all those things. So at the end of the day, I think we need.

I think we need information as far as what the county vacancies are and if pay actually is the issue. Right. Or is it just there's not enough people?

I think it's both.

I think that, you know, so with. That, then, then there has to be a strategy as far as maybe not giving you all the increases or something, or, I don't know, something else. Right. Maybe giving you the increases, but reduction in positions because you're not going to be able to hire all of them anyway. Right.

Some kind of strategy like that would be helpful for us to.

Sure. I mean, I think we're in agreement with that because, you know, realistically, like you said, it's going to take time because even as we hire one deputy sheriff, they have to go through six months of training and FTO before they even go out on the street.

My concern would be I would prefer that we have the positions, a certain amount of positions, and just unfund it until we can start filling it. Because right now our law enforcement obligations, it's huge. We're going to need to fill those obligations only because it relates to the safety of the public.

I think some of the other departments might be listening, and I'll bring it up again.

But one of the issues that this Committee always has with taking the money but keeping the positions is that there is not enough communication with this Committee, with our staff as far as when you do fill them or you move money around to fill them, that because you have the position, and then we find out after the fact, and then we have to, like, figure out what's going on.

And maybe not so much you guys, but the bigger departments is a real problem for us when they start doing stuff like that. So all of them are asking us to.

Not all of them, but a lot of them are asking us to take the money but leave the position because it's difficult to restart a position and all these kind of things. So we're open to that.

But again, the key is that we need to have that dialogue going back and forth of what's going on before you do it. Right. That's problematic for us in many cases. That's why we take the position, because we just want to have some level of understanding of what's going on and things like that.

So we want to help you work through this. But on the other hand, at the same time, the reality is many of these positions, just because of the shortage in workforce in totality in the state. Right. We don't think you're going to be able to fill it.

So we would prefer repurposing the money and working with you on those kind of things.

No, I'm in total agreement with you. I'm rest assured we'll will have these conversations beforehand and, you know, during session and during the rest of the year when session's not, you know, not running.

Okay, thank you. Any further questions, Members? Okay, thank you. Thank you for coming. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Okay, we're going to recess, Members.

[In Recess].

Okay, we're going to reconvene the Committee on Finance for our informational briefing. Next we have the Judiciary. Morning.

Morning. Morning, Chair Yamashita, Vice Chair Takenouchi, Members of the House Committee on Finance, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe. I'm Brandon Kimura, the Director of our Judiciary's Policy and Planning Department. With me today, our Administrative Director of the Courts, Rod Maile, Deputy Administrative Director of the Courts, Daylin Heather, and many of our Oahu administrators and department directors.

We also have Judge Kim, retired, who's now serving as our Chief Court Administrator in the Third Circuit on the Big Island as well--will be available later as well. So, thank you for the opportunity to present an overview of the Judiciary's mission, functions, and our biennium budget requests.

The mission of the Judiciary as an independent branch of government is to administer justice in an impartial, efficient, and accessible manner in accordance with the law. We do that in a number of ways, particularly through two main program areas, court operations, and support services.

Our court operations include courts of appeal, circuit, family, and district courts across the state, which include our specialty courts. I listed a number of them here, such as Women's Court, our Truancy Court and Early Education Intervention Program, Driving While Impaired Court, Community Outreach Court, Veteran's Treatment Court, Mental Health Court, and a number of others.

We also proceed through our court operations by seeking to enhance access to the justice system, and I've listed a few of those ways here. Self-help centers and access to Justice Rooms, which have, since 2011, led to assistance of almost 38,000 Hawaii residents at virtually no cost to the public.

Small Claims Online Dispute Resolution, which allows those without attorneys to initiate small claims, cases valued at $5,000 or less outside business hours. We also allow e-reminders of upcoming hearings for parties, lawyers, and anyone interested in a case.

Support services include the Office of the Administrative Director and five administrative departments: Policy and Planning, Intergovernmental and Community Relations, Financial Services, Human Resources, and Information Technology and Systems. These departments enable court operations to be conducted judiciary wide and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the justice system through support and guidance to other courts.

Courts, in total, this leads us to our operating requests for this biennium. In total, our requests of--25 requests account for 6.17 million in the first year of the biennium, 6.25 million in the second year of the biennium, 17 permanent positions, one temporary position. Nine of these 18 positions are to continue current staffing and operations.

Seven of those are in the Women's Court, as you'll see on the slide, two of those are for the Criminal Justice Research Institute at the bottom of the slide. This slide provides just an overview of these 18 positions and I'll dive into them a little more as I dig into the funding aspect of our request over the next three slides. So we've batched our funding requests into a few different areas. The first will be in our specialty courts area.

First is to make our Women's Court permanent. We are nearing the end of a three-year pilot program this Legislature created in Act 247 in 2022--243 in 2022. The Women's Court Program acknowledges that women enter the justice system in ways that are unique from men.

In particular, most women who enter the justice system are survivors of trauma, abuse, mental illness, substance use, or unhealthy relationships with others, and through our Women's Court Program, we provide comprehensive court-supervised treatment, therapeutic sanctions as needed, and opportunities and resources.

We currently have 33 women in the program as participants and that's grown significantly throughout this pilot period. So the pilot included seven positions. We'd seek to make those seven permanent with accompanying funding and also add an eighth position as a substance-use counselor.

I'll note that with the eighth position, we are still just a little bit over in terms of funding when we had the seven positions, and the reason for that is because we'll save money through outside contracts by having some of those services in house with a substance-use counselor.

The second request in our specialty courts area is to expand our Truancy Court and Early Education Intervention Program on Oahu. We have truancy-like initiatives throughout the state and in the courts. We have it in Kona and Hilo. We have through the entire island on Kauai and a little bit on Maui as well.

This request in particular focuses on Oahu. This would take us from approximately 30 schools, mostly in the leeward side and Central Oahu, to adding perhaps ten to 30 more schools over two phases. The first phase would be especially on the windward side of Oahu, and the second phase would be in town after we've sort of built up sustainability in the first phase.

The funding there is for three positions, laptops, and a leased car, and for this it would be funding only. In particular--and I'll dive into this as we continue through the requests--we are repurposing some of our older vacant positions to modern needs, to higher priorities, and this is one such example where we're repurposing positions so that we can save on positions.

The next in our specialty courts area is to make our Driving While Impaired Court permanent. We're, again, requesting funding only, repurposing existing vacant positions to this higher purpose. Since launching in 2013, this program has had 504 individuals referred. Of those, 90% were eligible to apply. Of those, we've had 85 graduates and 12 are currently enrolled.

The program is for individuals who are either repeat offenders of driving while impaired or those with a high blood-alcohol content, so it's not for all folks who have had a driving-while-impaired offense. For these higher risk individuals in particular, it's especially important that we address it by addressing the underlying substance-use issues, and so through this therapeutic program, it significantly shifts their behavior.

And so for those who have joined within two years, we have a 1% recidivism rate as compared to those who are eligible to join but do not within two years; the recidivism rate is 21%. I'd like to make this program permanent.

The next batch of our requests relate to our Wahiawa District Court. Our current Wahiawa District Court is a one courtroom leased facility. We are in the process of wrapping up construction on a much larger newer facility--new facility. We anticipate opening in the spring of 2026. We are very excited about this court because it will be essentially a model for our other rural courts. We plan to have it be a hub for our rural courts.

It will be a full service district court so that instead of people receiving some limited services out in the rural court and needing to come to downtown for many other court services, Wahiawa will be a second hub on Oahu. We'll have customer service filings.

We'll have two courtrooms which we hope to have running every day of the week. We'll be having criminal, civil, and traffic matters and full probation services as well, so that probationers on that side of the island can, again, address and work with our social workers out of Wahiawa instead of needing to drive to downtown, work with their social workers, and then drive perhaps back out to that side of the island.

So the first request for the Wahiawa District Court is supplemental security costs. Again, because it's going to be a much larger facility, a much busier facility than our current lease space, we will require additional security needs. Director Lowe referenced earlier in his remarks about additional deputies out of the facility. This request is for private security contracted primarily for the interior of the building to patrol the building.

One would be for after-hours, walking the exterior of the building. Ideally, we would hope to have deputy sheriffs available to protect the building. This is an alternative. The next request is for a janitor position. This is for a FTE and funding. It'll be a 38,000 square foot facility, much larger than our current one, and we need this additional or third janitor for the facility.

Third request related to Wahiawa is an IT technician. Because we're going to have at least 27 staff, Judiciary staff in the facility in addition to potential other partners, we're requesting to have a dedicated IT person in that facility.

We're now doing many more hearings through Zoom or hybrid hearings. We'll have other technology needs in that facility. If not for an IT technician being dedicated and stationed at that facility, the nearest would be IT technicians either in town or Kapolei.

The IT technician there would also be the hub, and so they could leave that facility and assist our other courts which are nearby, perhaps either in Ewa or Kaneohe as needed if things are stable in Wahiawa. For the IT tech, we're requesting funding only. We would be repurposing an existing vacancy for that position. The fourth request related to Wahiawa are four district court clerks and bailiffs.

We're requesting funding only for this as well. For the IT tech, district court clerks and bailiffs, and the next one, social workers, we're seeking funding only. These are to restore funding for positions that were defunded during the pandemic. The district court clerks and bailiffs are necessary because, again, we'll be offering many more services out at Wahiawa.

So this is not just to shift things from Honolulu, but it's also to make them more mobile so they could also help out our Ewa courts and our Kaneohe courts as needed. Again, the idea is that Wahiawa will be a second hub in Oahu and the social workers will bring the total number of our Social Worker and Probation Unit out at Wahiawa to seven. We're shifting some other--four other officers from Oahu--from town to Wahiawa. So this will bring that to seven.

Because we'll be providing a full complement of probation services out at Wahiawa, we'll need staffing to do that. So that includes community service, drug testing, pre-sentence investigations, and supervisions for both misdemeanants and felons. The next significant area of our operating request is an additional district court judge in Kona and staff.

The last and only district court judge in Kona was sworn in in 1986. Since then, the island has significantly changed. Kona has significantly changed. The annual caseload by this judge is now approaching 16,000 cases a year. This judge is on call 24/7 for a month at a time, generally every other month.

They're hearing civil traffic and criminal cases in between their daily heavy calendars. They're needing to find time and balance, time for civil trials and criminal trials and urgent matters with custodies that come up that become more urgent because of the transportation issues on the Big Island and the transport of custodies back and forth in the time that it takes to do so. The next set of operating requests, we have three in the technology area.

The first is to, again, re-describe positions, four positions for cybersecurity unit. Last year, thanks to the Legislature, we've established a Chief Information Security Officer to lead our cybersecurity efforts. This request is to repurpose again other positions or restore funding for repurposed positions to create a full unit and additional software tools for that unit.

Next, technology-related request is to upgrade our Microsoft email licenses to the same level that the Legislature funded for the executive branch last year. This will provide an enhanced security suite and a productivity suite as well. And the third, a technology-related request is to--funding for replacement of our network switches.

We have 140 switches across the state that are nearing end-of-life and so replace those throughout the biennium. The next area is a funding for the DAGS Risk Management Cost Increase. DAGS has advised us of the cost increase and so this is to cover that amount.

The following batch of requests relate to the Criminal Justice Research Institute. The first area of this under the institute is to continue funding the pretrial database and reporting system.

Under legislation, the funds for that would expire at the end of this fiscal year and we'd request funding to continue that work and also funding to continue the permanent and temporary positions and the positions for those as well because those positions would expire.

The last slide of the--our operating requests relate to essential staffing and this is primarily approximately 680,000 to restore funding for 12 positions that were defunded earlier in the pandemic. Of these positions, I'll just highlight a few areas. One is that those on the bottom right of the slide, the Office of the Public Guardian, those are the only on this slide that are not to restore funding.

Those are for new positions and new funding. The Office of the Public Guardian is an extraordinarily overwhelmed portion--overwhelmed government office, if you will, provide services to those who are unable to care for themselves or don't have family members to assist them.

The social service aides--well, before I get to the social service aides, a little more about the office. So the Office has about 700 cases statewide and approximately seven guardians or seven guardians to assist with these 700 cases, which is much more than the recommended caseload. We currently have Oahu guardians covering Maui because we have no guardians on Maui.

We have the sole guardian on the Big Island who covers the entire island, also covers the entire island of Hawaii, and so these social service aides would especially assist the guardians on Oahu and the Big Island so that those guardians can cover more ground and provide a higher level of services to the wards who are in great need.

The other area that I'll highlight on this slide is the two district court hybrid clerks and bailiffs in the First Circuit. This is another instance where we are re-describing current positions to newer and modern needs. Since these positions, among others, were defunded early in the pandemic, courts have changed. We've become a lot more technology-oriented.

The way that we do our business has shifted in other ways as well, and so having the hybrid clerks and bailiffs would allow us more flexibility so that these individuals would be higher trained individuals to, again, cover more ground, particularly in light of staffing challenges everywhere. This is similar to the hybrid clerks and bailiffs that I requested--I mentioned earlier regarding Wahiawa.

For Wahiawa, it's because it's a smaller facility and they will be the hub there in Wahiawa, but also hopefully assist other facilities, Ewa and Kaneohe. And so having positions where people are higher trained and can cover more ground with a higher skill set would be essential for everyone.

And so this also allows for added flexibility as our courts continue to evolve and our calendars, including our specialty calendars that I mentioned at the top of this presentation, would likely continue to expand. Last slide here provides our brief details on our three capital improvement requests.

The first is to, is for design funds for a new courthouse in South Kohala District, South Kohala. The current facility carries significant concerns for safety, space, temperature, where we have jalousie windows in the courtroom and noise as well. The attorneys are meeting with the custodies in the DLE vans. There's no space for them.

We have a handful of court employees who are stuffed in cubicles back to back trying to do the filing. There's really no space for the entryway and the foyer, which is especially important when you need a magnetometer and other safety equipment at the entrance of the building.

The second is to replace an AC chiller that's near the end of its life cycle out on Kauai; 0.9 million for that. And the last area is lump sum bond funds to continue long-term improvements in our facilities throughout the state.

The courthouses, District Court, which is a heavily used facility in Downtown Honolulu and our circuit court also in Downtown Honolulu, are approaching 40 years old each and so they both need--we've been continuing to try and care for them over the years, and so this lump sum bond fund helps us do things like that, among others. This concludes my presentation. Thank you for the opportunity, and I'm available for questions.

Okay, thank you very much. Okay, members, we'll open up to questions. Chair Morikawa.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks for being here this morning. My question is going along the route of PV systems. How many of your courts are hooked up?

We currently have our Kona courthouse which is--we have PV on top of the building and also over the parking lot. We're also exploring that for Wahiawa and right now those are the only ones. We're very interested in exploring with others.

We've been communicating with DAGS in particular even before, but especially since a year ago today when we were talking about this same issue, there's been quite a bit of federal funding coming into the state for that, and so we are exploring with DAGS the opportunity with that.

And we've had conversations over the last months and especially in December as well. So DAGS is setting up team energy. We're communicating with them. The last area that I'll mention is Kapolei. We're working on a multimillion dollar solar project out there.

Okay, I'm just asking because I see you have a request in here for Kauai, and the question was posed to me, why don't I ask about a PV system for Kauai courts because before you do all of these other repairs, wouldn't it be good to at least research that? Because you could save a lot of money.

We're hopeful. So for the PV that we're exploring with DAGS, I think our initial discussion items with them would likely be for the neighbor islands and certainly for Kauai. We're not at that stage yet of identifying sites.

Part of our identifying and selecting sites would be assessing the cost benefit, if you will, and how much we can reap from that. Because the Kauai courthouse, in addition to the roof of the facility, they've got a pretty decent sized parking lot without any--without anything blocking--we're hopeful that if we do need to replace the chiller, or not only this chiller, but the others, that it won't preclude PV in the future.

Yeah, thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. Further questions? Chair Tarnas.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks very much for your presentation. I wanted to follow up on a couple things. Your additional district court judge that you mentioned, the Kona District Court, so you're seeking funding, but there will also have to be statutory authorization for it with a separate bill, right?

Yes. So the--for the Kona District Court Judge, we're seeking from through our base budget bill, we're seeking funding and positions--thank you--and we'll also have a separate bill in our judiciary package that will request statutory authorization because there's a portion of the HRS that enumerates in the Third Circuit there shall be blank number of judges. So we will have a separate bill in our package for that.

Okay. All right. And then in terms of your funding restoration, I know--you note that there was 192 vacant judiciary positions that were defunded, and now you're requesting specific restoration of funding for various positions, but you've modified some of those positions, right? To meet current needs.

But you're not asking for all of these positions to be brought back. Could you just give us an overview? Because you're being much more targeted and I think it'd be good for us to understand that.

Correct. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yes. Early in the pandemic, when the Legislature understandably defunded positions, it was 109--numbered at 192. Since then, we've sought restoration of a few at a time--I think a few last year, a few the year before, maybe a few the year before that.

But to your point, we are absolutely being targeted in our approach. One of them, one of the reasons is because our courts have significantly changed. Relatedly, the world has significantly changed, and what we need as an institution both to accomplish our mission, but also to serve the public is a little bit different and the way that we're going about that is a little bit different.

So we are relooking at every single position as we fill them. For some of them, we are repurposing as needed to a modern need, such as the hybrid positions that I was talking about. For some of them, we are repurposing to a higher priority, such as for the specialty court programs that I was talking about. And for some of them, we just need the exact same thing. On the last slide of essential staffing, we need, you know, fiscal folks out in Maui, we need a judicial assistant at the ICA, and so for some of them that remains exactly what we need.

But we are looking at every single position, and relatedly, is that, we, like everyone in state government, are also rethinking how we're recruiting and how we can tackle those sorts of things, and so we hope that whether it's repurposing or modernizing or updating some of these positions, even in small ways, it can make it more attractive, one: because it's something that more directly serves the public, and two, because in situations where they are a higher level--excuse me--it can be a little more attractive for an applicant as well.

Thank you. Chair, could I--another question? On the request for the Criminal Justice Research Institute, you've got two requests in here. Could you help explain for us, the Finance Committee as well as the public who's listening, about the importance of these positions? Because this Criminal Justice Research Institute is still building up capacity, really.

Yes. Thank you, Chair. The Research Institute was established by Act 179 in 2019 primarily to be able to collect and aggregate data throughout the criminal justice system that's at this point and historically in various agencies, which makes it difficult, or which has made it difficult, for the Legislature and others in the criminal justice system to make policy decisions to analyze what's going on and where the trends are and where we might be headed and how to do better.

So that is the essential crux of the institute itself, and its first mission was to create a database so that at least we have data, that everyone's looking at the same thing. We understand it and we can share it all. So since 2019, Director, Dr. Erin Harbinson has been hired and has been brought on, in addition to several staff, to begin that work. The Legislature also passed Act 147 two years ago in 2023 to take another significant step towards building up that database.

So since then, based on those two acts, Dr. Harbinson and staff have been working and contracting with vendors to begin to set up the system. They've collected 15 years of data from DLE, from the AGs, and from our Judiciary, and has begun to put that together and see how they can analyze it and assess it.

So some of the technology costs that we've requested for CJRI here are for the software tools and for storing the data. We've also requesting continuation, essentially, of the positions that were provided in Act 40--Act 147 in 2023. That act provided a permanent position and it also provided a temporary position.

Both of those will assist the institute in moving forward. One of them works in our IT department so they can be fully committed to supporting the institute and are not taken away from other judiciary priorities. At the same time, our other judiciary IT are not taken away from their priorities to work on things for the institute.

So that significantly helps the institute move forward. The second position is to help the institute at this really critical period of getting the database up and running, and that's why that one is temporary. So this is an especially critical period for that position.

So the first permanent position, the funding expires, it ends at the end of this fiscal year, so you're seeking funding moving forward for that one. The other one is the temporary position that you're seeking to make permanent and then provide funding for that?

We would--we would--thank you for the question because I should clarify. We are seeking to continue both of them exactly as is. So both the permanent continue as permanent because that funding would expire. The temporary continues as temporary because both that position and the funding would expire. We're okay for now keeping it temporary as long as it--both the position and the money move forward.

Okay. Okay. Thanks for that explanation. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Thank you. Further questions, members? Vice Chair.

Hey, Brandon. To follow up on Chair Tarnas's question about Criminal Justice Research Institute, is there any support being lent by ETS because we've heard--I've heard that they're doing similar data collection for department sharing of information and any of that, or are you guys just kind of through that initial collection stage?

Or have they been lending any kind of support to help with some of this to get you guys up and running? We did talk to, you know, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation about the big need to try to kind of address the pre-trial population in their facilities. So really excited to get whatever information, data, we can out of--

Let me--thank you. Thank you, Chair for--or Vice Chair, for the question. See if Dr. Harbinson is available to assist. I know that we've been reaching out and in particular she's been reaching out to agencies as needed and they've been very cooperative. So, thanks.

Can you put the mic over?

Bring the microphone right up to you. There you go.

It's for you, too.

Okay. This work? Thank you. Committee members, thank you. I'm Erin Harbinson, Director of the Criminal Justice Research Institute. So with the technology aspect of the project that we're doing, we are going through the state procurement process, through the judiciary to set up the contract and do the work.

But we have been in touch with the Chief Data Officer to really make sure that we're thinking big picture, talking to the other branches, thinking about how our project might relate or impact other systems and vice versa, and really coordinating closely with the IT Director and the Department of Corrections and the Criminal Justice Status Center as well as we continue the project. Did you have any additional questions or clarification I could help with related to that?

No, no. That's good to hear that at least you can consult and--yeah, because I really feel strongly that I think a lot of our departments would really benefit from being able to share a lot of data between the siloedness of all our programs.

Do you have any kind of timeline for how much longer until you know you might be operational? Is it dependent on these positions or, you know, what's the goal for kind of getting--start pushing out some of this information or reporting the Legislature might need?

Sure. So before we can do the kind of the reporting piece, the most important work is--the foundational work--is building up that data warehouse and building up essentially data sets, and so we're bringing in three different data sources and a lot of the work really goes around restructuring these files into one centralized source that then gives us the capacity to report out.

Some of it will--there are some metrics we've identified we can do through dashboards, which will be more real-time reporting, and then a lot of it, too, is about aggregating these data sets that give us the capacity to do research.

So with that kind of explanation on the technology side of things, that's really where the most, the lengthiest part of this process is just bringing in that data, creating that centralized source of information and restructuring it for research purposes.

So it's been taking a little bit longer than we thought. We were hoping to be done with that part in the fall. At this point, I think we're estimating March, April to have that piece done. In the meantime, we're trying to kind of strategize and troubleshoot about doing some preliminary data analysis that we can report on.

I think the dashboards might take a little more time to set up, just knowing that, you know, we thought the data warehouse would maybe be done in the fall. It's taking a few more months. A lot of the core data that we work with is structured very, in a very complex way across all the files, so I think that's where some of the biggest challenge has been. So I think right now that would be probably our most up-to-date timeline.

So--and we do expect to be done within the contract by the end of the fiscal year, at least with the technical work. There just might be some kind of fine-tuning or fixing kind of near the end before we can report out publicly.

That's great news. Thank you. Thank you for your work on that. Yeah, and then maybe--I had a separate question about the specialty courts specifically. You know, the Women's Legislative Caucus did a visit to visit Women's Court and it was really great to see the program that was there.

People getting, you know, like the support they need to not just deal with the misstep they took, but to kind of solidify themselves in their lives with their families and all of that. I just want to know, across all the specialty courts, what kind of data is the judiciary collecting about the success rates or are we collecting any kind of data about these programs? Because I know, right, we do this, we do Mental Health Court, we do like the six or seven that were listed. What kind of data are you guys collecting, if at all? I hope you are.

We are. Thank you, Representative, for the question. We are, and in particular because each of our specialty courts are based on, are evidence-based in their design. Women's Court, Girl's Court, and maybe a couple of others are unique in that they are really homegrown and home-designed.

Others such as Veteran's Treatment Court, Mental Health Court, Drug Court--these are following national models, and so even more so for those, there are national models about how to collect the data. But for Women's Court, we are collecting the data, and for, and for Girl's Court as well, which just celebrated its 20-year anniversary of changing young women's lives as well. We are collecting data.

Is that available publicly about or do you guys publish it? Can you send us some of those statistics about the programs and, I guess, whatever you're collecting, success rates, what we're seeing as people go through the courts?

Yes, we can send those. Thank you.

Thank you.

That's it? Okay, members, further questions? Okay, thank you. And this is very high-level type of question, but you know, one of the things that has always, you know, as far as my earlier--you weren't here, but maybe you were here--but you know, as far as departments or different branches of government, I guess, communicating with everybody else on different things like that. So on your CIP Budget, do you guys ever talk to B&F about what your requests may be and what kind of capacity you will need?

I'll tell you why, because over the years it seems like they never consider whatever you're asking for because they have an issuance plan of how much bonds they will be floating, and in their plan, it doesn't account for whatever you're asking. So historically, the Legislature has to cut the administrative CIP request to fit what you want.

So it's always been my pet peeve, if you will, that everybody should be talking to each other ahead of time and telling them that this is the need of Judiciary and even OHA to some degree; that doesn't happen either. But do you guys actually talk about what your need in the CIP Budget will be?

On the CIP--thank you, Chair, for the question. We do communicate to the Governor and the Governor's Office on November 1st of each year with listing out our budget requests. We don't have other direct communications about CIP projects that are planning with B&F. We do communicate with DAGS very frequently because--

Yeah, DAGS is to execute, but B&F would be the budget part, right? So that would be kind of--

Thank you, Chair.

It'd be good to like start that conversation just so that right at the end of the day, it's always the Legislature got to be the bad guy and we got to cut some place to fit you guys in, so--right?

Understood. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Thank you. And then another off-topic is--so you know, I appreciate that you are talking with ETS and the State Data Officer and those kind of things and looking at national models and those kind of things. Do you consult CSG, the Justice Center?

On a particular issue or--

Just in general. Is that a resource that you take advantage of? I'm just--

Yeah, CSG, we do refer to them as needed, especially when--as we're looking at developing programs or refining programs. I don't think we have a--

Because the Justice Center is a large investment for them--CSG--and that organization in particular is one that reaches out through all three branches of government, right, the administrative as well as the legislative and the judicial, but it is the Legislature's budget that pays for the CSG membership. So I had a problem with that. But, right, you guys can take advantage of but we got to pay for it. Anyway, but because we pay for it, I just want to know if you guys are taking advantage of it.

We do from time to time. It would be fair to say not regularly.

Because it is--I've seen their facility and it's just--it's a good resource for the state. It's open to all 50 states and it's I'm just curious if you guys take advantage of that because we pay for it, right.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Not on a regular basis and we certainly will look at it more. We do consult very frequently with the National Center for State Courts that is committed to historic state courts.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that's all the main things, I think. Or just one other thing. So the communication part, as far as ETS and working with DAGS, the Advisory Committee for ETS, there's a position that is for Judiciary. Who's the member now?

That, I mean--let me check with our--yeah, our IT Director, Mai Nguyen Van, is--

Okay. Do they regularly attend? Because that's--

I will check. She's unavailable to be here today, but I will check on that.

Okay. That'd be important, I think, because of what's happening in IT and everything that's going on that they'd be part--right, it's one of the few areas where that Advisory Committee does bring all three branches of government together. It would be good if you guys attend that on a regular basis. Okay. Any further questions? Okay. Thank you very much for coming. We appreciate it, and we look forward to working with you.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay. We're going to be in recess till 1:30.

Okay, we're going to reconvene the Committee on Finance to continue our informational briefing. Next up, we have DAGS. Sorry we took so long, but the Senate was yelling at us, so. I'm only kidding. But yeah, we just had a slight delay, but thank you for being patient with us.

Thank you, Chair. Chair Yamashita. Vice Chair Take Nouchi CIP Chair Kitagawa. Members of the Finance, thank you very much for allowing us to be here today. And first and foremost, Happy New Year to everyone as well. My name is Keith Regan. I'm the Comptroller and the Director for the Department of Accounting and General Services.

We've submitted to you our written testimony that provided an overview of the Department, our operations, and our outlined priorities for the upcoming biennium budget. In addition, you have the specific items that were requested in the biennium budget that our Governor, Governor Green, submitted for your consideration as part of this process.

On behalf of the more than 800 hardworking and dedicated DAGS team Members, I would like to first and foremost just express our deep gratitude and appreciation to this Committee and to the Members, and to you, Chair, for your consideration of our request, as well as your prior support for the Department. We truly appreciate that.

Chair, with your permission, I'd like to just briefly introduce our team. Thank you for that. Our leadership team is truly the backbone of DAGS and they help us to oversee and manage the broad responsibilities that we have that are assigned to us.

I'd like to first start by introducing my Deputy Comptroller or Deputy Director Miling Silliman, who is here to my right. Myling is an amazing partner in this adventure that we're on as the heads and leadership of the Department of Accounting and General Services. She comes to us with a wealth of experience.

Some of you may know her, you may have worked with her in the past, but she is truly an asset. And I really appreciate her serving in this capacity as Deputy Comptroller because she helps keep me sane and address the many challenges and responsibilities that we have within our Department.

So I just want wanted to say thank you for being a part of this team. I would like to also introduce our programs that are here with us today, representing AGS 101102 and 103, which is our Accounting Division. We have our Accounting Division Administrator, Lydia Nash, and I'll just ask them to stand so you can see.

Put a name with a face, basically. But Lydia was officially selected and appointed into the role of administrator as of October 16, 2023.

But she had been with the Department for Many, many years prior representing AGS 104, representing our audit division, our audit administrator, Ronald Shige, AGS 105, representing the office of Information Practices, which is an attached agency. We have a number of attached agencies within DAGS. And just very briefly, what that means is that they're administratively attached.

We have no direct managerial oversight of those attached agencies, but we do provide administrative support to them. So if they need help with filing certain documents or processing certain things from an administrative standpoint, then we help them and provide those services. But representing OIP is the Director Carlotta Amarino. Ms.

Amarino was actually appointed by the Governor by Governor Green on December 6th, so a very recent appointment. But she had been with OIP prior and so we're just very honored to have her serve in this role. So congratulations, Carlotta, on that appointment. Representing AGS111, which is our archives, we have our archives administrator, Dr. Adam Jansen.

And by the way, if you ever have an opportunity to go and explore the archives, Adam is a very interesting individual who has a wealth of knowledge and I say that in the most respectful way, by the way, Adam, but we have a wealth of information, documents and other items that are held within the archives.

And you know, if you ever just want to go and explore and see what we do at Archives, be happy to give you a tour of our operation. But that's Dr. Adam Jansen, AGS 131, representing our office of Enterprise Technology Services, otherwise known as ets, is our newly minted and appointed Chief Information Officer, Christine Sakuda.

Christine was appointed by Governor Green as the CIO effective August 32024 and many of you may have known her, she was with Transform Hawaii government for many years prior to joining the state.

So comes to us with just a wealth of experience and knowledge and perspective that I think is going to serve us well in this new in her role as CIO within the Department and for the State of Hawaii, representing AGS203, risk management operation within DAGS, our risk management officer, Tracy Kitaoka, AGS211 representing the land Survey Division, our Administrator Reed Seurat representing AGS 221 and 223, which is our Public Works Division, we have Administrator Gordon Wood and Gordon actually was also appointed in 2024 and selected to serve in this role as of June 32024 but also was part of the Department for Many Years Prior.

AGS 231232233 and 234, which is our Central Services Division is led by our Administrator, James Kurata J with DAGS on August 162023. But James also has a wealth of experience being involved in various different departments of the state.

He is a licensed engineer, so he brings a lot of talent to the team and in a very critical area within our operations, which handles things like deferred maintenance on facilities as well as many other stuff. AGS 240244 representing our state Procurement Office.

And unfortunately, Bonnie could not be here today, but our management analyst, Jake Jacob Chang is here with us. AGS 251 and 252 is our Automotive Management Division. The administrator is Michael Arakaki. He unfortunately could not join us today.

AGS807, representing our neighbor Island District offices, of which we have now have four district offices, is our Kaua'I District Office Administrator and Engineering Program Manager, Eric Agena. So just a really quick background. Eric's been with the state for a while now in this role. But we in our neighbor islands have these other engineering program managers.

We have one on Maui, which covers Maui, Molokai and lanai. That was Mr. Pearson. You may know Jeff Pearson or may have interacted with him. He retired. Congratulations, Jeff. He's probably watching right now. I doubt that, but. But he retired as well.

As we've got two vacant positions on Hawaii Island, one East Hawaii in our East Hawaii District office, which handles the Hilo side of the operation, as well as Engineering Program Manager in West Hawaii. Both of those are vacant. We actually have interviews scheduled tomorrow for our East Hawaii District Office Engineering Program Manager.

So we're very excited about that. We want to try to get that filled. But the reason I'm mentioning it is because Eric is bouncing amongst the different district offices to ensure that they have the support and the leadership that they need from an engineering Program manager standpoint.

We are also supporting those district offices from the Comptroller's office as well. But I really just want to thank him for that. AGS871, representing the Campaign Spending Commission, we have our Executive Director, Kristin Izumi Nitao from the Office of Elections. AGS879, we have our Chief Elections Officer, Scott Nago.

From the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, we have Executive Director Karen Ewald. And that's AGS 881, representing the King Kamehameha Celebration Commission, we have our Executive Director, Amy Hammond. Thank you for being here, Amy. From AGS891, representing the 911 board, we have Executive Director Royce Murakami.

And from AGS901, which is the Comptroller's office, we have a number of individuals that have joined us today. If I miss anyone, I apologize in advance. But we have our planning and policy, Tony Benabisi, who many of you probably have worked with in the past.

From our Administrative Services office, we have our Business Management Officer, Myoki Ng, and our Management Analyst, Andrew Choi. From our personnel office, we have our Human Resources Officer, Daleen Liu. And from our Systems and Procedures office, which is like the DAGS it. It's not ets. It's like DAGS it right office.

So they put in the computers, they do all that kind of stuff for DAGS and manage certain systems. But our acting Systems Manager, Sharon Murakami. So again, I just want to thank them all for taking the time to be here. And they're here also to answer questions, right?

So if we've got questions as we go through this budget, please feel free to ask. And if I don't have the answer, we've got the team here that has hopefully has the answer for you as well.

So, Chair Members, this team before you has been again, the management backbone for DAGS, and they've helped to lead this Department alongside us and to serve and deliver on our mission, which is to provide critical services to our sister departments and the public.

We recognize that our ability to successfully serve is dependent on support from all of you. If we don't have your support and also the support of the Governor, we will have a very difficult time carrying out our mission and the functions of DAGS.

But again, we just express our gratitude for your ongoing trust in us and our ability to carry out our mission. We're also extremely grateful to the more than 800 DAGS team Members throughout the State of Hawaii that are the heart and the soul of our Department. So I just want to mahalo them and mahalo you.

As reflected in my introductions, our Department provides truly a broad range of services with our primary mission and focus on attaining maximum value for state taxpayers by providing physical, financial and technical infrastructure support for state departments and agencies so they may accomplish their missions.

We're a central services agency in the sense that we really are built to serve others, and that is what we do day in and day out. We strive to achieve this through our eight divisions, our seven offices, and our 11 attached agencies. Through these resources, DAGS provides support again to virtually every Department within the state.

As our state grows, so too does the demand for the services that we deliver to our state agencies.

Increasing demand combined with workforce challenges and we do have workforce challenges within DAGS requires that we make investments in technology and business process modernization efforts and other other initiatives that are going to allow us to perform more efficiently and more effectively as a Department. Modern is a good example of that.

I'm sorry, a good example of that is our 55 year old financial management system. Some of you may be familiar with famous. If I use it's not famous as in I'm famous, but it's more like infamous in that it is that infamous in terms of people knowing how antiquated our system is.

But this financial management system has been in place now for almost 55 years. In fact more than 55 years. I can't imagine anyone has a piece of software on any one of their personal computers because we didn't have PCs back 55 years ago, but that are still running anything that's even 10 years old.

But we have a financial management system in place now that's written in a language, it's written in Cobol, it's not even taught in schools anymore. That is processing 900,000 transactions a year. 900,000 transactions a year are hitting the system with a total value of more than $72 billion.

And to put that into perspective, that's like the GDP for the State of Hawaii. So the GDP of the State of Hawaii in terms of transactions are flowing through a 55 year old system that we're hoping continues to operate until we get a replacement.

But I'm very happy to say, thanks to the support of this body, that we are moving forward, we're moving forward on the replacement of that system. That's the enterprise Financial system project. You funded the first half, we're asking for the second half.

And we're very happy to let you know that by the end of this month, January, we anticipate that the RFP for the EFS will be released and that project will move forward to the next phase.

It's taken us a long time to get here and the reason for that is because we had a lot of lessons to learn from previous failures. On this particular project we did a lot of reflection. We approached it differently than we have any other project that we've had of this magnitude in the past.

Typically these are technology projects, right? Typically it leads it, ETS would lead it and the functional side would just sort of come along. But we recognized that there was a need to change the way that we approach this particular project so that we could set it up for success.

This is a functionally led project, more than 150 people, state employees that have fiscal operation requirement, I mean responsibilities played a role in the development of this rfp.

We didn't do that the last time, but we stepped back and we recognize where we dropped the ball and how we can make it better and how we can get our team to be. And our team, I mean the organization invested in this project because it is going to be a huge undertaking.

One of the things that I just want to mention is that in addition to replacing a 55 year old system, we're also changing processes that have been in place for about 100 years. I know you're probably thinking like the comptroller is crazy. We don't have anything that's been in place for 100 years. We do.

In fact, if you look at when the system was codified, it was codified back in the 20s. And so there are remnants of processes that have been in place for that long. That's incredible. So there's a huge lift that's going to have to take place as part of this project to re engineer the way we do business.

And we can't do that without everybody on board and playing a significant role. So we have a lot of work ahead of us. And you'll see in our budget requests there is some movement of positions within DAGS to create what's called the Business Transformation Office within the Comptroller's office.

And last year this body supported us in changing the statute that allows for the Comptroller's office to have exempt positions that specifically focus on modernization efforts. And this is sort of the next phase and the next step in the process.

Those positions already existed, they were already in ets, but they were given to ETS because they could have exempt positions. We didn't have the authority back then, but now, through your support Chair and through the Members here in the House as well as the Senate and the Governor, now we have that ability.

So in this budget you will see that next step that we're taking to help manage this behemoth of a project that we have in front of us right now. A lot of it is on my shoulders. It's on my ling's shoulders, it's on certain Members of our team's shoulders.

But we also have other things that we're responsible for. I can tell you we are literally meeting twice a week on this project for hours at a time just to make sure that we can keep it moving forward. And we need a Project manager and we need this Business Transformation Office in place.

And through your support, we hope to get that done. You'll also see that we're asking for the second tranche of monies. I think it's a $35 million CIP request. And that is because the project itself is going to cost, we estimate in the range of about $66 million.

And so we need that additional funding because we're going to need to contract for this project. And in order for us to get that done, we're going to need to get, get that funding in place as well. So we appreciate your consideration and your support. You'll also see things in the budget like staff augmentation.

What does that mean? Why do we need that? And the reason that we need that staff augmentation is because as we're going forward with this project, that 150 people that I talked about that are scattered in different departments that have fiscal operation responsibilities, we got to pull them into the project because they are the subject matter experts.

They are the ones that are going to have to live with the system. They're the ones that are going to help us get across the finish line on this project.

And in order to do that, we've got to free them up to be able to sort of leave their day to day job and their responsibilities and be dedicated to the project. They can't do that if they're constantly worrying about all the paper that's piling up on their desks. Right.

And so what we're asking for in this budget, and you'll see it is some money that's going to let us bring in outside help, bring in some outside staff augmentation, bring in some outside help and free up those subject matter experts to help with this project. So that's really critical and we ask for your support in that.

In addition to that project, we've got a lot of other things that are ongoing within DAGS. And some of those include brick and mortar projects, brick and mortar projects that have long lasting positive impacts on the community. And they're everywhere throughout the state.

And just to name a few, some of you may be familiar with the new Aloha Stadium entertainment District project. That's a huge project that we're participating in and we're significantly involved from a procurement standpoint and from a project overview and management standpoint. We have the Wahiawa Judiciary or the Civic center project, right? That's located out in Wahiawa.

And if you haven't had a chance to go out there and take a look at the project, it's an amazing project. And our team has been responsible for that and moving that forward. The Kahului Civic center is another project that we've been involved in which is in the design phase. Right. And so we're going to be.

Eventually we're going to ask for some construction monies, but that will be critically important for Maui in particular to have that facility, because it's going to address a number of needs that we have there. In addition to that, we've got other projects like occc.

And that's just to kind of give you a flavor of some of the big, big projects that we have that are on our plate.

But our Public Works Division, which is only about 77 employees, they handle a significant number of 455 projects they have that are currently live in their system in various different phases, whether it be in the planning, design or construction phase, that total a little over two and a half $1.0 billion in total value.

So these 77 individuals, led by Gordon and his team, are doing an incredible job being able to support not only DAGS and DAGS projects and DAGS managed Facilities, but also other departments that rely on our expertise to be able to get their CIP projects across the finish line.

So, like as an example, occc, that's a corrections project, that's not a DAGS project. But they reach out to us to ask us for our help and our expertise, and we gladly provide that service through our Public Works Division.

As projects are completed and new facilities are brought online, our team at our Central Services Division are developing plans to service those projects not only now, but also into the future. And just to give you kind of a quick overview, Central Services provides things like custodial or janitorial services. They provide things like groundskeeping.

So when you see the guys out there mowing the lawn at the State Capitol, that's Central Services. When you see the guys here in the Capitol that are cleaning the restrooms and the trash cans, that's Central Services. When you see our plumbers, electricians, carpenters, painters, building maintenance workers, our building managers, that's all part of Central Services.

All of those functions are part of what Jimmy Kurata and his team are responsible for. And you know, when you step back and you think about the magnitude of what they've got on their shoulders, they have 277 facilities throughout the State of Hawaii that we are actually responsible for through Central Services.

And that's pretty incredible because 109 of those 277 are located here on Oahu, 83 on Hawaii Island, 56 on Maui, and 29 on Kauai. So it's spread out across the entire state. In addition to all of that, Central Services has the responsibility of providing support for the cemeteries that are assigned to DAGS.

You must be thinking, what, you got cemeteries, too? Yeah, we have cemeteries, and that's by statute. There's actually an entire section of the statute. I think it's 110, if you take a look at that, that talks about cemeteries and their responsibilities and where it lies. And it's with the comptroller.

I was kind of surprised to find out about that. I always thought it was a DLNR thing, but apparently that's not. And so we have been taking on. We have taken on that responsibility, and we do our best with that. Unfortunately, it's a challenge.

These eight cemeteries that we have, there's six of them here on Oahu, there's one on Kauai, and there's one on Big Island, and they're in various states of disrepair.

I mean, we try to do our best to keep them in a respectful way, but we just don't have the manpower because there's no dedicated staff or resources specifically to provide services and upkeep of those cemeteries. I think that's something that we need to change.

And so what you'll see in our budget request is, in fact, the creation of an office that is going to have that responsibility.

It's a cemetery management office that we're asking for two positions within that office, and we're asking for some funds because, interestingly enough, the statute allows the comptroller to be able to engage with private contractors to provide services within those cemeteries. So, in other words, we could hire groundskeeping.

We could hire maintenance companies to go in and fix a fence or something like that. We don't have to rely necessarily on internal DAG staff who don't have the time to go out there.

We can actually contract for that work and respectfully manage these final resting places of more than 6,000 of our former community Members, our ancestors, people that we know are buried in these cemeteries or that our families know, maybe even our own family Members. Right. Are buried there.

But we have a duty in my mind to do something about that. And so we're asking for your support in our budget request to create that. To create that office. And I'll just kind of try to move on as quickly as I can. But DAGS also has played a major role in the Lahaina recovery efforts.

Right from the start, DAGS was there. DAGS opened up its warehouse through Jeff Pearson and through our team there at Maui District Office.

And we did everything possible to support the needs of the community above and beyond whatever we could do, including finding additional warehouse space beyond just DAGS warehouse space to help support some of the recovery efforts. But, you know, we're having ongoing discussions about rebuilding, right?

We've got the Kamehameha 3 elementary School that was burned down and destroyed on Front Street. We've got the library that was burned down and destroyed on Front street. And we've got, you know, clearly we have the harbor, right, that was impacted by the fire. But we're committed, DAGS is committed to working with the West Maui community.

I want you all to know that as someone who spent many, many years of my life on Maui, I have a very special place in my heart for that community. So I apologize, but we will continue to work very closely with the community as well as the affected departments and this body to provide assistance with these efforts.

In addition, our Risk Management office continues to push forward with our insurance providers as part of the claims process to seek proceeds that may be used to support West Maui to rebuild these facilities, like the school, like the library, like the harbor as well.

And to date, our Office has received $42 million in payments from our insurance carriers. And we do anticipate that we're going to get more funds, probably up to the limit of $200 million, which is our policy limit, which can be used to support the rebuilding efforts of those facilities that were destroyed in the Lahaina area.

So we do expect that. And you will see that ceiling increase in our budget request. So when you look at the Overall request for DAGS, it looks massive, right? It's like $230 something $1.0 million on the operating side. And even I was kind of taken aback by that.

But you can instantly, you know, see that 200 million of that is just the ceiling increase to accept the monies to be able to then expend them in some way that, you know, in working clearly with you chair and this body to support the rebuilding efforts in Lahaina.

You know, I feel like I'm speaking a lot, so I apologize for that, but. And I don't want to take up too much more time, but, you know, we've got a big, Big Department and we've got many divisions and operations that I would love to talk to you about, but.

And I'm sure as we go through the budget requests, we can start to touch on them. But there is one more thing that I do want to talk a little bit about before I Kind of move on to the line by line item discussion.

And that is, you know, that we, I mentioned this in the get go, you know, we do have challenges like vacancies, right. I think every Department dealing with that, they're struggling with that.

How do you get people to join your team from the private sector or even, you know, I don't like stealing employees from other departments, but I'll gladly steal them from the county. Sorry, county. I mean, that's where I kind of. I cut my teeth in public service.

But yeah, I mean, but you know, we've made some amazing strides as it relates to addressing our vacancies within the Department. In fact, in 2023, our vacancy rate for DAGS was at 21%. And that's the entire. That's including attached agencies. Without attached agencies, I think it was like 17%, which is pretty impressive.

But in 2024 we dropped it down to 17%. So we made some amazing effort in terms of getting positions filled. And a lot of it is thanks to the efforts that this body has put forward. Supporting things like, you know, increased salaries, supporting things like the intern programs. Right. Like a DLIR has the HELEIMUA program.

Incredibly successful, incredibly helpful. I will say that as an example, the engineering positions has always been a challenge for us. Right. How do we get engineers and architects to leave highly compensated positions in the private sector? Right. How do we get them to join us? Wages was a big challenge. We just couldn't compete.

But through the efforts of our administrators, through the efforts of D HERD and the HGEA specifically Randy Perera, amazing, amazingly supportive in this effort as well as our HR team, we were able to create salary schedules, specific salary schedules that allowed those position salaries to be on par with private sector and allow us to compete for once with wage.

From a wage standpoint, I think benefit wise, I think we're still pretty high up there, right. From a state perspective, but the wage side was killing us. So we were very successful in that effort. And it's actually been able, we've actually been able to use that to attract people to come and join our team.

They are now more than willing to put their names in for consideration. In fact, I'm going to talk a little bit about the five positions that are on the chopping block from Public Works division. Four of them are engineering. Five positions. One of them is actually. We actually have a candidate starting I think in February.

So we've filled it, but it's. Yet it's on the chopping block, but we filled it because we now have this new pay scale in place. It actually helped to bring somebody on board.

But we've been doing a lot of things, creative things, that are addressing some of these shortfalls that we've had in the past and are going to allow us to be able to do a lot of these major projects that we have coming down the pipeline.

I just wanted to mention that so that you're kind of aware of where we are on some of these things. We've gone to job fairs in the past. Since the last time we were here before you, we've had some success.

But I really think, and I mentioned Hale Imua, but that one we actually had, I think we had like five interns that joined our team in different areas within our Department and hired actually one of those five individuals to work within the Department. So that's a really exciting example, I think, of how these programs are successful.

And that position is within our Systems and Procedures office. So we're very supportive of those kind of efforts and we appreciate you. You supporting them as well. And as I mentioned, you know, the.

The positions that are offered up for being eliminated, those five positions, we would just ask for your consideration, and I made the same plea with, with the Senate Ways and Means Committee this morning, is to give us another year, at least on the engineering position. The other one is a contract administrator 2 position. If you.

If we got to give that up, I understand. But I really feel like with all the efforts that we've made to date, we can get these positions filled in the next year. And frankly, if we can't get it done in the next year, take them, take them back. You know, we'll give them up.

Because I think, and I'm confident that through Gordon and his team and their efforts and through all of these things that have been put into place, we're going to get them filled.

So I just humbly ask for your reconsideration of that and we can work with your team on the adjustments, you know, because there are some funds that we requested through the elimination of those positions to be able to hire consultants to kind of like backfill to support that need.

But if we can get those positions, we're not going to need. We don't need the consultant monies, basically, right. We just need the monies to be able to hire into those roles.

So, you know, again, chair, as part of the process, when we initially sat down with the Governor, we put a request forward that included items totaling up to $234 million from an operating standpoint in fiscal year 26 and in 2027 totaled 228 million. And again, 200 million of that was actually for the insurance ceiling increase.

But you can see on our tables, it's labeled Table 4. But this whole process was really an iterative process. Right. The Governor was extremely receptive. Lewis and his team, you know, again, you know, they have to do their job. Right. From a VNF perspective.

But they, you know, worked very closely with us to get the budget, which is before you now, into a place where we feel very good about what's at least what's been offered. Right. You know, in terms of our needs going forward for the next two fiscal years.

So, Chair, with that, I would like to, you know, move into our review of the table six items. And I would just, you know, however you want to, if you've got questions or if you want me to pause, please just tell me. And I, I will. I'll stop and. And we can, you know. Yeah.

Proceed.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So thank you for.

That...if we turn to table six, you'll see our first priority, which is Priority Number Four--first item is Priority Number Four--is increasing the ESCO lease payment. These are energy service company agreements that were put in place many years ago in a way--in an effort to save the state money on electrical utility costs.

They, you know, maybe haven't, they were not maybe as effective as we thought they would be, and so unfortunately, it's costing more money for us to be able to support those ESCO contracts. We are, we are unfortunately locked into those contracts for a period of time, so we need to fulfill that obligation. We're asking for your support.

Based on our analysis over the next two fiscal years, we need about $433,000 to support that. The next item is part of our request for the West Hawaii District Office. In fact, the next four items relate to Hawaii Island, and these are already existing positions that you supported in a previous request, but they were funded at half funding and so we're asking for your support in making them fully funded for the biennium budget.

So those amounts reflect full-time positions in our East Hawaii as well as West Hawaii district offices. For--moving on to its department wide Priority Number Nine, this is a request from our State Procurement Office to fund the Small Business Coordinator or extend the funding of the Small Business Coordinator and also to comply with Act 168 which also relates to HRS 103D-902, and the request there is for 126,000. Jacob Chang is here from State Procurement Office.

If there's any questions, I'm happy to bring him up and he could answer questions as it relates to that request. Moving on to Priority Number Ten--so we have a payroll system and there is a need to support the cost for cloud hosting.

There is a need to support the cost for application support services as well as for the licensing, and on an annual basis, all that totals up to about $5M. We need those monies to support our ongoing payroll operations as it relates to HIP. So this is a necessary request. We're asking for your consideration.

We know it's difficult, but it is something we need to ensure that the 60,000 plus employees that we have, that the payroll system doesn't run into any kind of glitches or any challenges as we need to make modifications. So things like a new schedule for tax, state income tax, right, or federal income tax tables are changing or THP payments need to be included, right, as part of that process.

So we lean heavily on our contractor to be able to provide us those services because we just don't have internal capacity to do some of those changes. Eventually down the road, our hope is that after modernizing our enterprise financial system, our financial management system, the next phase of that project or modernization effort will be a human capital management system which will include modern payroll, modern HR, right, and not these antiquated systems that make it very difficult for us to be able to maintain.

So unfortunately, until that point in time, we still need to support the existing system. So that request is what you see there reflected in Priority Number Ten. Priority Number 11: this is actually related to the enterprise financial system. These are positions within our state, within our accounting division, specifically within the system's accounting branch.

These will eventually become basically the call center, right? These folks will troubleshoot any issues that are coming up from the departments as they start to utilize EFS and actually get into it, and so rather than end up like we are with the payroll system where we have to rely on external vendors from time to time, the hope there is we're going to build the experience as we're building the product. Right?

So as we're moving through this process, we want to get these people in place so that they truly become subject matter experts in every aspect of our EFS and can address the needs so that we don't have to hire somebody externally. In addition to those positions, we've also got staff--there's also staff augmentation monies that are included in there.

And I talked a little bit about staff augmentation and the critical need for that, right? So again, we need to bring those SMEs, the subject matter experts, out of the departments. We need to bring them into the project. In order to do that, we need to kind of supplement them so that they're not burning out and that work doesn't pile up and they eventually don't want to be a part of the project. So again, we ask for your help and your support in that request.

We are asking for and we have started the process of creating a business transformation office within a comptroller's office. Again, thanks to you folks in changing the law, now we have the ability to have exempt positions specifically for modernization efforts.

We have positions--by the way, one, two, and three are not on this list because one, two, and three are trade-off transfers. They are positions that were originally given to ETS because we didn't have that authority specifically for the financial management project.

Now that we have the authority, we're transferring them back in as to be part of this business transformation office. But we also need project management expertise, and in order to get that project management expertise, we're going to have to pay some money for that.

And we need a director position, we need an Assistant Director because of the magnitude of this project. I cannot describe how significant this is, like, I can't find the right words to describe it, but this is a project that is going to need a lot of support and a lot of focused attention, and so having an office that's purely dedicated to that is going to be critical.

And making this position, folding it into the budget, I think is going to be important. Electricity costs--I talked a little bit about that. As I mentioned, we have 270 plus facilities that are under DAGS's immediate control--I'm sorry--that we support. 130 of those are under DAGS's control. They're either DAGS's facilities or DAGS-managed.

Those are the facilities that, you know, we need to get some additional monies for utilities. Electrical costs are going up. So in addition to the ESCO payments, we also have to pay HECO, you know, or, you know, on Kauai--it's--I can't remember the name of the Kauai one, but--yeah, Casey, thank you.

You know, we got to pay them for utilities. So we're asking for that additional million dollars to support that. There is an item here, Number 16, which is to add funding for security out in Kapolei at our Kakuhihewa Building. We've identified a need out there similar to the State Capitol District.

You know, we've got issues out there related to safety. We're asking for about 120,000, but I will just put it out there that also in our budget request, we transferred the funding that was provided to us in a previous fiscal year to the Department of Law Enforcement to handle the security for our facilities.

By statute, actually, law enforcement is responsible. It's right in their statute. Like, it's clear. Clear as day. And so I understand why it was given to DAGS at the time. We set up the program, we worked very closely with DLE. They're ready for it. They're prepared to take it on.

And in working with the Director of the Department, Jordan Lowe and his team, we've set them up for success to make sure that that service is properly managed, not only for the Capitol District, but also for things like expansion out into our Kapolei office at Kakuhihewa Building.

What I was going to say, though, Chair, is that, you know, as it relates to this $120,000 request, we're okay with that actually being transferred over to DLE. It doesn't have to be in our budget. I think it was--it just kind of got caught up in, you know, kind of the speed of putting this, some of this together, and it may have been missed on our part, but--and I apologize, but we would gladly, you know, be open to that moving over to DLE.

Okay, so moving on to Priority Number 17, we're asking for, in fiscal year 27, a position that would help to support the Wahiawa Civic Center. That's the judiciary project out there in Wahiawa. Again, if you have a chance to go by and take a look at it, pretty nice project, but we're going to need a custodian out there. We're going to need services to be provided to the tenants out there like we do in this building, right? And we've identified the need for at least one.

We think there's probably a need for more, but at least if we can get one, this is half-funded request because we anticipate the facility coming online sometime at some point in time where we're only going to need to have a half year funding in support of that position.

So we're asking for your support for that--as well as there's some equipment that we're going to need to support the building. Priority Number 18 is we're asking for some fencing money. You know, we're asking for 250 in fiscal year 26, 150 in fiscal year 27.

So in addition to the security services that we have here, we also have things like the war memorials, right, that are located off of Richard Street that are not fenced in, and so people are going into these memorials. They are unfortunately desecrating them. They're pulling letters off.

I don't know what they're doing with them, but they're pulling letters off the walls. You know, they're urinating, they're defecating in these places where they shouldn't, right? I mean, we need to maintain these facilities in a way that's respectful to those that are honored there.

So we're asking for some monies so that we can start the process of putting in proper fencing around some of those facilities so that we can, at the end of the day, when it's off, when, you know, our hours of operations have ended, we can lock them up so that people can't go in there and they can't cause problems, right.

We can better manage those spaces. So that's just an example of some of the work that we anticipate doing with that funding and that support. We're asking for some interdepartmental transfer increases in Priority Number 19. This is for our neighbor island district offices. I should have mentioned this.

I don't think I did, but on the neighbor islands, all of our district offices support the DOE and their facilities, as well as the libraries also, by the way, but you know, as part of that arrangement that we have in place, the DOE also funds some of the positions that we have.

So we do have like plumbers, electricians, we've got carpenters, we've got other, you know, skilled laborers that service those facilities, and so with the increase in collective bargaining, we're asking for some additional--and as well as in our fringe benefits, we're asking to be able to cover that cost through that increase.

Item Number 20, we're asking for the request to fund two part-time positions for the archives. They're going through this process of wanting to modernize the way that they do business and the way they operate by incorporating RFID technology into some of their, their storage, right, so that they can quickly identify where these boxes and documents are located and have a better process of managing their inventory, and I think this is going to help from an efficiency standpoint to better be able to pull documents and serve documents up to the public as requests are made.

And so Adam and his team are doing a great job, but I think this is really going to help them move forward on some very important modernization efforts. Number 21 is, again, this is the big ask in our budget, which is the ceiling increase for our Risk Management Revolving Fund of 200 million.

Again, we do expect to get more funds from our carriers over the next two years. We think that by June of 2026 that we will have received the maximum payout from our carriers as it relates to our claims pertaining to the fire. So we're looking at about 200 million by June 2026.

So support of this increase in the ceiling would be extremely helpful for the department. Let's see. Item Number 22 is our request for the cemetery management office. I won't go into details on that again--I think I spoke to it in my opening comments--but we are asking for two positions.

We're asking for some funding, a little, about one million dollars in operational funds for us to be able to hire contractors to do things like maintaining the grounds, right, on a regular basis, fixing any kind of damage that might have been done through vandalism, fixing things like the fences that are falling down to prevent people from going in and creating problems. But really, again, just treating this final resting--these final resting places with the respect that they, they really truly are due.

And so we'd ask for your support in that request as well. I'm going to now shift gears to our Office of Enterprise Technology Services and I'm going to actually call up our Chief Information Officer to kind of to go through her requests. I think it's important.

She's part of our team, she's an important part of our team, and she's important part of our state, and she's got a lot to talk about and she's got a lot of requests that she's put forward through the good work that she's done so far in her short time here with the state and through her efforts and with the team. So with that I'd like to introduce Christine Sakuda, our CIO to walk through ETS's requests. So Christine.

Thank you, Comptroller. Aloha, mai kakou, Chair Yamashita, Vice Chair Takenouchi, Members of the Committee. My name is Christine Sakuda, and it's a pleasure to serve as the State CIO. I work in the Office of Enterprise Technology Services and the mission of ETS is to advance operational excellence of government through trusted collaboration, partnerships, and technology leadership in the spirit of aloha.

We ensure critical state IT infrastructure is reliable and secure, we ensure that the state's programs running on that infrastructure are accessible and responsive to the public, and we promote innovative use of technology and data. We have 13 budget items, and I'd like to go through them quickly and happy to answer any questions.

So, first up is Priority 23. This is to add funds for the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement subscription. The state has currently executed year one of the Microsoft G5 license. It's a big bump from G3 to G5, and so we're asking for resources for the next several years.

The G5 license includes things like the telephone system, which has the potential to replace the old analog systems, which can improve cost and response time for people working remotely, as well as enhanced security and infrastructure.

Priority 24 adds funds for the Cybersecurity Risk Mitigation. The priority goal of the ETS Cybersecurity Program is to protect the state infrastructure and its data. So we're asking for $1.6M. Common threats that include data breaches, distributed denial of service, and ransomware, the cybersecurity program intends to incrementally improve on the existing infrastructure that we currently have.

Priority 25 adds funds for the High Wind Telecommunications System maintenance and warranty for 630. It's the high wind system through which the radio, the radio devices that are used by emergency response use. So this is particularly critical in the Maui response when the Internet's down and their first responders are using radio, radio systems.

And the High Wind is a network of infrastructure across all the islands that support that, so we're asking for funds sorely needed for maintenance. Priority 26 adds funds for the Adobe Enterprise License Term Agreement. Like the enterprise Microsoft license, we support the enterprise Adobe license and the state is currently in the final year of a year-three project and so--a program--and so there's a big step up, the costs have increased for enterprise licenses, and we request your support for that. Priority 27 adds funds for advisory services.

This is one of the few requests that we actually have that supports innovation moving forward, and it's advisory services that are used to really support informed decision making to understand the research that is being conducted on what's going on across the country in terms of best practices for IT digital government implementation.

Priority 28 adds funds for the data center decommission and migration of services for 1.6 million. As many of you know, we have a data center that's in the basement of the Kalanimoku Building and we have been in the process of when we are able to migrate legacy infrastructure and legacy applications out of the data center into more sustainable infrastructure.

And this will allow us, this funding will allow us to do--make a concerted effort in doing that over the next several years. Priority 29 adds funds for the independent verification and validation effort. This is to support the EFS project.

As the Comptroller said, it's one of the most critical modernization projects that the state's going to undertake and we administer the IV and V efforts for the big modernization projects in the state. Priority 30 adds funds for the Microsoft 365 cloud data backup and disaster recovery solution.

While Microsoft 365 offers some level of data redundancy and recovery, its built-in backup options are limited. So this provides enhanced capability for that. Priority 31 adds funds and one FTE for our data and AI equity manager.

The new position is authorized by Act 203 to address language barriers and to ensure equitable access to information and assistance for all residents, especially with those with limited English proficiency. So we asked for a resource for that. Priority 32 adds funds to establish a data and AI office and an AI risk-management tools and geospatial licensing renewal.

So this is for 1.6 million and this funding will enable ETS to implement tools for data governance and data sharing across the department, so the departments are actually able to share data with each other in a more effective way and more secure way than the current decentralized system process now.

Priority 35 adds funds for the government private hybrid cloud. ETS is seeking additional funds to continue the expansion of the government private cloud to move systems off of old aging infrastructure into a more sustainable infrastructure.

Priority 37 adds funds for website accessibility training program for 200,000. ETS is seeking funding for an enterprise success plan with a partner statewide accessibility training schedule, accessibility maturity assessments, and manual accessibility testing. And last but not least is Priority 38, which adds funds for the digitization of control and client services binders.

This is the critical documentation that supports the applications and the mainframe. And so we want to--it has been in a paper process for many, many years, and we want to digitize the most critical infrastructure as some of the current employees are retiring. Want to make sure we have that continuum of service moving forward. And so we kindly request that you support those services, happy to answer questions, and thank you very much.

Okay, thank you. We'll do questions at the end. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, let's--if we can continue on, Chair? The next item is Priority Number 41, which is adding funds for voting system contract in the amount of $3.9M in fiscal year 26 and 125,000 in fiscal year 27.

And to speak more to the item, we have our Chief Elections Officer, Scott Nago, who is available for any specific questions that you, Chair, may have as it relates to that particular item. Would you like me to bring it forward or--

We can--yeah. We'll do the questions at the end.

Very good. All right. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Chair. The next item is a request from the Campaign Spending Commission. It is to support modernizing one of their systems that sorely needs some TLC as it relates to making it a more usable and functional system that helps to support candidates. I believe the initial request was for a little over 2 million, but in our request here that you see before you, we're asking for two positions, about one million dollars in fiscal year 26 and 380,000 in fiscal year 2027.

And Kristin Izumi-Nitao is here as well to answer any questions that you might have about what does it mean to get--what does it mean to have that reduction as it relates to the system that could be potentially delivered as part of that process.

Okay, and then moving on to Priority Number 43, that is an increase in the trust fund ceiling for the Campaign Spending Commission, and specifically, that is to help support candidates that might be utilizing public funding as part of their process.

And so in order to be able to support some of the expansion that they expect, they're asking for that additional ceiling capacity within their operation. The next item is our 911 Board. That's to increase the special fund ceiling.

And very similar to sort of the need that I spoke to about the Campaign Spending Commission, the 911 Board also expects to have an expanding need to support the county, the county's--various counties' modernization efforts related to their 911 systems as part of that process.

And so Royce Murakami, the Executive Director, is here to speak more about that if there's any questions related to increasing the ceiling to support those efforts. Next item is a request from the State Foundation on the Culture and Arts, SFCA.

There is a request to increase the special fund ceiling for the Works of Art Special Fund for $2M. Again, you know, there's additional revenue that's available to them. However, they don't have the ceiling to be able to access that, so providing this additional ceiling would allow them to increase their support for various different activities throughout their community as part of their mission. And so there is that request for a $2M increase in ceiling for both 26 and 27. Moving on to Items 46 and 47.

Both of those are State Procurement Office requests, specifically to address some fringe benefit issues or needs that they have within their operations. You can see that there are, there's a $51,000 request in 26 as well as in 27 to support that fringe need, and then also some increases in reclassification and repricing of positions within their office, actually at the Surplus Property Office within SPO, so about 14.7 thousand for both fiscal years 26 and 27.

And the last one is one that we talked a little bit about in my opening comments, and that is Priority Number 48, and that is the reduction of five permanent full-time positions within the Public Works Division.

We're asking for your humble reconsideration of that request to allow us to keep and maintain those four, at least four positions, which are the engineering five positions that were scheduled for elimination as well as adding back in the funding to support the actual salaries for those positions.

And, Chair, we would ask if that's something that you agree to move forward with, that you would please make those adjustments, and then we wouldn't need the consulting monies, basically. So that could be eliminated from our request as well. So with that, Chair, that's our operating budget requests for the department for the biennium. I am happy to take any questions or alternatively, if you want me to move on to CIP, I'm happy to walk through that.

Yeah, why don't you do that?

Okay. Thank you, Chair. Okay, if we move to Table 15, I believe it is, in our request, which is our capital improvement project or program request, we've got seven items that are there for your consideration. The initial item was the enterprise financial system, additional second tranche of monies that we're requesting to support that project. We're asking for $35M. Again, the existing system has been there for 55 years.

We don't think the new system is going to be there for 55, but we definitely think it will be there for many, many years before we go down the road of replacement again, but we are going to need some additional funding to be able to support that request.

We do have--the next item, our second priority on this list, is our lump sum maintenance. This is an annual request that we have that comes before you for your consideration. We're asking that you support our request of $20M in fiscal year 26 and 27.

These monies specifically go towards addressing some of our deferred maintenance needs that we have and the facilities that we're responsible for. I mentioned the 130 facilities throughout the state. These monies specifically go to help support some of the projects that we have within those facilities. Item Number Three is a request. This is from ETS.

It has to--it relates to High Wind that the CIO spoke to a little bit earlier, but this is for CIP, and there are a number of towers that she referenced located throughout the state.

And these towers house--there's also equipment that's housed at these sites, but these create a very critical network of communications that in the event of a system failure with the traditional means of communications, will allow us to be able to communicate interoperably between various agencies so that we can carry out our missions of supporting the public through a crisis.

Because if we lose communications, there's probably a crisis that's occurring. And so in order to ensure that we don't, that we're identifying and addressing risk, we're asking for these funds--we actually requested 8M, but through the process we were given four.

We understand there's a lot of competing needs, right, for CIP funds, but there are facilities that we have that are on the list that really need to be repaired. Literally, they're falling apart. These are towers that are falling apart.

They're structurally getting to the point where they're no longer sound and could present a significant risk to the state. But if we only get 4M, we'll do our best with what we, with what we have, but there is definitely a need there for additional funding related to that.

And Vince Krog from ETS, who handles all of that and is responsible for maintaining that system, is here, and he can talk more about sort of what we can do, right, with the four million, and then if we are able to get additional funding, what's possible, right, in terms of some of the other needs that are out there.

The next item is the--which is Priority Number Four on our CIP list--is for the State Capitol Building rehabilitation and related improvements. It's a big one. And as you know, this facility many years ago, probably 20 years ago or so, went through a pretty major renovation. There was a lot of work that was done. In fact, we bought the State Office Tower right down the street over here and moved operations out of the State Capitol, and there was a lot of work that was scheduled to be done.

Not all of it was done. Unfortunately, the project stopped and there were things that were not addressed during that time period. Major things, things like infrastructure, things like mechanical, things like air conditioning systems, electrical systems.

We have--this building has been around since the late 60s. We've got piping, we've got water, we've got sewer. Clearly we have leaks that are now being addressed, thankfully, through your support, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done specifically on this facility that is going to eventually require a shutdown of this facility, a movement of the tenants that are in this facility into another facility that can accommodate them until we can complete the renovation and rehabilitation work within it, this facility.

There's no way that we can do the work that's necessary and still have tenants in this building because entire systems need to be shut down. So we can't do a floor-by-floor shutdown of an electrical system when we have to replace the main switch gear for the building, right, and the associated wiring that's there.

So we're asking for some planning money to start thinking about and developing a strategy and a proposal for you to consider on what we can do to fix this building once and for all, address these long-term operational needs that we have here, as well as think about other space that we have in the vicinity that needs to be redeveloped.

Kinau Hale is a good example of that. Kinau Hale is where DOH is located, San Beretania and Punchbowl, right over here on the corner. Is there an opportunity for us to look at possibly rehabilitating or--I'm sorry--demolishing that facility and creating something new there that could accommodate the tenants of this facility while we do the work and then move everyone back in here and move the DOH into that newly created Kinau Hale project? It's just an idea.

There may be other options. There may be buildings close by that are available for sale, right, that we may want to consider going after, right, that could address our needs. So there's a lot of things that need to be discussed. There's some planning that needs to be done, and we need to bring in experts to help us navigate that.

And so the request here is to begin those discussions, to get a consultant on board that's going to help us pull together a plan that will meet the needs of the state going forward, not just for tomorrow, but for decades to come, right, because these facilities are not cheap, this work is not inexpensive, and it needs to last. And so whatever decision is finally made is going to have to be one that we all agree upon and we'll be able to live with for generations. So that's a critically important CIP request for us.

We're also asking for 2.1 million in the next item, Prioritization Number Five for Kalanimoku Building right next door behind us over here. That's where DAGS is located, the DLNR. There's a couple other operations in there as well, but we want to utilize the space better.

And as part of that process, we are thinking about--well, you're familiar with the HPU campus acquisition, right? Or at least I think you've heard about, you know, DLNR going after that particular property as out in Kaneohe as something that might be able to address some space needs, right?

Well, as part of that process, some of those functions may move out of Kalanimoku, right, and that would open up some space for us and space that could be redesigned and redeployed in ways that we've never really thought about in the past. As an example, DOH moving out of Kinau Hale, they have their vital records operation.

Well, does it make sense to take the Vital Records operation and put it near the Bureau of Conveyance as an example? Those are probably some of the most utilized services right by the public: Bureau of Conveyance--there's people all the time in our building going to that office--and Vital Records, so why not have them in the same place if we can, not in the same office, but in the same building, right? But in order to do that, we're going to need some funding to be able to support optimizing the space, right, in that process.

We're also talking about things like on the fourth floor of Kalanimuku, there's a big, what we call a swing space or a surge space where we would take a department who is--maybe we're renovating their space, park them there for a little while, right, do their space, and then move them back.

But it's a beautiful space and it's a big space, and maybe instead of having ETS live in the, in the basement of the building, maybe ETS should be on the fourth floor, right, because these are professionals doing professional work. Maybe we should have a space that supports that effort.

And so thinking about that and using some of the funds to be able to move forward on redeveloping those spaces, I think, is going to be extremely critical. We talk about hybrid work environments where people are working at home for a couple of days and in the office for a couple of days or three days or whatever it is. ETS is a good example of that. And I actually think this is a good opportunity for us to show what's possible.

What's possible in terms of space utilization, using sort of modern approaches that have been developed over the most recent years due to Covid, on creating hybrid spaces, right, that maximize spaces and being able to use that as a shining example of what other departments can do.

Not everybody can telework, but there are definitely departments that can and there are definitely departments who can that have space that is not modernized that could benefit from a good example like what we want to do on the fourth floor to support ETS. Number six on the list is for SFCA.

It's for the No.1 Capital District Building. We, we actually asked for a little bit more than one million dollars to support that effort, if there's any way to add some additional funding for construction. What that is is these are ADA improvements to that building over there.

If you come down Richard Street, the turn in is extremely small, and so you'll oftentimes have school buses that are bringing, you know, lots of kids to that area and they're having to park along the side of the street and it's a little bit difficult for them to offload some of these keiki, right?

And so the idea is to create a larger turn in to accommodate buses so they're not hanging out the back because it's so small, right, you know, as well as to address the ongoing ADA issues with that facility. Right now, if you have mobility issues, you got to come in through the back.

So that's not appropriate. I mean, really. I mean, we should be able to have a project that is going to allow us to accommodate people with mobility challenges to come into the same entrance as anybody else. So we're asking for your help and your support in that effort.

We have more information as it relates to the original project, but it's something that I think would be a really good, positive thing specifically for that building, not only for SFCA, who this request is coming through, but also for the other tenants, like DBED, BNF, other operations that are located in that facility as well.

So, again, just ask for your consideration on that. The final item is number nine, which is lump sum State Office building remodeling. This actually gives our Public works division, their planning office, the ability to go out and look at any space, right?

Any space that belongs to dags that we have control over, or maybe even space that we don't, but at least to be able to engage with the tenants and to come up with better plans on how to use the space. So, you know, there's lots of modular furniture options that are out there.

There's ways that you can redesign flow from an efficiency standpoint. You know, storage is another big thing, but you need the funding to be able to have the support for our team to put plans together that departments can then take forward to you for consideration as part of their overall funding request. So, chair, that's our request.

We've got 66.1 million in our fiscal year 26 for CIP, and I think 22 million in our fiscal year 27 request for CIP and would just humbly ask for your consideration as part of that process. I think I've gone through all of our requests from an operational and CIP standpoint.

Happy to take any questions that you chair or Vice Chair, CIP chair may have, or Members have for the Department model.

Okay, thank you very much. Okay, Members, we'll open up to questions. Okay. Represent Kusch.

Good afternoon. Thank you again for coming out. And it's impressive, the umbrella you're carrying. It's a pretty, pretty large Department. I took notes on some of it because it was. It was lengthy, but it was a small item.

But I noticed, and this was brought up earlier today, not related to your Department at all, but just state government siloing and lack of interdepartmental communications. And I see etf, ETS going out. And there was a janitorial position you asked for for the Wahiawa Courthouse and Judicial. Asked for the same position, janitorial too.

Although yours is a better deal than theirs was, but little cheaper. But do you guys have communications like that with other departments where you have that? I mean, you guys uniquely have this really embedded relationship with basically everybody, either providing the roof over their heads or their IT or their data. I mean, just.

It's intrinsic to your department, really. How do you guys work stuff out like. Like these items or they're duplicative.

That's a great question. And I'll just say this, that from a Cabinet standpoint, we have very good communications between the directors. So we're always talking about issues, challenges, ways to help each other. So there's this very good open dialogue that exists. Right, between the Department directors when we get down to sort of the nitty gritty of things.

Like, as an example, this particular position, I'm not 100% sure why the judiciary. And by the way, that's a separate branch. Right. So judiciary's not. They're not. So, like, as an example, I'm not having regular meetings with the Chief Justice. Right, yeah, no, no, I understand.

This is granular.

No, no, but this is important, right? Because to your point, like, maybe we should be talking about that. Maybe they should be asking us, hey, are you guys asking for a position? Now, I don't know if this is just specifically for the courthouse. And so they only want to have, like, their.

Like, they don't want a DAGS custodian because there's other parts of the facility. It's not just judiciary. Right. There's other parts of the civic center that are going to require custodial work. And so my thought is, and I can't speak for judiciary, because I think they would have reached out to me if they had.

Like, they wouldn't want to duplicate it. I know them well enough that they wouldn't do that or want to do that on purpose, but I do believe that it probably is related to, these are the courthouses. This is where our judges are. We don't want a DAGS custodian coming in to our secured spaces for whatever reason.

But, yeah, I can certainly go back and ask if that's the case. And, you know, our administrator is here, and I'm not sure if he can acknowledge or he understands if that's perhaps the case. Yeah, it's not specific.

I'm not. You know, my point is just to the greater. I mean, that's one piece of sand in a big sandbox that you guys own.

And so I was just wondering if there was a system, you know, and ETS was talking about efficiencies they were building in to, you know, like the Microsoft and changing over your phone systems to integrate probably into an Internet only system. And like is there, you know, there. I didn't see reduction.

You know, the budgets usually have reductions and additions and is there a way that you guys are tracking your savings over time? So there's not just an expansion of expenditure of funds that is not offset by savings because that's the nature of software. Right. It's supposed to make our lives better, faster, quicker, more efficient.

So I'm just wondering if there's any kind of data to support that.

Great question and I'll defer to our Chief Information Officer if she's got anything she would like to add to that. I would just say this though, just generally about dags. And you spoke to this right in some of your comments is that we're a broad Department and we actually service everybody else. Right.

So we're servicing every Department and that's just the nature of our business. Right. And so as departments needs grow, unfortunately so do the expenses related to that. Right.

So the only reductions that we did have in our request was moving out the security contract to DLE and then there was also handing off of some ongoing maintenance to D HERD from ets. So we did have some reductions.

But I think to your point though, you're looking for how do we do the modernization and the incorporation of some of these bigger requests capture the savings through that? It's a great question. I'll let Christine talk about it.

But yeah, I just wanted to kind of just add some context that from an operational standpoint it's really hard because we support everybody else. Right. And to make major reductions in our operations would mean not being able to support them to the level that we need to support.

Yeah. And I'm not, and I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that. I'm just wondering if you have, since you have a division based on data collection and electronic. I even forget what ETS stands for now, but Office of Enterprise Technology Services. Yes, Enterprise Technology Services.

And I wondered if there was a component where you can be, you know, we're spending $2 million going from G3 to G5 and, and it's going to result in a $350,000 savings from HO, Intel or whatever it is for this particular example, and I'm calling out specific examples, the janitor and this G3 Microsoft Suite to kind of learn more about the bigger picture because you do have a huge set of wings and I'm just wondering if there's any information you can transfer to us as a body to understand these expenditures have beneficial results and efficiencies.

Thank you for the question regarding the Microsoft upgrade from G3 to G5 is a good example. ETS is an office that its complete phone system is on the Microsoft Teams system. So we have moved off of the analog phone system. Not all departments have done that. So it's.

Right now it's been a case by case basis with the upgrade to G5. Clearly the technology is available for those departments that have not moved over and there is cost savings of moving off of the analog system onto the license, as well as efficiency, which is harder to measure, and accessibility.

So people that are working in a hybrid environment can work from home log into the Microsoft Teams. You seem familiar with it and that provides increased efficiency. So I think moving forward, those are examples of us wanting to track better what those cost savings are so we can do that. I think we.

I'm going to have to get back to you on any numbers that we have and happy to do so. And as we continue to move Forward with the G5 license to share those potential savings with you.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, just, just, you know, when you make a pitch like I'm thinking, you know, you're cutting down on vehicle traffic and emissions and you know, air conditioning at the site or whatever. Right.

So those can be all built in and they can be used as an example as you make a big upgrade like this in software. So that was just my, the General point of my questions. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time. zero, I had one more.

I'm sorry, Chair, can I do one more please, on the CIP towards the RNM items? Thank you. You know, one of the topics we've been talking about here on the finance Committee is the giant deferred maintenance backlog.

And that 40 million over the two years, is that keeping us at par or is that digging into that 1.7 billion? Like, where are we at on that?

It's a great question. I appreciate that. Because as part of our submittal we did provide overview of the DAGS deferred maintenance piece, which I think was like $321 million total. And those are for DAGs and DAGs managed facilities. Right. So that doesn't include, you know, DOE or libraries or, you know, non dags.

But DOE on the outer islands, right?

Well, no, but. So even DOE on the outer islands, we don't have, we don't incorporate that because that's all Handled by the doe if it's a CIP project, if it's like replacing a light bulb, not a light bulb, but like a switch or, you know, fixing a doorknob or a door, like those kind of things.

There's what's called a service level agreement that's in place for the neighbor island offices and operations with the DOE. That spells out, okay, what does DAGs do to support DOE? And what does DOE do to support DOE? And the cutoff line is sort of like this. It's a project.

So if it's a major project, like I got to replace a roof, I got to, you know, replace a foundation on a building, I got to, you know, do some major renovations. Right. That's all doe. DAGS doesn't track it. We don't. We're not involved.

We might, we might on a neighbor island help support from a project management standpoint, but we don't actually incorporate it into our bigger picture. Dags deferred maintenance. To answer your question about what does $20 million a year get us? Are we moving forward? Are we moving backwards? Are we even making a dent in it?

And speaking with our team, I will tell you that we probably, probably need to be somewhere in the realm of 3.4x compared to that. Right? So we're probably looking at somewhere to the tune of maybe $60 million a year, potentially, if we're going to actually stay ahead of.

Well, that's not going to get us ahead, but it'll keep us from sort of falling behind because every year something gets added to the list and 20 million is just not. It doesn't make a big enough dent in the deferred maintenance picture that we have that we're responsible for.

And because they're CIP and their longer bond funds, you know, their life and their payouts, are these allocated to projects that are going to have a longer life, like AC chillers or, you know, those kinds of things?

Spot on. It's exactly what the kind of stuff that it goes to help and support. Yep. Thanks so much.

You're welcome. Members, further questions. Representative Loy. Thank you, Chair.