Senate Standing Committee on Government Operations

Okay. Calling to order the Joint Committee on Ways and Means and Government OPS. This morning we'll hear from the Department of Accounting and General Services will give us a preview of their biennium budget requests. Good morning. Happy New Year.

Hello. Good morning, Chair. Morning, Chair. Chair McKelvey, Vice Chair Mariwocke. I don't see Vice Chair Gabbard, but Members of the Committee of Ways and Means and the Committee on Government Operations. Aloha and happy New Year.

Aloha.

Thank you for having us here this morning. Mahalo for this opportunity to be before all of you this morning. My name is Keith Regan, Comptroller and Director for the Department of Accounting and General Services. We've submitted our written testimony to the Committee that provided an overview of our operations and outlined our priorities.

In addition, you have our biennium budget requests that was submitted by Governor Green for your consideration as well. On behalf of the more than 800 hardworking DAGS team Members throughout the State of Hawaii, I would like to express our deep appreciation to the Committee for your consideration of our requests.

Chair, with your permission, I would like to just briefly introduce our leadership team from dags that have joined us here this morning, if that would be okay with you. Thank you. Joining me to my immediate left is our Deputy Comptroller, Mi Ling Silliman. Mi Ling has been an absolute gem to work with.

She is absolutely amazing, has tremendous knowledge, and we have worked effectively as a team to carry out the mission of the Department over the past two years.

And I'm eternally grateful for her patience and her expertise that she brings to this team in helping to support us to be able to move forward on the many activities and functions that we have within the Department. So thank you very much, Mi Ling, for being here.

And in order of program IDs, I'm going to go ahead and introduce our team from AGS 101102 and 103, which is our Accounting Division. Our Accounting Administrator, Lydia Nash. Please stand. Lydia was officially selected and appointed into this role as of October 162023. So we're very fortunate to have her on Our team.

From AGS104, representing our audit division. Audit Administrator Ronald Shigi. From AGS105, representing the office of Information Practices and attached agency to DAGS Director Carlotta Amarino. Ms. Amarino was recently appointed by Governor Green on December 6th. So congratulations. Thank you for being here. AGS 111, representing the Archives Division. Archives Administrator, Dr.

Adam Jansen from AGS 131, representing the Office of Enterprise Technology Services, our Chief Information Officer, Christine Sakut. For those of you that are familiar with Christine, she recently joined our team as the CIO and was appointed by Governor Green as the CIO effective August 32024. AGS 203 representing Risk Management, we have our Risk Manager Tracy Kitaoka.

AGS211 representing Land Survey Division, Administrator Reed Sirad. From AGS 221 and 223 representing our public Works Division, Administrator Gordon Wood. Gordon, who many of you are familiar with, who had been with Public Works for many years, was selected and appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Public Works division as of June 32024.

AGS 231232233 and 234 representing our Central Services Division, Administrator James Kurata, who also started with DAGs actually in August of 2023, AGs 240 and 244 representing our state Procurement Office, which is an attached agency to DAGS management analyst Jacob Jake Chang from AGS251, 252 Automotive Management Division.

Actually, our administrator was not able to attend today due to some personal issues that he had to deal with, so unfortunately couldn't be here. From AGS807 representing our neighbor Island District offices, we have our Kauai Federal. From our Kauai District Office, Administrator and Engineering Program Manager Eric Agena.

From AGS 871 representing the campaign Spending Commission, Executive Director Kristen Izumi Nitao. From AGS879, representing the Office of Elections, Chief Elections Officer Scott Nagao. From AGS881, representing the state foundation on Culture and the Arts, Executive Director Karen Ewald. Representing the King Kamehameha Celebration Commission, Executive Director Amy Hammond. Representing AGS 891, the 911 board Executive Director Royce Murakami.

From AGS 901 we have which is our Comptroller's office, we have a number of individuals that are joining us here as well and if I miss anyone, I apologize. But our Planning and Policy Analyst Tony Benabisi, as well as our Business Management Officer Mioki Ng and our Management Analyst Andrew Choi.

We also have our newly appointed Communications Officer Diane Ako, who's joining us here today as well. From our Personnel office we have our hro, our Human Resource Officer Daleen Liu. And from our Systems and Procedures Office we have our Acting Systems Manager, Sharon Orkami.

So chairs and Members, you can see just from the long list of people that I've introduced, that we have a very broad responsibility as a Department. But these people that I've introduced are truly the backbone that have helped lead the Department in its mission to provide critical services to our sister departments and the public.

We recognize that our ability to successfully serve is dependent on support from this body and we wish to express our gratitude for your ongoing trust in our ability to carry out our mission.

We are also very, very grateful to the more than 800 DAGS team Members throughout the State of Hawaii that are the heart and soul of this Department.

As reflected as I mentioned in some of my initial introductions, our Department provides 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 that they may accomplish their missions.

We strive to achieve this through the eight divisions, seven offices and 11 attached agencies that make up our Department. Through these resources, DAGS provides support to virtually every Department of our state. As our state grows, so too does the demand for our services.

Increasing demand combined with workforce challenges requires that we make investments in technology and business process modernization efforts that will help us perform more efficiently and effectively the modernization of our 55 year old financial management system known as famous.

Many of you are probably familiar with that is is one of the most transformative projects the Department has undertaken in decades. An incredible 900,000 transactions flow through the existing system with a total value of more than $72 billion. That's equivalent to the State of Hawaii's GDP being processed by a system that has well outlived its expected life.

We're happy to announce that we anticipate releasing the much anticipated RFP for the replacement of this system before the end of this month, January.

This project would not be possible without the support, the ongoing support of this legislative body and the Governor and the hundreds of state employees that have been and will continue to be a part of it. So thank you for that.

As part of this project we are investing significant resources into re engineering the way we've done business now.

And this is not a typo, but for the last hundred years, when you look at some of the processes that we have in place within our accounting division, some of those have been part of the way we do business now since it was codified back in the 20s.

So it's incredibly long and old and some very antiquated processes that need to be modernized. This is not just a technology project, but it is truly a transformation of our operations.

We're requesting and you'll see it in our budget requests, a second tranche of funding in this budget as part of our CIP, which is going to include that $35 million for the second piece of the funding of the project, but also funding for positions, staff augmentation, as well as the creation of the Business Transformation Office.

We continue to push forward on numerous brick and mortar projects that will have long term positive impacts on the community as well.

The new Aloha Stadium entertainment district, the Wahiawa Civic center, which by the way, chair I had an opportunity to visit that about a week and a half ago, went out and just check on the progress and they're making great progress on that project.

So the team has been working very hard to make sure that that project gets delivered on time and on budget, as well as the Kahalui Civic center and the Oahu Community Correctional center, just to name a few of the projects that are in our portfolio.

Our Public Works Division, with a team of only 77 people, currently has 42 projects in planning valued at $65 million, 300 projects in design valued at $1.78 billion, and 113 projects that are in construction statewide at a total value of $675 million.

That's 455 projects in various phases with a value of more than $2.5 billion that our public Works Division is expertly handling. So thank you, Gordon, for all your hard work. As projects are completed and new facilities brought online, our team at Central Services Division are developing plans to service them now and well into the future.

DAGS has direct and indirect responsibility of over 270 facilities throughout the State of Hawaii, with 109 of them located here on Oahu, 83 on Hawaii Island, 56 on Maui and 29 on Kauai. In addition, our team is responsible for managing eight cemeteries.

Yes, DAGS is responsible for cemeteries with six of those on Oahu, one on Kauai and one on Hawaii Island. You'll see in our. In various requests for. You'll see within our budget requests, the establishment of a office that will help to manage our cemetery operations throughout the state.

There are positions as well as funding to support the ongoing maintenance of these cemeteries. This will allow us to properly and respectfully provide the repair, maintenance and upkeep. The final resting place of more than 6,000 of our community Members and ancestors. We're asking for two positions and $1.0 million in operating funds in the budget.

DAGS continues to play a role in the recovery efforts of the Lahaina disaster, including through ongoing discussions related to the rebuilding of various facilities that were destroyed. During the fire, we're committed to working with the West Maui community, with our legislators, with our, with our affected departments 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 date we have received $42 million from our insurance carriers for losses related to the fire.

You will see in our budget request a ceiling increase of $200 million in anticipation of additional proceeds related to this process, which we anticipate getting over the next few years.

I wish I had time to cover other divisions and operations in this overview, but for the purposes of time, I would like to just mention one last thing before moving into the review of our requests. Although we continue to have vacancies within our Department, we've made great strides in reducing our vacancy rate these past few years.

We went from a Department wide including all attached agencies, vacancy rate of 21% in 2023 to 17% in 2024. Our team has pushed hard to recruit people into hard to fill positions with success thanks to the efforts of our administrators, D Herd, HGEA and our Daggs Human Resource team.

Just to put it into perspective, out of the 840.5 positions that we have, 701 of those positions are now filled, 139 and a half positions are vacant. 138 and a half are in active recruitment. In fact, one of the positions vacant is an engineering program Manager for Hawaii island for the East Hawaii District Office.

I have an interview, I have interviews scheduled tomorrow for that position and hopefully we'll get that filled as quickly as possible. So moving quickly and as fast as we can on that.

But engineers and architects as we know, and we've had this conversation over, you know, numerous years are some of the hardest to fill positions within the State of Hawaii. They are now on their own salary schedule which allows us to compete with the private sector. That was a huge difference wage wise with the private sector.

Now we are on a level playing field. An engineer 5 salary range is now between 102 and 130,000. Whereas before it was between I don't know, something like maybe 90 and 100 and something, 120 something thousand which made it very hard for us to compete with the private sector.

But now this has sparked new interest in people who in the past maybe would not have wanted to come and work for the state. So we're very excited about that. In addition to the engineers, we're happy to announce that the architects are also included in that additional newly created pay scale.

So we just really appreciate the hard work of HGEA of D HERD as well as our team to make that possible. We participated in job fairs. We've utilized the Hale IMUA internship program through dlir, and we've actively recruited retiring federal employees to our ranks. So there's another opportunity for the State.

If other departments already aren't already doing it. There are retiring engineers that are looking for a second career. They're retiring at, you know, age 55 to, you know, 58 years old. They still have the opportunity to work another 1015 years, and they want to be a part of this community.

So we found great success in that particular category of individuals, attracting them to our rank. And interestingly enough, through hele, we've had five interns that have worked for dags. We've actually hired one of those interns within our Systems and Procedures office. So that is a great program.

We ask that you continue to Fund that and support DLIR in that particular effort. We have much more ground to cover within DAGs related to reducing vacancies.

We recognize that we're not perfect, but we've made a lot of great progress as a team, and we recognize and appreciate BNF's efforts to eliminate positions that have been vacant for four or more years.

But we also would humbly ask that this body please consider providing dags at least one more year as it relates to those engineering positions that are on the schedule to be cut. There's actually, I think there's four engineering, five positions that are scheduled to be cut. There's a total of five, but we're just asking for the.

The fifth one is not an engineering, an engineer position. It's a contract administrator, support staff Member. But we think with the strides we've made with the. With the new salary schedule, with, you know, our success in attracting federal retirees to come and join our ranks, we think we can get those positions filled.

And so if we could humbly ask for your support in getting those returned to us, we will make every effort to get them filled. And if we don't get them filled, we'll certainly relinquish them in a future budget session, but we feel confident we can get that done.

Chair Dela Cruz Chair McKelvey Vice Chair Moriwaki Members, I'd like to just take this opportunity, if it's okay with you, Chair, to review the departments by any and budget requests as part of this process. The Department has made, actually made initial 50 requests to the Governor.

That totaled about 234 million in fiscal year 26 and 228 million in fiscal year 27. You can see this is reflected in table four, which starts on page 18 of 93 of our submittal.

Through an iterative process, we were fortunate to gain the support of the Governor and his team for much of what was initially requested by the Department.

If we turn to Table 6, which starts on page 20 of 93, this table comprises the additions that were in the Governor's Budget for our Department, and in total, the Department had an increase.

Yes, Chair Sorry, it's page 41 for us. If you go on the. Yeah, if you look it up. If you do page 41.

Okay, thanks. Sorry, Chair, apologize. And Chair, if there's any questions or, you know, if you want to please, I have. Interrupt me at any point.

But of that amount in fiscal year 26, 28 million were General funds, 7 million were special funds, 700,000 were trust funds, 140,000 interdepartmental transfers, and 200 million, which is the bulk of our request, is a ceiling increase specifically for those claims monies that we're anticipating coming in so that we can go ahead and be able to use those monies to rebuild some of these facilities that were destroyed in the Lahaina fire.

Those are revolving funds. By the way, we also did have reductions which are found in Table 5 and. Sure, I apologize. I don't know what page table 5 is on on yours, but it's 19 on ours.

You have two reductions.

Yes, two reductions totaling $7.9 million, which included the transferring out of the security contract to law enforcement, which by statute they have the responsibility of providing those types of services to state facilities. And so I know that that had been placed within dags, but we believe that a better location for that would be within law enforcement.

And they have graciously agreed to take on that responsibility. We've worked with them in the transition of that contract. They're doing a good job. They work very closely with our team and we feel confident they can continue to manage that. We'd ask for your support in that effort as well.

And then there's a small amount for it, expenses that are being pushed off to De herd as part of non recurring expenses. So, Chair, if it's acceptable, I'd like to now go through our budget requests in more detail and would ask that you please indulge me by turning to table six.

I think you mentioned it was page 4141 on your schedule, but it's entitled. Our tab is entitled the proposed budget additions. And this table provides much more detail and context on the requests that were submitted and included for the Governor's submittal.

So, Chair, the first item on the request is for an increase in and support for additional funding for our Esco lease payments of 433,000 in both fiscal year 26 and 27. And chair, would you like me to stop and just allow for questions after I go through each one of these? Just push through it.

Believe me, no one's afraid to interrupt. Thank you, Chair, appreciate that. The second item, which is our Department wide priority number five, is to add additional funds to support full year funding for two permanent positions in our West Hawaii district office. That is 128,000 for both fiscal years.

Item number three, Department wide priority number six is additional funds or adding funds for full year funding for a permanent full time groundskeeper position in West Hawaii. This is, you know, see it's 25,000. Because we've already got half year funding established for that position. We're just asking for full year funding.

The next item is for full year funding for five permanent positions within the West Hawaii District Office. Again, these were half funded positions in fiscal year 25. We're just asking that those be fully funded in fiscal years 26 and 27.

We are also requesting that the full funding be provided in the next item for our painter with the East Hawaii District Office. That is a $33.9K request for both fiscal years 26 and 27.

The next item, item number six on this list, priority number nine is to provide additional funds for the State Procurement Office specifically for the Small Business Coordinator.

And this request is in accordance with Act 168 and appropriating some funds for a five year period and also as part of HRS 103d 902 request asking for 126,000 in both fiscal years. As I mentioned, State Procurement Office is here if there's any questions specifically about that request.

Moving on, our next item that we've requested is for funding of our Hawaii Information portal, Cherry Road Enterprise expenditures. This includes funding to support cloud hosting, application Support Services and PeopleSoft Licensing. This is for our payroll system. So these monies were. This was actually handled by ETS in the past.

However, our systems and accounting branch is really where this is. This belongs within our accounting division. And so we're asking to move this funding essentially out of there and place it in the right place where it can be managed by the team that has the direct responsibility over that function. No. Yep.

As it relates to the next item, priority number 11, this is adding six positions to that, to that branch, Systems Accounting Branch, specifically for the EFS project. These are to help develop our system, our subject matter experts.

And the reason why this is so critical to get these positions in place right now is because as we're moving forward with the EFS project, once the project concludes, we're going to need the subject matter experts to help. They're basically the support desk. These are the individuals that are going to take calls from the 18 departments.

They're going to be utilizing the new enterprise financial system once it's in place, to have them in place early now to get them trained up and be A part of the project so that they're familiar from the ground level all the way up to when we're ready to launch is going to be really important for us.

So making sure that we get those positions in place is extremely critical. Included in this funding amount is also what we call staff augmentation.

And this project is going to require that existing staff that have expertise are going to have to dedicate time to the project, significant time to the project as we begin to develop it out, but their work will still be there. Right.

And so in order to accommodate that and to help the Department so that they are not overwhelmed so we don't have burnout of these individuals, we're asking for some staff augmentation funding so then we can find external people to come in, backfill those positions while they're helping to support EFS and the development of that project.

So that's included in the $2.9 million of our request. And you know that the staff augmentation piece, which equates to a little over 2 million, that's going to go away once EFS launches, right? Because we no longer will need that staff augmentation piece for the project. The next Item, priority number 12, we're asking for special project position.

This is the creation of the Business Transformation Office within the Office of the Comptroller. This is going to be specifically the project management team on efs. And so in order to get this magnitude of a project across the finish line, we're going to need a dedicated team to that project. It's not a permanent team.

The team is not going to be there in. Well, I shouldn't say that it may be a permanent team because there may be other projects that this Business Transformation Office can handle in the future after efs. As an example, modernization of our payroll system, which is going to be next after efs.

But the idea here is to create this Business Transformation Office, have the leadership team in place to manage a big project like this so that we can tackle other future projects as well. But primarily, and the primary focus of this position and of this team is EFS 100%. Right now, it's being handled by myself.

It's being handled by other people on my team who have other jobs and responsibilities. We just need somebody that's. We need a team that's absolutely dedicated to this project. That's how big this project is. So again, that's our request there. We are asking for some additional funding on the next item for electricity costs of $1.0 million.

You know, as I mentioned, we've got 270 facilities that we're responsible for. 130 of those are DAGs or DAGs managed. And so we are required to pay the electric bills. Right. For those facilities. And like everything else, those costs go up over time. And so we're asking for some additional funding to support that effort as well.

What happened to 13 and 14?

13 and 14, actually, 13 was a $50,000 request for investigative services. Yeah. They were not supported. Okay. Zero, and so I'm sorry, but 14 was the reduction in the security contract. Yes. Right, right.

And number 16, we are asking, we are asking for some security guard funding specifically for some of our CSD buildings that we're having some additional issues with.

And so we're asking for a little bit of money there to be able to hire some additional after hours staff to provide some coverage so that people aren't defecating and, you know, doing all kinds of other stuff. Some of our facilities.

How do you reconcile this then? So some security contracts go to daily and some stay with you.

We wouldn't object to it going to dle. I think this is just how it kind of fell out in the process. And so if you wanted to move that $120,000 over to DLE, I don't think know, we would not object to that.

I can see, I can actually see it making much more sense having everything with DLE and then we just. Yeah, but how would they know which buildings need support? That's where we interact with dle. Right. On our needs for the, for the facilities.

And we are, we, even though it's been transferred, they're still reliant upon us to give them feedback and input on where we need those services.

Just for the couple names.

Yeah, yeah. That's where we've been having the biggest issue right now. We've been having major issues.

Everything else is covering the reduction, correct?

Yeah.

Part of this is the design of some of the buildings. Sure. Because when you have big lawns, big setbacks, you're just inviting people. And so some.

In my discussions with some of the departments, I'm not sure why we're not working with some of the counties and making sure that the setback is minimal so that we have a larger space and then you're not having to deal with that as much.

Yeah, yeah, I, I don't disagree. I think you, you bring up a really good point. And as we move forward with our projects, in fact, if you look at the, the Kahului Civic center project, they are pushing right up to the street.

I mean, they are as close to the street, I think as we can get on that project as I recall looking at some of those plans. So to your point, we got to push that envelope, Right. We need to. Sure. We still have to have some esthetics. Right. We still need to make it look nice.

But yeah, we don't need these large sweeping, you know, 100 foot wide.

It just depends where. So I mean, I'm just going to speak maybe downtown Hilo or even the urban part of Wahawa. Traditionally there were no setbacks. Right. So I'm not sure why the county requires setbacks in areas that traditionally and especially old plantation towns. Yeah. There were awnings, the sidewalk and then you could walk in.

Now there's all these setbacks. Yeah. Which don't fit the character of the community. And then it just allows what you're talking about. Yeah, that's right. One loitering. So that got to be reconciled.

But it's not only just a setback, stalling the area that you're talking about in that community, they have a whole new or encampment of houseless people. So the influx of the houses hanging in the area at night has nothing to do with the lawn.

They just go through the building to go to the next destination by the city where they all hang out on the streets and everything. So that's the area you're talking about. They're not really on the lawn like they are at, at the Kapolei police station.

They're mostly coming in and using, you know, whatever they're doing on the facility. There's so much hanging out there in the lawn, right?

Yep.

This is going through the property and using a bachelor. That's what it is.

So your security comes in though, right?

Yeah. And, and you know, it's been effective in the capital district. It's been effective. We've shown that, you know, by having a presence we are deterring a lot of like some of the activities that used to happen here in the district. So a good example is Kalani Moku. Our.

Our gate has been broken, you know, for a couple of weeks now. The gate into the, into the charge of fixing that. That' but it's a parts issue. We're trying to get a part, you know, to fix it. So it is what it is. Right.

I mean, I, but, but yeah, I mean, and, and my point of bringing that up is we've got 24 hour presence in this area and they make periodic visits to the facility. They make throughout the night. To make sure that there's no one coming into the garage causing problems or even on the property itself.

And you know I was down at the DOTAX building one night. I had to. So as you know my wife works for DLIR and she had to pick something up from her office so I brought her in and this must have been about 8:30 at night.

Sure enough, as I'm waiting for her, she's getting whatever she needed to get. Here comes API security, who's our contractor pulls up and they literally did their rounds while I was there. So I know they're doing their job right. They're, they're, they're patrolling our facilities and they are removing people that don't belong there throughout the night.

So it is effective.

It is definitely effective with the securities. Then what about all of those people or I call the ninjas when they start taking over our buildings and what do you call that? The, all the graffitis that's happening. Has graffitis been prevalent or some prevalent on our, our buildings, our state buildings?

You know, not as much, not so much on our state buildings.

Counties.

Yeah, I think so. Where we're having problems invite people.

No need to announce that. Yeah. Public Tigers Towers.

Why are you asking? Is because. Well that's a good answer.

We're doing a very good job asking.

Is that the security is working.

It is working. It is working.

You know that these ninjas are not.

Around at least not state facility. So we appreciate that.

API has a contract. Is that not so it's going to be transferred to deal. It has been.

Yeah, yeah.

It has happened with the API or they still look.

No, because they have, there is actually procurement in place to allow for them to take it over. Yep, yep, yep. And they've been doing a great job. So. Okay, so moving on to the next, the next item which is Department wide priority number 17. We're asking. This is way too Low in a.

Number but yes, we, and, and if you'd like to we certainly could use additional staffing there. But we, we anticipate that the project will be completed in fiscal year 27 and so we're going to need that custodial, that individual to help us maintain that facility on a day to day basis.

And as you know chair, it's very, it's a long distance to get out there to Iowa and so if we were to bring staff from Kapolei or from in town it would just be a very inefficient process and there'll be a lot of people in that facility and we're going to need to have full time coverage.

And so our request there is for the position as well as some of the, the necessary equipment to be able to do the job out there. And again, happy to have more positions if you'd like to, you know, provide them. Yeah. And just a note that that amount is for half year funding. Yeah. For that position.

The next item is to, is for some fencing contracts. You know, one of the things that we've noted here in the Capital District, even though we've got a really good security program in place, is that, you know, you still have issues like as an example with some of our facilities where I'm just, you know, using.

Here's a really good example of some of the memorials. Right. Where people are going in and desecrating the memorials and you know, having some, you know, well placed fencing I think, and, and well designed fencing can help prevent some of that activity that's happening.

I was just thinking about the, the war memorials that are located over here by Richard Street. It's kind of in an off. Off the way place. Or is it that way? Sorry. But you know, people are going in there, they're pulling letters off.

I mean, I don't know why they're doing this kind of stuff, but you know, we just can't be there all the time. But having a fence that we can close off, like when hours are, you know, when it's off hours or after hours would help to secure that place.

So I have a question. Is this total fencing? Because I see you have 250,000. It's not enough. I. Are you doing, are you helping other agencies like Department of Ag, the corrections. I think the corrections request is for like $18 million. So I don't know if that's a different kind of perimeter fencing.

Probably get maybe talk with them to see what can be done.

No, you don't want a prison fence around the world. I mean it should be aesthetic and design nice.

Correct. The idea would be to have something like what is surrounding Iolani palace or around the Hemeter building. Something like that. Regal. And it's, you know, appropriate to show respect for the, you know, the memorial that we're protecting. Yeah.

Which is awkward because the governor's home. The fence is chain link in the back. Yeah, yeah. Next to the Lily building.

Yeah. Anyway, but yeah, so, so, you know, we, we hope to get some of that work done with the funding request that we have in and yeah.

Match the rest of the property. Correct.

I understand. Thank you. We'll, we'll Definitely look at it and see.

I mean, he can advocate. I'm sure they can advocate, but we pass it every day when we all drive in.

Horns on it. Arms. Now, I've never seen arms used. What is the purpose?

Which arms? Yeah, that, that, that will eventually become part of our closure, if you will, of the parking structure within the state capital facility itself, which would only limit it to employees and authorized individuals to come into the parking structure. This is way down the road. This is not like happening next year.

Yeah, but the gate, you know, if we put the gate up and down excessively, it's going to cause additional problems. Those gates are not designed to be, you know, constantly going up and down. Constantly. It. Well, they, they do, they function. They just are in opposition. Correct.

Because we're not ready to, you know, close off the facility yet. And, and eventually the idea was to put a guard when there's a close.

Confirmation vote that all of a sudden they'll work.

You said that you shouldn't be going, the gates going up and down, but yet you're going up and down and you've got the arms and you're not using it. The arms is it, Senator.

So when we do close the parking structure, which is going to be down the road, once we have additional parking created, we're talking probably, you know, four to five years from now. That's a prior project.

The DAGs had a prior project which was funded, I think, through some of the ARPA monies that we got to do some of these improvements. And the idea was to have a guard shack actually right there in the middle where a sheriff would control the ingress and egress the round of people. That's correct. That's correct, yes.

Like the office we have is part of that. Nobody's ever there, ever been there.

Well, now they do it by camera. That's right.

They do it remotely. They're doing it from inside the office. Yeah.

These things, you use federal monies because you have them. Yeah. And then it's like, you know, the screening machines.

Which we've looked for and we never found. So I, I don't know where those screening machines went to back, you know, 10 years ago or whatever, but.

But now you have these arms that's been on for I don't know how many months.

Yeah, yeah.

Telling me it's locked down the lines another four years. By that time, I don't know the. Arm'S gonna work because.

Yeah, because, Senator, we need the parking right in place first before we can shut down.

But that's a plan. Where's the plan so that we don't have stuff that outdated five years from now, when you go ahead and have this parking, you know, you put the horse before the car. It's crazy horse with the cart before the horse.

Yeah. Hence the planning request. Right. This.

Correct this. I mean, even though the planning. There's a planning request that we'll get to.

Yes. This preceded. Yes.

So we're not even using it and justify it by saying that you shouldn't be going up and down with this.

Well, the gates are. Are huge. Right. Those gates that exist now, the gate. The metal gates that are in place are huge. And the motors to operate those gates are not designed for constant up and down in order to prevent ingress and egress. Right.

They're not designed for that, but the arms are.

Yeah, but you're not going to use them for them.

I totally understand. Okay. I think maybe Farrington can use them.

No, I understand.

Yeah.

And then after five years, you bring.

I understand your point, Senator, and I. I appreciate where you're coming from on it. And, you know, but this is a project that was. Well, before. Well, it's not. Yeah.

Anyways, real quickly, you guys would do the security plans, but now everything's going to dle. Are they going to be doing security planning and updates and so they're going to be handling bollards and other types of improvements? Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. And. And you know, Director Lowe has been extremely engaged in this process.

Public Works is still going to do it.

We'll help to support them. Yes. Yes.

So did you hire a consultant to put up these arms?

I. I was not part of that project, so I'd have to go back and take a look and see. But.

Because I have a question. Can I ask about consultants and stuff?

Yeah. Well done. How many more we got? We got a bunch more because we got to get into the ets.

If you have a question specifically about the table, then just interrupt. But if not, why don't we wait till the table's done and then.

Sure. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Senator. And thank you, Chair. So, moving on after the fencing contract is our 19th priority request, which is increasing some of the fringe benefits for our neighbor island district offices. These are for the U. Funded positions that the DOE supports us in. These are. I'm sorry.

I have a question. So you asked for West Hawaii more positions.

Not more positions. Just a full year funding for already.

Approved positions already funded. So. So you're those. Your positions are also helping the doe? Yes. It's all like all together in terms of the county.

That's correct. Yep. Yep.

Still on begun. And I. No, he's on. I was asking because. For the positions for Big Island.

No, which. Which line?

Well, you're talking about the positions and our issue on Big Island.

Which priority line? Which one?

Well, okay, why don't you keep going until you can find it?

Okay.

As long as it has to. Because you were on Big Island.

No, why don't we go nine by line and then when we're done with this, then we can ask questions. Okay.

The next Item, priority number 20, is for some funding both for positions as well as equipment to support our archives modernization initiative. And we're asking for 130,000 and two half time positions to help support some of those initiatives. And you can read through some of this.

But really it is to just make it way more efficient so that we can better manage all of the documents that we have that are stored there. Our priority item number 21 is we're asking for that $200 million increase in our ceiling for the revolving Fund specifically for risk management.

This is to accept the claims monies that are going to be coming in over the next year or two from our insurance providers related to the fire. And priority number 22, which is to request the cemetery management office. I kind of led with this in my opening comments. But we have eight cemeteries right now.

We have a little under 30 acres of cemetery property in total. The majority of them are located here on Oahu. There's six here and then there's two on the neighbor islands. We have. We don't have any on Maui, but we do have one on Kauai and one on Hawaii Island.

Currently, the way that this is being handled is when we have time, we'll get out there and do it. And so oftentimes it gets neglected. We don't have staff to be able to send out to properly maintain. There are, you know, there's vandalism that occurs at some of these final resting places.

It's very, you know, unfortunately, you know, this desecration needs to stop. And the only way we can do it is by providing the resources to be able to take care of our cemeteries that are now in our charge. There's an entire statute hrs110 dedicated to this where it clearly puts this responsibility with the comptroller. I don't.

I guess maybe that's how General Services operates. We just get everything. But I'm going to. I'm taking this very seriously. Because for me, this is the final resting place, you know, of 6,000 individuals who were part of our community.

They still have loved ones that are here who want to go and visit, you know, these final resting places.

And in order for us to properly and respectfully treat those final resting places, we need the positions to manage it, and we need the funding to be able to bring in the resources to go out and take care of these facilities.

Who's resting in these places?

You know, so former citizens, people that lived in.

How do they. I mean, you have eight cemeteries and you've got 6,000 people resting in them. Who are they and should it be more self sustaining?

The reason why they come to the state is because the original operators of those cemeteries no longer exist. And it that property then reverts to the state.

And so dlnr, previously privately run.

Privately, it could be a church, could be, you know, some kind of operator, you know, private operator. Yeah.

Through the years, legislators tried to, like the Pearl, take care of their district or whatever.

Like the Pearl City one, right? Yeah.

You see, with dcca, now it's with you guys, it's either with us or on its way to being with us.

So they're all private, abandoned, or is there any like.

Yeah, I don't know, like the history on each and every one of them. But I do know for a fact that these are former church cemeteries, some of them. And some of them are private operator cemeteries who no longer exist. They just don't exist anymore.

And so DLNR gets the property, and then dlnr, by statute, transfers it to dags.

But not all are cemeteries, right? Some are graveyards.

All eight? Well, all eight of them are.

One has a church, one doesn't. Yeah, I didn't know that.

On the cemeteries comptroller, are any of the cemeteries that you have in your custody, are there any veterans buried? I'm sure, yeah.

I don't have. I can't.

You know, just to clarify, because I know DoD has cemeteries, but it's veteran cemetery, so this is different.

These are not veteran cemeteries, but there may be veterans in turn there.

And I know Senator Aquino, Senator Wakai and I, we were working on the Sunset Memorial park that chair McKelvey brought up. So is DAG's position not to take any more future cemeteries, or are you guys open to taking cemeteries?

I don't think we have a choice. Right. I mean, I think once that property is accepted by the state, by statute, it comes to Dags. So hrs110 is pretty clear about that process. And. But in order for us to be able to accommodate additional cemeteries, we're going to need the funding, you know, for this program. It's. It.

To me, it's important. It was important enough for a legislative body at some point in time to create an entire statute section in the statute for it. And so. And we have, for whatever reason, Dags has tried to manage it, you know, without having specifically dedicated resources or funds to it.

And we just can't do it properly and we can't do it in a respectful way for these. For these people that are there. And so we're asking for your support in that request.

Is this growing thank you or it's just. You have eight and that's it, or it just depends.

It depends over time because other legislators might say, hey, my district, there's nobody taking care of it. And it puts. So it's gonna. I mean, we won't be here. There'll be other legislators, and it might be our graveyard cemetery that you might actually take care of, but you don't want any more.

And what was great about the West Hawaii one, it was designated for the veterans. And so that's clean. No, but that's a different. So that's different. You're inherited. The older cemeteries. And.

And I'm not going to say that I don't want anymore. All I can say is that by statute, we're required.

It's not his call. Yeah. It's what the Legislature decides in the future, right? Zero, yeah.

Well, that's the thing. So that's the thing. So some of these, actually, the county thought they belonged to them, but then it was discovered. It. It doesn't belong to the county. It belongs to the state.

So, you know, I mean, but at the end of the day, I just want to be able to properly take care of these final resting places in a respectful manner. And I just ask. I humbly ask for your support in the development of this program. So.

Amen.

There might be. I mean, I think at some future point, if you don't think this is the way. The best way to fulfill the statute, you know, maybe we should create a trust Fund and. And a state nonprofit that just does that so that it, you know, I mean, we should just explore it, because if.

If the current model doesn't work or it doesn't seem to be working, then we should maybe look at different models to fulfill this started with.

Was a trust Fund idea when he did.

And so anyway, we should move on.

Okay. And now I'd like to transition over to our CIO our Chief Information Officer. She's going to lead us through a number of requests that we have. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, our cio, Christine Sakuda, recently came on board to the team and she's been doing an amazing job.

I've had an opportunity to work with her when she was at thg, and now I have an opportunity to work very closely with her as the head of the Office of Enterprise Technology Services. And so with that, I would. Chair. Like to turn it and. zero, I'm sorry, Cherokeno.

I would like to turn it over to Christine to go through her priority requests.

Mahalo.

Good morning.

Aloha. Chair Aquino, Chair Dela Cruz, Chair McKelvey, Vice Chair Mariwocke and Members of the Committee. My name is Christine Sukuda and I am. It's my pleasure to serve as the State CIO for the Office of Enterprise Technology Services. The mission of ETS is to advance operational excellence of government through trusted collaboration, partnerships and technology leadership.

To the spirit of Aloha. We ensure critical state 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 requests that we're going to go through, and all of these support that mission.

Wait, you know, before we continue, can you just describe to the Committee the Bill that passed on how the. The management between the two offices or the relationship between your office and her office has changed?

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. And so. So hrs, I think, IS 26.6 was modified to allow for a number of things. One is to allow for exempt employees related to modernization to be within the Comptroller's office, which is the. Now allows us to do the business transformation office. Right. Those kind of things. But it also.

There is also part of the legislation that was enacted that now has the Chief Information Officer be appointed by the Governor but report directly to the comptroller.

In the past, it was appointed by the Governor and reporting directly to the Governor, which made it a little awkward for the Department because if you look at the language that establishes ets, it didn't. It never said that it was an attached agency.

And so the comptroller always was in this weird place where, you know, she or he didn't have direct management or oversight over. And I don't mean this in any way to diminish the importance of the. Of the role of the cio, but of the division head, essentially. Right.

So now we've clarified that, thanks to Your support, thanks to this body, support the governor's support that that language has been changed.

This was, this was a result of the concern. Remember, we had the $8 billion that not disappeared, but just wasn't spent wisely. And so that Bill passed thanks to Chero. Yeah. So we have to, you know, those cleanups have to occur. So there's more accountability like the comp is saying. Right.

So. So, you know, and, and what that has done, from my perspective, is now we work extremely close. Right. We're caught. We're constantly meeting. We're constantly talking about the needs of ets. We're constantly talking about the needs of the state from a, from their perspective. Right. Related to it and some of the modernization efforts that she needs.

Wants to do. And here I am supporting that effort. Right. And making sure that she can do what she needs to do.

So way more coordination than before.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So with that, I would like to turn it over to our cio.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Comptroller. The first item, which is priority 23, adds funds for the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement subscription. The state currently executed a one year Microsoft G5 licensing agreement. We are upgrading from G3 to G5, which is actually a very big upgrade. And we got that because it's such a big upgrade.

We got it at a 35% discount. So the.

This is for all departments? Yes. Yeah. Okay, good. Because last year the departments were coming in one by one because the CIO was in support of it. And so I'm glad to see that this is a lot more consolidated and coordinated.

Yes, thank you, Chair. We anticipate up to 14,500 licenses statewide. Like sustainability. Yeah. Yes, thank you. The second, the next priority, priority 24, adds funds for cybersecurity risk mitigation. The primary goal of the ETS Cybersecurity program is to protect the state infrastructure and its data. So common threats include data breaches, distributed denial of service, and ransomware.

So this provides support for cybersecurity risk mitigation efforts. Priority 25 adds funds for the High Wind, which is the Hawaii Wireless Interoperability Network. Sorry about that. Skip the acronym telecommunications system Maintenance and Warranty. So the High Wind system supports the. The radio towers that are scattered across all islands.

And it's that network that is used by emergency response servicemen and women. And that especially was held true during the Maui disaster. When there isn't any Internet, the first responders depend on the radio systems to provide first response. And so this request of 630,000 provides just maintenance and operations for the network.

Priory 26 adds funds for the Adobe Enterprise Term License Agreement Like Microsoft, we support the Enterprise Agreement for Adobe. The state is currently in the final year of a three year Adobe Enterprise Term License. It covers everything from E sign to Adobe Acrobat Pro and cloud services and that is about 150,000.

The next priority is priority 27 as funds for advisory Services. These services will provide critical support services in key areas. IT helps with informed decision making.

IT helps with the state IT strategic planning, which we're mandated to do, and helps ETS just stay current on what is happening around the world and in the country in terms of digital transformation and modernization efforts. Priority 28 adds funds for the data center decommission and migration of services. This is for 1.6 million.

This request will allow ETS to continue modernizing and optimizing the state's IT systems, enhancing security and reliability and efficiency. The proactive investment will help avoid costly pitfalls, improve operational performance, and demonstrate the state's readiness to sustain and grow its enterprise.

So is this the system that will connect all of the agencies in the paper.

Role and so forth with Doe.

This, this priority number 28. Thank you for that Question is provides capacity to manage the current data center that's within the, the Kalani Moku building in the basement and helps us to migrate the old infrastructure that is and the old mainframe equipment that applications are on to a new modern system.

Well, we've been talking about for years now and why we had original CIO come on board to connect all departments because I understand there's like thousands of different emails and just you know, we have overpayments because they keep telling us that the payroll system cannot keep track of people who run out of vacation, run out of sick leave.

And I want to talk about that because we have over $1.0 million in overpayments consistently, which is crazy that we're spend that kind of money. And so what portion of your work in this budget is going to connect that put everybody on a system.

This request here actually supports and maintains the current infrastructure that FAMOX is currently on. So we work ETS works very closely with the comptroller office.

The modernization of the enterprise financial system will help to alleviate some of those challenges as well as the integration of the financial system to other key state back office programs like the HIP system, payroll and time and attendance.

So can you say that in, in normal language the public can understand what the ask.

So it's the, the, the finance and accounting system and the payroll time dependence.

Now is all fragmented, right? Yes, fragmented.

And, and year 10 years now we've been talking about modernizing and bringing it all together, you know, and that a lot of the departments are fighting it because they want to keep their own little Cadillacs that is outdated and they can't get parts for it because everybody had not off the shelf but custom made things.

So the CIO was supposed to bring all of this together. We've not seen that yet. And every time we talk about overpayments it's the payroll system. So you know, I've been, I've been, I've been here for 24 years in the Senate been talking about overpayments and haven't seen a dent in this change.

So can you tell us in plain language when can we expect to have this come together so that we can have one system?

Yeah. So thank you. And we, we share your, you know, your concern about this issue. More like frustration and frustration we share. With it too because we got to, we have to deal with it too. Right. Like as a Department we have to deal with it.

So dollars is Band aids. Every time you come before, it's Band Aid, Band Aid, Band Aid. But it doesn't solve the problem.

But, but the, the primary issue that we need to solve as part of the development of this enterprise resource planning that ERP that we're talking about really. Right. Is the backbone first. Right.

The foundation, which is EFS, the financial management system that we have currently famous 50 old, no longer supported, written in an ancient, you know, language that nobody even teaches in school anymore.

So what's the solution?

So again, EFS is the key. It's the key to this thing. We get the modern. We get a modernized financial management system in place. The next phase of that is a modern payroll system. What they're calling is a human capital management system. HCMS is now the terminology that's used.

It's no longer just like a separate HR and payroll system. It's comp. It's combined. It's a human capital management system which includes payroll and the HR functions.

Right.

That's the next phase that needs to come after we get the backbone, the foundation and which is when is EFS done then? So we got. We're hopefully we're going to issue the RFP at the end of this month or before we want to.

In the next two to three years, the project, you know, should be completed and EFS should be live.

So we won't. We'll have to wait another, at least three years before you start the payroll. Okay.

Well, it's not human capital. It won't be linear. Right. So it's going to be, I think we can do it.

Some overlap.

Yes. Yeah. So we can start that process as we kind of get towards the end of EFS.

I've heard this 10 years ago. Yeah, I've heard this eight years ago. I've heard this six years ago. I've heard this four years ago. So I'm hearing it again now. So, I mean, I don't want to be.

Structurally change. I think that the. And I appreciate that. And I.

Now, how many CIOs have we been working?

We do have a plan.

Just move along.

And I'm, I am, Senator, I am excited about where we're heading with this and I'm going to tell you why.

But I've heard this exact same words from previous directors. Yeah. That's why I'm sitting here. I will put my angles. Have we been through.

I understand they didn't have this.

Yeah. But exactly the same thing. Hear this voice.

But now, but now if they do it again, then we gave you. The structural change we gave you the resource.

Yes, but in four years we'll be saying the same thing. Well, I'm hoping.

But part of it is now the CIO has a different reporting structure. So that's a huge change that I hope is going to make a difference.

It. It is.

And it has been the status of. What you've done so far. Make a difference. Henry's going to be on there.

Tell us what you've done that's different than what it was before. Like meeting with all the departments, the users.

Yeah. Thank you. By sure, I mean the way that we're approaching the development of this project is unlike anything we've done in the past. We have involved the funk. This is a.

Okay, you know what? Why don't. What you. Why don't you go back.

Yeah.

Do a. I don't know, a white paper on it with the timeline so at least we can see where that is. And then. Yeah, you know, we can to some extent hold you accountable based on that.

Yeah, no, I. I appreciate that. But what I just wanted to just mention really quick is that the way we're approaching this project is different than any other project we've done in the past. Before. It's all been technology focused, primarily everything technology. But because we have this closer working relationship.

Yeah. Because way dep. On one person. So I was a CIO way over here.

So now. Now it's functionally led. This project is functionally led. Our. Our. Our people with knowledge and understanding of fiscal operations within the state are invested in this project. They part of it. They've helped us to develop the rfp. They are in lock step with us on this project. Unlike. Unlike. It's. That is.

That is not how it was in the past. In the past, it was primarily driven by. From a technology perspective, you do it. We're going to change this. I don't care what you say. Right. Like you're gonna. You're gonna have this new system that's.

Going to be band aid approaches of your Committee.

And it is because that's what happened with payroll.

If people fought them and the Governor wouldn't say, you do it. And so they didn't come along. They couldn't bring everybody. Because every Department.

Yes, to a certain extent. Talking about what was the case. Zero, I get it.

Okay, that's.

And then the case. So that was the case. And then the $8 million that got spent was just reiterated that they. They spent money to go and ask every Department. Yeah. Questions. And they got paid $8 million, nothing moved.

Yeah. And, and we're not going to do that. Right? Like, I mean, I made that commitment and I look and I, I'll just put it out there. I mean, I, I'm a civil servant. I, although I'm, I am an appointee right now as comptroller and I'm the Director of this Department.

I'm also formerly the business management officer at dcca and I had to deal with this stuff. Okay. And I will tell you that when my term is over and I, if I do go back to public service somewhere in the state, I don't want to have people coming up to me and say, why didn't you fix this?

You had an opportunity, you failed. Right. I don't want to see you at, you know, out in the public and you go, you know, Keith, I told you, you know.

I don't want to do that. So there's a lot. My point in bringing that up is I committed to this project in a way that, you know, I'm.

Right.

Okay, we'll do your white paper and then next year we'll know.

Yeah, we'll give you that. We'll give you the write up, the timeline of, you know, kind of where we are. And you know, Christine's got all that. She's been working on it very closely with her team. And so we'll get it to you folks.

But you know, Senator, and I appreciate, and I, look, I'm not trying to fight you on this. I agree with you. I hear your frustration. I feel your frustration. I felt it myself being on the outside. But we, we're, we really want to get this done. We're committed to getting it done.

We're going to do everything we can to get it done.

Exact same statements you're making were made by other. I get that.

Okay.

I'm just saying that I, I, I get that. Forgive me if I don't, if I'm not buying the story now, but Senator.

You'Ve asked me for things, right. You've asked me for, like as an example, the report.

Other people, well, they, they come through and they did come through on other stuff. I get that.

Not an excuse, but so far I think I've been very responsive.

So, so, so Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

So this Director, the, the hcms.

Yes.

That you talk about. Yes. What, what does that cost?

Yeah, I mean, so the financial management system, we're estimating the cost to be, you know, 65. Approximately 65 million. So, you know, and HCMS, that's going to be A significant cost as well. It might even be as much because we're not just talking about replacing payroll, but we're also talking about replacing the HR component. Right.

That is within the D herd.

How often do you guys do overpayments of $1.0 million?

Overpayments of $1.0 million. Like to. Somebody gets $1.0 million check in an overpayment. In General, we're tracking overpayments and right now the most recent report shows that we have a total with all departments of about $1.0 million in overpayments that have been made. So you know, we generate a report.

In fact, I submit, I provide a report on, on our overpayments to track that. And our, our accounting division tracks that and advises the departments that they're having issues with overpayments. And it's up to the departments to then go back and claw back those funds that have been overpaid. We. So it's not DAGS overpaying them, right?

I mean these hours are submitted, you know, by the departments. They're supposed to be audited by the departments. They're supposed to make sure that everything is correct. Because we have an antiquated payroll system. Sometimes they miss deadlines, sometimes they put in things wrong and we end up with an overpayment.

So the system in General would basically help to alleviate or prevent like the late payouts of, you know, teacher.

A modernized system with modernized processes is going to reduce the amount of time that it takes to process payroll and allow us to be able to resolve those issues.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Okay, I know you guys have lots of other questions and we can't. How many more pages do we have for your. Where are you? How many more.

Shall I continue on? Priority 29.

Okay.

Okay, thank you. Priority 29 adds funds for the independent verification and validation. The IV and V effort for the Enterprise Financial System Modernization project. It's the effort that helps ensure that the projects stay on track. The big IT modernization projects stay on track. That's over $1.0 million.

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 helps to complement that. Priority 31 adds funds and one permanent FTE for a Data and AI Equity Manager.

This new position is authorized by Act 203 at MLH 2024 to address language barriers and to ensure equitable access of information and assistance for all residents, especially with Those with limited English proficiency. Priority 32 adds funds to establish a data AI office and AI risk management tools and geospatial license for 1.6 million.

Included in this are four different type types of tools. Data governance, data sharing.

Why do we have to establish a new office? Why can't an existing office just take on these responsibilities?

Actually, this, it's not really an office within ETS formally establishing. We're just trying to build the tools within the Office of Enterprise Technology Services versus establishing a new office. Our priority. That's what we named and it's probably not named very well. It's really to use the current structure that we have within ets.

Our Chief Data Officer included will be leading the effort to build infrastructure that enables projects across departments to share information securely and effectively. With regards to AI. Including AI. Yes, yes. So currently one of the big efforts that we're working on is establishing policies that help the departments govern how their employees use data and use.

All of departments want to use AI to help them solve their problems. And so we want to make sure that we provide guidelines and are able to enforce that as effectively as possible.

So the budget, the 1.6 million is a contract out for services or what, how are you planning to use.

It's a combination of two things. One is it actually includes four different tools. So we're going to be purchasing the tools in the software and we're also going to be contracting out for skill sets to help us manage those tools and implement those tools.

Good question, chair. So the 1.6 is just dags share among the different departments.

Or is it the whole cost of everybody? So it's the overall cost. Overall cost to recoup some of those costs with some of the partners that we're working with across the Department.

Okay, got it, got it, got it.

Thank you. Thank you. So there won't be any duplication of this in other budget requests?

I can't speak for the other departments, but hopefully.

Well, they shouldn't, they shouldn't be.

If it's supposed to be. Yes. Just remind us, through the Office of Enterprise Technology Services, is this part of.

The consolidation effort that we have that all the departments are still working with you on that? Yes. So they will be informed and be part of this effort?

Yes, and we share this part of this proposal was developed to the data Task Force that has Members of different departments on the task force to make sure that there is buying and readiness for us to, you know, purchase the tools, implement the tools and use the tools across the departments. So they're actually asking.

The departments are asking for help from the central IT office to help them enable them to share data across the system, which is happening on a more manual way now. Makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I still think there has to be a look at how it is structured, you know, and there was some discussion in the past where it would be more similar to the Attorney General's Office where all the IT would be consolidated and then reassigned to departments so that there was more then that way.

And I think this happened during COVID where people were gone. If everyone were consolidated, then you could redeploy people to different departments if someone's out or something close right now that's not the case. It's still fragmented.

It is fragmented. But one of the things that we accomplished this past year, Chern and was submitted to the Legislature, which is our state IT strategic plan. The state IT strategic plan is developed, is updated once every four years.

And this past year we worked very closely with the Department leadership, talking to both the directors and the deputies as well as their IT directors to have really honest conversations about how can we develop a meaningful state IT strategy that is implementable not only by ets and I get that.

But going back to Senator Kim's point about hearing the same thing over and over and if you keep everything the same, you're going to get the same. And so that's where I think if it was at least in that respect, having all the ITA consolidated and then reassigned and then you could deploy like the Attorney General does.

I mean, I think that's something that needs to be.

We'll definitely look into that more. We, part of our priority is to really streamline the enterprise licenses that we host like Microsoft and like Adobe and expand that out so that we make it easier for the departments.

Yeah, but going back to what we said, if one Department says, well, I'm not participating, I'm not going to do that, especially with the Microsoft and so now what?

That shouldn't be allowed.

Or several departments. Well, I'm not going to do that. See, so you're smiling because you know that that's the problem.

That is the problem.

Okay, so what you're going to do. But that's what we have to restructure and figure out a way how that's not a problem anymore. Right.

It needs to be the super user.

I'm sorry, one more time.

It needs to be the super user.

Right. You know, the Attorney General's Office is mainly exam positions, so I don't know you know, I think that, that anyway, those are things I think you need to think about.

We are seriously looking at that.

Anyway. Okay.

Okay, I'm going to move on. Happy to take more questions, but I'll move on to priority 35. This adds funds for the government private hybrid cloud. EGS is seeking additional funds $400,000 to continue the expansion of the government private cloud to the public cloud to greatly reduce our current reliance on state maintained physical hardware.

So this is our effort to really move older infrastructure to newer infrastructure for sustainability.

Priority 37 adds funds for website accessibility and training program for 200,000 ETS is seeking funding for an enterprise success plan with partnering to provide a statewide accessibility training schedule, accessibility maturity assessments, manual accessibility testing and so on and priority 38 as funds for the digitization of control and client services binders.

So it's just 11 of many efforts to digitize the current old paper that we have that contains very valuable information. And this is located within the basement of the Kalanimoku building as part of our, our mainframe support.

So this is continuing or beginning?

This is beginning.

So why do you think it's taking, why, what took so long to get started?

I can't, I can't answer that question.

I don't want to talk about digitizing quite a bit of things for a while and I can't.

It's one of those areas I think chair that we, you know, identified during this last cycle that needs to be addressed. And so we're putting that request forward. And part of it is, if I recall the request properly, we have, you know, like as an example our financial management system, right. The existing FAMO us. Right.

How do we, you know, capture some of those operating manuals, right. And make sure that we never lose them Potentially, even though we're going to replace the system, we still need to, you know, kind of have that in a place that's never going to be, you know, subject to war.

I'm just surprised that some of this is only now starting to follow up on that.

So the people that's working on it stuff now, I know you are new, but who was what was in place when you got there? I mean people were doing digitization.

Well, we currently have a FTE shortage of over 25%. About 25%. And so the people that are working on the mainframe and working on the legacy systems are there to really support the critical infrastructure. We just did not have the opportunity to for a concerted digitization effort which is what we're asking for.

Here, because it is important infrastructure, and it's one of my priorities to make sure that we migrate off of our legacy systems and migrate out of the basement. And this is part of the effort to do that.

This is contract, though. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. And I, and I understand that, but even though you're new and maybe the rector's new, we have people in this room who has been working on these stuff for years. So it's. They're not new. So it's like, what are we doing? So just because the leaders are new, what's been going on?

So I think that needs to be raised and discussed. Right.

Yeah. But Kalani Moku, I mean, even the fact that you're still at the basement of Kalanimoko, I mean, why are we still talking about that? Because we all know that's not the best place. It's floods. Yes, that is why.

Priority one of the priorities is to decommissioned. What is that?

Priority 1001.

Actually one now. And there's also some funding in our CIP request that's going to help us with rearranging some of the space and, and maximizing the space at Kalanimoku, which would include some of the stuff.

Even the right place, though.

Well, I don't think the basement is the right place. And so what's interesting about Kalanimoku Chair is that on the fourth floor we've got a relatively large, what we call swing or surge space, where if we need to move departments out or operations out of other places to renovate their space, we can put them there temporarily.

It's on the fourth floor of our building. You're welcome to come take a look at it anytime. But, you know, I asked our team, I said, why are. Why are we saving prime space on the fourth floor for surge or, you know, swing space when we need it, when we have a.

It's higher operations. So you want to give the Department, the other departments, the basement?

No. Well.

Well, so they can.

They can be there temporarily. So that. So that when they move in there, they're going to want to go back. Yeah. And not. Right. Constantly, you know, live there forever. Right. Kind of thing. So. But the idea, to your point, Chair, is, you know, ETS doesn't belong in the basement. They belong.

And you. You have, you have what? Everybody back. Because when we took a tour several years ago, back to back, it was almost empty.

Yeah. It's a high. It's a hybrid model. When I first started, it was two days in and three days work out of the office. And now it's three days in and work two days out of the office.

So one of my priorities is to make sure, especially coming out of COVID to make sure that the staff is connected, is working well together so that we may achieve all of the priorities that we have here.

But Keith, you know, that idea about rearranging the entire building and looking at the agencies makes sense because I've walked into several offices that have nice door going in and empty lobby, beautiful lobbies. And then you look for the staff during the back. Yeah, waste of space. So that's a good idea, rearranging all the agencies.

They have no authority to say no, but you know, something to look at.

But part of that is supposed to be reducing the space because of hoteling though. So I'm not sure if you're doing that because when we went there though, I mean the basement is quite large and you can see it was just like this big room. And then there were conference room almost convention hall looking room. Right.

And it was almost empty.

Right.

Would everyone stuff animals on their desk and all of that kind of stuff A plan during the air.

So cherry. So more present.

That's exactly what we're talking about as it relates to the redevelopment of the space on the fourth floor is to make it an example of what is possible with new modern architecture, a new modern design that would accommodate and take advantage of the hybrid working environment that is more prominent and prevalent in our society today.

So related to that because we're looking at reconfiguring and looking at saving space the state.

I don't know if you are yet because I haven't really heard that we.

Had a Bill saying that you're going to reduce the. The number of. By 10%.

And have we achieved that?

Yes, according to our most recent report. That we submitted at remote work. And your rules on how many square feet the person has. Maybe you need to look at that as well. Is looking at your rules on space and allocation of space. If you're doing remote.

And not only that, if we reduce by 10%, why do we still have quite a bit?

Because we just added more departments and more operations. And so from that point in time was the. Was the base right. That we had to reduce it by. So but we have more. We got more staff. We got dealers. Law enforcement. Yeah, right. We added law enforcement, which is a huge addition. Right. In terms of space needs.

But. But you know, if I can just really quick chair. You know, one of the things that we're also looking at is what makes sense to be near each other. Right. And in the past it's always been, well, DLNR should only be with DLNR and DLIR should be over there and DOA should be over there.

And they shouldn't be in the same sort of shared space. Well, guess what? We've been talking about things like, hey, how can we take some of those operations out of. As an example, Kalani Moku DLNR operations, maybe move them to another location. HPU Kaneohe. Right, that property. Yeah. Free up some space. Right. Wherever. Right.

But free up some space and maybe DoH should move their vital records operations into Kalani Moku. Because when you think about proximity, vital records people are going to Vital records often are going to Bureau of Conveyance. So why not have. Why not take that approach? Right. Also. Right. And it's kind of like a service center approach.

Would your ask for that building be able to accommodate that?

I think so.

And yeah, this would help if we decide to abandon ship on this capital and have to move temporary.

You know, that's part of it too. Right. And our CIP request, there is some planning monies to talk about the significant work that needs to be done in this building that is going to require that we shut it down for a period of time. Move all the tenants out. Where do we put them?

In the basement, you say?

Yeah, the new Department of Health.

Yeah. And we've got a canal. The property at Kina Hole is well beyond its useful life and needs to be redeveloped. So a lot of potential there as well.

Okay, we have about 20 more minutes before we have corrections. Okay. We got to get through this. Thank you.

Zero, you keep going. She's. She's done.

Yeah, she's done.

Questions too. No, but.

No, we gotta keep getting through this list, though. We're almost done. We're almost. We're almost there. Okay, so keep talking about the graveyards and all of that. That's why. Focus on the stuff you really want to focus on talking about.

Almost there. Okay. Priority number 41 is the voting system contract and some additional funds to help support operations. And the Chief Elections Officer, Scott Nago is here to talk about if there's any questions about the request.

I have a question about.

Okay, so, yeah, I have a question relating to elections.

About this budget item. No. It may be related. Yeah. Depends how the answer is. Why don't you explain what this is first then?

So this is our request for a voting system contract. So we do lease a voting system. This is the full cost, but we do share that cost. 5050 with the counties. But we need the full funding up front before we enter into it.

It also includes funding for the digital voter guide which was passed by the Legislature, I believe. Last segment requires us to produce a digital voter guide as well as join the electronic registration information center, Eric, which is a registration national registration data sharing amongst states.

So Mr. Nago, first of all, I want to thank you and appreciate your employees, especially on election night for the extended hours that they worked at Kapolei.

So in terms of seeing what you've seen, right, with the long lines, does the office of elections and working with the different County of elections have a plan to sort of address that to possibly offer more voting or polling voting places?

The voter service centers which are established on election day are under the jurisdiction of each individual county. Okay. The state is responsible for voter education, counting of the ballots.

So it'd be the county to come up with the funding for that if they want to expand locations. Yes.

Well, it's a 5050 sharing cost. So we, we pay 50. They can open up as many voter centers, service centers. State is on the hook for 50%.

Okay, thank you.

But as a state elections office, I mean, it's great that you want to do all this, you know, voter. Voter information and stuff. Can't we mandate that they have more centers? I mean, I have a Bill right now to. To have more voting centers.

It's. I believe you did. There was a push to mandate more voter service centers previously, but I don't know. It did. For some reason it didn't pass.

I know, but you have that ability, right? We have that ability.

The Legislature has that.

But through those two, through the elections.

Office, he's saying he can if the Bill passes.

Yeah. So the Legislature would mandate the number of motor service, a minimum number of voters, but counties would have to.

The question he asked you is, you know, you should be leading this. So are you going to recommend. I mean, you're going to wait till we come up with how many that we might need? Shouldn't that be something to look at.

Something based on the lines we are already looking at to see how we can alleviate the lines? One of the things that the Clerk is looking at is opening up more centers or clerks are looking at is opening up more centers.

But the issue really is on election day and it becomes a management issue or a personnel issue on their part. If you have a lot of voter service centers on election day, you're really spreading your capacity, understand?

But you're leaving it up to slay people who I'm saying, okay, maybe we need three more. I don't know what is three the magic number?

But you folks are the ones should be telling us, you know what we've looked at the situation and perhaps if we did have, you know, three more or four more strategic areas that we could alleviate that. I don't know.

But if you guys aren't going to lead and tell us we're going to dream it up and we don't know if it's going to work, we need.

You guys to lead it because obviously that's going to be a budget adjustment to Fund these new voters, our share of the new voter center services. So in order to make a pragmatic decision between addressing voter needs and cost between we need you to kind of.

Let me ask this. Has the county elections administrator for city and county Honolulu. Have they come up with a suggestion in working with you?

Not so they're still looking to see what they can do to for 2026. I know in 2024 they did open up. Well since 2020, when the last time we had long lines, they did open up more border service centers such as the Wahiawa location, the Kaneohi location.

Yeah, but it wasn't during. It wasn't during open during election day. Yeah, that was. That's kind of hard. Yeah. Because they had it open the week but not election day. Smiling.

And that because I think that would have helped if they just kept the Wahawa one open. Then they would have had three options.

Correct.

Correct. So you know, on election day what, what I was told by the county was that they were trying to get people to come out and run those precincts. Have you guys ever had the conversation on, you know, whether it was a cost issue with. No, it's not a cost issue. It's just a dental like Ronald Volunteer.

It's a volunteer issue because a lot of them, for example in the County of Maui, they did face a lot of bad behavior per se where voters would. They would have to take the rath on a lot of voters.

So what is the solution?

Melee New Valley.

You know that that's a line but I, I want to know what it's Elon Musk, you know what I mean? So you guys have to deal with that. I mean. Well, I think that the long line.

I think that's a good idea. If the Bill a Bill surfaces and the discussions will then be before you to make some suggestions. Working with the clerks on each island I think is important prior to the Bill surfacing for discussion.

Now another thought is perhaps when you look at the different districts in the communities, I mean it, you know, Oahu, you can't compare Oahu to Big island or Kauai where you know we have, there's more density on Oahu now. Is there a possibility of even providing those open new voting areas?

That would probably be and it depends on you and the clerks to say that these districts will only be able only be available for voting like the day before the election. So if they don't want to go to and travel to another spot, they know they have to vote on the day before the election.

So those offices will be closed then you know that people will probably say I want to vote but we have a deadline and then do the normal open election date, you know, wherever the. But that's something that you can control. I guess the state can control its voting process.

So close all of those district offices prior to the election day. Otherwise we're going to come, we're going to face the same issue we did on Oahu this year. But if that's a possibility. But that's a Bill is going to surface. Who do you report to though?

Don't you have that three people? The Commission. Yeah.

There's an elections Commission. Yeah.

So aren't they discussing this?

They are, but the responsibility, the statutory responsibility of voter service centers and in person voting is all it's the clerks, it's the council.

But going back to some of the points brought up are the. Is the Commission at least looking at the stats to see, okay, where are most of these people coming from? So that's where we might. I mean they should be looking at that on how they can improve voter services. And. But it should be the Commission.

Correct. And but it's up to the counties to implement that.

That's fine. But somebody still should be discussing it.

Yeah. And that's something we are also looking at to see how we can alleviate those kinds of lines.

So do you have the stats to say okay, for a couple a majority of the late voters were from where.

So on Oahu it's all the Liberty side. And then the west side, the Honolulu side was all there's like a. Mostly from the town area.

So central Oahu and North Shore mailed in their ballot.

Not necessarily what you're seeing. We're seeing on election day it was mainly the areas around the Boulder service centers, an approximation of the voter service center. But the lines that you saw were mainly specific to election day. There wasn't that type of line prior to election day. But that was specific. But the voter.

The voter center was open. Well, Honolulu Hale was open for a.

Couple weeks, for 10 days. Yes.

The cost for those that works at the individual voting areas, it's borne by the counties.

But they charge us back. It's a cost sharing. It's cost sharing. So they would charge us back.

Understanding. And for Big Island, I do know it was the personnel management to work at the different individual communities and that's why they decided to not open up certain areas. You know, they get paid, but you can find workers, volunteers.

I don't know what the issue was, particularly on the Big island was it's all over.

Okay. We should just have a build. Yeah. And then you can have this discussion because this is like a policy discussion about hypotheticals and really we should just be sticking to the budget. Okay. What else? You.

Okay. Okay. Next. All right, next up, we have our campaign spending Commission Executive Director, Kristen Izumi Nitao to talk about her requests. Kristen.

Hi, good afternoon, good morning. Kristin Eason, Executive Director. As you know, our request is for two more positions, an elections assistant and an investigator as well as a appropriation to build a new electronic filing system. Also at issue is our trust Fund which we are asking that the amount be a recurring ceiling and at 700,000.

Because as you all know, we never know what kind of public funding, what kind of candidates will qualify for a public funding that we'd have to match within a very designated brief period of time. So that is our request per your budget.

You can see that our request we were very fortunate was approved except for the extra million we had hoped for to build the electronic filing system.

That's the 1.1.

Correct. It was supposed to be 2 million. It's a one time cost to build it for one year and then a recurring 200,000 subscription costs to deal with maintenance and support. So if we it is reduced to a million. We have talked to the pre approved vendor and of course we are in communication with ets.

So this is not done in a vacuum. But there are certain features that we will not be able to build with a reduction of a million. But we will certainly ask for that money in a supplemental budget year so that we can build the full system.

Okay, what are the differences, the differences. Between the present system and. So what, what do we get if we, I mean you don't have to answer it now. You can send us A. Sure, send it in writing.