Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Environment

Calling to order the Joint Committee on Public Safety, Military affairs and Ways and Means. We'll hear from the Department of Corrections who will present their biennium budget requests.

Good afternoon. Thank you. Good afternoon. Chair Dela Cruz, Vice Chair Elephante and Members of the Committee. As you know, I'm Tommy Johnson, the Director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. So I'd like to first introduce some of my team that's here, my leadership team. We have our Deputy Director for Administration, Melanie Martin.

Our Deputy Director for Correctional Institutions, Pamela Sturch. But she's in the office. She just returned back from Arizona yesterday. We have our Deputy Director for Rehabilitation Services and Programs, Solomon Uno. We have the Executive Director for cbcc, Pamela Ferguson Bray. And from the Hawaii Polling Authority we have the Administrator Corey Reinke here.

As well as representatives from DAGS as the expendit agency on some of our projects. I have six pages of testimony. With the Committee's permission, I would just like to summarize. Yeah, then we can get into the Committee would encourage. So real quick. We have four short term goals, as you can see on page one. Reduce overcrowding.

Improve your living and working conditions. The living conditions for those in our custody and care and our staff working in the facilities. Fill our vacancies. And we have a good stride in filling our correctional officer vacancies. But we still have some work to do. Expand our mental health services statewide. And update our correctional master plan.

As you know, the last Update was in 2003. Our long term goals are to relocate the Kauai Community Correctional Facility. We have some funding for that plan. And build a new jail in West Oahu in Kona. Over 30% of the folks in our Hilo jail are from the Kona side.

Plan to relocate the Maui Community Correctional center and plan to relocate to Hawaii Community Correctional Center. And also to try to bring back the thousand plus inmates we have on the mainland. Excuse me, not a thousand. I think I have it here. We have 938 on the mainland now. That's due to a temporary surge.

We closed down two housing units at Halawa to do major repairs to electrical. And so 240 of that 938 we'll be coming back. Once we get the repairs done in the two modules at Halawa Correctional Facility. We still struggle with staffing shortages.

But we've been able to reduce through an aggressive multi pronged approach on our recruitment, we've been able to reduce our ACO vacancy rate from 30.4% to 24%. That includes emergency hires. We will continue that we increased our recruitment efforts in a number of ways.

But basically we in 2023 we put 56 officers on the floor with three classes. ACO recruit classes. We held six classes in 2024 and we put 136 on the floor. And we plan to hold six classes in 202526 and on to try to get ahead of the silver tsunami of the retirements and the normal attrition rate.

As you know, our jails are severely overcrowded, in particular OCCC and ACCC. We recently opened a 48 bed unit at ACCC which will release some of the overcrowding but not enough. And we recently completed major projects at the Oahu Community Correctional Center. Risk Effective Population Management.

I only control about 5% of the population in our custody and care. We have to take everybody sent to us. So regardless of our census, if the court sentenced someone to us, HPA returns somebody to custody of the court to issue a bench warrant and places a probation violated in custody, we have to take them.

That's why our jails are overcrowded. That and the fact that we have our sentence misdemeanance and pretrial are spending an inordinate amount of time, particularly pretrial population incarcerated without being released. Seven out of the 10 requests we submit to the courts for supervisor release are denied.

So we're trying to ramp up our electronic monitoring and hopefully the courts will approve some of those for release. But that's an indication that 87% of our pretrial population and sentenced misdemeanor population, excuse me, the pre trial and misdemeanor population here in the state is 87% when you compare to our sentence felon population.

So what that tells us is we have people in our custody who probably should be on supervised release in the community who had better be served. And we're spending approximately $307 a day to keep people in custody who may have a $50 bail.

We also have people in our custody who clearly have mental health issues who if it weren't for their mental health illness, probably would not be involved in the criminal justice system. And the jails are the worst place for these folks because it's the least effective, most costly.

There needs to be some type of intermediate place for them to be in the community where they can receive the services, housing and the help they need instead of coming to jail, which again is $307 a day. With respect to our non General funds.

There's a link on page five where you can go and see that Our budget requests listed there. We had some other requests. We would like to highlight that the biggest request in our budget is the $30 million to complete the planning and design and the bridging documents, rfp, RFQ and the bridging documents for the new CCCC project.

I am aware that the Commission, the oversight Commission, sent a letter to the legislators and the Governor to halt the planning and design. But I believe we can do both. We can improve the system and continue with the planning and design. O Triple C is old and obsolete. It's manpower intensive.

To give you an example, there's 413 correctional officer positions there. If we build a new, more modern facility, we can not only meet the needs of the offenders we have today, but we can probably do that for about less than 300 corrections officers and build a facility that can hold about 1300.

Right now, OCCC is design capacity of 628. We routinely have over 900 folks there today. As of today, we have 947 people at O Triple C with a design capacity of 628. So we're severely overcrowded and has been that way for decades. With that said, that is a summarize of our testimony.

We can get into the budget tables if you like.

Okay. We can just quickly go over table six. Table six.

Okay, I went too far. Hold on. Sorry. Okay, so these are our asks. I can go right down the list. Okay, so the $4 million ask is to add to our reentry services. You'll see the Commission report on the State of reentry in Hawaii. It's a damning report and it should be. We do have challenges.

There are a lot of things we're unable to do because we simply don't have the funding to do the wraparound reentry services. This $4 million we're for in the budget allows us to do some of those reentry services to include providing housing when they first get out for.

For a small period of time to provide case management services in the community. So the warm handoff and linkage to provide other services in the community that can better serve the needs of the person instead of being incarcerated, that we think will help us reduce recidivism. By doing that, we will be able to have safer communities.

So we plan to split that $4 million up into several different initiatives so that we can come back and show proof of concept to the Legislature so you'll see that the not wasted and hopefully at some point increase that funding where we can show you that what we're doing is successful. It's not going to be easy.

We're going to have hiccups, but we're going to try the $100,000 there is to provide assistance with successful reintegration for that. That's strictly the documents for it to provide. We haven't. We finally have the Social Security Administration signed off on an MOU with us to provide replacement Social Security cards for American born citizens.

We already have a process in place to help a person obtain a separate. Excuse me, a replacement birth certificate. We have a process in place. We need to increase to have a person get a civil ID card while they're in our custody.

One of the other initiatives we want to look at is if a person is in our custody and they have a driver's license, try to get that driver's license renewed before it expires. Before they get out. Once it expires, they have to go through the testing again. You have the $210,000 there for the refuge collection.

That's just an increase in the cost to operate. We have $400,000 increased coverage for security surveillance systems. You'll see $125 for $125,000 for the fire alarm system, which we need to have for sure. $180,000 in additional for security radios and equipment. Some of our radios are 15 to 20 years old.

$146,794 to replace in cell toilet sink modules. That's where the sink and the toilet is. Just one unit together. And then the Last 1 is $112,000 for technician level trauma informed care for non uniform staff. That is table six Members.

Any questions? zero, go ahead.

Thank you, Director Johnson. Happy new year. April 15th. Your CIP request. So this is for the new OCCC, the $30 million? Yeah. So that's. You don't have a request in fiscal year 27. It's just fiscal year 26.

Right. So I'll explain why we did that. The. We originally had a request in for $250 million for fiscal year 27. And speaking with the governor's office, we decided to push that to fiscal year 2028 because of several reasons. One, the animal quarantine facility, the DLNR needs to. Department of Agriculture needs to move out of that facility.

And part of the $250 million ask in 2020 is the demolition of that facility so that we can bring in the heavy equipment to start the construction. If we get the funding that we.

Ask for the 30 million requests. Thank you for that. Does that also include design for new courtrooms to make it more efficient?

Yes. So inside of each new facility we put up, we have decided. I've already spoken to Rod Miley and Chief. Chief Justice Reckonwald is speaking to the chief district judge and the chief circuit court judge to determine whether one courtroom inside the jail or two will do.

We agreed that we would put whatever they needed in the facility, including have it hooked up electronically to do the court, to do the hearings, distance hearings. Also that we would. That we would support their request for staffing the courts.

It's important to have the courtrooms in the jails to cut down on transportation because that's the most dangerous, dangerous time for corrections officers when we're doing transports. If we're able to later on put a new jail in Kona, then it will have a court.

It will have a courtroom in the jail because we're constantly putting vans on the road for two and a half hours each way. So in the O, triple C. Yes, I've already spoken to them.

And I'm waiting for Rod Meyer to get back to me so we can sit down with whoever their point of contact is to come out with the layout. How they want the courtroom to be laid out. Now, it's not going to be mahogany and ported glass. It will be bricks and mortar. Court. Thank you. Thank you, chair.

The 30 is for planning design. Then it's planning design. That'll give you a better cost and construction.

Right. And the rfq, RFP process and the bridging documents. Any other questions?

Adjourned. Thank you. Zero, my God. Thank you. We'll rec at 2:30. Thanks, Chair. Thanks, Vice Chair. I appreciate it.

zero, same.

zero, sorry. We have law enforcement D and leave yearly in the DOD and then we have Department of Ag. Okay, well, recess so that we can switch them out.

Okay, finally meeting back to order. So now we hear from the Department of Law Enforcement. Good afternoon. Happy New Year.1

Good afternoon Chair, Vice Chair, Members of Committee, thank you for the opportunity for let us to talk about our initiatives just quickly to summarize what we're trying to do this coming year.

It is to implement a agricultural crime enforcement program, to implement a traffic enforcement program which includes a commercial vehicle inspection to solidify our efforts in the fight against illegal fireworks with the development of a explosive enforcement program.

We are also still trying to build a police facility with overnight holding capabilities of detainees at the DKI airport location which is the enterprise lot. It will not only house our cell block but our special operations section and airport patrol section. We are also requesting planning, design and site selection for still for the state training center.

We would also like to build a police facility in central Oahu by Wahiawa area to use that as a staging location for our agricultural crime and traffic enforcement and fireworks program.

And we are also requesting to build a police facility in leeward Oahu to support the same functions and also to use as a staging area to respond to violence out in that area and also to provide coverage for some of the schools.

At DOE's request, we are looking to invest in next gen law enforcement Internet technology that would help us with our staffing needs but also with these IT enhancements it will help us in our investigations statewide.

We are and finally we are still trying to reduce the salary disparity between the state law enforcement officers and our county counterparts so that we can fill our vacancy shortage. And we are available for questions maybe. We go over like in Table 6.

Table 6.

So those were the. Approved by the Governor. The yellow. Okay, that's fine, you can go.

Okay.

So just, just now why don't before you start just state the Department wide priority so we know which line. Okay, so if it skips around that's okay because of what you just said. Let's just state the number and we can track it. zero you know, before, before you start though you want to.

I'm sorry. So on. On my right is Brandon Azuka, my Executive officer. To my left is Durazo Fong, my aso. Behind me Jared Radula, the Deputy Director for Law enforcement. Michael Vincent, Deputy Director for Administration. Behind him is Thomas Yamamoto, our fiscal officer and our hr. Thank you.

So in looking, in looking at our priority numbers on table six. Thank you. Priority one through six is actually relates to the salary disparity. But in talking with the governor's office they are going to put a placeholder in the budget once they can resolve the mechanics on how, on. On how to resolve this disparity.

So they are working with the union and working with budget and finance on that. And then we skip down to the next. Our next priority would be the law enforcement IT software project where we are requesting $25 million for FY26 and FY27 and Brandon can go over what we're trying to achieve.

So two things. First thing is using or replacing some of our vacancies on our administrative side, using IT to hopefully alleviate some of the long term vacancies and costs for personnel. What we've been focused on recently is the travel approval form. We've actually worked close to going live to automate that.

I know it takes hours and hours to fill out this form. So we've worked on a solution to automate it where you can actually select the the city or where the conference is. And through AI, it'll pull hotels, the cheapest hotels and flights where you can just select and make that process a lot easier.

We've also looked at our internal HR transactions, how to move people within our organization quicker to make it easier for managers and secretaries to be able to plug in, you know, the 89 days or do the counting for the staff. And then finally we're looking at how to streamline procurement for our Department.

So those are the kind of the initial administrative functions that we've taken a look at. And as far as law enforcement statewide, we are very interested in creating a statewide personnel and critical infrastructure situational awareness platform where we can protect the state's critical infrastructure interests as well as personnel.

So I know there's issues with notifications in this building. You know, if something goes on next door, you want to know what's going on. So we're working on a platform where, you know, all appointed officials, all staff will be notified immediately of what's going on in the area.

And then you'll be provided updates to know what law enforcement is doing or first responders in General to keep people safe. And then also in those critical situations, we're working on an application through the Safer Watch platform that will, I guess, give guidance.

But we don't want to tell people exactly what to do if there's, you know, an active shooter or a fire, but provide guidance on how to keep yourself or yourself, your staff safe.

You know, if the incident is occurring on the east side, you know, how can we get personnel on the west side out of that building as soon as possible and then bring first responders in through a different entrance so that they don't cross paths. So overall, how we.

How we can protect the state's critical infrastructure and then provide notifications and keep state personnel safe. So that's what our IT ask covers.

Okay, moving on to priority number 21 was 16. Yeah, 16 is. Is a. Is a request for three FD positions to manage our grants over at the office of homeland security. Okay. Item number 20, we're. We're anticipating the Wahiawa Civic Civic center and court complex to be up in 18 months.

So we're requesting 18 FTEs for deputies not only to cover the courthouse, but the state building that's next to it, the parking complex. And also if available, they will do some regional patrols of the schools in the area. We're asking for them to be funded with a.

Funds that will give us the latitude to have them complete all of those law enforcement functions as opposed to the u funds that was originally made by the. By the governor's Office. Priority number 23 is the prescription monitoring program, Annual maintenance costs, and that's $460,000. I mean, and 810. Excuse me, for FY26 and 27.

And then on priority number 24 is the additional funding needed for the annual operating expenses for narcotics enforcement division. And that was 392,000 for FY26 and 402,000 for FY27. Moving down to item number 30 is the annual maintenance fee for the narcotics enforcement laboratory, which is nationally and internationally certified.

And that cost is 64,000 for FY26 and 74,000 for FY27. You want to.

Yeah. And then after this, we have things. That are not on here.

Okay. After this, we have. We have the traffic section that we want to bring in, and then the section. And that one is request for 27 positions. And that's at 5 million. Which priority number. So this is something new that came in after. Because after we gave the report. Other.

Departments wanted us to bring this to our attention.

Okay. You know, maybe what we can do is get the. At some point, update the form, and then you can just add the. But why don't you explain it now? Okay. You want to explain the traffic? Sure.

So what happened after the budget submission? Department of Transportation approached us and wanted DLE to increase its presence on the highway for. For speeding, DUI enforcement and commercial vehicles inspection. The commercial vehicles inspections were, you know, we're talking about the large tour buses and the 18 wheelers that. That pull the cargo out of the ports.

Next.

Well, how much was it for?

27. 27. You said it. I'm looking at.

For the amount. Yeah. Okay, so that one is for the 27 positions. It'll be 5,505,000. Excuse me.

Okay, so, yeah, for the 27 position to ask us for FY26. 5. $5,125,999. That's what the initial costs of all the equipments and vehicles that we would need. Then in FY27, that cost drops down to $3,196,696.

Your question on this subject matter. That is that island statewide or just Honolulu program?

Initially, it's just Honolulu. We're going to start off with Honolulu first.

Okay. Is highway enforcement. Why would you do just highway enforcement? You said enforcement.

Speeding stuff.

Correct.

Speeding. DUIs on.

So are you overlapping with the. With the police?

Yes. So DOT had talked to HPD and they were in agreement to it because they said they were so short in staffing also. So DOT wanted us to complement or supplement HPD in this area.

Well, that's fine. And. Well, but when you have a duplicate system, that means duplicate everything Duplicated. Right.

And that's managed by the city and by the county. On the Police Department, they're the one. That's their jurisdiction.

Yeah. So isn't it better that they get amount of people that they need instead of us creating a whole nother level with cars and insurance and everything else and having DUIs and speeding?

And we do that now. We actually do that now in areas where we have presence. For example, at the airport. You know, we do DUI enforcement and.

That's within the airport complex.

That's not on the road. I mean, it's on Nimitz highway and Lagoon Drive and that.

But it's limited, right? I mean, you're not. Right now.

It is limited. Yes. Our Harbor Patrol does the same thing. Our central patrol also does speed enforcements on the street. So. So the Department of Law Enforcement, we actually have statewide jurisdiction, you know, concurrent with the county jurisdiction.

Understand. But you're asking us for millions to shore it up to, to duplicate what the police is doing statewide. I mean, island wide.

Correct. But this is also going to be U funded. So DOT had indicated that were going to use federal funds for this.

So not one state dollar.

Not to my knowledge. Not General Fund. No, it's not. It's not General funded. This is all you funded.

And it's going to be that way. Not. You're not going to come back in the future and say we don't have the funds now we got to, you guys got to stop.

We can ask Ed when he comes.

Another question further to continue. So is the city and county giving up the police jurisdiction on DUIs then?

No, it's going to be concurrent.

Are they reimbursing us? Cost sharing?

No, she just said it's going to be federal funds paying for it. Yeah.

Okay, next crazy question. So, so you know if you pull over on truck, you guys also doing weight overweight on those roads and then you, you guys would be doing the fines across the board. How does those funds, what does those funds go?

So what would. Right now DOT has inspectors, but they don't have any law enforcement authority. So what DOT is envisioning is that we will have deputies with their inspectors working some of the stations. But also if it necessitates pulling one of the trucks over, we, we have the authority to do that. But the inspector does not.

So, so, but what he's saying is so if you pull them over, I don't know, maybe the, the, the cargo.

Is overweight, but you're going to pull them over at the request of the inspector.

Correct. And we're also going to be cross trained. There's a federal program that train the same training that the DOT inspector has. Our deputies that are assigned to that unit will also have.

We, we passed a law that says you cannot have these big trucks from a certain time and that they cannot be in the left lane. Or is that what you're going to enforce? Nobody enforces it.

Now we're gonna, we're gonna enforce all regulations that relates to commercial vehicles with dot.

Okay. So you're gonna, you're gonna actually enforce these laws that I just brought up because nobody's doing.

That law is kind of, kind of vague. Yeah. Because it's the large. If there's nobody on the lane, then the large truck can be there or if there's few cars on the lane in the lane, then the large truck can be there. So I'm not sure you know how you argue what's few.

Well, yeah, you try going to eight in the morning, nine in the morning, you see these big trucks and it's with bumper to bumper.

Yeah.

From here. Yeah.

It's the middle though. I mean the extremes are easy. It's the middle that's going to be hard to do. I don't know who makes the judgment calling about the middle.

Start supposing me till 8 o'clock or what's the law?

I, I don't know the specifics on the regulation? No. Well, they don't have the team yet for the highway. No, we do existing traffic enforcement, not the. But not the commercial vehicles. My. Our deputies are not trained in that yet.

But you, you have that authority.

We will have that authority.

Don't you have that authority?

Correct.

Right, right.

They just don't. But we're not. We're not doing that right now.

But you could.

Theoretically, yes, if we had the training, yes.

For your going back to the law enforcement. Well, the traffic enforcement requests. Does that mean you would also have to stand up new training materials or new recruit classes? Or can you fold that into your existing training and recruit classes?

Some of it's overlapping, but the commercial vehicle inspections will be new and the accident investigations would be new and everything.

Else would be similar.

Right, thanks.

Question. Sorry. The construction of the police facility in Leeward Oahu, any particular location that you guys are considering? Leroux is kind of big. Any.

We were hoping to find a location in Waianae. Waianae area.

What we really wanted to do was not only build the police facility there, but also have some type of mental health evaluation facility there or a safe center there where instead of actually having to take somebody into custody, maybe we can find treatment for them or an alternative for them as opposed to going into the system depending on the violation.

Foreign.

I'm curious. You know, for your, your top priorities is to get the different, or I guess the increase in salary for your officers. What, what is it that you still need to figure out to. To make that a reality?

Because we can give the money, but if there's a second mechanism that needs to happen, does it have to be collectively bargained or is this a differential? Like what. What's the method that we're. You're trying to get to?

So, so my, My understanding is it has to be done prior to the master agreement for the. This upcoming collective bargaining. So I, they are working on some type of supplemental agreement.

So it's a supplemental agreement only with your div. Your Department. Correct. Your sheriffs. So does it. Because you're, you're only. Well, it's the. There's a bargaining unit for state law enforcement, so I would assume that's sheriffs and then officers. Right. So you only. You're only doing this for sheriffs then? Correct. But we're not.

So it's not a collective bargaining. It's just a supplemental for just sheriffs then?

Okay. And so there was.

Correct.

That's the mechanism that I understand is how they're trying to do.

So there was no discussion about all of what is it unit 1514 going in together to just increase the salaries for everybody because I assume our ACOs are having a hard time recruiting.

ACOs are not in bargaining unit 14.

zero, they're not? No. So then, so, so only Sheriffs are.

In 14 Sheriffs do care officers.

Okay, well I assume do care would need increase too.

Well, right now do care's rating is two srs above the sheriff's. Interesting. Yeah.

Okay, so you think this, this will happen then? Because I think it's important. We got to do it. It's just, you know, we don't want to add to this said happened in you need to happen 2006. It's 202425.

I can only say I'm hopeful and optimistic that it will happen because it will help our staffing shortages and our recruitment if we can get closer to what the county is paying their officers.

Well, but the counties also still have humongous vacancies as well in the police departments.

No, absolutely. But if we're 24 to $30,000 behind in annual salaries from the county, we will. We don't even have a chance.

No, I agree. And so I think this is like a time factor. Right. We got. If this doesn't work, we got to figure something else out because there's some sense of urgency here. So. Okay, absolutely.

Just to add to that. So this is just for the deputy sheriffs and the different levels of deputy sheriffs that you're asking for the increases.

Correct.

So all your vacancies. I noticed there's no amount there. So you're waiting to get plug in from what you're able to negotiate.

Correct.

So you guys have taken on also the role of ag crimes.

Yes.

If you know, we're adding on this portion of you know, trucks, speeding and all this. Where does that leave the ag crimes as your priority? As one of the priorities as we address that.

And that would be a different division.

Right. It, it'll be a totally different section. Which, which is why, you know, we, we, we, we do have a request for that. For, for the A crimes. We're requesting 46 FTEs which include Deputy sheriffs and investigators to have presence to patrol the A crime.

I mean the agricultural lands, the, you know, and, and to have investigators to do the follow up investigations. Anytime you know, there's an assault or a theft, you know, of equipment or agricultural products.

That is what statewide?

Statewide. That's why the number is so high.

And this is not Something the county normally does.

I get to see what do they do.

That's been some of the issues. So when Claire was ag, you know, a lot of these issues came up. And so she was one of the ones that helped draft the Bill to make sure that we could at least enforce areas where the county was. Was had very little presence, usually on private lands.

Right.

In dhh Legislature passed a Bill that's now law and silver alert. So you have 250,000, but the program's not even launched. Do you have an update?

Yes. So right now we're waiting for responses from our MOUs with the. The various county police departments. We are talking with Hyema to determine whether they want to activate the alert on their system or whether they want to give us access to do the alerts.

And then the other thing is, hopefully in two weeks I will have a coordinator hired.

Yeah, but you don't have control to the system that taxes everybody and all of that. We do not.

We have to go through Hyma for that. So that. That's. We've had meetings with DoD to determine what they prefer. And we'll go with whatever they prefer. You know, if they want us to do it, we'll. We'll have our coordinator do it. You know, obviously after all the criterias are reviewed and met. So we're close.

Yeah. Thank you. Because there's been more and more. Yeah, you see lots of these little posters of senior citizens who will. They took a walk and because they have dementia, you can't find them.

No, I agree. And we'll get it done. We're close.

Thank you.

Question your forensic lab. So you're expanding the lab. What do you cover in your forensic lab right now? And what are you asking for?

Do you have one?

Right now we have a narcotics lab that does analysis mainly for just drugs as part of our request for the explosive enforcement, especially for fireworks. You know, we want to expand the lab, you know, to be able to analyze the different explosive materials and chemicals which are a requirement for criminal prosecution of these cases.

And then we also want to expand to firearms. Firearms testing and the nibing machine. So that way we could also address the gun violence.

So the lab tests for what though? Like the. I don't know the composition. The composition. Then your. Your penalties are high or it affects the penalties depending on.

He's saying that until they do the analysis, they can't prosecute.

Yeah. So you don't prosecute at all now from being. They don't prosecute. Yeah, but what do you Right.

Right now we are going to the Honolulu Police Department SIS section. They've been very helpful but they're overwhelmed with all of their cases too.

So we felt that it was time for us to be self sufficient and because we are recovering so much fire, so many fireworks and the different cases that it would just, it's going to be more timely for the prosecutions, which is what we're really after.

Yeah, because once you prosecute then you know it sends a message. Correct. There's publicity about it.

On the notion of fireworks. So in addition to that question, you also from your report from the legal fireworks task force recommended a fireworks enforcement division. So is that included in your budget request here or is that after the fact?

That that was after the fact. But we do have the form A's which we can submit to you.

Do you have a rough estimate? Because I think you're asking for positions and there was a funding for that.

So we are to, to include the forensic laboratory. The first year startup costs would be $5,168,977. For FY27 it would be $2,333,054.

And that includes the lab plus the positions.

Correct. The estimate cost of the lab is approximately $2 million. That's the nostalgic. Thank you.

How many positions are you requesting?

It should be one administrator, two admin staff and five investigators.

You run the lab?

We, we redescribe current positions in anticipation of this to run. We were planning to try to stand up a forensic laboratory before all of this. And we have redescribed current positions already existing positions that we have to run the lab.

So you currently have lab technicians or somebody.

Position number. They don't have anybody there. They took old positions and redesigned.

They have a lab they're operating now like.

No, they have a narcotics running that too. You don't have a forensic lab? No. Yeah, they have the narcotics lab.

Right. In your new lab.

Yeah, I know. I have a question though, so I'm going to ask. I have. I wanted to follow up on a conversation we had about expanding the task force to look at homemade bombs and how do we figure out a way to identify material being shipped for those homelanders. So if you guys can.

And hopefully you had some time to think about that because right now the task force is very specific. But it seems like there's the problem has expanded much larger than that and there's a lot of homemade bombs. So have you thought about what you could do to try to Address that.

So we, that, that that explosive enforcement section would do both. Okay. Because they're, they're related. So a lot of times when you look at IEDs, one of the simpler ways to get the explosive filler is they take apart the fireworks.

So they, they'll use the lift charge, the black powder as the filler force, for example, for the pipe bomb, or don't, although it's a lot less. They'll use the flash powder, which is the report of the aerial device, and mix that in to use as the filler for the device.

Because really what you really need is you need fuel to burn rapidly or the explosive material to burn rapidly and then you have confinement and once you have that, it's going to detonate. So that's, that's one way they can make homemade devices or we refer to them as IEDs.

The other way they can do it is if they have any proficiency in chemistry and they get the appropriate ingredients and they mix it and they use that as the filler. Or they'll, they'll take, you know, either say stolen explosives, certain grades of fertilizer, and they'll mix it with another ingredient again to make either.

Normally that you'll get a Low explosives versus the high explosives, but they'll use that as, as the filler for your device.

Okay, but for you guys to address that, that's already covered in some of the additional requests you're making. Or is that something would have to be on top of that?

No, it's covered in that.

Okay. Yeah. And then what about the tech equipment, you know, the surveillance equipment that you're using to scan as many containers as possible. Any adjustment there, or if we were.

Actually to start to use the large scale scanners, that would have to be a different request because that, those would come, are really costly, they run in the millions.

But. Okay, but don't you, we may need to do that though, right? Because, and I'm not trying to spend more money, but we may need to do that because my understanding is a lot of the, the staff who are at the ports who may be able to identify certain containers because of threats, your tips have basically diminished.

Now you, you don't have the same amount of information that you used to have. So now we have to replace the flow of getting, gathering that information with something else that.

That is, that is correct. We will need another technology solution to do that. If we were to actually get that type of X ray or particle scanner, you would probably, we would probably have a higher success rate in stopping illegal Fireworks coming into the state.

Yeah. What are you confused about?

I have a follow up question to your comment. Has the Department also reached out to some of the shipping companies and Department of Transportation?

Those people are now threatened not to speak to them and provide tips.

And so that's for the management of those companies, the people who used to.

Provide information so that they could identify where some of this illegal activity or product was. They no longer talk.

Okay, but then to what extent are the heads of the shipping companies participating and working with your law enforcement team to be able to crack down on. This kind of activity under management?

I mean, is the management going to say you got to tell them no matter what?

You know, I think the best way to answer that question is we will use all investigative strategies to interdict. Yeah. Without really going into specifics, you know, of who we talk to, who we don't talk to, how we identify shipments, how we, whether we're going to use explosive detection.

Can a lot of this overlaps about security anyway. And so the investment to me could be worth it if you're going to start looking for, you know, biosecurity issues ahead of time. And the fireworks issue, I mean it's going to be the same equipment. I would assume it is. Yeah, but it's very expensive from what I understand.

I know but you know, one, I mean Senator, to go in one wrong bug and that's also very expensive. But we can talk about that later. I think what we'll probably have to do is introduce a Bill so maybe Senator Funaga comment on requiring then the management and then if you don't do it there's penalties.

But this discussion, discussion chair did say that you have the test force. So a lot of the things he recommended probably you can bring it up at the test.

No, that's the problem is we have to expand the task force.

You're asking for what, $1.2 million this year for the task force. But can I go back to my original question when you talked about the prosecution with regards to taking over some of the responsibilities on the highways thing and you were saying that you, you would prosecute, but you don't have prosecution responsibilities. A.G.

no, I, I meant to stay prosecute all of our cases. Yeah, go, go, go to the ags. Yeah.

And this is, this seems to be a trend unfortunately where you know, the prosecutor is no longer taking many of the, the cases that involve mislead. And so now the AG is having to ramp up, you know, the, unfortunately HPD seen short staff and so now the State has. They're not doing AG theft.

They're not doing some of these things. And a lot of this was exposed during COVID too, which is why, like I said, the former AG ended up saying, well, there's going to be a huge vacuum if we don't. If we don't provide some kind of law enforcement at the state level. Right.

And please understand. I'm sorry. Good. Please understand. Our current illegal fireworks task force really consists of two investigators, you know, trying to complete this whole mission. And.

And what happens is, you know, once we determine that an operation is needed, then we rally up all the troops from all of the other departments, and they all step to the plate to help. But it's really just two individuals, you know, which is why we need to.

But because of the lack of the information being discontinued, you went from what, 200 something thousand pounds to only 40,000 pounds?

187,000 to 40.

And that's a lot of. That was due to the fact that you no longer have the information you need.

Well, part of it, too, was, I think, after the initial seizures in 2023, the criminal element will adjust. Right. If they figured out that we found her method of smuggling, they're going to adjust their method of smuggling. And so now we have to adjust our strategy, you know, to catch them.

Senator Rhodes, thanks.

A couple questions. One, my understanding is some of the illegal fireworks are coming in on planes. Are those commercial passenger airliners in the. In the cargo hold, or are they on. On just cargo planes? And how dangerous is that? I guess that's what I'm really driving at.

So we're catching daily, almost daily parcels from the U.S. postal Service containing 8,000 pounds of, maybe 200 pounds of fireworks at a time. And those are coming on our commercial planes, and those are personal delivery.

I guess my recollection was at the Lockerbie flight, you know, 40 years and 35 years ago, the explosive was the size of, like, a cassette, for those who are old enough to remember what a cassette deck is. But it wasn't very big, and it brought down a 747. Is this something we should be losing sleep about?

I would be concerned. The Lockerbury flight, probably, if. Describing the size that you had. You had indicated was probably high explosives. Okay, so the fireworks are not as. As potent. It depends on the confinement. It depends on how much you have.

Okay, so if you're asking whether a parcel of fireworks can take a plane down, it really, there's a lot of factors you have to look at. You know, how much of A fire. Did it start? What. The location, you know, in relation to, you know, to the side of the plane. All of that.

All of that makes a difference. But it's. It's a bad day if you have fireworks going off in the cargo plane. Yeah.

So one final question. It's. Okay, so if you can't. If you. If you. If you encounter. And if you encounter illegal fireworks in a shipping container, for instance, and you can't figure out who. Who is shipping it and where it's going to, you can still just confiscate it. Right. You don't have to. There's no attempt to.

So even if you don't, even if there is no prosecution, you still take the stuff off the street, correct?

We will still. We will still seize the illegal fireworks. We. We will always try to do an historical investigation on the shipment. And once it's no longer determined as evidence, then we have to go through the task of disposing of it, which in itself is very problematic. Okay. All right. Thanks, George.

What does it cost you to dispose 200,000 pounds of firearms?

We had one estimate to dispose of. I want to say it was about 148,000 pounds of fireworks and it was slightly over $1.0 million.

Zero, couldn't sell it to like the hotels that have.

They're doing drones now. Some of them are doing drones now. Drones.

Well, so. So there. There's really three recommended methods to dispose of fireworks. The first one depend. And. And again, it depends on the type of fireworks. Like your mortar shelves you cannot burn. So we would countercharge, you know, the other fireworks we would burn or you function it as design.

I mean, instead of costing us money, we can use some money.

You might need legislation to allow that, though. Correct.

And there's probably huge liability issues on that because we're selling product that's considered illegal. You're going to have product that might be classified as 1.4 consumer fireworks, but they're overloaded, so you don't know what's going to happen when you light it off. So all of that factors in on whether we would actually, you know. Yeah, try.

Try to sell it or not. For, you know, to reduce my says.

All that stuff in that warehouse. Because you can't sell it, the old furniture, whatever. So we need law to. To sell it. No, you can't sell it.

Customs and they always have a yearly sale of all the.

They're not selling fireworks though.

I'd like to go back to Senator Fukunaga's question with regards to the Shipping, we all know that the foreign ships can come into the island waters. So we know that China, if the fireworks are coming in, it goes to the ports of anywhere on the mainland.

So the transport for the shipments all go to, whether it's Pasha or Matson or whoever. So I think a lot of the investigations of the shipping issues, too, I think you guys got to go to the mainland and see where all these things are being unloaded, particularly those labeled as coming from a foreign country like China.

So whether it's the. The stopping of shipments, either East Coast or West Coast, but I think most of them come in via the West Coast ports.

So for that part, on the investigations of where these shipments are coming from via maritime, looking at the ports, the only thing I can see is I think issues like the airlines and those personal shipments coming is pretty hard to detect. But, boy, you guys got.

You guys got a lot of problems and issues and more of an activity that you probably will have to have a lot more people, you know, doing.

The technology helps though, right? It's really the technology that.

On your contacts on the. On the mainland.

So just one question on if it costs $1.0 million to dispose. When, when you confiscate, can you charge back to whomever you confiscate from so that there's some payment for disposal, or do you know who they are? I suppose.

I guess the question should be, what legislation do you need so you can do that? I mean, right, okay. Because. No. So you can do that now? Yes, you can do that now. Have you done it? Have you charged anybody? Everything is under investigation.

But when you finish, I mean, with. With whoever you confiscate from, you can charge back.

He's saying it's under investigation. So you got a sidebar conversation.

So you got a couple guilty pleas already for at least a couple.

And those individuals, we can probably go back and charge them for disposal charges. But those were not the container cases. No.

So all those companies that are selling fireworks during the holidays, particularly after Christmas and New Year's, do you folks send investigators to see what they're selling on the retail market?

So with legislation last year, we now have inspection rights, and they are now required to keep what we call an A and D acquisition disposition book. So we can look at those records.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to recess. Okay, go ahead then. I thought everybody looked bad.

You know, I didn't realize there's enough fireworks. So you guys know of a machine that they actually use to. As a scanner to run on containers and how Much. Is that.

Okay? Can you get a real estimate?

Yeah, because if you're disposing at a million, I think the investment would be worth it.

So Customs and Border Protection already has that for the foreign cargo. So we can. We can get a cost for you on that.

Okay. My question is, how does a new entity like you folks rack up in three months $135,983 in overpayments?

Because we inherited that from Department of Public Safety. So what happened was once, once the sheriff's division and the other units came over on January 12024 we did our due diligence in auditing all of. All of the leave records and payment records and the overtime. Okay. So that's how we uncovered a lot of these overpayments.

And we are in the process of addressing that now.

Okay, so you came into being in January and. And it was.0000 all the way until September 2024. All of a sudden it goes up to $87290. So you found that many from all those months. You found it in September and you posted it. None of it was new. New overpayments.

And then in October, it went up to 135,000. One month later, 135,983. Correct. So you found more or you had your own overpayments?

We found more.

So none of this is current overpayments?

No, I think a small portion of it is, but the majority of it, we. It came from prior to January 1st.

Get all the records? We're still waiting for portions of records. So as we get there when we audit.

Okay. It's just odd that it would take that many months. And then September you only got a portion of. In October, another portion, and then November it was carried over. But these employees who have been overpaid are with you now?

They are currently still with us.

So what are you doing to collect it?

Not all, though. Some retired or some left.

The smaller amounts of the overpayments usually happens. We find it when they retire. But there are active cases. So what relating to the overpayment?

So what are you doing to collect it?

It's being investigated right now.

Okay. The law is clear. Are you aware of the law? If we overpay, we can go in and collect X amount, X percentage to pay it off. And if it's under a certain amount, you can collect it all at once or you can collect it. I think it was $50 a paycheck.

So what are you doing to Collect it. Actively doing to collect the state your name. The division is the fiscal.

Hi, my name is Thomas Yamamoto. I'm the fiscal officer for the Department. In regards to overpayments, we. We follow DAGS comptroller. Zero, sorry, say that again. We. We follow the comptroller memoranda on how to.

And what is that?

So we reach out to the individual. The individual, and we come up with a settlement plan according to the parameters set by dags, and we follow that for repayment purposes. Okay?

So DAGS told us just today that it's up to each Department. Okay. And they do put our memorandum, but it's up to each Department. And accordingly, there's a law that says you can collect X amount if it's under so much. You can collect up to a certain percentage after a higher amount.

But the departments, as far as I know, has not been utilizing that. And they've been charging like $25 a paycheck. And so some of these people have been paying for years $25, and then they retire, whatever, and then you cannot collect the money.

So you're in how many active cases now?

There are several. We send in a report monthly with the eggs. And I believe if they said if we negotiate like a price that the. That the person who got overpaid was okay with, then they can pay back however much they want to. But I believe after a certain amount, it's like 25% of their base pay.

I think it's more than that. You should go check the law, because I know we, we. I actually increased it and it was signed into law so we can collect a lot more, but it's not been done.

If they agree to it, then we can.

Well, it doesn't have to be agreed to. You have DAGS have the control of the potential. So when we overpay, we should be able to. To take that money out. So when we underpay, we have to immediately make them whole and pay it immediately.

Not $25, a check to give to make up the money that we didn't pay them and vice versa, when we overpay them. The law is clear on how much you can get. You don't have to have an agreement because the checks are cut by dags.

We will look into it, Senator, and.

Try from you guys. And you folks should be very familiar with how much you can take, how much you can get back. I mean, we're talking over $1.0 million with all the departments. And you folks have being you have one of the higher ones.

So there needs to be a better effort in recouping these funds because they are.

This is overpayments that you inherited. Right. It was the previous Department.

Auditing process finding.

But it's current employees that owe the money. So it's your employees, current employees that owe the funds. And now it's up to you, the Department, according to dags, to be able to recoup these funds. Or maybe we can just take it out of your budget. Can we see what actions you're actually doing and how much you've collecting?

Yeah, we could do that. And, and, and another thing is that from, we inherited things from PSD as well and they had agreements with some of the employees as well. So it's hard to break those agreements.

Okay. But the whole issue, and I know this very well because the law states you don't have to have an agreement.

We will resolve it and provide you the information once we get it.

To follow up on Senator Kim's comments with regards to, and very troubling that she's saying that if, if there's an arrangement for a payback of $25 a month, that person retires and what happens? Perhaps there should be a Bill to change that.

That upon retirement that all x all that's due to the state is paid out of before retirement checks are sent out.

It's supposed to be that way, but for some reason they're not.

It's sent to the, excuse me, it's sent to the AGs if they retire. Yeah.

So then we got to go get full collection. Then you collect.

Do we know, do we know though that that's been done, that there's. They've been paying before retirement?

Yeah, they have a list of the people and how much they're paying because I've seen. And what about retirement? It's $25. Well, after that, then it has to go to collection and the AG's got to go after them and it's not high on their priorities. So if they are.

So if they retire, why don't we have a Bill or a law to say that before retirement any excess that's due the state be taken out of the retirement.

And it's not just retirement. It's like, you know, you know, hspa, they can take all their vacation and stuff.

Okay, we can do, maybe we'll do, maybe we'll do an info briefing on overpayment later because we surely should be hearing about their budget. They're not going to be able to solve it right now because at the, at, at the Same point.

I mean, they should be applauded for the fact that they did the audit and, and found it. Because if not, if they just took it over, they wouldn't have even known about it.

No, because I would have said public works. Why is your public safety. Why is your numbers now lower? Where is it going? No, but it's. But if you look at what public safety, you look at their numbers and they've always had a high carryover.

Be public safety.

Well, not now, but we were prior to that.

Yeah. These are ones they fought they. When they audited the paperwork, when they got from Public Safety, the former Department of Public Safety, that's when they started finding it.

So what does this tell us then? That. Well, I'm just saying. What does it tell us? That there's a lot more overpayments than what's on this record then. Because this record has $1.0 million plus.

So if we're finding out if the departments aren't auditing. You may be right.

Yeah. So we're talking several $1.0 million of monies that is being given out that we not entitled to.

Okay, that's. That's. That's the Bill to require audit.

I just got one other question on going Back to table 15, your CIP request. I'm sorry if I missed this earlier. Okay, so for your construction and equipment for the receiving desk, airport section 16.6 over the next two fiscal years. You guys already have a site identified for that and if so, where in particular?

It's. It's by the airport. The old enterprise. Zero, the old enterprise. Across from the Dunkin Donuts complex, right across the leverage.

Okay. And then the 4. The 4 million for your law enforcement training selection. You don't have a site yet? We do not have a site yet. Okay, thank you.

Just a follow on question. The status of the $4 million. The relocation we gave you last time, what does that bought you? Or is that a site that you're using? Or is that rental? What's happening with that?

So we are using those funds for our planning and design. We have already put out an RFP on that.

This is for this new development that you.

Correct.

But where are you. Where are you living now?

We're still living in Ki street for receiving desk. And so you haven't. And at the airport we have not moved yet.

Any other questions? Okay, we're going to recess for dod. Thank you. Thank you.

[In Recess].

Okay, reconvening. So now we hear from the Department of Defense who will present their biennium budget requests. Good afternoon. Happy New Year.

Hey, Chair Dela Cruz, Vice Chair Moriwaki, Chair Elefante, Vice Chair Wakai, and Committee Members. I'm Major General Steve Logan, the Adjutant General for the State of Hawaii Department of Defense. Aloha, good afternoon, and Happy New Year. The following informational briefing provides the department's budget request for state fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

There's been some considerable turnover within the Department of Defense, so please allow me a moment to introduce the team that I brought with me today. To my left is Brigadier--correction--Brigadier General Phillip Mallory, the Deputy Adjutant General for the State of Hawaii, call sign Buddha.

I have the Chief of Staff of the Hawaii National Guard, Colonel Ronald Hogsten, the Director of Staff of the Hawaii Air National Guard, Colonel Shane Nagatani, call sign Nuke, Administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, Colonel Retired James Barros, the Administrator of Community Programs that oversees the Youth Challenge and Job Challenge Academies, Brigadier General Retired Bruce Oliveria.

Director of the Office of Veteran Services, Lieutenant Colonel John Alamodin, Military Support Officer, Brigadier General Retired Neal Mitsuyoshi, our Administrative Services Officers, Colonel Retired Rusty Spray, and our Chief Engineering Officer, Major Shao Lee. So the primary mission of the State of Hawaii Department of Defense is to enable a safe and thriving state and nation.

We're a very small department with a relatively small state budget, but it's important to highlight that a little small, the State of Hawaii Department of Defense has a significant mission and that matching state funds provide access to significant federal funding. The department requests approximately $40.5 million in state funding for state fiscal year 2026, and these funds would bring in approximately $74 million in matching federal funds.

This funding would allow the department to manage its 411 open projects against an approximate $2.3 billion in federal grants. And I'll cover that a little bit more fully later on in my testimony.

The major adjustments contained in the budget request focus on sustainment, safety, and reorganization based on lessons learned from the Maui wildfires. These adjustments include approximately $1.3 million in recurring funds to sustain the department's software, hardware, cloud services, and maintenance. Prior to this year, the department was forced to sustain this by using personal vacancy savings.

However, the department can no longer internally sustain its IT fiscal requirements. These are fully articulated in Departmental Priorities Number 1 and 2 with the Form A's that were already submitted. For Number Two, The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency requests $2.7 million to provide funding support for 32 core emergency management positions.

The requested additional state funding for HIEMA personal positions is critical to sustain emergency management, planning, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts statewide including direct support for the four Hawaii counties while administering those 411 FEMA grant-funded projects equating to approximately $2.3 billion. These are articulated in the Form A's and are annotated under Departmental Priorities 13 and 14.

The Hawaii Army National Guard requires three new positions and approval to upgrade four existing positions. All of this is 100% federally funded at no expense to the state. The Hawaii National Guard Youth Challenge Program positions are funded in accordance with the National Guard Youth Challenge Program Cooperative Agreement Program.

The National Guard Bureau supports this program with 75% federal cost share with the state providing a 25% match. The current federal funding appropriation is insufficient to incorporate state-required federal payroll fringe for all program employees.

These are clearly--are fully articulated with Form A's and Departmental Priority Number 8, and salary increases for our folks to bring them up to the appropriate wage is articulated in Departmental Priority Number 17. The program is unable to hire or retrain--or retain all of its required employees at full-time salaried rates, and 44 employees are currently budgeted at an hourly rate or 89-day higher due to the lack of the federal funds that cover the fringe rate.

Because of this, the Youth Challenge Program is requesting an additional $1.9 million to pay the federal portion of the state-mandated fringe benefits. This will allow compliance with staffing supervision requirements and ensure cadet safety for the 24 hours a day, seven days a week at both our campuses. CIP is more clearly articulated in Table 15.

The Governor's Budget approved eight of our 12 CIP projects requested for a total of $61.8 million in FY26 and $19.5 million in FY27 for general obligation bond funds, respectively, to match the $62.7 million in FY26 and $17.7 million in other federal funds for both of those fiscal years.

Overall and in summary, the Governor's Budget approved a total of $81.4 million in general obligation funds for both years and 80.5 million in other federal funds for our vacancies. DOD has a total of 504 authorized positions, 292 permanent, and 212 temporary.

Our total vacancies are 142 or 29% of our overall manning, trending downward by 43 from last fiscal year, which represents a 28% reduction. So we've definitely turned the corner of our vacancies and we're on path to meet our 5% vacancy rate goal that I've established as the new Adjutant General.

Of these 142 positions, 30 are 100% federally funded and 65 are 75% federally funded. So the following is a status breakdown for the vacancies. 24 positions are being established--they were fairly new--and the descriptions and classifications are being worked.

Eight positions are being redescribed due to the inability to fill--inability to fill them at their current described position description. 24 positions are awaiting state matching funds which are also included in our budget request. 26 positions are filled by the hourly or exempt hourly wage employees or 89-day hires.

Eighteen of those are from the Youth Challenge Academy that I previously described, and there's four others that are also at that rate. Fifteen positions are awaiting DHRD classification and 48 positions are pending hiring actions. I have the breakdown, but it's, but it's anywhere between an internal vacancy announcement, pending the internal interviews, pending civil service interviews, or the conditional offer being given to the individuals.

For telework, of the 362 current employees, one employee is authorized for telework for reasonable accommodation purposes. Thank you for this opportunity to present the Department of Defense's budget requests, and we're available to answer any questions that the committees may have.

Maybe you can go over Table 6 and just explain what you want added to the budget.

Excuse me.

Okay, so I briefly mentioned some of the items that are contained on Table Six.

You can--you talked about it. We--just say previously mentioned, then we can move on.

Okay. Thanks, Chair.

So just go line by line from department wide priority.

Okay. So I previously briefed Departmental Priority Numbers 1 and 2. Number Four is a distributed antenna systems, system upgrade. It's a little bit of money, but it'll give us a greater communicative link that we can, that we can communicate. Number Five is a new salary schedule for the engineer classification.

Number Six is also a new accountant position. Number Eight I previously briefed for the fringe request for the Youth Challenge Academy. Seventeen I briefed for the salary increases. Thirty-Four is the upgrades for the--with federal funds--for the CFMO or our facility management office engineer position upgrades. Number--Departmental Priority Number 36 establishes a new engineer position.

39, a pest technician position. Number 40 is a visitor control technician position. Twelve speaks to building maintenance supervisor positions. Thirteen and 14 is to reorganize HIEMA, and I mentioned that in my original testimony.

Sixteen is for the Limited English Proficiency Program position, which is mandated to us, but it's for a position to enable folks to get after emergency management and response capabilities if their English is not their first language. And I think that covers the numbered departmental priorities.

Members, questions?

I have one. So could you explain your Siren modernization at five million or actually $10M? What does that cover and is it statewide? How are you connected with other departments that are also using SIREN modernization funding?

Okay, well, it--in effect, we identified a lot of concerns with our Siren Program after the Maui wildland fires, but I'll bring up Administrator Barros and he can go into greater detail on the--on the application of those, of those program funds.

Aloha. We use the Siren CIP money to install new sirens, we use it to upgrade existing sirens that require contracting support--and those are the Rule Two that we use it for--the installation of new sirens, and the upgrade for our current system.

It's statewide?

Statewide, yes.

And where are these installed?

Across the--on every island.

Your installations or the county relation with the--

Private state land, county land. We do have a map on HIEMA that shows the exact location of all our sirens across the state. So it, it depends on where we're putting it. Sometimes we have to deal with Department of Transportation, highways to get land, and we'll put a siren there or private land and do a MOU with them for--to install a siren.

So when you install these, you're working with the counties and so that everybody is clear on what the siren means and being able to be alerted so we don't have a situation like in Maui?

Yes.

And this $10M covers the whole state or are you coming back for more funding? But ten million covers the state?

Yes, because we will phase it in. So, for example, this year, we're getting after some tsunami sirens that will be fixed within the next four months. There's also a work order with DAGS right now with about six sirens or replacing our very old sirens that are being replaced. So this would be the money for the next phase of modernization and upgrades.

Just to follow up regarding the topic, so the existing sirens, they're all existing, but according to what your plans are, as an example this year, how many were new installations, aside from just upgrading the old ones?

Let me get the exact number for you on the, on the--

On each island? Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, we can do that.

New installations were made.

We can get that number. Yes.

Okay. And when you talk about the tsunami sirens, that's only those that are located on seawards, yeah?

Yes, The inundation zones, that's, that's pretty much our priority right now is get those sirens replaced immediately.

And make sure that it covers whether it's farthest away in communities such as the Big Island in Ka'u, but everywhere where there is the oceans on the tsunami zone areas. Thank you so much.

Just as a follow up, you know, I know that you folks have old sirens. How many of them are obsolete that you guys cannot find parts for? And trying to work with the county, I know like we had some issues in Pa'ia because of permitting. How, how fast or how are you guys able to work with them now that has moved a lot of these projects forward?

And if you had to--I'll just wrap another question--if you had to put sirens in all these new areas for every place in the tsunami area--because I know that we've had challenges in the other areas that everybody wants on siren--what would be the total cost and how many of them would be needed?

We can get that number for you. On the total amount that we're looking at, right now the HIEMA team looks at our sirens program and if we fix our tsunami sirens that currently exist, we'll get coverage in the correct areas. We do want to modernize the sirens.

So that's part of the, the money for the ask cause the sirens that are very old on our map, they show as black, that they don't even work anymore. And some of them are older than General Logan, so...oh, sir.

Just to clarify, so you have different sirens for like tsunami or wildfire, or is this one siren and you have different beeps or whatever?

No, no, it's just one siren. It's an alert-all signal.

Okay.

But when we look at where they're placed, we count those in an inundation zone as a, as a tsunami siren.

So you have wildfire zones or you have tsunami zones and it's just where you place them, but that's the same siren?

Same siren.

And your siren budget, does that include--because I know you had issues with security and perimeter fencing, so does that include all of that too?

No, it doesn't, Senator. What we're doing is we're--the modernization is getting better casing and a little bit higher.

So you don't need the fencing?

We don't think so. Right now we're talking to the counties--you know like how the Highways Division has Adopt a Highway? We're now socializing with the communities to say, 'hey, this is your siren. Adopt a siren.' So we don't think fencing for a permanent siren is required.

And normally your tsunami sirens are all along the highways anyway or close to the highways?

Yes, a lot of them.

And I don't think there have been damages to the tsunami signs that I know because I travel the island and I see those, but I, I haven't seen, you know, any in, you know, any inference with regards to damages, whatever.

Or at least close to the ocean, right? So I wanted to go back to the Maui situation. The talk has always been about on fire siren. Is that conversation still going on with you guys in the County of Maui?

No, we--right after the fire, the Governor convened the emergency management, all the administrators and the county mayors, and we do have a protocol for sirens on who's responsible and what threat, and it's a, all-hazard siren. It'll go off and it just alerts our citizens to check their TV, check their cell phone, check the first responders. Something's happening.

So just to be clear, it's not an actual siren that like a tsunami siren, but phone alerts, social media alert is what they're looking at as a fire breaks out.

It would, it would be a siren that's in, in the neighborhood that would go off that where we test, you know, on the first of every month. That would just alert our citizens to check other sources. Something, something is happening in your area.

What is the cost of that siren?

The cost for a new siren?

The one you're just talking about now, to alert.

Per siren, right now we're estimate that we can fix an existing siren for just under 3,000, about 3000, 4,000. Modernize.

Okay. So are you using the same siren as a tsunami siren for that alert or is this a separate siren? It is the same? Just different picture of alert or--

No, no, just--same alert, just different location. So the, the siren that's on the ocean would make the same sound as the siren in the mountain and it's just alerting the citizens, 'hey, something's happening here.'

Can you send me one map of where those sirens are?

Yes.

Are they up already on certain islands or it's a projection of future placements?

So we have over 400 sirens in our, in our system right now.

Tsunami?

Just sirens. All sirens.

How many?

A little over 400.

Okay. Statewide?

Statewide, yes. And when you look at the map, you'll see where they're located from Mauka to Makai, all of our sirens.

So in reference to the issue with the wildfires on Maui and the address that Senator DeCoite brings up because she got three islands to consider, to worry about, so are they distributed already and built in certain areas in our state? And who decides where those new sirens will be placed?

So for a new siren, it's a conversation that HIEMA will have with--

Oh. With the county.

With the county, yes.

Okay. They would decide where those placements will be then.

Right, and then the technicians will sit down and look and say, okay. With the sound of the siren, work with the best--

So in reference to Senator DeCoite's question, so Maui already has those other placement to new alarm systems in, in--on Maui?

In Lahaina, we're working to replace those sirens that were destroyed. Yes, three sirens were destroyed in the fire. We're working to replace that within a six month--

New ones that are out there on the fields already on any of the Tri Island?

We--so we do have sirens, yes.

They do, and then they--

Maybe it's better if we look at the map first and then from there we can go.

Yeah.

Well, I have a question. Sorry. When you folks are going to go throughout and do the repairs, do you prioritize it according to what area has the highest wildfire risk? And then also, I'm on your map right now. In my district--well, there's a few identifiers. Number One is beyond repair, which is obvious, it's beyond repair, but then you have two other categories. One says requires maintenance, the other says maintenance required. So what is the difference?

So one, we need to contract outside of the technicians that I have. So the yellow might, I assume, fix. The red, we have to go through DAGS to get a contractor to fix those.

Okay, so then are you going to be prioritizing your siren repairs according to what community is at more risk than others?

We look at the inundation zones of tsunami. So that's the first threat that we looked at, a tsunami threat. And that's where we want to prioritize assignments.

Thank you.

I have questions on Table Four relating to your Fire Marshal. Yeah, Table Four, you have two positions for 2.2 million. So which division would the Fire Marshal be housed in?

So that's kind of an emergent theme that, that recently came up. The Fire Marshal, I believe there's a legislative proposal by which it will move to or it could move to the Department of Defense.

As quickly as we can--if it does come to the Department of Defense through this legislative session--as quickly as we can operationalize that position is how we would place it. Currently it would come under me as the, as the Adjutant General, but working very closely with the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

Is the 2.2 for two positions or is that two positions and standing up the operations?

I believe it's two positions and standing up the operation. And there has been some controversy between the salary rate for the Fire Marshal itself, but since it doesn't currently reside with me, I haven't done a complete staffing action.

But given recent activity, the Maui wildland fires, the unfortunate fires we experienced on New Year's Day, and what most recently happened with HFD, as quickly as we can operationalize it is how we would approach it. So we're going to lean forward throughout this year, and then if successful--and it does migrate over to the Department of Defense at the end of this session--then we'll, we'll be able to hit the ground running.

Thank you.

That seems awkward, though, because the, the State Fire Council is with Department of Labor and they appoint the Fire Chief, the Fire Marshal, so how does that reconcile? Or you haven't--you guys haven't discussed this yet?

Yeah, well, I think this is looking towards the future through the next fiscal year, if in fact it moves to the Department of Defense.

Okay, so when it moves, does that mean the State Fire Council no longer appoints the Fire Marshal and it's under you?

The, the correct answer, Senator, is I don't know. I haven't done a complete staffing action on that yet.

Because then, wouldn't they--they would probably have to move the entire State Fire Council as well, I would assume, because the way we passed it, the Fire Council made up the chiefs, they determined the Fire Marshal.

And what agency?

Department of Labor. I guess we'll just wait to see what the bill says.

Just one closing--

We have Department of Ag, so keep it brief.

Okay. Just one closing. When I chaired the committee that overseeing your agency, there was talk about building the new building. So whatever happened to that discussion, moving out of--

The Governor vetoed the money. Okay, next question.

Yeah, so I--guys want to move?

Yeah, but the Governor vetoed the money.

Former governor.

No, no. Okay, go ahead.

All right. I still think you need a new building.

Okay, one question. The pest technician position you have as a--for 39 on Table Six, you guys, you guys have a relationship with Department of Ag because I noticed it's vector issues. Any relationship in regards?

And so, so, Senator, for this one, it's a federally funded position and it's designated for pest control on federal lands. Much of our armories and facilities are--it's either a shared response between state land, federal land, and the funding, but this would be for the federal lands that some of our facilities reside on.

Does the outreach by the Department of Ag, in this regard say, you guys combat brown tree snake? Where you guys take that snake? You guys give them to the Department of Ag under them or you guys just kill them and fly them?

I don't, I don't recall that ever happening to any of our aircraft that are returning back from some of those areas, but if it did, we would definitely call the Department of Agriculture and turn it over to them.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Okay, we're going to adjourn and then we'll just take a ten minute break and then have Department of Ag. Thank you.

Calling to order the Joint Committee on Ways and Means and Agriculture and Environment. So this afternoon we'll hear from the Department of Ag who will give us a preview of their biennium budget request. So good afternoon. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. And good afternoon Members of the Budget Committee, WAM Committee and AEN Ag and Environment. My name is Sharon Hurd, Chairperson of the Department of Agriculture. And if I can start by introducing the staff that's here and the SMEs that will be called on later should that be necessary. Starting with the gentleman on my.

My left is Warren Takenaka. He's the acting ASO for the Services office. Going to go to the Agriculture Development Division. I saw Matthew Lok, Administrator Dr. Lok and he brought with him a new staff. Bun He Chung, he is the economist. Anyone else from add? Yes, it's Market Development Branch.

We have Brendan Akamu, he's the Market Development Branch Manager, Business Development. Moving on to the. Don't think we had anyone from Ag Loan here. Did you see anybody from Aglone? Okay, so we're moving on to the Ag Resource Management Division in charge of land and water, starting with Brian Kao, Administrator. Brian, did you have. Nope.

Then moving on to the Plant Industry Division we have Jonathan Ho. He is the Plant Industry Division. Plant Quarantine Manager Carol Okada is currently the administrative Executive 5 but she's helping us with Act 231. Okay. Greg Takishima, who is our key Pesticides Manager, he woke up sick this morning so we're sorry to see him not here.

Animal industry, we have Dr. Mayera, administrator. And anyone with you today? zero yeah, Todd Low, Manager Todd Lowe from the Aquaculture Livestock Services Department branch. Anyone else?

So we have the Quality Assurance Division which is our seventh division. And we have the administrator Dr. Leo Obaldo with him he has his hemp specialist Artemio. We go. We call him Jun. And we also have Richard Cohen who is the Commodities Measurement Standards. And I saw Keith here. Keep Keith U. From our Commodities branch.

Nope.

Did I miss anyone? I did. Good God. Everybody okay?

Marketing. zero, that was. Yeah. Okay, General.

Thank you. Committees and Committee Members, chairs, vice chairs. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to the Governor's decision on his budget for fiscal 26 and 27. If I can begin with an update on the 10 million that was awarded in this fiscal year in Act 231 and the momentum that is building for those programs.

Biosecurity is the focus of the Department. As this was the top issue for the farmers and ranchers when they were surveyed, the biosecurity came up as the biggest concern they have. And we all know that it's an interagency effort.

It takes all of us and it does rely on every one of our divisions to help us with the effort to, you know, kick some bug butt, as they say. So I'm going to start with just a quick overview. For the programs, There were about $7.8 million awarded. Of the 7.8 we have obligated.

And by obligated I mean that an RFP was issued or a contract was issued or some PO was done to obligate the funds. That's 72% of the funding, which was about $5.7 million. And of the 7.8 million, we have actually encumbered in the form of a contract or some sort of procurement, about 47%.

So I'll just go through some of the highlights of these, what we've done. The big one, the two big ones are the CRB and the lfa. So for the CRB contract that was awarded to a company called htm, they're a local company.

And what they did in their proposal that was selected for awarding is they, we are going to, the Department of Agriculture is going to identify the trees that we have deemed to be dead or dying or no longer viable. And they will be cutting it down, disposing of it. And that's on the islands of Oahu and Kauai.

On the island of Oahu, their contract says at least 150 trees. Now, 150 seems like a small number, but it's the 50ft and higher tree. So that's the most expensive tree to cut down and dispose.

So if there's trees that are in the more 30 to 40 foot range, which is the more common, it's going to be cheaper. So we anticipate a greater number than 150, but it's hard to estimate at this time. So that's on Oahu, on the island of Kauai, at least 70 trees will be cut, disposed of properly.

And because right now the main problem for crb, the dead coconut trees, the problems are on Oahu and Kauai, we included the County of Maui and Hawaii island as more outreach.

If, if they do identify any trees between now and the end of the contract, which is one year, they will be cutting down and removing and disposing of those trees as well. And so we've covered all the different counties with The CRP disposal LFA LFA was one.

zero, this contract was 1.1 million, I believe, for LFA, we have. We're relying on our database that was provided to us of detections.

It was collaboration with ISCS and the Hawaii Ant Lab, as well as our own staff that have identified residential spaces that have either reported or have been detected to have LFA, as well as voluntary reports. And we've gone out there and identified and mapped them and said, okay, these houses have potential issues with lfa.

The contractor for this is a local company called Terminix, and they have locations on all islands. So their contract that was awarded in their scope, they're going to treat at least 580 residential properties on the island of Oahu, treat at least 290 residential properties on the island of Hawaii.

And right now the counties of Maui and Kauai would be the same. They're going to treat residential properties within both counties as determined by our plant industry staff as they arise within the course of the scope of a year. So these two major projects there are.

The contracts are ready to go and so we should be starting service by the. Hopefully by the end of the month. If not, if there's a delay in the certification of the contracts, it'll be soon. We have. We're ready to go. Okay, so here. Yes. Can we ask questions on the item or later?

No, we should go through the table and then you can tell us all your budget requests. Okay. And then if you have a question on that specific line, then.

I wanted to go through just the two mainstream. We can certainly review each one later. That's okay. The other thing I wanted to bring up was the. That we have been working on ag crime. Ag crime was another big issue that was identified through the survey.