Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary

Okay, we're going to call the 3pm agenda to order. So right now we're going to hear from the office of the Governor, who just has one request. But just to let you know, the Governor actually had a previous engagement, I think Trip.

Yeah, he was going to fly to a neighbor island, but he really wanted to be here. And so that's, that's part of the reason why we asked DOE to wait because he, the Governor actually moved his schedule around to accommodate the Committee hearing. So thank you.

My pleasure. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Members. Very, very good to see you all. I'll, I'll kind of roll through. We have a brief PowerPoint, you know, where we stand on our, you know, our overall approach. And so we haven't really asked for many changes.

We really wanted to emphasize, you know, delivering on what's been appropriated over the past couple years. So the next slide just is a quick reflection of our constant goals. So if people could hit that next. Right there. Will, that thing. Zero, thank you. Here you go for it, Will. Thank you, buddy.

And I'm joined by Cork Wilson and Will Kane and some of our team behind, too, so we can be available for any questions at all. The goals remain dealing with the cost of living, which you took a major bite out of with the tax break last year. Incredible success.

And people are seeing the effect and calling us about it already. Dealing with homelessness as it continues to be a great challenge. And you'll see that we've already got to 17 cow hallows and we're going to be pushing that program to save us suffering and money. And then you're talking to the DOE folks.

You can hammer away at them and then natural resources is a priority. That's the work of the Climate Action Team. Just tough policy calls ahead and we are going to defer to your wisdom on that. And then safeguarding ourselves against future disasters, which is also part of that.

The priorities you'll see in the budget you've already heard, I'm sure, continue to be affordable housing and infrastructure. And we've preserved the rainy day Fund. There's no ask to cut into the 1.5 billion, although for your consideration, it might be less painful to go after.

Like, we'll see you guys will decide about tat increased considerations or climate impact fees. I still think those are perfectly great options to set us on a path to go forward on climate impact and adaptation.

But there is the option also to take the interest, which is $60 million a year in the rainy day Fund, and it's substantial so next slide. Here's the overview of the biennium budget, the FY26 request or General Fund appropriations. 10.4 billion and 10.5 billion in fiscal year 27.

You can see that the capital improvement programs, the bonding has been pegged at 1.3 billion and then 601 million in the two years. And you know, obviously we defer to you completely on what the priority should be for those. Why we've been having collaborative meetings, which I'm just appreciative of.

If we go to this next slide, there's the carryover balance as of now, 1.08 billion. It's pretty healthy. Gives flexibility both for the entirety of the legislative process, plus also whatever uncertainties may come. I had three White House meetings in addition to some of the RFK conversations that we were talking about.

Chair and the expectation is they're going to go after Medicaid. That's a concern. Senator Schuss has told a few people, me included, it might take them time, might take them a year to find their way back to significant changes. And I will tell you, I also think this, the wildfire situation has very uncertain possibilities.

It's probably going to be a multi $100.0 billion disaster. Also, if there is political tension that arises from hitting the Southern California Republican base and that doesn't end up being a good political relationship between President Trump, President Elect Trump and them, I don't know what will happen. I mean, they could be an impasse.

An impasse might be good for us as far as cuts go, but we will see and we'll be ready. And they, you know, they will have to make some decisions both on the disaster and what cuts may come this spring. They're going to try. I think it's going to be hard for them.

But we're prepared and we have these resources. You can see what the Rainy Day Fund, by the way, looks at. The carryover balance is one thing. Also, the Rainy Day Fund has continued to grow. It's already at 1.56 billion. It'll be over 1.6 billion by the end of fiscal year 26 and continues to make money again.

We will put a menu of options from the Climate Action team in front of you. And although everyone's got way more work than they have time, their report is good. It's a 66 page report. Overall, the Executive summary is pretty good. But the, you know, the possibilities of what we might need to do on climate are vast.

They characterize things very well. The bottom line in that is it could be as high as $500 million a year of impact that's happening to the state. We think we can succeed with $200 million a year in good ways.

That's like protection of, you know, shorelines, parks, erosion, and other things that are very difficult to find monies for. Usually also monies will be probably necessary for insurance. That's a big question going forward, more now than ever. Quick update. Yes. I, I'll just be blunt. I think RFK Jr. I went there to protect our health care system.

The vaccination challenges that we had were profound from him in Samoa. When we went there, he got involved very directly and in my opinion and the opinion of other experts, tanked their recovery, their vaccination recovery. And 83 people did die, mostly children. 5,000 plus people got infected.

And when young people get infected with measles, mumps, rubella, meningitis, polio, there's really hard to recover. If we see a decrease of 15% of our vaccination rates, for example, in different regions, you'll see big outbreaks and it will devastate communities. Keep in mind that kids can't even get the shot until age 1.

Women who catch rubella during pregnancy end up with children who are deaf. And anybody who experiences polio, including Mitch McConnell, know better than to allow that kind of thing to happen. So if there's any, if there's any sanity in dc, they won't confirm him. Not to mention the fact that he's a left Winger.

So I don't even know why this dude ended up on the, you know, on the, on the cabinet list.

But needless to say, I went over there for that, met with Biden Administration people who gave us some, you know, some idea about the future, and then was, you know, given a great honor to go and see President Carter who was lying in state, so was able to represent us.

A couple quick asks, you know, we were, we were thinking about this last year also and, you know, we're, we're mindful of that, not asking for too much. We like to kind of live within the means that we've got. This ask is for six positions, three to go over to dc, two to be here on federal funding.

We think we can make this, you know, we can turn these positions into large appropriations. And then one additional position to help with the many, many people that are applying to be on boards and commissions.

We have over 1300, I believe, 1400 people that work in some capacity as either Members on boards, volunteers in different, you know, connections to government and so on. So that would be someone to help Wendy, who's in our office. And then we, of course are super enamored of the Office of Wellness and Resiliency, which chair you created.

And it's just, it's getting its 2. It reaches its 2 year threshold to move the positions, but they'll still be completely embedded in all the things that we do. It's just they have to have a home. So I think that the discussion has been deer.

Right? Yes.

Okay. And they're, you know, they do great work and they seem to always get more than anything else I ask for. So they've found their way into your heart. Okay, couple things. On legislative proposals you'll see to generate resources, like I mentioned, for resiliency and mitigation. That's the Climate Action Team's recommendations.

In its most aggressive recommendation, it would be a 1.75% increase in TAT. And it's an interesting time to discuss that. We would split that money significantly over to the operations that are going on HTA that we need to find money for anyway and protection of the shoreline and helping the hotels and so on.

So they are, you know, they're not just simply targeted. They would be the beneficiaries in many ways if we did that. Otherwise you'll see the whole menu of options there and it's going to take all session to decide. You think best. I do think that one of the options, like I said, is repurposing the interest from the.

This historic rainy day Fund. Doesn't hurt anybody really. It's really tantamount just to an appropriation off the top of that. And then there's obviously going to continue to be proposals for the Office of Wellness and Resiliency to support vulnerable kids who have gone through a lot. The, the next page.

The budget's balance, as you see, includes tax relief already, you know, there's a large appropriation ask and it's on the next page for housing and infrastructure. We're grateful for that. And we still think housing is the number one issue amongst all our people in the state. You'll see that I asked for a continuation of the health program.

That's the health care workforce program at a total of 30 million over the next two years. We also already have a commitment for an additional 5 million from Benioff. Again, it's working. We dropped from a 17% vacancy rate statewide in healthcare positions down to 14% in the two years.

I mean, it's just directly plowing doctors and nurses into the system, which will help us In a lot of ways, the homeless solutions we're also very committed to. Yes, there is $50 million each in the next few years to continue to pay for those services for homeless individuals.

Stay out of trouble, stay out of harm's way to deal with whatever mayhem could come otherwise. And building those out is just important to us as a state. We remain committed to chasing them wherever people are willing to build them. Fire mitigation is a big part of the budget.

The state fire marshal at 2.2 million and their team dealing with this wildfire settlement is often discussed as the biggest ask I can share, just like I did before. We'll hear in either the end of February or early March what the Supreme Court decides. If they ratify this settlement, which I feel somewhat strongly they will.

In other words, not allowing the insurers to take away or kill the deal and it goes forward, then 4.037 billion of the total settlement will go mostly to the people of Maui, minus fees that the attorneys charge and they're trying to keep that sane and some smaller amount, much smaller amount to the insurers.

It gets us out of this without basically Maui going bankrupt. And HECO has got to fight their own fights. They're going to have to come before you and make their case. We appreciate how important they are to the state. We also recognize that they have to do their part in this recovery. They are pegged at 1.99 billion.

This next slide, real quickly is the just a series of bullet points of the housing investments. You guys are very familiar with this. How much does it total to. Yeah, $456 million in overall housing expenditures. And we will look forward to the guidance and the shaping of this money. By the chairs, of course. Next one.

Next slide, very quickly is the healthcare workforce discussion. I had people can get up to $50,000 a year. It's usually much less. Usually it's like 12,000 or $14,000 to repay their loans. But they have to stay in Hawaii. And this is working because it means that we don't have to transfer patients between islands.

We can attract workforce from a lot of different places in the country. And really our goal is always to have local kids get these scholarships if at all possible.

And then it's really good because the long term investment is so great if a social worker stays in the state because they couldn't afford housing or a nurse or what have you. So that's a big priority.

There are some appropriation requests for some of the healthcare safety net, HHSC of course, they're going to also have to come in and make their case. This next slide is a quick breakdown, just so you have it, of the cash settlements.

Numbers have not changed from late in the fall and without a doubt it stings, but it does get us through and we recover much more quickly. This is paid out over three and a half years, basically. So we ask for just a portion of it, but we have to put in the budget to demonstrate that it's appropriated.

But we won't have to pay it all out, actually over two years, we paid out over longer. So that will be reflected ultimately in the budget sheets when we don't have to pay everything. Correct. Okay, last couple slides and then totally open to you, of course, for questions. Here's the Calhale.

It actually is tipped to 17 total to date and we have another 10 in the pipeline already. We'll get to 30 and then we will have our social health system, which we can, you know, we can adjust appropriately. Who needs social workers, who needs primary care providers? Who.

Which adolescents need to go somewhere, which kupuna need to go into a place. And if one notices, communities have not basically been up in arms about it. Sometimes communities get a little up in arms when we propose them, but by the time we do them, pretty mellow.

I mean, there are moments, but yeah, Maui had a moment, but they had a lot of moments, appropriately so. But, but we're proud of this program and also it brings back money because we end up spending much less on Medicaid for individuals that are otherwise on the street. And we're committed to this.

Finally, here's the slide on some fire mitigation. A lot of this is Department transportation and technology. So these are things that are probably necessary under any circumstance as a result of the fires. They should position us better, though, on insurance. And if we are being realistic, it's going to be harder for everyone to get fire insurance.

But we are making the case that we did the things to now prevent fires. And you notice, knock Wood, it was a very quiet fire season this year. Not because the world suddenly got wetter, it's just because we had a lot of technology out there.

And I'm happy to say that it was a good year and the rest is just mahalo. So sorry to run through that quickly. I figure you've heard a lot of these things on multiple occasions. We did address the house yesterday. They spoke up a little bit about. One of.

One of the things that they made comment on was maintenance. Yeah, deferred. Deferred maintenance. And looking at what we should really be spending year over year rather than letting buildings know, suffer and struggle. And with that, I'm all yours.

Okay. The Governor only has one item on page table 6, which he already described in his presentation. Yes. Any Members, any questions?

Yes, I have one. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Governor. Good to see you. Folks. Just a question on the fire mitigation. The $15 million for.fire breaks. So that's only on the perimeters where the highways are, am I correct?

Because why I say that is because we heard earlier and they also have a big budget, 22 positions they're asking for and 4 million for one group. $3 million goes for fire breaks for Maui. So I'm just wondering, are we all working together or what?

It's initial funding. They do do slightly different things. You're totally right, Chair. To be Frank, we give quite a lot of latitude to Ed as far as wherever he thinks there's a fire vulnerable community.

It's always been in the or almost always been in the western sides of the islands where we just have a lot of extra risk, including not just Maui East West side but big islands west side and our west side on a water understanding.

DOT and I, I'm not sure if what divisions these are because you know, we got the three divisions there. So does this encompass the highways and everybody else the airports and we can anyway just. Yeah, we're going to have.

We still have.com.

Okay. We'll make sure I clarify this so we don't double spend for sure. It's kind of as Will was sharing with me. This is kind of the beginning of.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure. You know, you're presenting as your 15 million. So that's.

No, the only thing he actually has is the six positions.

Yeah, yeah.

This he was just going over.

We can have Director clarify but sure. This is part of the larger discussion.

Thank you for being here. I just get a quick question on the the positions. With the creation of the new Federal affairs office in with staff in D.C. and Hawaii, how quickly will you be able to get the office up and running to ensure that it will be able to address the changes through the Trump Administration?

Well, the Trump Administration has said it will do to scale back many of our federal programs.

Yeah. Four months is what we'd like to do. So even, you know, the sooner the better. And we're anticipating a bumpy four years to be Frank. So we'd like to do that. You know, we can and have leaned on people that get contracts and do advocacy and lobbying.

But it really doesn't end up as our people, you know, and so we're sharing them and so on. So we'll dive right into it. There is a capacity for Executive branch offices to rent space very modestly from. I think they call it a. Yeah, the hall of States. So we can get something going really quickly.

And we've had some people in our midst over the years that have returned to D.C. and they might like to still work for Hawaii, but from there there's a chance.

And then just one more question. So you state that you are transferring the Office of Wellness and Resilience to the Department of Human Services and Development. Can you explain what this office has done since its creation and what will it do as it goes to D. Herd?

Can I bring up Tia? She's our Boss. Yeah. This would be a Bill. Yes. We would keep her if the rules were different, you know, Right. In the Executive branch.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair and Senate Senators. Thank you for that question, Senator DeCoite. We are on track to continue the four areas of focus that we've been focused on for the last year and a half. It is primarily looking at data and assessment as an overall.

As an overall mission to support the state systems, to create more trauma informed organizations within the departments and across the state in General, to look at the health and well being of the General population from Keiki to Kupuna. So overall that is our mission. So we have kind of put it into four different buckets.

One is data and assessment. One is policy and program development within departments and across the state. One is training and technical assistance at and one is partnerships and collaborations that focus on workforce development and workforce wellness.

And so within those four areas, a lot of all of our projects are falling within those sectors that overall address the health and wellness of the state in General. And so we're specifically focusing on state departments and the workers in the state departments.

And so the request in the housekeeping Bill to move, as it was originally stated in Act 291, to move from the Governor's office to Department of Human Services. The request in the housekeeping Bill is to move from the Governor's Office to Department of Human Resources Development. Because of the.

As we've kind of iterated over the last year and a half, we've really looked at the concept of what it means to create healthy workers who. Which then will create healthy communities.

And so the concept of D Herd looking at across the state departments, looking at the improvement of the state workforce through initiatives that look at worker well Being through the Social Determinants of Health Workforce Wellness survey that we've recently created and distributed and other wellness initiatives that specifically focus on local looking at self care and secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma of the workforce.

And so because D Herd has this kind of statewide purview of all the departments touching all the human resources and then all the departments, it made more sense to look at developing trainings through their lms, developing programs and policies around trauma informed care across all the state departments and looking at that overall community engagement with worker well being is a component in there.

Because our challenges has been every time we talk to a Department that when we talk about vacancies or we talk about hard to fill positions to kind of help them kind of move it like faster or.

I mean especially though we should probably. Have this discussion because when the Bill is introduced.

Okay.

Then we can look at the mechanics of the Bill because you're. When is it, when is your day? Tuesday. Okay. Yeah. Because then we have something tangible in front of us with language.

Perfect. Thank you.

Yeah. It would be a dream come true if it helped that. I mean but you know they all hands on deck for hiring. Yeah. Thank you.

I think so. There's no other question. Okay. Just remember we have DOE and we still have the AG and we're not leaving until it's all done. And if you leave this, you know you might the things you want in the budget. So you're not going to leave.

Okay. Answer this quickly, Governor. Thank you Governor for your focus on climate change and sea level rise impacts. I noticed that you're going to generate revenue for the resilience and mitigation again.

That's part of a Bill. So we haven't received these bills yet.

I just wanted to know if you have. The climate adaptation team has projects that you are looking at more specifically that the. The revenues generated will address.

Yes, if you have that. Well, specifically we still don't have the Bill on that tat and then the breakdown that the Governor talked about. So I'm not sure if you guys are final have finalized that or not. Their deadline is Tuesday. Right.

So we. So we have a bill. We have some projects in mind already. Yes. And then there's a process that's described in the Bill that's going to allow for vetting of future projects and, and to go through across the board and across the state.

It's premature until we see what the Bill says because it'll dictate it could be similar to DLNR's land and conservation Fund. Where they decide. I mean, there's a different mechanism.

Yeah. And we're. That's the nice thing about it is we're open to whatever. You know, I've shared with a couple people along the way. If. If you have projects that you think have to be prioritized, build them in. Build them into the Bill. That would be perfectly excellent. We know there are some roads that are jeopardized more.

We know that there are some areas where we've had higher fire risks, so on. It's a big policy move. In fact, it's. After the first two years that we've had together, this is the largest single policy area where we haven't yet achieved. So it's really important this year that we try to get that right.

Thank you.

Okay, go ahead.

Kind of related to the table.

Homelessness.

No, that's his presentation. So we still have dhs, but you can ask. Go ahead.

Yeah. The question is that I just like. No. You know, for the Kahali homes that is In Cunia, about 2300 you guys got possession back from the Kahali homes that is in Cuneil.

I know you guys are having problems with the landowner, locking you guys out from receiving those Kahali homes to get it delivered in a timely manner. Do we ever remedy that issue up in Cuneo?

Not sure. Is there a Kahala in Kunia?

No, no, no. It's not building it in Kunia. They built it. But somebody that has the property not giving access to the state to remove the property. That's what was told to us when we seen the houses.

You can see them when you go on the right side of Cunia, you can see the Kahali homes that the state had funded and built, but it's being stored in. The following. Yeah, thank you, chair.

Okay, well, thank you for coming. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Okay, we're just gonna take. What. How much is the 5.

SA. SA.

Okay. Calling the Joint Committee on Ways and Means and Judiciary to order. So we just want to thank the Attorney General because this hearing was. This briefing was supposed to start at 3:30pm so thank you for your patience. So, Members, next we're going to hear from the Attorney General who will present the biennial budget request. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Chairs Rhodes and Dela Cruz and Members of the committees on Ways and Means and Judiciary. With me today, I'm Anne Lopez. With me today is Brenden Kinoshita, our ASM, Matthew Dvonch, my first deputy, David Day, my special assistant, Toni Schwartz, PIO, Sheri Wang is our CFO for, for CSEA.

And Susan Yonemura from the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. And also here is Christin Johnson from the Corrections Oversight Committee, which is an attached agency to the Department of the Attorney General.

And Mark.

I'm sorry, Mark.

Okay, so if you, if you want, we can just go straight into Table 6. Unless you want to share. I mean, you've waited this long, so you go ahead.

There's two things that I want to share. One is the Wildfire investigation is complete. We issued phase three today. And I am really proud of the work that my Department has done in this.

They have spent 18 months doing a lot of work, going through every single piece of paper to make sure we didn't need to redact things, making sure it was okay to become public, preparing subpoenas. They were just fantastic. FSR did a great job getting this report done in 18 months, I think.

And this kind of an investigation has never happened before. We have had some calls from California asking what we did with our investigation. And so I think we're seen as a leader in that. So that finished today.

The second thing I wanted to share with you was last year I came to tell you that the Honolulu prosecutor had decided to stop prosecuting cases rising out of state law enforcement officials. At the time, I said I would come back this year with statistics and I didn't need positions.

I think you guys were prescient because it turned out we really needed the positions and you gave them to us. Over the last year, we've had 2,196 referrals from district court that our criminal justice deputies have had to make appearances for, just on Oahu.

Of course, he also decided he would no longer do the cases arising out of bond forfeitures. Prior to this, we had maybe 2030 max a year. We did 250 last year. So I really want to thank you for those positions. Had we not had them, I think we would have been drowning. So thank you very much.

The one other thing that I think is important related to that is. Our. Department is able to make the work that Do Care does serious and important. And one of the great outcomes that we're developing and will continue to develop is the relationship with DOE Care. Their investigators.

And our investigators are doing training together, particularly with the newer investigators for DOE Care, making sure that they're using the best investigative techniques. Our prosecutors are meeting with them in their training to help them understand what they need for warrants and subpoenas and what they need to charge and actually prosecute and win a case.

And our subject matter deputies in environmental law are able to keep everybody up to date on what the most current laws are, both state and federal, so that we can properly prosecute these. The relationship, I think, is developing really well, and we've had some positive successes in that area, and it's going to continue, I think.

What about DLE?

We're working with DLE. We have, you know, their investigators used to be our investigators. So there's already a good relationship between our investigators. I think that their investigators are doing good work with our prosecutors, meeting with them, talking to them when they need warrants, so that everything is as smooth as it can be.

Are your people going through their training, too? Like, how are you following the same.

I don't think so. I think the answer to that is no. And I'm not certain what their training is. I am not opposed to doing that kind of thing because the more that we can be standardized when our prosecutors are doing the prosecutions, the better it'll be for everybody. The family or. I'm not. Sorry, not the family.

The Oahu District courts are also aware of how this has impacted us, and they're beginning to make some adjustments on when they're hearing cases and how they're scheduling things so that it's not quite a circus. Chaotic.

So. So also on DLE. So I think I read a story in either Civil Beaters or Advertiser a few days ago that there are still four DLE employees who had been arrested but not charged, pending investigation. That was quite a while ago.

So, I mean, as a General, not just these four, but as a General rule, isn't it better to wrap things up and not leave people dangling? I mean, especially if you're in law enforcement, where I think you probably lose your. You lose some privileges, probably can't carry a gun, stuff like that.

I can't actually comment on any of those, but certainly it's important that when there's any kind of internal action for whatever reason that the investigation be completed in a timely manner and the right action taken.

Since I, I can't remember when we started but a few months ago every HR case that arises in DLE comes to our ER, employment labor division. They, their HRO meets with our deputies. So from the very beginning of the case so that the investigation is done properly and that make sure everybody's following all.

So there is an investigation ongoing can tell us that much. Right. And if you, if you stopped investigating you could.

No, we, we, we don't respond to that. But I'd be happy to meet with you privately and have a conversation with you. I cannot do that publicly.

Okay. All right, thanks Chair.

Can I, can I just say the very last thing I wanted to share was our positions, vacancies and efforts. We had 12 deputies retweet retire last year with an average of 27 years of service each of them.

It was a huge 250 years of institutional knowledge retired last year we had 12 deputies go to other government agencies and predominantly in Deputy Director positions which I am, I hate losing great deputies but I'm thrilled about because it only improves our relationships with those departments. We had 12 deputies resign for whatever other reasons.

We hired 33 deputies so we sort of broke even at the end of the year. We were able to hire 33 though because of the appropriation that you've provided for increases. Brendan has more details about where we are in sort of the government service.

The other thing we've been doing for our non legal positions for like clerks, secretaries, legal assistance is we've attended eight job fairs and that netted 120 applications. So what we're doing with those is our supervisors attend the job fairs. If there's a candidate that they like, we offer them an 89 day hire.

Once they start, they start filling in their job application. They can do the interview and before that 89 days is up, if everybody's happy with it, we can offer them a job. So on our tab 11 we have 989 day hires. Since that was done, two have already been offered and taken permanent positions.

One is being interviewed for a permanent position and the other six are in their application process. And I'm very happy to say that we've only two is the total number of reappointments we've had to make with 89 day hires. Historically I believe Senator Kim could let you know that we probably had like 79 reappointments.

So I'm really I'm really pleased with our efforts in that area. And you'll see on our budget highlights, funding for sex offender registry investigators is crucial. We have over 3,000 registered sex offenders in the State of Hawaii at any given time. A few or a few several hundred could be non compliant.

These investigators are absolutely crucial to making sure we know where every one of those registered sex offenders live and work. So we need funding for those positions. Salary adjustments continued for deputies for approximately 3 million. And then the Litigation Fund, which I think you're going to want to talk about some as well.

Okay, why don't we, why don't we go to. Because we actually have to adjourn at 6pm because there's a cutoff time for I guess IT. So if we can just let the attorney get through table six and then people can ask questions.

I'm going to let Brendan take it.

From some of it you already went over, so we can skip the first one.

Brendan Kinoshita Administrative Services Manager So on Table 6, after the SOR investigators as Attorney General spoke about is the lump sum adjustment for our deputy positions. So that is repeated a few times. And it's because we need, we're making the adjustment for all means of financing.

So some of the deputies are funded by special funds, some of them by revolving funds. And so we want to make sure that when we evaluate deputies for their raises, we're not only giving it to the General funded attorneys, it's also for those that may be funded by special funds.

Or you Fund or you Fund.

Yeah. So we did ask for lump sum adjustments for each of the MOFs that we have deputies appropriated for. The way that we calculated that was we looked at the 3.36 appropriation the Legislature provided in for fiscal 23 and that provided for three fiscal years worth of salary.

So when we looked at this time around, what we did was we added up how much of the lump sum we allocated to raises and then we were looking at just making increases for the biennium. So we did it for fiscal 26 and fiscal 27.

I'm not. I want to be let you know as well that on all of those raises we have a very specific performance metrics that we use. Matt works very closely with all of the supervisors and goes through the whole process with them.

So if you want more details about how we determine who gets a raise and how much that raise is, Matt can answer all of those questions.

Did you want to just continue? Okay, so continuing with table 6, page 10, the first item is the increase to the Budget line item for litigation expenses. So across the board, the Department has spent more on litigation costs than has been budgeted. So prior to Covid, the department's litigation budget was just shy of $4 million.

And then there was that program review exercise that was done during COVID The litigation line item was reduced and that we had just increased it the previous fiscal year to 2 million. And we asked for an additional 470,000. But as of January 6, we've already spent about 1.2 to 1.3 of the litigation budget.

So already halfway through what's already been appropriated. And First Deputy or AG can kind of speak probably later if you have questions about the cost. But I mean ultimately things like expert witnesses and things like that are increasingly expensive as well as, you know, other litigation costs.

After that we have priority number four, which is for the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. Part of this request is to relocate their servers. So right now their servers are located in Kalani Moku. And so everybody has gotten the notice from ETS that they need to vacate that space. So they have to find a secure location.

It can't be in a flood zone. Those are the servers that host all of the cjs like Federal Criminal Background information. So all of that has to be relocated. They also administer the state way statewide Automated Biometric Identification System. There's increased costs with the vendor, so we are asking for the difference needed for that.

And then also there is a AC replacement. So in the building that Hawaii Criminal Justice Data center is located, they do have some of their local servers, which the Lieutenant Governor's backup server is also located and housed in that facility. That AC is independent from the AC system for the whole building.

And so they have to install a new AC in that area because that AC has to run 24/7 to keep all of the servers cool. On the bottom of page 10 and then continuing into page 11, there's housekeeping, adjustments for fringe, adjustments for the various Non General Fund MOF that the Department has. Yeah.

And if you notice Members, the rate is 64.25% for fringe.

Yeah, yeah. And so you know how we arrived at the request. You know, we take the budgeted salaries of the positions, we multiply it by the fringe rate, look at what we already have budgeted and then we subtract what is needed.

So the numbers that are on your table six are the delta of what's needed for the fringe after the fringe rate moving down, requesting three new position and funds for the tax and charities division. One of those positions is a Deputy Attorney General, one legal assistant and one legal Clerk.

These would be positions that would work exclusively on charities enforcement. So they would be funded by the charities enforcement special Fund. So tax and charities on one hand advises dotex, but they also have this charities enforcement.

Since these positions would be funded exclusively from the special Fund, their work would be 100% dedicated to the charity's regulation and enforcement. Following that request to add one new deputy Attorney General and one new investigator for our Medicaid fraud unit.

That division currently all of the deputy positions are filled and we are filling the two vacant investigator positions that we have now. The Medicaid fraud unit has shifted from only focusing on criminal investigations and they're moving into more civil matters. And part of that is to generate revenue for the Medicaid Special Fund.

And so we're looking to enhance that union as they broaden their scope of work. And then finally on page 11. Let's see. So you'll see on page 11 it's 2 because they're split funded on a 25 special Fund. 75 federal.

Page 12 we're requesting for one new deputy Attorney General for our commerce and Economic development division, specifically attorney to focus on antitrust matters. Right now there's a single attorney in CED that focuses on antitrust.

And so we want as one as a matter of succession planning but also to more evenly distribute the work and allow the state to engage in more antitrust matters. Because right now we have to be. We're very limited in capacity of which antitrust matters we can join because it's one guy who's doing the work.

Following that we have federal appropriation ceiling for child support enforcement agency, also a housekeeping matter. The actual cash on hand for the agency is whatever the feds award. But in the allotment process there's a shortage in the ceiling. So we always run into this issue of on the A19s.

You don't have enough allotment, but we have the cash from the Fed. So it's just to provide them appropriate ceilings so that they can do their allotments and allocations more efficiently. Moving on, there's a request for one new deputy Attorney General position for our human services division.

This request originally was specifically going to be for Office of Youth Services for dhs. During governor's decisions that was converted to General funds so that the position could be used to service all of dhs. Because in speaking with the division, DHS as a whole is generating significant volume of work for them.

So they don't want to pigeonhole it. To be a U funded position only to OIS. And then finally priority number 14, add four new positions for the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission. The Commission is currently fully staffed. They are filling their last two positions.

I believe they have start dates in February and so they're asking for additional positions and I believe money for travel and some consultant. But if there's questions related to that request, we'll defer to the oversight coordinator.

Your Members questions.

So on the litigation, the $10 million, 10 million more for litigation are what do you attribute this spike in litigation to other than the sort of General inflationary kinds of things? Are there big cases that you're having.

To deal with or there's a combination of issues? One is for the larger cases that we do in the multi state litigation, the defense bar is becoming very, very aggressive and burdensome in what they're requ so we are having a lot more resources focused on discovery. The other part is in anticipation of the new Administration.

I want to be very, very clear that my role is to enforce the rule of law. It is not to be the opposition to the President elect or his Administration or the resistance. Based on the comments he's already made, we absolutely anticipate that he will issue Executive orders that I believe will violate the rule of law.

The birthright citizenship is one that he's talking about ending through Executive order on, on January 20th. That is a a right that's in our 14th amendment and has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court in numerous cases. There are other types of issues that we anticipate.

We are working collaboratively with the Democratic attorneys General throughout the United States. So it's not us doing every single case, but we certainly want to be an active participant in some of those. I think through this process, my job with the Legislature and with the Governor is to share what those issues are.

Talk with you about what the policy priorities are because there could be some cases where from a policy perspective the Governor or you really want us to pursue something. But I think we're going to have to balance that with whatever kind of retaliation we could experience as a result.

And it's clear the President elect is already planning on retaliating against California with wildfires without, you know, if they don't make concessions. So I don't want to take any action without consulting you because if there is retaliation, we have to pick our priorities. I think.

On the question of litigation costs. So last year we were talking about the Navajine case and the litigation costs with regard to that. That case Settled? Yes. Did we spend all of that money or was there money left over?

Well, that's a good question. I don't. I can't answer that off the top of my head.

Senator. We can check, but the. That money was actually appropriated to deal, you know, on a DOT. We would bill them for the invoices that we would have from Special Deputy. So I can check with DOT on how much of it was spent. I don't believe the entire appropriation was spent because we settled.

All right, thanks. I'll give. Yeah, go ahead.

Out of your budget request that you have on Table 6 for different deputies and staff. I know either last session or session ago, the prosecuting attorney said they were handling state cases that they transferred over to the AG. So you don't need any more deputy positions or anything for that.

You guys are able to sort of handle that in house?

That was part of their intro.

Oh, well, yes. So we have filled the positions for criminal justice with the exception of two, I think, but we're filling those two in February, so we will have filled all of those positions. And I think we're properly staffed at this point. Same with the Civil Recoveries Division.

Great, thank you, Charles.

Was there any. Are there any areas that. Of your budget where we depend heavily on federal funding that might be pressure points?

Yes, Senator. Matt Dvonch, first deputy. Our crime Prevention and Justice Assistance Division manages all the federal burn JAG grants for all of our state and local law enforcement agencies. So they manage all of that. That is a significant pressure point, we think.

So you think that the feds would withdraw money to.

They are the law and order Administration, after all. That's correct. There may be scenarios where if some law enforcement doesn't go along with what the Federal Government might want, retaliation could occur in that. Okay, that area.

So in terms of the retaliation, I mean, how. How big a factor should that be in our thinking? What she said earlier, I think it's a balance.

I mean, if it's. If we're talking about birthright citizenship, we have to fight that. We. We cannot possibly allow that to go forward. So there's some things that I think are just very clear that are constitutional violations. There may be some other issues that fall more on the policy side.

It's hard for me to tease them out because so many things I feel so passionately about. But, you know, we have a lot of concerns about health care privacy, not just for transgender care, but reproductive rights. So I guess my answer is I'm not sure.

There could be times where it could be more of a policy issue where there's a legal issue, but it also may be a larger.

I guess I'm just a little worried that the states are sovereign, after all, and we're the ones who get to make certain calls.

And I guess what I really worry about is I don't want to be bluffed into doing stuff that we don't want to do because the Trump is famous for lots of bluster and some of the stuff he follows through on, and some of them he doesn't. But he does get people to sort of preemptively bend the knee.

And I'm not sure that we should be preemptively bending the knee. If we really get put in a jam where we have to make a decision, then okay, so be it. But let's not give the. Let's not give the house away before we have to.

I would fully agree with that. I will say I won't go into detail, but I'm happy to brief you privately. The Democratic attorneys General have been meeting regularly beginning on January 20th. We will be on the phone every single day looking at what's happened, talking about what we should do, and trying to be as collaborative as possible.

My question just in terms of the collaboration with the Democratic attorneys General is that as we go forward, how will we collaborate? So we're not standing out there alone in some of these cases where we really do want to take a stand.

Well, I'll tell you, I won't go into the details, but let me tell you how the conversation today went on two particular issues. There are some states that feel very, very strongly about certain issues. Other issues might not impact Hawaii as much. One of them has to do with mass deportation. Arizona's interest may be stronger than ours.

I'm not saying we don't have an interest, but it may be stronger. So different AGs are identifying what their priority issues are and determining if they want to take kind of like a leadership role in that.

And then as a group, we talk about what venue is the best jurisdiction to file whatever it is, if it's going to be a lawsuit. We talk about whether or not we should intervene in another action. So we're trying to take some of the politics out of that conversation. Most of the other ones are elected.

A few of us are not. So we're trying to take some of the politics out, figure out where really is the best place to file a lawsuit. What would it mean if we filed lawsuits in different jurisdictions and had split jurisdictions? So we are talking about it regularly. We all have team Members.

Dave Day is sort of my point person. So every AG has their deputies working on these issues and they're collaborating every single day on these issues. And again I'm more than happy to talk to you privately about what they.

Are if I can. Chair Rhodes. I just wanted to add to what the first deputy had said. You know, it's not only with respect to federal funds. I think are also where we monitor is some of our client agencies.

We have you funded interdepartmental funded attorneys and so it would be if the federal funds for example were impacted to DHS who maybe they use federal funds to pay the bills that we invoice them for services.

So you know the instruction to the divisions was as they work with their client agencies if they catch any window of potential reductions in federal funds and if those federal funds are used to pay for our services, then we need to be aware of that also.

Because if for example that stream of revenue were to be cut off from the client agency and they can no longer pay for our staff, then we would have a problem.

So we're looking at that issue not just for the AGs federal funds in our own budget, but also impacts to federal budgets in other Executive agencies as well.

The settlement. Is that going to be a bill?

Yes, I. It's a bill.

We sent it to your staff. Yes. No, I'm just wondering when it would be appropriate for the Committee to meet with you because it may be premature until it's introduced.

I'm happy to meet with you at any time. I know the House has been scheduled something for the 24th of this month but I. I'm prepared to meet with you anytime you like.

In a similar vein. Do you know what this is just a. Do you know when the. What the. The Supreme Court sub subrogation case timeline is? Do they. Have they told you anything about when we can expect a decision?

I don't think oral argument's been scheduled yet. Oh, not even that far. Yeah, I think the briefing is still in progress.

I think it's completed. I think we've been talking about maybe February or March hopefully for a decision. For a decision.

Yeah. Okay. So the. But the. No oral arguments yet. All right. Okay, thanks.

Okay. Any further questions? Thank you.

I don't want to hog it but I got so the Special Investigation and Prosecution Division which was my co chairs of brainchild a couple years ago the Attorney General reported on the status of this division stated had developed five goals and then in 2020. That was in 2023.

In 2024, the Attorney General, your report on this division did not report on whether the division had achieved or worked towards any of those five goals. Did you achieve those goals? What's the status of that division? Are you doing investigations?

Well, the division is doing investigations, and I apologize for that. They have filled their. I think most of their investigation positions are filled with people who are former FBI, IRS analysts, forensic analysts. They've got a great group of analysts there. They're doing some fascinating work.

And they're also working with the Federal Government on some task force cases as well.

Has anybody been prosecuted yet?

Go ahead.

Yes, we have had people prosecuted both under our Public Integrity section of the sifty as well as the Human Trafficking section of sift.

Or indicted, I should say. Or.

And I also wanted to say that we've hired a fantastic Human Trafficking Abatement coordinator, has been working closely with all of the law enforcement and community services providers out there. And this month is Human Trafficking Awareness Month. And we're going to be doing a signing ceremony, appropriation with the Governor. There's all kinds of events.

Yeah, Just background information for some Members of. Two years ago we added the White Collar Division and Human Trafficking Division. And I think what the AG ended up doing was merging both of them. And part of it was because we were dealing with helping the victims in, but not necessarily prosecuting them.

And so that was one of our priorities. And then the other thing was we had a lot of white collar crime going on at the time and the feds had said, well, Hawaii doesn't seem to care, so that's why the feds are here. And we knew that wasn't true.

So we just provided more resources to the AG so that we could deal with things locally. And they've done a great job filling the positions and getting things going.

And obviously we can't comment on any pending investigations, but we have had prosecutions. And part one of the goals is people don't really think of the state as the place you go to report these kind of crimes. These crimes everybody thinks called the FBI. Right.

Well, prosecute these cases, even if they're kind of small cases to the public. Yeah. It gets people used.

Well, I saw your PSA.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Thank you.

I mean, I could hear your voice, you know, which I think is positive because I've had a constituent ask who do I call? Because they were. They knew of a human trafficking victim, but they didn't know who to call.

Will any new legislation be coming? Is it working well enough that you don't need Any new bills at this point for that division?

I don't believe that we do.

Okay, we do have one bill in our package to change some of the definitions for the human trafficking, for the sex trafficking provisions of our penal code. But not to add additional.

But not directly, not directly related. I mean, only because they'd be charging those crimes, not because there's any problem with it. Okay.

Just one thing, I wrote that down. But the problem we have, not your problem, but in General, we know we had put in for the sex trafficking and we call it crime problem that we are having in our communities, especially on the west side and on heat on. On Hawaii island on the increase of sex trafficking.

The problem that I notice been happening on something probably maybe not in your guys purview, but you guys can look into them. Right now I'm a sex victim, okay. And I go to the police and I tell them that I'm being sex trafficked. They investigate, ask me questions. They said, did you receive money? Okay.

So this is the law that I have a bill to mimic that was happening in Alaska that they protect the victim for not being prosecuting, persecuted. When they say that they receive money instead of labeling them or making the victim in more problems by labeling them as a prostitute or because they had received money.

Another one that HPD said the reason why they're having hard time because a lot of them is kids sex trafficking kids, and family Members sex trafficking their nieces or their daughters for money. Those are the things why they said it. It's a difficult task for them. Right.

I put in, I have a builder to say that we got to protect the victim. If I come forward and telling you that my uncle is doing this, don't arrest me and put me in jail. And then my uncle go back to wherever he came from and then I'm in jail and he just left the state.

So that's something that maybe I can work on with you guys because I really want to protect our victims here.

Because when they came to me and I first came into the square building, not a farmer, not only a former sex trafficking victim, but an actual sex trafficking person that just came out, didn't have no place to go here.

Now, you know, we created this, but that was a long time ago when I came here, but never had nothing. When she reported it, she got arrested. She has a record of prostitution, but she's not a prostitute. But it never prosecuted her person that brought her to the island and and sex trafficker in Waikiki.

She went jail because she was Receiving money under duress, but they never really will have to the those guys that we're wishing that we can enhance that, but that's gonna be something big.

I don't know if you guys know, in this building from the west side community, they have a lot of legislation, which is good that you guys said you guys don't need, but they're coming up with their own legislation because they feel. And I guess it's because of the city site, not on the state side.

So it's good that people now, if you're not Facebook, can know that the state is doing a great job in trying to reduce sex trafficking and all in Hawaii. So later on, I'll talk to you guys offline.

Absolutely. Is it unconscionable to arrest a victim of human trafficking? And we have to change them. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay, last question.

I have a question for the Hawaiian Correctional System Oversight Commission. Well, this is the softest of softball questions. Probably like a nerve ball question. The two additional requested positions, what. What will you use them for? What do you need them for? Why will that. Why will they improve your operation?

Yeah, thanks for. Thank you for asking. I'm Kristen Johnson. I'm the oversight coordinator of the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission. So the two additional positions that we're requesting. One is a prison oversight specialist. So that position would be doing investigations in the prison.

Specifically, the individual who we're about to bring out in February is a jail oversight specialist specific for the jails. So we're really excited to get our investigative processes up and running. That's going to be amazing for this year. The second position is a research and policy associate.

There's a really specific part of our mandate that talks about how we need to constantly keep updated and informed about what's going on across the country, what's going on in other countries, as far as the best practices for rehabilitative and therapeutic practices.

So this is kind of a twofold position where not only will they help us make sure that we're staying up to date on how Hawaii can be the best of the best, but also making sure that we're working on our policy work with the Department and ensuring that all of their policies are in alignment with what the Legislature has called for.

So that's the goal of the two positions that will very significantly increase what we're able to do in our office.

Okay, thank you. Thank Chair.

I mean, if you can just talk to the Public Safety Chair about your relationship and your arrangement with DOE Care and how we might be able to expand that with DLE?

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to adjourn.

Thank you. Thank you.