House Standing Committee on Finance

Okay, we're going to convene the Committee on Finance for our informational briefings. To continue our informational briefings today, we have the Department of Education. Welcome, Superintendent.

Thank you very much. Aloha Chair Yamashita, Vice Chair Takenouchi, and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to present the department's budget request for the upcoming fiscal biennial. Joining me today are Board of Education Chair Roy Takumi, Deputy Superintendents Heidi Armstrong for Academics, Tammi Oyadomari-Chun for Strategy and Administration, and Dean Uchida for Operations.

Our team of Assistant Superintendent--Assistant Superintendent's also here. A core mission at the Department of Education is education. We develop the academic achievement, character development, and social emotional well-being of our students.

We are deeply committed to working alongside our families, communities, and partners to ensure that every student can achieve their aspirations from early learning to postsecondary education and citizenship. This mission is at the heart of every decision we make and is the foundation of our budget proposal today.

To give you a sense of our scale and scope, we serve over 152,000 students across 258 public schools. Our students come from diverse backgrounds. Nearly 54% of our students have significant challenges, including being economically disadvantaged, requiring special education services, or English language learners. To carry out our responsibilities, we have over 42,000 employees, including nearly 13,000 teachers.

This makes us one of the largest employers and service providers in the state and the quality of our services have a direct impact on the well-being and future success of our state. Under our 2023-29 strategic plan, we are working towards implementing strategies to ensure our graduates are globally competitive and locally committed.

Our goal is for every student to graduate on time and be prepared so that they can choose to attend college, enter the workforce, or join the military. It's important for our students to be prepared so they can be successful anywhere in the world, but we really want our students to remain connected to their communities and choose to stay here in Hawaii.

Our budget request aligns with those goals, ensuring that our public schools receive the predictable and reliable resources to support successful student outcomes. Next, I'd like to highlight the long-term progress we've made in student achievement.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is considered the nation's report card. Hawaii's performance on this national benchmark has shown steady growth over the last two decades in key areas like fourth grade reading and eighth grade mathematics. This growth demonstrates that targeted interventions and investments can yield meaningful results.

This slide shows how our fourth graders have improved over the last 20 years in reading on the NAEP in comparison to the rest of the country. The shaded graph at the bottom of the slide shows where we were back in 2003. Hawaii is the orange bar. The yellow bar is a national average for public schools.

The top graph shows our ranking in 2022, the most recent results that are publicly available. Our reading scores have surpassed the national average and now rank in the top ten states. On this slide, you can see our eighth grade math scores on the NAEP over the last 20 years.

Again, the bottom graph shows where we ranked nationally back in 2003. The yellow bar is a national average for public schools. The top graph shows our ranking in 2022, the most recent results that are publicly available, and our math scores have improved over time, but we're still below the national average.

Our NAEP gains underscore the importance of sustained funding. To continue improving, we need to address persistent challenges such as learning loss caused by the pandemic and resource gaps in our underserved communities. Mathematics and middle school are two areas of focus reflected amongst the strategic initiatives in our budget request. Attendance is another focus area.

The pandemic created unprecedented challenges for our students. One stark example is attendance. Our students need to be in school on time all day, every day. Before the pandemic, approximately 86% of students attended school regularly. In the wake of Covid, that number dropped to 66%.

We are implementing targeted strategies and are seeing improvements, but we're still not back to pre-pandemic levels and need to invest more. On the next slide, you'll see why this is such an important area. Inconsistent attendance has profound implications for academic success, social development, and long-term outcomes.

Regular attendance is defined as students attending 90% of instructional days in a school year. On this slide you can see the difference in outcomes between students who attend school regularly and those who do not, starting with on-time graduation on the left, followed by language arts proficiency, math proficiency, and science proficiency.

Addressing this issue is a top priority, and our budget request includes resources to help our schools expand programs designed to re-engage our students and support their academic and emotional recovery. In developing this budget, we sought to balance fiscal responsibility with the urgent needs of our schools and students. This proposal is built around three core principles.

First, alignment with our strategic plan, ensuring our investments directly contribute to student success. Second, balance, recognizing the fiscal constraints shared by lawmakers and state agencies alike, and third, reliability, providing schools with consistent resources they need to plan effectively and support students.

This biennial presents both challenges and opportunities from addressing inflationary pressures to supporting our workforce and overcoming the lasting impacts of the pandemic. Through this budget, we aim to ensure that every student in Hawaii has the opportunity to succeed. I'd like to turn things over to Assistant Superintendent and Chief Financial Officer Brian Hallett to go over our budget requests and items requested by the committees. Thank you.

Thank you, Superintendent. Chair. Good afternoon--sorry--good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, committee members. Happy New Year, and thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I'll be going over the next few slides that continue to cover the topics that you asked us to present on today, and the next topic is federal funds.

So Slide 11: major recurring grants. Although much less than legislatively appropriated state General Funds, federal funds have and continue to play an important role in public education, making up approximately 11% of the department's fiscal year 25 appropriation.

This chart shows the national level funding for major federal education grants and is in millions of dollars. Each row in this table represents a unique grant. The fourth column reflects the actual federal fiscal year 25 appropriation, which is the year the appropriation that provides the funding that we're receiving this year, fiscal year 25.

The next two columns, the last two columns, show the latest information we have available from FFIS or the Federal Funds Information for the States on proposals for the federal fiscal year 25 appropriation with the prior Congress's Republican-controlled House proposals from September in the first column and the next column being the Democratic-controlled Senate proposals.

For now, this is the clear--clearest indication we have of where federal funds may be headed for with the House draft of the budget. From this chart, we can get a sense of the potential threat to predictable and reliable funding from cuts to support the core educational programs in the House draft of the budget.

So we will need to continue to monitor this and--the fiscal year 25 appropriations--and hope for the opportunity to provide updates to this committee as new information becomes available. Next slide: Non-General Funds. As instructed, we've included in the presentation links to the department's annually produced Non-General Fund reports.

These reports provide information on each of the Non-General funding sources, including actual and projected revenues and expenditures, measures of effectiveness, and the appropriated and planned characters of expenditures.

Next is our budget requests. So the budget development approach. The department, we began our work on this biennium budget proposal in April of 2024. To come up with the biennium budget proposal before you, a Budget Review Group was established in response to calls from policymakers for the department to look within its existing resources to fund new work where possible.

This review group went through a rigorous process to review with each office, for example, IT facilities, fiscal talent management, and through a very deliberative process, developed recommendations that were ultimately presented to the department's Executive Leadership Team and to Superintendent Hayashi for consideration.

This flat budget proposal before you was developed to--as mentioned earlier--align with our strategic plan goals, work within fiscal constraints as communicated by lawmakers in the Department of Budget and Finance instructions to provide schools with predictable and reliable support, and it also recognizes projected enrollment decline.

So next slide, Slide 16: challenges for fiscal year 25 and beyond. We do have several challenges, the first one being our non-recurring funding for recurring needs due to--let's see. It's basically a fiscal funding cliff we have for next year with our base budget being nearly $100M less in state funds compared to the current fiscal year.

Second, we continue to see high inflation in areas such as utilities, athletic transportation, teacher sabbatical costs. Third, we have lingering pandemic impacts that nationally we see are taking more time to overcome than initially anticipated. Fourth, like all state departments, we have the challenge of recruitment and retention of a high-quality workforce.

And fifth, we have the uncertainty regarding what type of federal partnership we can count on moving forward in the years to come. Slide 17. This is really what we were talking about when we say our flat budget request. So this bar chart provides perspective on the department's current fiscal year 25 General Fund appropriation in the first column or the first bar, and fiscal year 26 and 27 requests. This chart excludes collective bargaining, previously approved collective bargaining, which is normally folded into the budget.

We'll see that in a later table, a later slide. The first bar shows the department's fiscal year 25 General Fund operating budget appropriation of $2.2B in blue. The second and third bars show the 26 and 27 base appropriations in blue of $2.08B plus the executive request of $89M in the first year, $87.7M in the second year.

So this--from this chart, you can see that when the executive request is factored in and we exclude collective bargaining, we actually have a lower budget than the current fiscal year 25 in our proposal. And this is what we've been referring to as our flat budget proposal. Next slide. 18.

This table just details out the proposed changes in FY26 by EDN described in the previous chart, but this chart shows the collective bargaining as well, the previously approved collective bargaining being folded in. And Slide 19, similar just for FY27. Same chart. Slide 20. While the prior chart broke down the budget by EDNs, this slide breaks down our budget by request categories.

From this table we can see that from the first row that our single largest category by far is what we're calling the non-recurring appropriation reappraisals or the seeking of continued funding provided for in the next two years for what we have in the current fiscal year.

The Department--the Department CIP request is significant because we manage over 21.5 million square feet of facilities across 266 sites statewide. Our prior approaches to the implementation of the Department CIP have not been effective in managing our school facilities and meeting the needs of our students across all islands.

This is why we need to return to a risk-based and proactive approach to address the facilities and infrastructure needs. Much of our CIP budget is organized into 11 categories or lump sum buckets as seen on this slide. For each bucket, we have developed a prioritized list of school projects that we believe is an efficient and manageable characterization--categorization of our department's necessary facility and infrastructure improvement needs for all schools statewide.

It is important that we have the flexibility that is provided by appropriating funding in lump sum buckets as it gives us the ability to manage and execute more projects more efficiently and in order of needs within each of the respective buckets.

We understand that for some, this is a change in the management and implementation of the department's operations. We have continued the education and communication with our complex area superintendents and principals as we move forward to realign management and operations of the CIP and Repair and Maintenance Program.

We have also begun to reach out to our legislative leadership and others to help familiarize our partners on the changes. The department has reevaluated and will continue to reassess the CIP and deferred maintenance priorities with an updated perspective, and is in the process of refining its prioritization process to distinguish between necessities and wants.

This CIP request is the department's first step towards a more fiscal, responsible, targeted, and sustainable strategy to address the basic infrastructure needs of an evolving and dynamic public education system. We're humbly asking for and need support for this approach to best serve our students and staff.

The next slide delineates the Capital Improvement Project Program request in millions and the next slide is continuation of that. On Slide 24, this slide shows our board-approved CIP requests and what the Governor has included in his budget. We ask for your support of the department's request, both the strategic lump sum approach and the amount to meet the needs of our students statewide. In closing, our budget request reflects the department's commitment to improving student outcomes and addressing the needs of our schools and communities.

Over the years, we have seen progress in key areas from academic achievement to initiatives that foster equity and opportunity for all students. These gains demonstrate the thoughtful investments in public education and yield meaningful results. We are confident that with your continued support, we can build on this momentum and ensure every student in Hawaii has access to the high-quality education that they deserve. Thank you for your time and attention today. My team and I stand ready to answer any questions and look forward to continuing our work together to strengthen public education in our state. Mahalo.

Thank you, Superintendent. Okay, members, we'll open up to questions. Member Morikawa.

Thank you. I was going to wait for some of the members to ask questions first, but thank you, Superintendent, for being here. I'm hearing the message that you want funding into buckets where you can control whatever CIP projects may be coming up. So does that mean that if the Legislature wants a certain project that we--and it's not something in your bucket list, what will happen to something like that?

Thank you very much for the question, Representative Morikawa. We have--well I asked also--the process that we're going back to that was successful for us in the past includes a prioritized list that connects both the state office and the schools and the complexes.

So those buckets or those lump sum pots are prioritized within each of the respective buckets. And we're also working with the complex area superintendents and the principals in each of the schools for them to take a look at the prioritized list that facilities gives to them, and then if there are perhaps needs that school level and those on the ground feel that should be readjusted, then I think it's really important that our state office and our schools, through the complex area superintendents, have that communication going on.

And I think that that might have been lacking in the past for us within the DOE, that communication wasn't there, so it is really important for us to connect to your question about as legislators feel that there may be additional projects. I know legislators work really closely with the schools too, with the school principals.

So I think it's combination of our legislative support together with our school principals and our complex area of superintendents working together with our state office, and that prioritized list, there are a number of projects that we need that are dire across those lump sums that really need to be taken care of in that priority order for us to get back to a place that we were so that we can proactively execute. So that's what this process is attempting to do.

And I guess that that means that you will be working closely with the Legislator?

Yes. So definitely. I think the legislators are definitely important. We look forward to working together with you to work towards this, fulfill this process. It is something new, but your voice is definitely important, together with the school principal, with the complex area superintendents, and for us to look how we can prioritize statewide where our needs are, and there are significant needs throughout our facilities.

Okay. Chair, I have a couple more questions. Now as far as designation of property jurisdiction, county versus state, I know on Kauai there are some campuses that have school activities that occur on county lands. Are you guys going to do anything to resolve that issue?

Because I think for funding, it's hard for us to try to get funding if it belongs--the activity occurs on county property. You know what I'm saying? I think recently, maybe a few years ago, the county especially stepped in and said, 'this is our property,' or 'this is your property, so we will no longer maintain it.'

And I'm referring more to the Wilcox School, where the tennis court that has been maintained by the county forever, that I know of, has suddenly become part of the school property. So to do improvements on that facility, it needs to go through the school now.

You want to respond? It's not--Representative Morikawa, we can definitely get more information on that and get back to you specifically to Wilcox Elementary.

Yeah, you can get back to me, but I'm just wondering if there's any other campuses that might have that problem, if you guys are going to try to resolve that.

If I may? So that's definitely a great question. What I think you're talking about is the transfer of county lands where before the state coexisted, the state school facilities existed on the county lands and then under Act 307, it transferred everything to us. So, yes, we--unfortunately, we are understaffed.

And so there is thousands of land transactions that have to occur, and each county is very different on how we do that. And then the state itself would have to go through Board of Land and Natural Resources to do even those transactions because it's both state as well as the counties. And so, yes, we have that list. We're just slowly going through that and working through that.

Okay. Maybe in the future if you could kind of keep us in the loop and then--so we can be on the same page.

Sure, absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Maybe you can send that information to the committee and then we'll disseminate out. Any further questions, members? Vice Chair.

Oh, no, go ahead.

Okay. Go ahead, Representative Kusch. Go ahead. She can wait. Representative Kusch, please proceed.

Oh, okay. I'm still working through some calculations. Good morning and thank you folks for coming. My daughters who've gone through the bar are still going through the system...thank you on that. On the ground level. I did have some questions. I don't know what the peak here was, somewhere in the...I don't need specific numbers. I'm just talking broadly.

Over the last ten years, our enrollment's declined approximately 10%.

Okay, so like ten years ago it peaked and we've been in a decline period. Do you guys have projections going forward? You know...

We do, we do have enrollment projections.

And I'm really speaking in broad terms here. Most of my questions are not, you know...

So to answer your question regarding our enrollment projection, we do two types of projections. We have a one-year projection that we do for a lot of our fiscal planning and right now our annual projection, we're looking statewide at about a 3,000 student decrease. We have further out projections, but I do caution with our further out projections. The margin of error gets larger the further out we project and we use that for long-term planning.

But we are looking at continued decrease, and one of the areas that we do plan to continue to study is our enrollment in regards to determine what are those specific factors that are contributing to that declinement.

Okay. Yeah, so you don't know if it's like people going to charter schools or private schools or just the changing of demographics?

So right now, in regard to projections, it does follow the national trend in regards to state. Nationally, you're looking at declining enrollments, but we do take into account factors such as our declining birth rates here in Hawaii along with we do a cohort model that allows us to follow, but we do need further studying in regards to examine those specific variables. It's a very--there's many pieces that come into play, so I don't want to misspeak at this time.

Representative Kusch, can you talk in the mic, please?

Oh, shucks. I forgot all about it. I forgot I even needed that. My voice is quiet. Okay, and then I was looking at your, you know, and it may be that a lot of your teachers are the part-time teacher assistants--I forget what, what your acronym is for it--but looking at this, there's like a little less than 12 teachers--I mean 12 students per teacher, and that--I'm just wondering how that doesn't seem to reflect the reality that I see in most schools. And that could be because there's this part-time number at the bottom of 20,000. It doesn't really...

Sean Bacon, our Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources.

Oh, okay. Super. Thank you. And I'm really sorry to make everybody get up and down.

No problem. Can you try to clarify your question about the part-time--

So it looks like your teacher ratio right here from the numbers you provided is like just under 12 students per teacher.

I'd have to get the exact number. I think, you know, that the average has fluctuated over the years and I think we have our salaried employees, it's about 13,000 approximately, salary teachers, but then on the part-time side, we do have our casual day-to-day hire of those that do provide after-school tutoring, those types of things.

And that number is really just depending on the needs at the individual school. Some of those part-time teachers may only be working a few hours a day or a few hours a month. Others may be working up to 19 hours per day or--oops--per week.

Yeah, and so that's my question is so that nearly 13,000 teachers, those are full-time teachers?

Full time. Full time. That is correct.

So that leads that with 152,000 students. It's like just under 12 students per teacher. I mean, I don't see that anywhere in the outer islands, and I'm just--is there somewhere in Oahu that we have like three kids per class to bring it down to that number? I'm just wondering where--

So classroom, there's differences in classroom teachers, I think, representative and other teachers who work in other roles within schools.

So we have, yeah, we have our, like, classroom teachers, we have counselors, we have librarians that also account for that. We have our, some of our academic coaches, our teachers that maybe are not assigned a line and they're providing instructional support. We also have at our complex area and state level offices too where there are teachers that are providing support there that maybe are not necessarily assigned an actual teaching line.

Okay. And special ed and stuff like that where they have much lower--okay.

We can definitely follow up with you, Representative, on that.

And again I'm just looking at trends. I don't really--I don't need to get into the granular. I just was curious, like, where that number came from and just the staffing levels and, you know, some background information and then, you know, as you project declines in enrollment and we've--if it's 10%, we've lost 15,000 students in the last ten years and sounds like another 2% this coming year, you know, what strategies is DOE doing to conform, to work towards meeting that just systemic decline through vacancies, through attrition, facilities, all those things? And then do you guys have a strategic plan to start focusing on areas that have a growth area and some places that are declining and how to achieve that?

We are looking at different strategies. I think what's important, as kind of we shared in the presentation, was that although our overall enrollment is in a slight decline, the needs of our students in the classrooms have actually increased after the, following the pandemic. These are all students across the state.

We also are seeing significant needs for our students in underrepresented communities, as well as students who speak English as a second language, as well as students with special needs. So those--those needs and supports for students are definitely, I believe, is definitely increasing, and so that's where we are asking for the support to provide services to support those students despite a slight decline.

Sure. And you're talking in the human resource level, right?

Human resource level, instructional support, multiple areas.

Okay. Yeah, I was just thinking more just from the facilities because that's, you know, a big area and a big part of your budget, so--and I'd love to see more concentration of the human element and just--just wondering if you have a strategic plan. I'm not trying to pepper you or carve out anything off your hide. I'm just wondering what the plan is going forward with these systemic declines in the future.

So, yes, we do have a strategic plan. We are also working on, in addition to the strategic plan, the enrollment issues as it relates to human resources is something that we are doing a deeper dive on. Enrollment doesn't decline equally in every community across the state. You see the shift, so we do have certain areas where enrollment is growing. So that--and so you see also in our CIP request for a new school for Central Maui, for example.

Yeah, and intuitively that's, you know, you can guess economic status and public education use and growth areas within the state, like in East Hawaii on Hawaii Island. You know, obviously that's one area that's growing significantly. Sounds like Central Maui's got some significant growth ahead. So those are obvious ones.

I'm just talking about the other areas that you will have probably more systemic decline because those areas that are growing are offsetting and so that's what I'm just trying to get, tease out, just for my own education to understand going forward.

We are working on that and we'll be going to the Board of Education to discuss that next month, but we will--we're happy to come and do a briefing for you and others who are specific--interested specifically in the issues around facilities and human resources as it relates to enrollment.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Further questions? Representative Alcos.

Hi. One of my questions is, I was coaching football at Campbell High School and, you know, when I graduated Campbell High School, the total kids we had was somewhere about a thousand. Now Campbell is over 3,000.

As coaching, I see a lot of kids that we cut from football, baseball, basketball, and they don't have nowhere to go besides transferring out to a different school or--how do we keep these kids in an organized sport? Some of the private schools, they have different divisions, or are we just neglecting them? Or at one point do you see that we need to create another division to get them into a healthy environment? What is your plans?

Thank you very much for the question, Representative Alcos. We--definitely engaging our students after school is important, and there are a number of ways that we do that, we continue to do that. One way is true athletics, other out-of-school time activities during the summer, after school. In terms of CTSO clubs, extracurricular activities, there are a number of ways. Specific to your question related to athletics, that is something that I can get back to you on.

I can reach out to our athletics administrator through Office of Curriculum Instructional Support and ask that specific question in terms of what are our plans and--what are the plans, if there are any, to expand specific athletics to specific teams statewide.

Yeah. To me, I'm thinking, if anything over 2,500 kids in a school like, you know, Kapolei, Mililani, Waipahu, Moana Loa, Campbell, you know, we have a lot of kids that is missing an opportunity for scholarships to get into the next level and really want to try to--we have great programs like you said, that you guys do have, but we wanted to try.

See, maybe our infrastructure, we cannot hold kids to practice two sports or something like that, but I think instead of building one school, it's cheaper to build more facilities for them to practice and get them into one better environment.

I'll definitely reconnect, connect up with you on that.

One more question.

Yes.

If a teacher or a coach lead in prayer, are they getting in trouble at school?

If there are student-led initiatives, then that is, that is okay for it to happen in school, but, you know, let me just double check on that. I want to be sure I'm giving the right information.

So student led currently is okay for students to do. It shouldn't be, I believe, led by faculty Members. But I will get back to you on that because I know there have been some recent cases. I want to be sure that I give you the right information.

That's to my recollection, but I will follow up with you on that.

And what would be the consequences if a coach end up praying for their kids before the football game or, you know, something that going, what is the consequences?

I think each case is their job. Each case is individual. And, you know, should there be a situation where we need to go and take a further look into it, you know, we. We have processes in place that.

So it's difficult for me to speak to a question like that because there may be other circumstances that are involved. So. But I would definitely get back to you on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Representative. Further questions, Members. Okay, Representative Lamosal, followed by Hussey.

Thanks, Chair. And thank you, Superintendent. I wanted to ask if we can get an Update on our J1 visa teachers. Is that if we're kind of seeing the impacts on our recruitment and the success of that program, just an overall update, and if we're going to just continue.

Assistant Superintendent Sean Bacon is here. He can help with that question. I do want to start though that as I visit schools and I'm able to visit the J1 teachers classrooms, they are incredible.

They come to the Department and to work with our students with an incredible amount of passion, enthusiasm, and I know when I'm talking not only to them, but to the students in the classroom. Students enjoy their energy. So I think that is definitely a success for us in getting them over.

But more specific to your question, I'll let Shawn respond to that.

Thank you, Representative, for your question. Yes, this is our third cycle now, our third year with the J1 Teacher Program. We have a little over 200 J1 teachers in our schools across the islands. At this point right now, the success rate of it has been amazing.

At this point, Casa's principals have really been playing pleased with what we've seen with the J1s. At this point right now, it's really been a great cultural exchange for our students. I think, you know, a majority of our J1s are coming from the Philippines, and a majority, 30% of our students identify as Filipino.

So I think it's a great combination between our. Both the teachers and the students. We are looking at having another round of J1s coming in for next year. Our team has already went to the Philippines with our provider and has started the initial interview processes to begin to continue this for the following year.

Can you tell me where they're kind of spread out throughout the state and where are they mostly placed?

I can get you more detailed information and exactly kind of where the placements are. But I was just recently on Lanai. There's a group that is on Lanai. There's many on Maui at this point right now, but they are on all of the islands at this point right now.

I do not believe we have any J1s on Molokai at this time, but the remainder of the islands, they are there.

I wanted to. You said that we're looking at another year of doing this program and I wanted to double check if you're also seeking for more. More support financially to support these teachers.

When you're talking about support, can you elaborate a little bit more maybe what you're referring to.

Their salary. I don't know if that's something you're also looking at room and board, things like that.

So once they, once they do become an employee, I mean, they fall under the normal salary schedule of all other employees. They become part of the collective bargaining agreement and are eligible to become Members of the union.

At this point right now, I think housing is something that has been difficult, not only for our J1s, but others across the state. I think at this point right now, we are offering a relocation bonus for those that are coming out of state or out of country.

And that is something we've been using Title 2 funds to try to help offset some of those costs for our individuals.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much, Representative Hussey. You skip. Okay. Representative Lee, thank you for being here.

In the work that you do. You know, with the student decrease in the near future. I know there are rural schools with Low populations and we need to be servicing youth there as well. But is there any plans in the next two to three years to. To be closing schools?

I know schools like Kiolu elementary, you know, in my district are schools that. Not to say on chopping block, but do we know of any schools that we are considering closing down with the decrease in students and you know what our plans are? Thank you for the question, Representative.

That is something that, you know, the Board of Education has oversight on. And so the Department will definitely be engaging with the board to look at different factors that would adjust that area relatively soon. Thank you. Thank you.

One more quick question.

Yeah. Are you good, Representative? Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Representative.

Thank you. Back in the Days we used to recite Pledge Allegiance, Star Spangled Banner, Hawaii, Ponoi. Is it still required right now in the school?

On a daily basis?

On a daily basis. Mostly at the elementary level.

To my understanding, that is not a requirement for that to be in every class every day. Let me just double check. I don't believe it's a requirement.

When was it? I mean, for most of us from my age, you know, we used to do it almost every day. When did it change and why did it change?

I can get that information to you. Let me go. I want to be sure I get you the right information. Representative. So I'll follow up with you on that.

Would you consider putting that back in or not? Really? You guys want it out?

What's the education? I think for us, I want to be sure I get the right information to get to you and then from there we can move forward on the discussion.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Further questions. Representative thank you.

I recently three teachers won a labor board ruling about being left out of the repricing schedule. And I know that right now it's being appealed. But in the budget here, is it. Is there anything reserving any money in. The event that the DOE has to pay the 900 to 1,000 teachers who was excluded from the repricing plan?

Representative I do want to be as bacon comes up. I do want to be we can't touch bases with you personally too, because I want to be cautious that as these discussions are being had at that level, that we are not inadvertently sharing information that we shouldn't be sharing before any final decisions are made.

Thank you for the question. Representative Rasoda. Currently at this point right now, as you had mentioned, it is in litigation, so there is not any current money put aside or requested in the budget at this time. I think we need to wait until see what the outcome may be for this at this point.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Further questions, Members Okay, Vice Chair.

Hi, Superintendent. There's several positions in the request focusing on middle schoolers, you know, to kind of look at them, reengage them. And that's kind of similar to what I've been hearing from community groups from my schools about this need to re engage, especially at this age group level, I think particularly due for Covid. Right.

They had a good chunk of their schooling and now they're transitioning to a new school. But I just kind of question about, I guess all these positions. I think there's three or four and what it kind of looks like is this in like the bigger picture of it.

Have we already kind of identified, I guess what the kind of trigger points are that these positions are going to be going into schools and implementing to do re engagement or are we still trying to figure out and these positions are trying to figure out how we do that work.

Some of the positions that you're absolutely correct that middle school engagement is important. It's an area I think that the Department and our middle school principals are very much committed to improving. I remember back when I was in middle school, it was a really challenging time.

And I think for some of our students as they transition from elementary to middle, there's a lot of not only changing courses and larger classes and moving as cohorts different from elementary school, but also changes with friends with personal development. They're all different challenges that our middle schoolers face.

We have through supports with some of the positions that we're requesting, engaging a lot more with the Association of Middle Level Education. All of our. Let's see, last year we had all of our schools participated by county middle level ed and coordinated support.

I think we had a middle level education conference, a student conference where middle level schools, our middle schools came attended and actually the breakout sessions and the presentations were done all by middle level students, which is empowering for them.

I think after that conference we saw not only the middle level students being able to get up in front and lead discussion and facilitate conversations with their peers, but also the pride and the poise and the confidence that they had following that.

I think that's something that we want to be able to spread to all of our middle level kids and our students statewide. So deputy Superintendent Armstrong is here and all of academics falls under her.

So Deputy well, I think Superintendent captured almost all of it. But these positions are supporting the middle school level statewide. So the reach is broad across all of our middle schools.

The middle school principals and vice principals have their own form forums led by folks in these positions to really support the characteristics of a successful middle school student. And we get that from our amle, our middle level Association, which Superintendent said all of our schools are a Member of.

So it's really to support and increase the capacity, the best practices and the implementation of those at the middle school level so that we can change the trajectory of our middle school dip and have a positive trajectory K12 our middle school.

On the leadership side, in addition to the student led conference, those the positions that support that work are also working with middle schools and middle school students to hear their voice in assisting with the transition from elementary to middle school and, and then the transition from middle school to high school.

And what barriers do they face and do they come across and have them come up with the solutions for those successful transitions?

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Okay, proceed.

I had another question about the 20 positions for the mental health intervention specialists. So I know you guys mentioned in the testimony that you're currently contracting those services out. I kind of want to know what, sorry, what support is being specifically provided to students through this program?

Is it, you know, are these, like, psychologists, social workers, are they getting support in the class, in school or outside of school, support with the families? What, what are those services look like that we're looking to take in house by hiring these 20 positions?

Great. Thank you for the question.

Aloha. The 20 position.

Assistant Superintendent K. Gardner. K.

Gardner. Hi. Thank you for the question. The 20 positions actually will support. Right now we have, through a partnership with Chaminade and a grant, paying for people to become qualified and be able to serve us with these transition activities. So those will be permanent mental health interventionists that will help students transition.

So they don't have, they're not necessarily like a psychologist or what kind of background are they going to need? What kind of work are they going to be doing with the students?

They will be doing mental health intervention. So they will be psychologists, clinical psychs in that regard. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your presentation. I have a question about the proposed. Addition to investigate, manage and mitigate soil. Contamination from originating from agricultural, military and. Legacy construction and maintenance practices. Can you tell me more about that. And what schools are facing those challenges?

Sure.

Let's see.

I, I thank you for the question, Representative. I do believe through prior support from the Legislature, we have, we have, we have been addressing those issues, particularly, if I'm not mistaken, on Hawaii island and Kauai, I believe, if my memory serves correct.

But so this, this allocation would help us to continue that effort in supporting and ensuring that we are addressing those particular needs. Director Rosaki.

Yes, that is correct. And we work closely with the Department of Health as we move forward in assessing each of those sites. And of course, those are sites that, again, were previously agricultural, was grown and was predominant back in the day.

And, and so again, all those chemicals that were used, and so just kind of going through that process, getting the federal grants and support to continue that process and cleaning it up.

We can get to your question about which areas or we can get that to the Committee.

Thank you very much. Representative Kitakawa thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Superintendent, for being here. I have a few questions, if that's okay. Okay, so quick question to Vice Chair's question about the mental health positions. I'm not clear based on the answer exactly what these 20 new positions would be doing or what services they would be providing to the students.

And I guess my follow up is how is that different than current students, school counselors that are already there, or we have a lot of great health programming that's there where students can get access to health care on campus. So I'm just wondering, these 20 new positions, how is that different than what's already available at the schools?

And what kind of services would they be providing?

And thank you for that question. And we do have, it's a phenomenal grant and partnership that we have with Chaminade University to provide the training so that we can have degreed people providing specific services in the mental health field.

So our follow up to you will give you the specifics of that grant and then of the 20 participants, the areas that they will or that they're striving to go into, and then the benefit for the Department for participating in this grant. We'll get all of that information to you.

So the hiring of the 20 are specifically for these individuals who are in this grant program with Chaminade now?

Yes. One of the conditions of the grant is that they will return to the Department of Education to provide mental health services for our students.

Okay, so sorry, follow up on that. So if you do not get the 20 positions, where do these individuals in the grant program then go? Do you have open counseling positions, other positions at the school level that they can then go into to meet that requirement of the grant? We will get back to you with that information.

Okay, great. Thank you. So I have a follow up to Representative Lee's question about enrollment and school closures. So maybe Board Chair Takumi wants to provide comment. But I also have two very small schools in my district that are always concerned about closure. And as Representative Kush mentioned and the DOE mentioned, enrollment is going down.

And so you know this, the community and school is always concerned about closure. But I'm just wondering if there has been conversation at the board level already where school closure has come up, where it's been something that's possibly considered. Is there data being taken right now to see what the financial impacts are, enrollment, all of that stuff?

So I'm just wondering if you can provide a little more info within.

Thank you very much for the question. Within the Department we are looking exactly in those areas in terms of enrollment capacity of schools. There are a number of factors that have to be taken into consideration. So we are looking into that and we'll be presenting, engaging with the board of education on possible next steps.

But that is something that we're definitely looking at.

Okay.

Yeah. I think part of the challenge is that the Department now is doing its due diligence in looking at the schools that are underutilized.

And part, I think, I think speaking as a former Legislator, part of the challenge, I think, is that we always challenge the Department to be more streamlined, to be more efficient, to be more cognizant of cost savings and so on.

But when a proposal comes up to consolidate schools, if you represent that school, you're going to oppose it, frankly. And so it's a real dilemma. And that's why the Department has consistently come up with a list of schools to consider for consolidation. But the board hasn't closed the school for over 10 years.

And so once again this year. And the board will consider it in its maybe two or three meetings down the road. But when the list comes out, I'm sure if you represent those schools, you're gonna call the office and say, hey, wait a minute, I don't know if that's a good idea or not.

And so whether or not we have the political will, because the Department will come up with objective criteria as to why a school that's small. We have five elementary schools with less than 100 kids.

We have schools that are designed for six or 700 kids, but with 300 enrollment and schools in close proximity, that would be a criteria as well. I wanted to address representative Khush's question about our strategic plan. We do have a strategic plan. It's a six year plan. You can go to the department's website and download it.

It's not that thick. Has 127 objectives. And so I think if you see that, you get a great idea as to what the roadmap is for the Department.

In response to representatives questions about the J1 visa program, I've learned that, you know, we can come up with J1 visas and loan forgiveness and tuition waivers and scholarships and Teach for America and all these initiatives that will help to recruit and retain teachers. But the primary factor is compensation.

And I think that's part of the challenge that we all have now. The Legislature's responsibility is to just Fund the collective bargaining agreement. The board has one vote in that. But I as one, I know I can speak for the board that we really advocate for better compensation for teachers.

I think when you look at the teacher housing at Mililani High School, that's going to be for 100 units. It's not going to be online till 2030 and 100 units, 13,000 teachers. We can see that's not a scalable, sustainable model to try to really address the shortcomings that we have with compensation.

I think you all know the recent settled nurses strike. Represent Hussey is well aware of that, that their contract 3 year teacher, 2526 year old nurse, 2526 year old nurse, 133 to $160,000 salary. It's more than double what a teacher in the public school systems make.

So if you're a young person and you're on a career track, how can you blame them from choosing a nursing career track? So I think that's a responsibility we all share. The last point is when I became Ed chair in the Legislature, I was privileged enough to be the Ed chair.

Bob Herkes, who I remember, invited me to go out to the Big island to see his schools. And his district was big, is bigger than the island of Oahu. It's huge. So I went out to that district and I went to an elementary school and the library of that elementary school was terrible, just terrible.

But I was stuck in the old pattern as a district Legislator of just calling the principals in my district and saying what projects would you want? And one of the projects I got was to expand the weight room at the high school.

But when I got back from visiting the Big Island, I could it in good conscience put into that expanded weight room I put into the budget to beef up that library at that elementary school because ultimately we're all state representative or you all are state representatives.

And so the Department is charged with looking at the needs and concerns and priorities of the entire state. I get it. You all are responsible for looking out for the needs and priorities of your individual district.

But sometimes it's important to take a step back and say, look, I realize, but that kid in Kalihi or Nanakuli or Kau is just as important as a child in my district.

Thank you. Chair Takumi. I have just one more question. Okay, follow up. I have a couple of questions about cip. So I understand the buckets that you're talking about in your chart. I just have a quick question about one line item where you've pulled out. Well, there's a couple that are specific for certain schools.

The other two I recognize are for new builds. But Like Honouli'uli Middle School is listed out separately, not in a lump sum bucket. And you have money for it. Can you explain why that one's listed separately?

And if there are other schools that are listed or going to be listed separately as line items instead of in your new formula of the lump?

So that's a great question. So for Hanauliuli, we listed it separately just to identify the fact that that's being required by the city and County of Honolulu, which came in after our project was completed in developing the school.

And so there was no mechanism for us to do this improvement, but it is being required by the city and County of Honolulu. So just making sure that they understand we are committed to doing this. We did it as a line item.

It doesn't fall under another lump, correct? Yes. And then what is the requirement the.

City is asking for to do the intersection? They want intersection improvements to meet their new current code requirements.

So what happens if you don't get this money?

They will probably write a letter to our Superintendent saying that we're in non compliance and that we, we need to comply in making sure we meet their code within that intersection area.

And that's on a state street or the school.

City. City street.

City street. Okay, but this DOE has to provide.

The intersection, the new intersection improvement that they require, which happened after we completed the project.

Okay, got it. Okay. My other question is, yesterday we had SFA come and they talked about the Central Maui School and the funding they're requesting to build Central Maui.

And I look at your capital improvement project list and I assume that these large buckets of money you're asking for Lahaina Elementary, East Kapolei are also for new builds of schools. What? Who determines who builds what new school? Like, what is the understanding between the DOE and SFA on what new schools get built?

Why is Central Maui under sfa? Why are these two under you? What is the collaboration between the two departments?

Thank you very much for the question. So you're right that for us in our request we do have chair, we do have a request in for the rebuild for King Kamehameha the third elementary school. That is a request that we have in. We are going through the process now to determine where that site is.

We completed a study that study has been posted Study, community engagement study. So that is definitely important. We have we're currently renting leasing a site land as well as equipment classrooms. So the quicker we can get that project going, it helps actually save us on on the temporary site.

Central Maui also is definitely in need of at least a new middle school and elementary school, but definitely a middle school. When I visit Maui Waena Middle as well as e a middle school, they're bursting the right capacity. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It's my understanding though that, well, the reason why King Kamehameha Third was an existing school. So the Department is charged with getting that going. West Oahu, East Kapolei High School and the East Kapolei Middle schools in that area in Kapolei also those Campbell High School as well as the middle school and elementary schools are also at capacity.

So it's my understanding that as that project initiated prior to the creation of Sfa, that continues to sit with us. My understanding that when SFA's position is that as they move forward, school builds.

Once SFA was established, new school builds falls under school facilities, if I'm not mistaken by the law states that as directed by the Governor, by the Legislature or by the board. And so that's why Central Maui is under school facilities authority.

I really believe it's important that the SFA together with the doe, that we work together collaboratively and the communication is there because it's really important that as it's a Department of Education school that we be fully engaged in the process from beginning to end.

Definitely there is a need for Central Maui for us to address enrollment capacities there. Anything else you wanted to add?

Yes, that is correct. I mean we with respect to Central Maui, we are engaged with SFA currently to ensure again it's going to be a site and a facility for the DOE to utilize and occupy and operate.

So again, how that's being developed, ensuring that it meets our requirements, that is the discussions that have initiated and we continue to work with them.

Okay, and just one quick follow up. So East Kapolei, you said it was already in the works before SFA was created. Where are we at in that process? Because it hasn't been Obviously built yet or is it. Has it started?

So that's another line item that we have with the.

Okay, so since it hasn't begun yet and SFA is charged with building new schools, would the DOE why? Or I guess the question is, would you switch over the responsibility to SFA for this new build or is this something that you've already begun?

These are projects we've already begun work on.

So you have like the renderings and the drawings and all that stuff, but. No, but you just don't have the construction funding.

Okay. Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Members, for the questions. Representative Morikar, followed by Kush.

Thank you. I'm going to change up. This is a sabbatical leave question because I know this. It's one of your priorities. Has this increased recently? Requests from teachers and then if so, who replaces them when they go on leave?

In terms of sabbatical where we are, I'll let ASB can adjust that in terms of replacing the teachers. Principals do know ahead of time which teachers are approved for sabbatical and so normally it's either a hire or a substitute that's in there. But I'll let ASP can speak more specifically to it.

Thank you for the question. So just there's two different types of sabbaticals in the request. There's teacher sabbaticals and then there's also educational officer sabbaticals. So I'm not sure if you're referring more to the teacher side or the educational officer.

Is it more for educational employees?

So currently, right now, the collective bargaining agreement talks about for teachers that we shall select no less than 50 on an annual basis at this point right now. So there is a budget for that.

However, with the cost, the increase in the teacher salaries, there is a request for inflationary costs in there to make sure that we have the appropriate appropriation for the increase for the teachers.

But the amount has been the same at 50 on the educational officer side, I think it states in the collective bargaining agreement no less than seven. I think at this point right now that had not been funded for several years. We want to be back in compliance with the collective bargaining agreement.

So we're asking for the funding for that for the educational officers, which is principals, vice principals, and some of our state and district level individuals.

Okay, so you don't have a problem getting people to work in these positions when they're gone?

Yeah. So typically for the teachers, the principals will know approximately six months or so in advance. They have an opportunity, I think, to post Those positions in our teacher assignment and transfer process, or they can look at a new hire or possibly even use substitute teachers or other means to fill what it is.

Teachers have an opportunity to either go out on a semester sabbatical leave at full pay or a full year sabbatical leave at half pay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Followed by Hasi, followed by alcohol. Thanks again. I was going to do this offline. I have a meeting next week with HSFA regarding this. And it was kind of where I was going with the strategic plan as you shrink schools and it's been brought up, you know, about. I appreciate your candor, sir, about closing schools.

Has any thought been to. As school enrollment shrinks, especially at the elementary school level, where there's, you know, know, more schools for students to repurpose some of the buildings, I imagine, especially here in Oahu, but in most places that they're probably connected to sewer, repurpose buildings into teacher housing.

You know, the same kind of prioritization that HSFA is using to fill units. Has any thought or consideration been put into that? I mean, they're big buildings. They could probably. I mean, I understand there would be a rehab and expensive for bathrooms and kitchens and such, but you have a lot of the infrastructure there.

I believe as we move forward with the process and looking at school consolidation, there are a number of different options that would be available to the Department and to the state, and we'll do our due diligence in exploring each of those.

Yeah. And to. I think it was lamasao's point, or maybe it was Mike's.

Representative Lee, Sorry, is, you know, instead of consolidating or changing the character of that elementary school in the neighborhood and the parents who live there, you know, consolidating the student activities to a building and then using additional unused buildings or building as housing, that some of the.

Concerns just right off the top of my head might be that as we. It's really important that for schools, safety and security for our students are really important. And so if we were to utilize school facilities and have housing and students on the same campus, that would definitely. I would have some concerns about that.

Just for the safety aspect in terms of having students in close proximity to others who may live in the area and whomever they are. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much, Representative Hussey, followed by Alos.

Thank you, chair. Thank you, Superintendent, and everyone for coming this morning. Just want to say thank you for including in the budget girls flag football. I think that'll be a welcome addition. Thank you. Very much. I had a question about an item in the table for Edn 200. It's 1.65 million for CAS priorities.

And it lists three items, the first of which is just says investigations. And I was curious if you could please provide more information about what that entails.

For the investigations for CASAs are complex area superintendents. And they provide a vital role, a key role in our tri level structure. Schools, complex areas and state offices. So each of the complex area superintendents have a number of schools that they're responsible for.

It's their high schools and the feeder schools, that middle school and the elementary schools that feed into that high school, which is a complex. So the complex area superintendents are also charged with should there be allegations of misconduct within their schools to initiate investigations.

And that process oftentimes can be a long and arduous one because we want to be sure that our employees are all afforded a fair investigation. So it's an HR function? It would be an HR function, yes.

Okay. In addition, another bucket from that funding, in addition to what Superintendent said is for accommodations. When an individual needs certain accommodations to perform the functions of their duties, we might need to provide additional supports for that person to be able to have access to perform their duties. 504 accommodations.

And so these funds would be used to support those needs.

Yeah, I saw that as a separate item. Thank you. Thank you very much. I had a question about workforce development in EDN 100. It's 3.9 million. And I just wanted to flag that because I know there's also concerns about cuts from the Federal Government for WIOA funds.

And I'm just curious if this is a situation where we as a state government are essentially covering a hole that the Federal Government is leaving open.

I do believe this is EDN100. Deputy Superintendent Tammy Oyadomari Chun, as an EDN100 ASK and Workforce Development, I do believe that it is request to support our students in workforce development, internships and such. Am I right on that, Deputy?

That's correct. It does not. It's not related to anything with federal. Funds at this time. Changes in federal funds at this time.

Okay, thank you. And I just want to say also thank you for including. And it's unfortunate we have to do this, but 5 million for security, you know, that's something that, you know, I think all parents worry about for our kids in schools now in these crazy days. So thank you very much for including that.

My last question is about the Digital Transformation for Learning program. There's staff allocation for That I was curious if someone could please just share sort of the overall vision for that program.

Sure. Digital transformation. When we look at supporting our students in the most current resources, when I think about appropriate uses for artificial intelligence, how we're leveraging technology in different areas, those are some things that come to mind.

I think we want to be sure that one, that as we roll out the Department and we have a number of students and teachers, that the steps that we take moving forward are very, very calculated.

And we want to be sure that as we move forward, everyone is aware of the responsive students as well as teachers and administrators, aware of the responsibilities as we move further and further into the digital age.

So the position, definitely one of the responsibilities would be to support that Assistant Superintendent Terry Ushijima from the Office of Curriculum Instructional Design. And so Terry oversees that teaching and learning component and how we support students and teachers with leveraging appropriately leveraging technology.

Yes, sure. Thank you for that question. And this position is a position that we've relied on since we've had the pandemic and we've had to switch over from in person learning and do a lot of virtual things, create resources, provide training for students.

And as the world is changing so quickly and with AI now, things happen so rapidly. But this position has helped to provide support for complex area resource folks. And currently it's being used to really support our digital state distance learning program.

So we have an innovation lab where schools are able to use resources through training and have their students actually create things using 3D printers that they may not have at their own school site. But through this support, we're working with one school in the Kaimuki area.

And it's been making a really big difference in terms of engagement, the types of learning, the thinking that they have to do in order to create their projects.

You got to bring that to Kalihi.

Sure. Yes. We'd love to expand more.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you.

Actually, one more question, Chair, if I could. So there's $15 million for increased electricity costs. And I was curious if there's been any conversations internally about the Department constructing its own solar farms to feed the electricity needs of our school.

Just to Clarify, on the $15 million that is continued funding that we have currently in this year, it's to maintain that level of funding. There has been historically investments into solar. I think it's become less viable in recent years, and there's been sort of a drop off in expansion of solar.

But it's something that can't speak on behalf of Office of Fiscal Services too much. But it's. It's something that we know there's reports and continue conversation on.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Representative Alos. Thank you. Superintendent Lisa Kitagawa mentioned about East Kapolei and I heard rumors that they didn't even build a school. But it's going to be full. Is that something a true statement or with all the new development in that area and if it is going to be full, where's the overflow goal?

Is it going to go ever? Waipahu, Kapolei. What's. Have you guys thought about what's going to happen at that point?

Thank you very much for the question. Just to clarify. So you're hearing that it's not built, but it's going to be full? Yes.

Meaning that with all the new development within that area exceeds capacity. Exceeds.

Yes, yes. So right now, I mean, as you know, that whole area is growing. And so we are working with the complex area Superintendent and seeing how we may look at redistricting and moving students around until we can get that school online.

So that's a true statement. It's going to be full by the time it's built. And you guys are going to be at full capacity based upon the residents?

It depends on when the school will be built. Right? We don't know when that will be. But as the developer continues to develop in Ho'opili and people come in, we don't know exactly the dynamic of the people that are purchasing the houses. It could be older people. I mean, we don't know what that makeup is like.

If it's all young families, people who haven't started families, we're not sure. Right. So there is no specific number that we can say there will be an enrollment. That new school will be at full capacity.

Based on the growth that we have out there, wouldn't it be good that we have more land or area that we can secure for the development and how quick it's growing out in our area? You know, do you guys are. You guys don't have room to purchase more land for those type of reason?

It's because if you try move them to Campbell, it's already overflowed both. All the schools in the neighborhoods already too crowded. So do you have land in that area?

So, yeah, that's. That's a good question.

So as part of the development for like Ho'o Pili, under the land use Commission and the requirements as they go through in their master planning to get their approvals to begin development so they're required to provide us the Department of Education with land for depending on how their build out will be, they will have to provide us land sites which they have identified for elementary schools and for the high school.

Thank you. Follow up on another question. Is cell phones, cell phones been a problem in the school? What is you guys, how are you guys addressing cell phones in classrooms nowadays? What is you guys plans different from the previous years.

Currently? Thank you for the question Representative. Currently cell phone usage and those individual policies or requirements are taken care of by each respective school. And so they said their cell phone. There isn't a Department wide policy on cell phone usage or banning cell phone usage.

Yeah, the representative the board will be. We're currently discussing a board policy on the use of cell phones because we realize every school has their own policy and it varies wildly. And so we're looking at whether or not there should be a standardized formula on policy on cell phone use.

And we're looking at other school districts across the country. And I visited Iolani School recently. They just recently enacted their own cell phone policy. So we're trying to weigh out what's the best approach. And in response to Representative Hussey's we're also going to be discussing a policy on the use of artificial intelligence.

Last question. Police on campus, especially at the high school level, someone some safety or security in that area. Are you for police? Is the DOE for having a sheriff on site or you guys good with the security on site that you guys have now? What is your take?

Look, I think currently depending on the, depending on the school district and the complex area for our neighbor islands, we do have school resource officers in many of our complex areas to support the secondary schools and the schools in those areas on Oahu. We are working to see what other options are available.

You know in, in working with our local Police Department as well as Department of Law enforcement. So we are exploring different options at this point to see what, see what if any additional supports we can provide for our schools related to that area. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, thank you Representative.

Thank you. And the other end of the spectrum from the Kailua representatives when we look at. Well let me just go over the numbers. So I pulled up just quickly here.

From the 2022 to 2023 fall enrollment from the school status Improvement report for the schools that are just in 96706 and that was two and a half years ago, we have numbers like Campbell at 3039, Ilima615, Eva Makai Middle 1119 Kaimiloa L621, Holomua L1071, Ewa Beach, L721, Ewa Elementary, 1086 Honouliuli, 714 and Keone Ula at 915.

And when added up together it was 9901. So I'm going to assume as of today we probably have over 10,000 in the Campbell district. When we look at, as Representative Aukos was talking about, the East Kapolei, which I want to make sure I add that that is in East Kapole is in Ewa Beach, not Kapolei.

So I hope we make sure we correct that when we name the school. But the budget looks like in CIP it asked for 130 million in the 2026 budget. And I know that you said that this was probably built in partnership with Sfa.

So a couple of questions that I have is, is SFA or are they responsible for any funding with that to make sure that they complement that, is the estimate for design able to be built with 130 million and when would it be open?

And then I just, you know, just want to make sure that as Representative Alcos had said that we do have new builds even from 2022. My district map has roads on there that didn't exist, you know, back then.

So we are still building houses and they're going towards even that side and so and then when would the school be able to be operational and take kit. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for the question. So for the 130 million requests that we have, design is, is being completed as we speak. So if we were to get the funding, it would definitely go out to construction once we get the funds released to us thereafter.

So say next year, early next year, depending on that process of us getting the funds, it could go out to bid and then it would probably run a two year course before it would be open and operational for school. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Vice Chair.

Thanks. I wanted to get an update. So last year when we established the Student Harm Registry to deal with the employment issues between the public and the private schools and sharing any of those potential issues with incoming employees, is, is there an update on that? Is it up and running?

It is, yes.

And.

Thank you representative for the question. Yes. So the Harm to Student Registry is up and running at this point right now for.

So any employee that is being hired through the Department as part of the hiring process, they're going through a background check that goes through the Hawai'I Criminal Justice Data center, along with being checked for the harm to student registry before a start date is being set for employees.

And it's. It's housed in doe, Right? So the private schools call over, submit their request to the Department to check for their employees.

Yes. So the, the. The Department is the keeper of the. Of the official record for the harm to student registry. And then there's. The private schools are working with us on that. Yes.

Thank you. Great.

Thank you.

Great news.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Further questions, Members. Representative Templo.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Superintendent and Department for coming today. I have questions regarding your request for reoccurring funds to enhance school security. I see that you guys are wanting to address violence and gun violence. So what exactly are you guys planning to do?

Thank you very much for the question. That request that we have in speaks to the identified supports that we need for our schools through our school safety and emergency preparedness branch. And so specific to, specific to those questions to that request for the allocation speaks to our assessments by School Safety Act.

We have in the Executive budget request a request for $4 million, I believe. Is that the one that you're referring to?

5 million.

5 million. I believe that's in partnership with DLE to maintain funding for their. With the work that they're doing, we have some discretion on how we move forward. But that's currently paying for things like the cameras. Monitoring of cameras.

Yeah. Members, that was a presentation that DLE had for us and then we're actually going to bring them in to further show us more information on that, but go ahead.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Okay, Members, any further questions? Okay, thank you. You know, I think I really, really appreciate the participation by the Members and the questions that have been fielded by your people. And it lends to Chair Takumi's point of that there is the CIP issue that you're dealing with and what has gone over.

Everybody is passionate about their schools in their area. And as the finance Committee deals with this and our job is to look at things from a statewide perspective and we're gonna be trying to expose ourselves to more and more of those things.

One of the things that was done when I first got in the Legislature and I thought it was very helpful.

There was and I did talk to you about this Superintendent before is there was a group, couple people that came from DOE and they used to go on a day to a complex and they would visit every school and they would invite at the school the principal, the head janitor, the facilities person for the Complex.

And even on the neighbor islands, they would invite some representative from Daggs, and then they would invite the legislators to be there. And then they would go over the priorities for the school specifically. And then they would identify, right, These are priority 12345678 whatever it is.

And then they would have discussions if it was necessary, they go out and take a look at the situation, and then everybody would say, okay, maybe number seven should be number two. Right. Or something like that. And they'd move things around, but everybody be in the room and they all be in agreement going forward.

You know, I still believe that something like that. Maybe with technology now, it doesn't have to be total. Totally like that. But something like that needs to happen where everybody is at the table and supports a plan for the school. Especially, like, again, based on the conversation here and the involvement by the Members.

Everybody cares about their schools. Right. But you know, when we're. Public safety was here, nobody talked about the jail. Right. So. Right. So it's. Yeah. So, okay. Yeah. You have any comment as far as that goes?

Thank you, Chair. You're absolutely correct. I think the back. When you're speaking about was the. It was the BIP's position. It was a building inspector. I forgot the PP stands for. But there were individuals that would meet and gather and collaborate with the principals and identify those areas. And those individuals were very knowledgeable about the.

The issues in each of the schools related to facilities. Those BIP positions no longer exist in the Department. And so I think that is definitely one of the issues.

And so for facilities and operations and our facilities group now to really come up with a listing of prioritized needs, working together with the complex area superintendents and the principals is really important.

And if we can get back to a place where we can get involvement from the school level, from the state office, and back to a place where those positions help to coordinate. Right now, that responsibility is actually falling on facilities as well as the complex area Superintendent is to meet with their principals.

That is probably one of the reasons, maybe one of the reasons why we are in the situation we're in. And to get to that proactive process, get back to that proactive process is definitely what we're asking for the Legislature support on.

Those are other things that I think we need to address. This is probably the fallout of. I know it's the fallout of the Lehman Brothers downturn when we had fertile Fridays. We were cutting all over the place and we were looking for things that we wanted to get rid of today.

And so I think going forward, these are things that we need to like revisit and relook at and see if it's viable. Okay. The other thing that I want to talk about real quickly that the Governor did not Fund, and I see that he is your lump sum for deferred maintenance projects statewide.

And then the original A funded request, which I think is the way it should be funded, sounds like part of it was C funded.

And the only problem that I have it have when it those types of projects, and I'm assuming it's those types of projects are funded with bond funds, is that usually the improvement does not last the life of the bond. Right.

That's why we a Fund certain things that are preventive maintenance or certain painting or whatever it may be with a funds. I talked to when BNF was before us, I brought this up. And even with DAGS was before us, I brought this up. The one area that we always tend to neglect is that appropriation. Right.

And I'm asking DAGS and bnf, and now you and I will ask, uh, the same thing is that. Right.

We have to press the Administration to make this a priority because in the end, if we do not do preventive maintenance or if we do not take care of our facilities, in the end it becomes a major RNM project and then it becomes more expensive.

And granted it is the Legislature's fault to some degree where when we're through tough budget situations, this is usually the target.

But in this kind of year, when council revenues came out the other day and they identified $315 million in estate tax revenue, that is a one time infusion and that is the perfect opportunity to use that kind of money to address these kind of problems.

And then also the spike in the interest rate due to the money, the short term investments that we had from the money we got from the feds. But these are types of one time infusions that will not be recurring. Right. And so it should be we take advantage of that.

And I'm asking the Legislature two years ago tried to do it. Well, the house did we put $1.0 billion to in a funds to like when we thought we had $2 billion in surplus to try and address this. And then in the end we put in conference, we ended up putting $2 million to address this.

And then, and then when it all came down, the Governor somebody said on the floor that it was a slush Fund. And then the Governor used it as a slush Fund and used it for all kinds of different things. Right?

But in the end I do believe that it is a need and it has to be pressed from the Department level to the Administration that this is a neglected area that we need to address. Especially when there is money that is non recurring and should be put towards this when we can.

I just bring that up to bring to your attention. And like I said, you probably have in the budget and brief the Governor identified it as $1.7 billion statewide in there that is being neglected. Two years ago it was 1.2.

So historically they said it's growing at a rate of about 50 to 75, but that growth alone tells me that it's even more. Or maybe they just misidentified certain things. But it has to be pressed and has to be pushed because the Legislature like I said, tried.

But because in the end it doesn't sound like it's a priority of the Administration. I think it needs to be pressed by the Department. So you are the big ones, right? You dags, BNF is controlling everything in the University of Hawaii. That's the big ones. That where all these deferred maintenance projects are. Yes, it's in your budget.

So I know you're trying to be responsible, but it has to be pressed. Right is my point. So I would encourage that discussion to happen at the Administration level because again the House tried but it seems like there's no will at the Administration level.

So I bring that up because I do believe it keeps growing every year and it does cost us more by not doing preventive maintenance work and then it becomes a major RNM project or sometimes we just have to tear it down instead of protecting our assets that we have.

That's why I think in many times the model that everybody is looking at is planned, plan and design, build, maintain. Right. And because they know that we don't have the political will to do it.

But my argument is I think we should have the will to do it and we should have the discipline to do it going forward. That's my comment to you. I mean if you want to comment on that, you can.

I understand and hear a lot in clear chair. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. That's my main point that I want to make and like I said, I bring that up and I urge the departments to push for this especially because identified in the budget there is a one time infusion of money that will not be reoccurring.

So my caution to all the departments and Administration is that because, because it's not non recurring, you cannot create programs or anything like that with that money and expect it to be there the following years because this is a one time infusion. So we have to be prudent with what is before us. Okay, thank you Members.

Any further comments? Okay, we're going to move on. We're going to take a recess and we'll move on to the libraries.

Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to go to early learning next and then, and then to libraries. Thank you. Recess.

Okay, we're going to reconvene the committee--oh, sorry--reconvene the Committee on Finance to continue our briefing. Next we have the Executive Office of Early Learning.

Hi. Aloha, Chair Yamashita, Vice Chair Takenouchi, members of the committee, and congratulations to new members and nice to see those of you whom myself last year. I am Yuuko Arikawa-Cross. I'm the Director of the Executive Office on Early Learning, and I'm here today with Jennifer Chow, our Government Affairs Specialist, Kelli Vannoy, my Business Management Officer, Tara Castrovinci, our Communication Specialist, and Lane Tsuchiyama, an Institutional Analyst with our office.

For those of you who may not be familiar, we are an administratively attached agency to the Department of Education. We are also responsible for two main functions. One of them is the coordination of the Early Learning System. The other one is the administration of one of the public options for PreK, so the EOEL Public PreK option. We also do host the Head Start State Collaboration Office Director in our office.

Our vision is that every child in Hawaii has access to high-quality early childhood development and learning experiences which lay the foundation for lifelong well-being. And this, again, is what we do, our two primary functions. So I wanted to highlight, first of all, some notable measures and outcomes from our office.

So over the last two years, we have opened 55 new EOEL Public PreK classrooms. When I moved into the office in 2022, we had 34 schools with 37 classrooms and now we serve 72 schools with 94 classrooms. We also awarded over $260,000 in early childhood educator stipend programs, and this says 12 completers, but we're actually up to about 18 right now.

One of the very exciting things is EOEL had applied to become a part of this RAPID survey. So RAPID is a national survey where we seek family perspectives so that we can learn what they are looking for and some needs that they have. Originally we were not selected, but they were curious about what Hawaii was doing and they contacted us back and they selected us along with Vermont to participate in a six-month RAPID pilot project statewide, and so we're really excited about that.

We're right in the middle of that survey administration process and I really look forward to what we're going to learn from our families, but also in partnership with Vermont. Also a couple of years ago, the Hunt Institute, which is out of North Carolina--convenes legislators and also early childhood departments--and a couple of years ago, we learned about the Children's Funding Project, which creates state fiscal maps for children from 0 to 24.

And we were curious about that, and we felt that Hawaii needed a new updated fiscal map, and so we applied for that project as well, and EOEL was selected and we are also in partnership with the Early Childhood--with ECAS, Early Childhood Action Strategy, and so we are actually right in the middle of our fiscal project.

So we have reached out to the budget leads of every department in Hawaii, including the state's Budget and Finance folks, we've reached out to all of the mayors and their teams, and we're trying to create a funding map of everything that feeds in for anybody from 0 to 24.

So it's a pretty hefty effort, but we are doing our best with that. The other thing that we are excited about is previously, when we're looking at children who need behavioral and other emotional support services, looking at counselors in Hawaii, and so previously through the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board, the counseling licenses were for K to 12, but we have PreK students, and a lot of them--the DOE already had PreK students through Early Childhood Special Education Services, but with the expansion of PreK, we felt like it was really important to ensure that they have supports on campus.

So we worked with Hawaii Teacher Standards Board and Chaminade because they are the ones who license counselors in Hawaii, and we were able to expand that license to PreK children--to PreK as well. So when we're looking at what does success look like for the Executive Office on Early Learning, I like to call about leading and lagging indicators, so things that are predictors of success and also, did we hit the target or not? And so here are some of what we look at.

So we're looking at how many seats and options are available to families statewide. We look at how many children are enrolled, how many children are actually meeting our priority categories, what does our workforce look like, and how are these interactions occurring between the educators and the children because we know that language development and all of the other sorts of development are rapidly happening from 0 to 5, and so for us, this is how we look at success. As I mentioned earlier, we do have one federally funded position currently, and that's our Head Start State Collaboration Office Director.

Temporarily available right now, though, is we applied back in 2022 for a Preschool Development Grant, and we are in partnership with Hawaii P-20 for that. It will term out at the end of 2025, but we were awarded two position--two temporary positions through the Preschool Development Grant to assist with those efforts.

One of the things that we're taking a look at is possible impact to any federal funding sources to EOEL, and so one of the things could be the funding of the Head Start State Collaboration Office Director.

We do know that the Head Start National is always, you know, they're convening and they're having conversations, trying to track everything that's happening with all Head Start programs. The other thing that we're looking at is any potential impacts to Head Start in Hawaii. So EOEL Public PreK has priority categories.

And so any child who is eligible for Head Start would become eligible for EOEL Public PreK; we would just have to have the seats available to welcome them in if anything happens to their funding sources. The one part that we wouldn't necessarily be able to directly impact though is if the Early Head Start, and so that's from six weeks to three years old.

And so those are some things that we're taking a look at right now. There could potentially be decreased funding for Early Childhood Special Education. The Department of Education had noted this in their own slides.

We partner with the DOE for IDEA Part B and Department of Health has the Early Intervention portion, which is birth to three. And we are also taking a look at subsidies. So the Department of Human Services does administer the childcare connections of federal subsidy, and we also know that they also administer state subsidy through Preschool Open Doors, so that could be another possibility should anything happen with federal funding sources.

For Non-General Funds, one of the things--in terms of Early Learning, it's not just education, it's also health as well, and so we did apply for a Hawaii Dental Service Foundation Grant and we received $2,700, so toothbrushes and regular sized toothpaste.

And we've been handing these out during our outreach events and just, you know, really emphasizing the importance of dental health. Interestingly, one of our institutional analysts in our office is actually a dentist. She is a dentist and decided to be an institutional analyst, and so this is also a passion project of hers to ensure dental health, and so we're really grateful that she keeps an eye on that that portion very closely.

So thanks to the Legislature's continued support of Early Learning in terms of the EOEL Public PreK Program, we did expand to be able to serve three-year-olds. So the Hawaii Department of Education Early Childhood Special Education Program accepts children who turn three years old from the day they turn three.

Charter schools were already accepting children two years prior to kindergarten, which included three-year-olds, and so EOEL, to come into alignment with other efforts in the state, decided to expand to three and four-year-olds a couple of years ago, and that was at the same time that the Preschool Open Door subsidy was also expanded to include three-year-olds.

We opened, again, as I said, prior the 55 total, but 11 new classrooms, and so you could see that information there. So again, the 92--we are currently up to 92 classrooms on 74 campuses.

This is our process that we're used to develop our budget and to prioritize our request. So the primary driving factor is Act 46 of 2020, which asks us to create space for all currently unserved children, and so we look at places that might have supportive leadership. We also look at places that actually have space available to expand, and we also look at, take a look at numerous factors of different communities and the representations within those communities and schools.

So this is our budget request. What we're looking to do is to expand by 50 new classrooms over the next two years. So these past two years we expanded by 55, and in the next upcoming two years, we'd like to expand by another 50. So it would require 50 teachers, 50 educational assistants, and then we also provide coaching, mentoring, and professional development for the leaders and the teachers and educational assistants on each school campus.

And so we do that at a ratio of six sites to one Early Learning State Office Teacher, and so the total request would be 108 positions. So 50 teachers, 50 educational assistants, and eight Early Learning State Office Teachers over the next two years.

And this is just another way that it's broken down. And I just wanted to highlight this visual. So the EOEL Public PreK first opened its doors back in 2014. So you can see this metric. The lighter red areas show the potential for EOEL Public PreK seat expansion, and I just wanted to say that a lot of that upward trajectory was certainly due to the Legislature and also the partnership with the Ready Keiki Initiative. And I just want to say thank you for making a difference by investing in Early Learning, and I'm available to answer any questions that you might have for me.

Okay, thank you very much. Members, open to questions. Oh, you did a good job. Thank you very much. I think, you know, the current government did come and talk to us about some of these things too, and so we appreciate all the work you're doing and we look forward to working with you. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Members, we'll just move right into Libraries.

Aloha. Good morning. It's nice to see you all. Thank you, Chair and Vice Chair and esteemed members of the committee. I'm Stacey Aldrich. I'm the State Librarian of the Hawaii State Public Library System, and I have with me my colleague, Mallory Fujitani, who is the Special Assistant to the State Librarian.

Today I'd like to share with you the voices of our patrons and tell you how our budget requests directly impact and improve the lives of the people in our communities. This past year we did a survey of our patrons and our staff to learn what's most important to them and how to better communicate, and we learned a lot of things from them, including what's important.

One patron said, 'if it weren't for the Makawao Reference Librarian, I wouldn't have my present job. People have to feel safe to access their essential services that help them to be successful.' We're asking for an additional $1.2M for our security guard contract.

Last year we used the state's price list to bring on a new security guard company to serve 43 of our 51 branches. The cost to keep providing this service--important service--is an additional 1.2 that will need to be added to the base of our budget.

We had hundreds of people respond in the survey that the library is the place they can use computers, get computer classes, and access free Wi-Fi. This includes families with kids needing to do homework, working with parents, and kupuna. To continue to provide vital access while we're doing some major renovations, upcoming renovations, we're requesting a total of 484,000 in FY26 and FY27 to stand up temporary library locations in three communities while we work on projects.

That'll be Wahiawa, Pearl City, and Makawao. The funding will be used to lease space for each of the temporary locations. And we noticed--with apologies--in our briefing materials, there's a table, and it says 500,000 on the second year for Wahiawa. It should be 200 and 200. It's the same in the rest of the tables, so we apologize for that. Our neighbor island patrons particularly believe the library to be an essential part of their community.

One expressed it in this way: 'The Lihue Library is an important resource for our rural community that does not have access to the things that Oahu residents have. Our family and friends find it to be a safe and welcoming community hub.'

We are in the process of building a new public library hub in Waikoloa and and we'll be asking for $31,548 in FY27 to hire our new branch manager, which is a librarian IV. This position is important because it helps us to work through construction, start hiring staff, building library collections, building relationships with the community, and also preparing the library to open. Many residents, again, especially on their neighbor islands, find that our libraries offer a haven for those without AC. We hear that a lot.

A cool place to be. We're requesting an increase to our base budget for repair and maintenance to help us maintain safe and healthy buildings by having funding needed to address large repair projects like elevator repairs and additional preventative maintenance projects so we can keep our buildings healthy and safe.

This will bring us to $1.5M to serve our 51 branches and two administrative offices. And over and over again, we heard access to the statewide collection is important. One resident summed it up best: 'I love that the statewide system gives me access to every branch on every island.'

We're requesting funds to make our transfer and delivery system far more efficient and effective than it is today. We're requesting 500,000 in FY26 and 250,000 in FY27 for automated handling systems to improve efficiencies in how we handle books and other materials, using technology, and addressing some of the staffing shortages we have in the system.

Currently, it's a manual process that requires many touch points to move the materials. This project will improve our processes and movements of books so that our readers get the books more quickly. Now I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Mallory, to share our Capital Improvement Project request.

Thank you to the committee for your past support with our CIP requests. On average, our 52 buildings are over 60 years old and many of them have not had significant improvements made to them over the years since they were initially built. Waiting too long to initiate these projects will not only increase the cost of improvements over time, but in the cases of energy efficiency measures, this also helps to reduce our operating budget needs.

When initiating a CIP project, we look at not only replacing equipment or systems that are near end-of-life, but we're also looking at upgrading accessibility, energy and cost-saving measures, as well as workflow efficiencies. We also take into account community needs and how we can renovate our physical spaces to meet known and unknown future needs.

It's amazing how transformative and inviting new paint and upgraded flooring is. In the past couple of biennium budgets, we received about $160M in CIP funds, both line item appropriations and lump sum funding. Of that amount, about 25 million was in lump sum funds, which helps to ensure that the funding is available when we need it.

It has also been used to supplement line item appropriations as needed, as line item appropriations are not usually a very accurate guess of what the final project bid amount is going to be. I'm happy to report that we have not lapsed any of the CIP funds that have been awarded to the HSPLS, so we thank you for all of those past appropriations.

Right now we have approximately ten projects statewide on every major island that went out to bid in the last year, and we expect all of them to go start some initial state of construction this next year in 2025. This ranges from a brand new building to consolidate the Keaau and Mountain View Libraries to a significant expansion of our Pearl City and Makawao Libraries and as well as a shade structure at Nanakuli.

The lump sum funding will allow us to ensure that we can not only finish projects with construction funding and also allows us to simultaneously initiate the planning and design of new projects. This flexibility allows us to continuously work to improve our library statewide at any given time.

As of right now, we have a little over 50 projects that we're working on, including those ten that will be starting construction next year, and so the requested 25 million in 26 and the 25 million requested in 27 will ensure that projects that are already under design will be able to go out to bid in 2025. Thank you for your time.

In closing, I've been thinking a lot about communities and what does it mean, and thinking about neighborhoods, and I was thinking about Mr. Rogers. Has anyone ever watched Mr. Rogers? I may be showing my age now.

He taught us that being a good neighbor means working together to solve complex issues and cultivate a world in which people can fulfill their true purpose. Our public libraries are places where people can do that and that's the work that we do. They are neighborhood institutions with immense returns on an exceptionally modest investment.

The funding we are requesting will contribute to directly meeting our mission, which is to inspire curiosity, create opportunities for all to read, learn, and connect. We thank you for your support and your attention, and happy to answer any questions you may have. Mahalo.

Great. Thank you. Members, questions? Assembly Loy.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, ladies, for being here. I just had one question on your CIP appropriations, and I know it's for new facilities, one being a co-location of a library in the Keaau-Mountain View area, but when I look at your table, it noted pending--oh, a bid protest.

Yeah, that has been resolved.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So you guys are ready to go on that?

Yeah. And the fund--we have enough funding for that.

Funding for that. Great. Thank you so much. That's it.

That was resolved in probably the last month or so.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Members, further questions? Libraries? Okay. Vice Chair. It's usually her questions.

For the other members, I am a library information science professional, so we and the State Librarian have lots of good talks every year. I did want to note that in your testimony you highlighted one of the challenges as, you know, more people coming into these public spaces with mental health or substance abuse issues and, you know, understanding that's not--the library is not a place where services like that are necessarily addressed, but is an open space where all are welcomed.

You did mention some of the partnerships. Is this part--or some of the things we're trying to do to mitigate the situations or hopefully, you know, maybe move these people into appropriate services--is that the kind of partnerships you're doing with maybe other departments or community groups or nonprofits at all or is there any kind of collaboration happening in that space for sites that we know that this is happening regularly?

It's a little bit different in every community. We have spoken at the state level, we work with the county level, and they're all struggling too, with the same issues of the challenges of mental health. So what we have been focused on this year has been training. We're going to be doing more training for our staff.

We have partnered with UH in the past and had social work students come in and intern in the libraries. So sometimes things work and sometimes they don't. We just continue to look for people who are doing that kind of work that we can partner with because we don't want to compete.

I know there are examples on the mainland where people have put in social workers into the libraries, but then the library has to compete for funding to provide that, and I'd rather work with our partners. So we continue to identify within each of the communities different people who can help us out, and then working with law enforcement.

So is the training--I guess the staff is getting, maybe, kind of like some, I guess, some identification, some de-escalation, that kind of thing, and when to try and maybe do a call to a service agency that might be appropriate to be able to respond?

This year we're going to be working on crisis prevention, so paying attention and identifying issues before they get out of hand, and so we're hoping that will be a good start for our staff, but we continue to have to do training. Our staff are taking training on trauma and how to better work with people who are experiencing trauma. It's an ongoing issue that, again, every community is slightly different, and so we try to work with whoever is within the community.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Further questions, members? Representative Morikawa.

Thank you. Chair. Hi. Good to see you. My question is about the Kapaa Library. It's going to be relocated to near Mahelona. Is that correct? What's the timeline on that?

That's a good question. So we're part of the bigger plan. So the speaker is working on the master plan and we're part of that master plan, and while that master plan is being completed, we have a location where the library can go so we can begin our planning and design work, so that once the master plan is completed, we'll actually have our part. We're hoping that it all falls into alignment. The actual construction will be based on when all of the utilities--based on the infrastructure that has to be built too.

And then when that is completed--I know this is looking way in the future--what happens to the old site?

It'll be turned back to the state. So Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Oh. Okay, thank you.

Just to add in, our environmental assessment has already been completed for the Sam Mahelona site.

Okay, thank you. Representative Templo.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for that quote. I really like Mr. Rogers and that was heartwarming, but I feel like the libraries have so much potential and I just wanted to know a little bit more about how the tech lab is doing in Waipahu and do you guys have plan on expanding on stuff like that?

So the tech lab is still there and students are still coming in. We have to reinstitute another--we used to have small cohorts of students learning how to code and learning how to game in a safe and healthy way, so we, we want to expand that and continue that work, but right now it really is a lab where the students are coming in and they're gaming and they can do the coding classes if they'd like.

We did purchase more computers to expand and we are looking at expanding into Kahuku, and so once we have two, then it won't be like a fax machine anymore. So we can have two. We have two cohorts of students learning how to game and then we can have them battle each other, so--in positive ways. So we would like to continue to expand but we want to move first on this--beyond just the fax machine-- only one person has it, it's not as useful--and create that second lab in Kahuku this year.

Have you guys thought about like expanding the library to have co-working spaces and extending the hours for the public to use? Is that of interest that you guys hear about?

Mm-hmm. It's very interesting because we actually did discuss--we went to, a couple years ago, we were on the Big Island and we had conversations with some of the community members and there were already some co-working spaces in Hilo, and so we don't want to compete against any of the co-working businesses.

But in the spaces where there aren't other businesses, there's definite where--we have interest and we want to know from the community, is that something we're looking into, and if we have the space, we can try to create that. Our newer libraries that we're building, we're building smaller meeting rooms, so there'll be much more meeting space that we could probably do that more.

So Keaau-Mountain View will have more meeting spaces, Waikoloa will have more meeting spaces, Pearl City is going to have more meeting spaces, so I think there is definitely an opportunity, but we definitely don't want to compete with the local businesses that are trying to do that. In terms of hours, we are this year looking at our hours and reviewing them and taking all the feedback that we've gotten from the public. We would like to improve our hours.

We haven't changed our hours since pre-pandemic because we were so low in staffing, but we're starting to staff up again, but even with staffing up, we probably won't meet all the hours. So in order to have longer hours or more hours, we're going to have to have more staff because you only have so many hours from the bodies that you have and especially in the rural communities where we only have a few people.

So we have to think creatively about how we provide access and perhaps it's just changing around the hours a bit so that they're a little bit later in the day in some areas where that they've been earlier.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you. Further questions? Okay. Vice Chair.

Actually, you know, with the automated handling system, have you guys run numbers on how much time you think that might free up from current staff to maybe do things like extend hours?

I know the we talked with a few businesses about these systems because we were trying to get a handle on how much would it cost and what would it look like, and I'm sure they have time studies. I'll get more information to you on what they've come up with with their systems.

I'd like to add that the first year we were looking at implementing the handling system on Oahu, which serves 25 libraries, so that's our biggest buck--bang for the buck, and also, that's our central point to distribute to neighbor islands. So we'll gain a lot of efficiency just within our Oahu staff, driving stuff.

So we're starting with them and ultimately we want to expand to our larger libraries. Hilo has seven book drops, which I've never seen seven book drops, and they fill them up because people travel, they trip chain on the weekends and they come to Hilo and so they are full, and so our staff have to go in and grab the books, put them on a truck, and then--

Manually sort.

Manually sort them with the new sorter. People would basically put them into the slot and it would, it would start to go the right way. So it will save a lot of time, I think, for those libraries, and then for the drivers, I think definitely, because they are hand-sorting everything. So our Oahu drivers come back, they bring the boxes off the truck, and then they're hand--manually sorting. So now they'll just put them on the thing, on the conveyor belt sort, and then it'll be boxed and ready for them to go. But the exact timing, I'll find out.

Okay, thank you. Further questions? Okay, thank you very much for coming and we look forward again to working with you. Thank you. Members, we're in recess till 1:30. This time it's for real, 1:30.

Going to reconvene the Committee on Finance for our informational briefings. Next up, we have the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. Welcome, Director. Deputy. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. So I'll start and, you know, we'll go give you the economic landscape of how we worked on these slide decks and how we are trying to tie DBED into the big picture and satisfy and support the needs of the business community. So thank you for this opportunity. Chair Yamashita. Vice Chair Takanouchi Cherry Ligan.

Thank you for being here. And Members of the Finance Committee, mahalo for this opportunity to present our goals, objectives and budget requests to this Committee. We have all. We've asked all of our appropriate managers and agency directors to be available with us to present their programs and to respond to any questions you may have.

They're sitting behind us and we'll introduce them at a later point. I've always said I'm the most fortunate Department head in the state government and allow me to introduce the people that make our jobs as smooth as it possibly can be. Sitting next to me is Deputy Director Dane Waker.

He is the accelerant and the glue in the Department that strategizes and coordinates the visions for dbed. Deputy Wicker and I will be presenting a slide deck that will help to explain the direction and the purpose of our funding requests after I make the introductions of our team.

In our main office is Don Murata, Kelly Ann Yamamoto, Lacy Ghoshy, and Margaret Lu. They are backbones in our office, and all of our divisions work with them on a daily basis to move things along. They are currently holding up the fort as we are here.

I'll go through the agencies and I'll ask the managers and Executive directors to stand when their names are called. Okay. Hawai'I Tourism Authority. Daniel Nohoopi, Hawaii Community Development Authority. Greg Nakamoto. I cannot see you, so can you make sure you say aloha so I can go to the next one? Thank you. Hawaii Technology Development Authority.

We hired a new Executive Director, and that person is in flux. But the person that has been here for the last two, maybe three years now holding down the fort is Wayne Inouye, Hawaii State Energy Office. Mark Glick. Steven Wells is in the back. Mark's unable to be here today. Hawaii Green Infrastructure.

Gwen Yamamoto, our Business Development and Support Division. Dennis Ling, Aloha Foreign Trade Zone. David Sinking Creative Industries. Georgia Skinner.

Aloha.

Our Reed Office Research Economic analysis division is Dr. Tian, who you heard from this past week. The business, the small Business Regulatory Review Board. A small office, but very, very influential. Dori Petkovich, Hawaii Broadband Digital Equity Office. Chong Chang, the Stadium Authority. Ryan Andrews, the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii.

We are in the process of hiring an Executive Director, but Lawrence is here this afternoon.

Aloha.

The Agribusiness Development Corporation. Wendy Gady.

Aloha.

Friday she got a lot of energy. Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation. Dean Minakami. The Land Use Commission. Dan Orendenker, the Office of Planning and Sustainability. Sustainable Development. Mary Alice Evans. I think that's our division, the newest division and somebody that we're very proud to be a part of. Our team is Lori Moore.

And this is the Macro Division, the Military Community Relations Office.

Hello.

Thank you very much. Chair for that opportunity. I think it's very important for this Committee to have us do that introduction because many of you are freshmen and brand new and when I started as a freshman, I had no idea how many agencies was in dbit. And it's a lot of people doing a lot of good work.

Okay, so right to the slide there. The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism is one of Hawaii's 19 principal departments and serves as a critical driver of the state's economic development. With 10 attached agencies and seven divisions, DBED is uniquely positioned to lead Hawaii's economic diversification and innovation efforts through a comprehensive and layered approach.

Each agency specializes in strategic sectors such as tourism, energy, creative industries, housing and technology technological development. These agencies play a pivotal role in advancing targeted initiatives across the state. Our divisions focus on core business development, planning, international trade, issuing cohesive strategic plan for economic growth, connecting and layering programs and incentives.

DBED strengths lie in the ability to integrate and layer programs and incentives across its agencies and divisions to maximize impact. The approach allows businesses, industries and communities to benefit from a seamless ecosystem of support. Examples include leveraging incentives like enterprise zones programs, small business innovation, research grants, manufacturing assistance programs to drive innovation and export growth.

Aligning specific sector programs such as Creative Lab, Innovation Centers and Food Production and Innovation network with broader economic goals. Supporting housing development, renewable energy and technology. Through agencies like Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation, Hawaii State Energy Office and Hawaii Technology Development Corporation. DBED's comprehensive structure allows the strategic alignment of policies, programs and resources.

By connecting these elements, DBEDS fosters innovation support workforce development and drives economic resilience. The department's focus on collaboration ensures that Hawaii's economy remains dynamic and diversified, ready to meet the challenges and opportunities for the future. Deputy Dirk and I will go over the following. What is the State of Hawaii's economy.

How do we anchor and diversify Hawaii's economy and reverse the brain drain? Share our cradle to career framework and share how we are implementing this plan. Over the past two years, we've 18 months, we've worked really, really hard to try to figure out how we can get all of these things in coordinated.

The brain drain we all know people are leaving. You know, one of the biggest things that we were told by businesses is they need help with workforce development. So we put a big emphasis on workforce development. People are, you know, looking for employees in every single industry that you can think of.

In many cases in Hawaii, you've never seen the type of reactions that we've had with restaurants closing one day a week, some closing two days a week, and that's because they don't have employees.

So, you know, we look at where Hawaii lies in the economics as we compare with other states, and that's our main focus, is to change that.

We need to be a state that needs, that wants to do business and that people throughout the country know that we will do business and more importantly, that the people in Hawaii, people who grew up in Hawaii that want to stay home can have that opportunity to stay home. Hawaii's economy is at a pivotal position, pivotal juncture.

Shaped by both landscaping, long. I'm sorry, long standing challenges and emerging opportunities. The state is navigating a complex economic environment characterized by a significant reliance on tourism, alongside efforts to diversify into sectors such as renewable energy, technology, agriculture and creative industries. Tourism remains the backbone of Hawaii's economy, contributing almost 11% to the state's GDP.

Visitor arrivals and visitor spending rebounded following the pandemic, with recent data showing a steady recovery. Although variations across source markets show the reliance on tourism has highlighted vulnerabilities. And we all know that, prompting a stronger push towards economic diversification.

Workforce and economic disparities Hawaii faces a tight labor market with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. Despite this, the high cost of living and limited wage growth in key sectors have led to the outward migration, particularly among younger demographics.

This underscores the urgency of workforce development initiatives aimed at retaining talent and filling critical gaps in sectors like health care, technology and agriculture, infrastructure and development. The state needs to invest heavily in infrastructure to support economic growth and resilience. Through the expansion of innovation hubs and manufacturing facilities, we'll lay the groundwork for advancing technology and creative opportunities.

Economic diversification Hawaii's diversification strategy focuses on industries like aerospace, agriculture, aquaculture, advanced manufacturing and creative media programs like food and product Innovation Networks and the Creative Lab Innovation center are key to fostering small business growth, promoting Made in Hawaii brands and products, and scaling local industries for export markets.

As you remember when we went to Haneda with the Governor, the pop up that happened in Haneda Airport was one of the largest pop ups that Haneda Airport has ever had.

And those are the types of things that we want to continue on the mainland and worldwide because people appreciate Hawaii products and having those opportunities really puts a spotlight on Hawaii for its exporting of products.

Challenges and Opportunities despite progress, Hawaii faces challenges such as housing shortages, supply chain constraints, and the need for regulatory reforms to accelerate development. At the same time, partners, partnerships and private sector leaders, federally funded opportunities and initiatives through plans present pathways to sustainable growth. DBED's economic landscape framework demonstrates both resilience and potential.

The ongoing alignment of resources, infrastructure and innovation is critical to ensuring that the state's economy not only rebounds, but evolves into a more diversified and sustainable future. Hawaii consistently ranks among the bottom 10 in US states in overall business and economic environment evaluations by multiple entities.

Metrics include business creation and growth costs, workforce and infrastructure development, access to capital, technology innovation, and affordable affordability. Key Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths Moderate workforce development weakness high business costs, limited access to finance, underdeveloped infrastructure and innovation. I'd like to now turn it over to Deputy Director Dane Waker for him to take over the bus for now.

Good afternoon Chair Vice Chair, Members of the Committee so one other thing to note on this slide is the CNBC ranking and as they evaluate all 50 states, they use 128 metrics across 10 competitive categories. And the way they weight it is basically on how you're marketing what you say you're going to do.

So take workforce development for example. If we say we're going to focus on workforce development, how well do we market and how well do we execute that? Up until now that has been the number one metric CNBC has used.

They just went back to 2007 metric as the top, which is infrastructure, and that is now the highest weighted category since 2007. So state mandates. So in putting this framework together, we did not want to recreate the will. We went back and looked at studies, reports and plans that we can use to develop this framework.

As I go through the remaining slides, I'll plug in some of the budget requests that we are asking to help us deliver either the implementation or the planning to get us to the next phase or the next step of a project.

Our economic development sustainability efforts are guided by a series of legislative mandates and the Governor's priorities, all working toward a resilient and diversified economy. These mandates and priorities address critical areas such as food security, energy resiliency and housing while aligning with long term environmental and economic development goals.

The mandates that are driving our plan begin with Act 151 from 2019, Food Security and Resiliency, which aims to double Hawaii's food production and increase agricultural exports. In addition, this promotes the Farm to State initiative to integrate locally sourced food into public institutions.

Piggybacking on that is Act 175 from 2021 and Act 176 which requires 30% of food served in public schools be locally sourced by 2030, as well as establishing requirements for state departments to purchase a percentage of fresh local agricultural products or value added goods supporting local agriculture and processing industries.

Act 97 from 2015 mandates the 100% RPS by 2045 and Act 15 from 2018 commits Hawaii to achieving a net zero emissions by 2045. To operationalize these mandates, DBIT established two internal working groups beginning with our Integrated Land Use Strategy Working Group which aligns land use planning with goals for housing, food security and sustainable development.

And as you see, we have land use at top. As all three industries are competing for one resource and that's land, we're running into conflicts we have to start with with priority and then map out the uses to address any conflicts. The second is our Housing Strategy Working Group.

As DBED has a few agencies that touch housing, we want it to be a coordinated effort and communication. The key focus areas that these two working groups included were food security and resiliency, energy stability and resiliency, and housing.

In addition, in aligning with the Governor's priorities of affordable housing, climate mitigation and resiliency, and First Ladies Feed the Children initiative with the Child Nutrition Program. Through a combination of these legislative mandates, strategic working groups and the Governor's initiatives, Hawaii is building a foundation for long term sustainability, economic resiliency and improved quality of life for our residents.

It's critical that our efforts in aligning these programs are driving their successful implementation.