House Standing Committee on Culture & Arts

Good morning, everyone. We are gaveling in for our 10 o'clock informational briefing with Iolani palace and Bishop Museum for the Committee on Culture and the Arts. I'm Chair Rep. Kapela and I'm joined today by Vice Chair Sam Kong and Member Representative Mike Lee. So we are very excited. Just a brief overview.

We have guests from Iolani palace joining via Zoom and from Bishop Museum here in the room with us. I don't think this will take too long. I wanted us to be able to have an opportunity as a new Committee coming out of legislative session to.

To figure out how we can better support the folks that are getting state funding as we head into interim so that we can come back next session with renewed ideas and a better ability to support you folks and to support the mission of preserving Hawaiian culture and history throughout our state and hopefully expanding educational access to that as well.

So. I don't know what happened to Paula. There we go. Okay. But with that, we're going to first go with Iolani palace with Paula joining us via Zoom. Hope you're on mute.

All right, thank you. Thank you for bearing with me. I'm in the LA Convention center at a museum convention, and they don't really have good connectivity in La, so I'm using my phone. It works better than the computer. But thank you so much. Just a little bit about the Friends of IoLani paLace and who we are.

In case you don't know, we were formed in 1966 as the nonprofit to oversee the repair and restoration and maintenance of Iolani palace and to share her story with Hawaii and the world. We were started by Liliuokalani Morris and a lot of really powerful mana wahine over the years that led our organization.

And so that's where we are. In 1976, the friends were designated as the State of Hawaii Museum of Monarchy History. And up until 1998, we had operational funding. It was actually through a management contract. And then that stopped, and the organization kind of just went with Princess Kawanakoa and some of her funding and so forth.

And so I came aboard six years ago, seven months before the pandemic, and realized we really didn't have any money. We were chasing the minimum wage on most of our employees, and very little repair and maintenance had been done. And so it's been wonderful growing these relationships with lawmakers.

A lot of people came with misconceptions that we were state employees and that the state paid for everything or that we owned the palace or somebody else owned the palace. But we're actually under state parks, we're a state monument, the same as Diamond Head.

And so we were really very fortunate and thankful following the pandemic that it was able to share the stories. Then we received the ARPA funds because at that point during the pandemic, we thought we were going to actually close the doors. We let 40% of our employees go. The ARPA funding helped us to keep the lights on.

And with museums, it's that electricity, right? It's keeping the H VAC systems running so that you continue to have the temperature and humidity to take care of all those pressures. Precious artifacts that are housed in the palace. And so this is the third year that we've received operational funding from the state, and we're really thankful for it.

What I kind of presented to you there is a. Is a look at if we didn't have the operational support. So it's kind of typical of what our fiscal year would look like and what the shortage would be at that time. So it's really, really helpful for us.

I can let you know that our ticket sales are pretty darn close to what they were pre pandemic, which is good with us. The number of people coming through.

We aren't able, though, to really expand really big because of the fragility of the palace and because it looks big, but it's not really that big once you get in there and go out on a tour. So it's not like we could have a quarter of a million people or even 200,000 people going through.

But we have done a lot of pivots to bring in different types of tours that are at a higher price point so that we can try to bring in at least the same revenue and maybe with a few less people if we have to. So that has worked out, I think.

And also what we're doing with the State of Hawaii providing us with that operational funding, it allows us to do a lot of the R and M. Instead of leaning on DLNR, we still want DLNR to do the big things.

A fire suppression system is what we've been slowly working on, and that's estimated to be 3 to 4 $1.0 million. We're trying to do some little MacGyvering on our H Vac system. Our H Vac system is not that old, but it's not the ideal H Vac system.

When they put it in a little over a dozen years ago, they put in a reheat system. So in order to work at its best, you have to heat everything up and then cool it down. And that would raise our electricity bill from 25,000 to about $40,000 a month. So we don't operate it in that manner.

So we've done some MacGyvering and different things with DLNR and with the contractors that we RFP to do maintenance to try to get it to work. Its optimum. But at some point we know that a new H VAC system will be needed. And. And so those are the things we kind of rely on for DLNR.

We've actually done an envelope study of all the buildings. And so we sat down to kind of divide what we can do if we have funding and what they can do. And so with you providing operational funding, we take the ticket sales and donations and what's left and we can use that for R and M.

And we've done some pretty substantial things and are getting ready for some big things right now. What we're getting ready, and you'll see some pictures that are in there, is a whole revamp of the basement. The basement is going to have a big exhibit that's been in the planning since 2013.

But there's some major issues with the basement. So we have a $1.4 million contract that we signed and we actually started work to update the electrical to actually put in WI fi because WI fi in the palace is almost non existent. It's those thick old walls.

Also, in anticipation of a fire suppression system, the friends are putting in the piping throughout the basement. Mainly because if we waited and did it later, we'd already have a brand new exhibit. And it doesn't make sense to break up the ceiling and put in the piping then.

So we're just going ahead and paying on our side to put in the piping so that it's ready to go when that happen. We're also working on the bathrooms. A previous contractor from years ago, there's a little bump in the plumbing and so it backs up.

So right now we've been paying $500 a month to have somebody flush that line. So instead they're going to be digging up the little corridor between the stairs and the bathroom. And I think there's a picture of just that corridor.

They're going to dig up that one section to fix the plumbing in there so that we have those issues. There's another picture there that shows some bubbles on the wall. We have rising damp issues in the basement. And so what they're going to have to do with that is they're already bringing in salt plaster from Germany.

It's a special plaster. We ordered it before any of the issues came in with the prison Administration. So it's on its way. It takes about six months. So we've got about three more months before that comes in. But they'll be fixing all of those walls and making them presentable.

And then we're going to replace the 60 plus year elevator. It's done its job. They no longer have any parts for it. The last time there was an issue, they had to actually fabricate a part for it. So we've gone through the RFP process and we have two final bids that we're looking at.

And they're so close, so we'll be making that decision soon and putting that elevator in. We've also done a project to clean and Polish the silverware, which is a pretty substantial project that the friends have paid for with some of our donations and with our funding.

We've also included in that we've paid to clean and polish the Hawaii State Archives silver that we have at the palace as well. Then the last but not least of what's going on right now is the etched glass, the beautiful etched glass in the doors that were destroyed by vandals.

We finally have the artisan in California working on that. In fact, I'm going to go see him on Saturday and take some pictures. It's a very specific method. He's the only person in the country that does this reverse etching, which is the same type of process that was done in 1882 as a National historic landmark.

And with the Secretary of the Interior, you know, we're guided to try to replace or restore things in the same manner if possible. He's the only person and he finally has time, so we're getting that done right now as well. School tours.

We had a small grant from the city that allowed us to pay for the admission and the bus transportation for schools because transportation is a huge issue and you guys know it still is with bus drivers and buses.

And so that finished, but we have one of our donors is allowing us to continue that throughout this next school year. So all students, whether it's public, private, charter, homeschool, will provide bus and admission into the palace so that they can learn the story of Hawaiian and, you know, the precious and bittersweet history of our sovereign kingdom.

We hired a new educator who's also a Hawaiian translator. So we're excited about that. And we also finally have a facilities person that has a facilities background, which is my most exciting.

That was my most pressing desire when I came in Six years ago is that the palace really deserves someone who can sit with all the engineers from DLNR or sit with the contractors and really, one on one, have those discussions and know what's best for this really precious, precious building.

So he just started, and we're really excited about that for ways for you to help us keeping up with that. Operational funding is huge for us. Like I said, it allows us to take care of the RNM.

When we do the RNM, we do RFP it, but we RFP with contractors and companies that we know have a good track record with historic buildings. And I think that's really important. And I think we actually do it. I think we can complete the project faster than when we go through DLNR.

Obviously, we want DLNR to help with the really big things. I'm not a big fan of CIP, and I'll tell you why. We've had some wonderful GIAs from the Legislature. And two years ago, I went in for a GIA for our windows and doors. It was returned last year as a cip.

So if CIP comes to us through that process, it goes straight to DLNR. So nothing's been done. And so it may be at a point where we have to forego that cip, because the windows and doors, each day, the weathering just gets worse on the Wood.

And at some point we just have to get them fixed and not wait. So we're not huge fans on that, but definitely we'd love support for DLNR for those big fixes that we need, the fire suppression system, mainly because I think that's so important, and the H Vac.

I think those are some of the main ways that you can help us. And once again, to have all of you folks and your staff to come at any time, because I think when you come, you learn the story. You see how precious Iolani palaces to Hawaii's history.

And it's so important, you know, not only from what happened from the time of our kingdom and the overthrow, but also it represented, you know, the republic, it represented the territory and the first 10 years of statehood. So this is really all of our history and your history as well in that building.

And we try to talk about that. So it's really important that we have your support and that. And that you folks come and visit us as well, because we. I think you have a better understanding when you can see it. And if you want to see problem areas, you can ask for me, and I can.

I don't like to be the Debbie Downer, but I can show you all the things that need fixing in that old house.

Director, thank you so much. Thank you for that overview. I do have a quick question and we'll open up to questions to Members as well. How much was the CIP allotment that was given to DLNR for the windows and doors?

I believe it was $150,000 and it hasn't been. When I last checked, it had. The funding hadn't been released yet.

Okay. We can certainly check on that and see if there's a way to maybe move that along. I am also curious about your school tours. I recognize now that that was initially a city grant.

Has there ever been any sort of state funding that's come towards a program like that, or has it really only been that Citi grant and a private donor?

Yeah, no, there's never been anything before. I think in the past, all our organization has ever done was go after GIAs to do some of the repair and maintenance, basically. And so this was our first venture into doing something like that.

Okay. Do you know if there's been any reach out towards. I mean, as someone who represents a neighbor island, I'm very curious about how do we get our neighbor island students to see this part of our history. And has there been any reach out to.

I guess whether it's through private donors reaching into potential airfare costs or maybe it's something that we look at this interim and how do we. How do we find. How do we work with the DOE to bring some funding so that we can have those neighbor island students come?

But are there any other ways that you folks reach the neighbor island students?

We've been notifying them and actually we'll be going to be doing something with DLNR's communications office so that they know there's some schools we always know come to Oahu, especially from Maui. And so we're trying to let those who have come in the past know that we can at least arrange.

If they're going to go straight to the palace and straight back to the airport, we can provide the transportation on this side. Or if they're just going to a hotel, we can't do anything more than that. And we'll do the admission.

But we kind of have started some preliminary talks with Southwest and with Hawaiian to see how interested they would be in either donating some flight, donating tickets or giving a deeper discount. But that definitely would be something I think would be really helpful.

We've also talked to some of the neighbor islands teachers about possibly teaching them a little bit more about our tours and then giving them some of the product so that if they can't come, they can still learn about the palace.

You know, there's a 3D walkthrough that's on our website already, and we can provide them with some other photos. And then we've talked about some other things like 3D printing objects and so forth, just to try to make sure that we're engaging as many students as possible from throughout the islands.

Okay, fantastic. Already on your website, there is that online virtual tour. Okay.

It doesn't have any audio on it or anything. And I'll tell you why we have an issue with some of the. We have an issue with some of the folks in Japan because they'll take that. And they asked, could you guys please put a whole tour on there? And then it just goes everywhere and.

Yeah.

And then they don't come. So that one is. There's no sound on it, but with schools, we want to work out something so that they could be able to utilize it.

Okay. Okay, Perfect. Director. Thank you. Members, any questions? Okay. Okay, Director, thank you so, so much for your time, and we'll let you get back to your conference.

Thank you very much. And once again, thank you for your support.

Thank you. Okay, we'll transition over to Bishop if you want to join us on this table.

Aloha, Kkou. I'm Janet Bullard. I'm the Vice President of Advancement and Marketing Communications, as well as the acting Director of Government Relations at Bishop Museum. And with me is our board chair, Ann Botticelli.

Mahalo Chair Kapela for inviting us to be here and to Committee Members, I sent our FY24 annual report in advance, as well as a deck that I will be going over very briefly. So, Bishop Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in honor of his late wife, Princess Pauahi Bishop.

So she is the last descendant, or was the last descendant of the Kamehameha family. And the museum was built to store all of the treasures of the Kamehameha family. Since then, the museum has grown considerably and now includes a natural sciences area as a critical piece of caring for our collections.

Because the sciences, the research, the preservation is all part of perpetuating our culture. So museum collections are one of the few reliable and deep time resources for examining the past, understanding the present, and predicting the future.

So really, our mission is to work to provide an essential understanding of how we heal our Ina and prevent massive biodiversity loss because our environment is very, very fragile and support cultural resilience. So we take that Kuleana very seriously. Within the museum we have our library and archives.

So the archives opened to the public in 1891 with just a few shelves of books. Currently, the collection includes sheet music, diaries, handwritten diaries of the queen, albums, photos. The collection is quite extensive. About 700,000 different, irreplaceable and very unique items. Our ethnology Department has about 77,000 collection objects, not only from Hawaii, but from across the Pacific.

These two come from not only local families, but Ali' I families, chiefly families. And we care for those objects within our collections through some very, very talented staff. Our archaeology Department is the world's largest collection of Hawaiian and Pacific artifacts. The archaeological work continues.

Right now they have a project that is active in on Molokai in Halawa Valley. Our natural sciences collections include a botany collection, which is known as the Herbarium Pacificum. 600,000 preserved plant specimens and continually growing. The botany Department holds and oversees a database called Plants of Hawaii.

And so that is all of the plants that exist in Hawaii, providing all of the data to researchers not only locally, but across the globe. Our entomology Department is the third largest in the United States. 14 million specimens from Hawaii and across the Pacific.

Our Mao Ecology Department is very, very active and has recently opened Pupuola, which is an active live snail rearing facility in our science adventure center, where they are caring for snails that don't exist in the wild. Currently, they're extinct in the wild. And people think, well, why snails? Snails are so critical to our ecosystem.

Their enzymes help plants, native Hawaiian plants photosynthesize and their poop acts as fertilizer so that native Hawaiian plants can survive. And so the entire ecosystem in our natural science collection is. They're all interrelated and critical to each other. Our invertebrate zoology collection has about 35,000 catalog lots and 1,000 type specimens.

Currently our collections manager there is working with the Department of Defense and NOAA with some invasive coral that is in Pearl Harbor. And so they're also doing active critical preservation work. Today. Our vertebrate zoology collection has a large amount of native birds, endemic birds, extinct birds and other mammals. I invite you to come and see these collections.

They are really quite fascinating, very sad in many ways because of the number of extinct species, but also very eye opening. We also have the only cryopreservation lab in the state that looks at DNA. So for instance, with rat lungworm disease, those specimens come to our lab for analysis and DNA barcoding.

So a lot of people don't know that that exists at the museum, but it is a service that we do provide to the state.

And all of our researchers and scientists work in partnership with DLNR and the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the army, to provide knowledge and space so that we are actively caring for our environment every single day. Our education Department hosts 20,000 students every year. And we also participate in what's called.

It's a national initiative called Museums for All, where families receiving SNAP benefits can come for free. And so we open our doors for those families so that they would normally not be able to afford to come to the museum. And they're able to, and we welcome them.

We've been fortunate and we don't get funding for that, but we've had private donors who have helped to support the initiative because they think it's so important. Our Education Department also does daily programming for visitors, whether they. We also have a.

A Japanese speaking staff that teaches our visitors hands on lauhala weaving hula so that visitors who come to the museum are active and able to learn our culture. Hands on. One of our biggest initiatives currently is the digitization of our 25 million objects.

And the reason that is such a critical initiative is that much of what we hold in our collections are unique, irreplaceable, and once lost, will be lost. And that is our history in Hawaii. And we are actively digitizing the collections so that we can.

It is not only a method of preservation, but also to share our knowledge with the world and provide that kind of knowledge and education for our local community as well. And so this has really helped us to expand and do greater outreach because from that we're able to create content.

We have many companies who are, with the move towards regenerative tourism who want to provide their employees with cultural education so that they have a deeper understanding of Hawaii, our environment and our culture. And so we are able, through digitization and through digital formats, provide that kind of storytelling and that kind of education.

So currently we're in the process of doing a series of different educational programs that we're able to provide to companies as a resource on public programming. We have in the last year really opened our campus up and welcomed the community. And so we are.

We have annual signature festivals, the Science and Sustainability Festival, which Primarily we have 50 local partners, whether they be practitioners, conservation agencies. And so it's all. They all come together on our campus and look at sustainable practices. The Kahuli Festival. The Kahuli is the state snail endangered. Huge turnout for that.

You would not think people would Be that interested in snails. But we are really, really thrilled that people care that much. We also do Museum After Hours once a month. So that's different programming. This year we're really focusing on honoring Mary Kawena Pukui and so doing the series of programming to honor her.

She was a longtime employee at the museum and very, very important. Mana Vahine for Hawaii Melee After Hours is a new program that we're doing which is just bringing people in to listen to music. This past weekend, we had the Celebrate Micronesia festival. So we were able to invite the entire Micronesian community.

Huge turnout and just for that community, a wonderful opportunity to gather and celebrate their culture. We also do ongoing Living culture series where practitioners, local artisans are able to come in and interact with our guests. And our guests are actually able to participate in the making of Lau Hala Kapa.

And so really trying to be a friend of our community and welcome the community to learn about our culture. So one of the slides shows our intersection with the various state agencies and different departments that we actively work with on a daily basis.

It is very extensive and we're grateful for the partnership and the support from the state. So in 1988, legislation was introduced to designate Bishop Museum as the State Museum of Natural and Cultural History.

Since then, we have taken that Kuleana very seriously and tried to continue to provide that service to the community and partner with the state to provide value with not only our collection knowledge, but also our research and science knowledge. Back in 2019, we were receiving a much smaller state subsidy, which was about 9% of our budget.

Today, we are now receiving an amount that is in line with our peer institutions, which are other natural and cultural history museums. So for that, we are very, very, very grateful. It has made a tremendous, tremendous difference. I can't even express to you, we can't do all of the things that I talked about without this funding.

We can't support the people, the talented people who do this work without this funding. We can't serve our community without this funding. There was so much that we didn't have basic things like IT infrastructure. We had no IT staff. In 2019, we were hit with a ransomware attack because we had no security.

And we have really valuable data with all of our specimens and all of the Metadata associated with all of that. That was all at risk at the time. And so since then, and thank you, and thanks to the state funding, we have been able to invest significantly in our IT infrastructure in data security.

Still working on the WI FI issue, but at least we have WI fi on campus. That's a little better. We're still working on the cabling. We have been able to. We didn't have fire suppression. And so we are actively now doing the work to ensure that we are secure from fire throughout the entire campus. Huge, just huge.

The ability to care for our collections and provide that environment. It means that we have to pay for air conditioning 247. The equipment, the infrastructure in the old buildings, it needs constant repair.

So the people who do the care and our ability to keep up with our RNM has been much improved since the state funding has been received. So thank you on behalf of all of us. We cannot thank you enough for that. So I did detail the way the operational funding is budgeted and approved by the sfca.

If you have any questions about that, I'm happy to address that. I know that Representative Capella, you had asked about the effects of state funding and we do, I mean federal funding. And so we do get asked that on a regular basis. And we are affected by that. Currently we have about 24 active federal grants. We did.

Eight of them have been terminated. The National Science Foundation grants. Funding from what we understand has ceased. So that's the detail that's been provided. And then we still have a handful of active federal grants and contracts. We don't know whether those are in jeopardy.

From what we understand, many of them are because they are agencies that are being cut. So we are dealing with this on a daily basis. We are receiving termination notices regularly. Every day is different depending on what's happening at the federal level.

We have, our total federal risk is about $4 million right now, much of which has already been lost. Next. So at this time I'm happy to answer any questions. Again, I'm on behalf of all of us at the museum, Mahalo Nui for your support. We're very grateful.

And during the interim I will be inviting you to the campus to see some of these really amazing projects. I would also like to invite you to come out into the field with us to do some reforestation work and plant native Hawaiian plants up in Pia Valley.

It's nice to get out with our scientists and really eye opening for me even today to learn about the native plant species and the non native and the invasives, but just to learn about and actually do hands on work with them. So that will be happening in the interim.

If you can just come and learn more about the museum and meet the amazing people who are doing the work, I think that's all I would ask.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your presentation and for the. I really appreciate the slide deck that you've provided. I'm hoping in the future you'll use some of these numbers or like the layout of this because it was so easy to understand in your annual report as well. Because I think it would be really helpful for all of us.

I want to continue on this, the conversation about the federal funding. You talk about the $4 million and most of the. A lot of this money is coming from the National Science Foundation. What falls under that category? Would that be like the snails that and the data and the research for that.

Can you give us other examples of things that are going to be potentially lost and the research that will be lost.

So the other one will be the plant database that I had talked about and the ability to continue to digitize and provide that kind of metadata.

And I'm assuming that there are lots of state orgs that pull from that data that you folks are collecting like Department of Ag.

And that's why we do it. The Hawaii Biological Survey is something that was established in 1992 by the state under Bishop Museum to document all of the data for the plants and animals in Hawaii. And so that is a database that we try our best to keep up with. We don't. We're not fully resourced to do so.

But that is part of our responsibility as well and that is specifically to serve state agencies.

I didn't realize that that was under your folks jurisdiction. What are some of your like national partners or other, other state museums? What are they doing during this time of uncertainty with the federal funding loss?

I think they're from what I understand they are in the same situation as us not knowing what's going to happen that day. Trying to anticipate, trying to prioritize. All nonprofits as well as other museums are seeking alternate sources of funding to the extent that they can to replace the funding loss.

And so like Paul is at the museum conference currently there is great concern about the future of museums and what museums represent because it is one of the things that is being targeted at the federal level. Museums are in General and so in speaking with our peers they are all kind of, I think we're kind of commiserating.

We're all kind of going through the same thing and doing the best we can to prioritize the work. And for us it really is how can we continue to support the staff that is doing the critical work that is the most important thing for us.

It was the most important thing when we Were trying to get more state funding was how are salaries at the museum overall? Are depressed. So how do we get. How do we get our lowest?

So as an example, we had a collections manager who started in 1984, was making, I think $40,000 in 2019, still making the same amount. But in 2020, because of the state funding, we were able to give them a raise to 45,000. There are so many examples like that in the museum.

Collections managers have to be there and be available 247. If there's a storm, if there's a hurricane, power outage, they need to be there to make sure that the collections are being cared for.

And so the people who are doing the work are the most important because they physically have to be present and have the skills, the unique skills in each of the collection areas to make sure that what we have stays safe. So the funding has allowed us to address wage inequity.

We have been able to raise all of our minimum wage employees up. So we are thankfully able to start to address that. And keeping those people and that talent is very, very important for us.

I just wanted to add, from the board perspective, the funding from the state has been incredible, and mahalo for that, because I think Janet's right. There has been historical suppression of wages. We have a supply situation where people there are so passionate about their jobs.

They love what they do, they understand its importance, and so they have stuck with the museum for decades, even though the wages haven't been what they wanted to be. That state funding really did help us gain more of a measure of stability. From the board's perspective. There are about 21 of us.

We're focused on really understanding the need to grow our endowment. Right now it's only about $8 million. It really should be $170 million to be significant support for ongoing operations. Sorry for the. For the museum. So, Janet, we Members of the board work with Janet on. Are working with Janet on rolling out a soft endowment campaign.

But I think there is acknowledgement and understanding that all of this has had to be rectified. And this state money is really important to doing it. And we need to look for other sources of income as well. The state money is important and I would argue should remain at that level.

I'm sure you're not surprised by that, but that doesn't mean we can't go out and find other sources of income from private entities, high net worth individuals who have a specific focus on education, on preservation of culture, on understanding biodiversity and the environment. And so I Think that's a pretty clear mandate from the board.

One of the great also outcomes of more state funding has been that we now have on our board the Director of the Department of Agriculture and also the Director of the Department of Education. When we offered it, it was you or a designate. And both of them said, we would like to be on the board.

So there's a real opportunity for them to understand what the museum is doing, understand how we can partner better with different departments to, you know, to provide what they need in a way that also advances what we do and what our mission is. Is. So that's been a really positive outcome.

One of the. So you asked about the NSF grants. So one of them that is at risk for no more funding is we have cohorts that come into the museum, work with our scientists. And so these are teachers, local teachers who come from all islands. I think last year we had eight of them.

And so they worked with our researchers, did hands on. They were in the lab, they were out in the field. They developed curriculum from their experience to take back into their classrooms. And they are now teaching that. And so it really is. We also had four interns who were part of that.

So it's to develop that career path and that interest in biodiversity preservation, preservation of our culture and taking that out into the schools.

Wasn't one of those teachers recently recognized, too? She was. Yeah, she was nationally recognized that she. Had done with the Bishop Museum, our malacology Department in particular.

So the federal funding for that specific program, has that already been swept or is it still continuing?

It's frozen because it's an NSF grant. So that was a. What we thought was a very. We know, is a very successful program and really goes out into the community and has a direct impact with teachers and students.

It gives us something to talk about when we approach people about funding. Good outcome.

Okay, Members, do you have any questions?

You look like you have a question.

No, it only be comments, not questions.

You can share if you want.

Hi, thanks for coming. I got a tour of the Bishop Museum. I think that you guys gave to legislators. I forget if it was December or January. This last few months have been a blur. But as the only teacher elected last year from Nānākuli, which is Hawaiian homestead, I do want to make sure that whoever's listening, whether it's on this board or...

I also sit in Finance with him too that you know, when you had mentioned about teachers coming there and learning about not just biodiversity, but about cultural, probably cultural practices, about science and being out in the. In the field.

I want everybody to understand that this is also demands made of teachers by the DOE that they have hands on instruction from teachers to the students, that they try to do things that are relevant, place based. And especially from the west side. That's something that's always pushed to us to do that so that the kids know that it why it's important.

Not to read books about forests that we never heard before or deserts that they've never seen. But you know, when you had mentioned the snails too, I remember seeing them and not expecting that the snails would be so tiny, tiny, tiny. And them telling us that how they dropped them in there and had to do. I had to look through a microscope to see them.

And I was a math teacher, sorry, not science. So I just strictly did me talking and the board. It's not so much hands on besides you and the pencil. But the work that you guys do is important and the fact that it also goes beyond your campus walls to us. It's noted and appreciated. Thank you.

I went to Mount Kaʻala to look for snails too and they are so tiny. I discovered I had no real talent for finding them. But there were people there that really are good at spotting them, you know. But they are hard to see.

I was... I certainly echo those sentiments and hope that there's ways. Maybe this is one of the projects that we work on through the interim to try and see if we can continue that. It's not only a benefit for our teachers, but also for our students.

I do have a similar question to what I asked Bishop, and I recognize considering the federal funding and the uncertainty there. But what is happening to expand access to neighbor islands? And what is the museum currently doing? I know you just did an overhaul of your IT, and maybe that's a part of some of that expansion. But can you talk about any expansion for neighbor island folks.

So part of what we are doing is to create online, more digital assets so that anybody who wants to access. Because there's a lot of interest on the continent as well for the people who had to move away. And so providing more content for them, for anybody who's not physically on campus, has been a priority as well.

And that is part of the digitization work that we're doing. We at one time had a grant to do neighbor island outreach, and so we were able to purchase a portable planetarium and take some of our collection items to neighbor island schools. That grant ended about two years ago, and we've not been able to do that.

We don't have the resources, not only the funding, but the staff also, to go out physically to the neighbor islands. But it was very much appreciated when we were able to do that. And we had been able to sort of create an infrastructure where we were able to take a mini museum to the neighbor islands. We would love to be able to do that again.

And not to surprise Janet, but, you know, we just recently hired a new CEO, and during those conversations with the applicants that came up. Because one of the people on our search committee lives on the Big Island and was saying, how do we do this.

And the new CEO, his name is Kris Helgen, was very supportive of making sure that people across the Aina have access to it. If nothing more than a way to understand that when you come to Oahu, make sure you go to the Bishop Museum and see the big museum.

But some conversations, some ideas that were floated were maybe some sort of permanent mini installation in public libraries in different places, different islands and stuff. So, you know, not, I can't promise that that will happen, but I'm just, I want you to understand that that is something that has been part of the conversation, that if we had the opportunity to do that, what would that look like?

So that there was something that represented the Bishop Museum and what it offers available to kids in a public place or a place they can access so that they can see, get a taste of what's there, learn something. And then when they do have the opportunity to come to Oahu, they make sure that they visit the museum and get the full experience. So that was one thought. It's very much on our minds.

Fantastic. That's lovely to hear. I do have... I was hoping you could give us an overview of some of the CIP projects that we talked about. I know you folks are working on an update to the cafeteria or, like, rec center. I don't. I can't remember what you had called it, but can you give us an update on that and where those, some, some of those major projects are for you folks and for the museum?

Yes, much of the... If you come to our campus, please come during the summertime, you will see a lot of the work that is taking place. We were able to address all of the building roof repairs, which was a really significant issue because when it rained we had buckets all over the place.

And so we were able immediately to address all of those issues. Again, the IT infrastructure is still in progress, but we've made significant progress on that. Fire suppression, which is significant as well, is currently taking place. Hoping to be completed in the next few months. We are currently working on...

So we are also looking at revenue generating opportunities throughout our entire operation. And one that we saw was the improvement of our cafeteria. Currently we partner with Highway Inn, and it is a small space. We are now using some of the CIP funding, expanding that and improving the cafeteria. There's no, currently there's no kitchen.

There are very few seats, so they need to bring the food in and put them into warmers. So the new cafeteria will provide us with a new revenue opportunity in partnership with Highway Inn and a much better dining experience. Because the cafeteria is expanding, they will have a kitchen.

There'll be a nice outdoor seating area that looks on our great lawn. And so that is a portion of the CIP funding is to help us with revenue generation as well. Primarily, most of it is being used to secure our collections. We are going to use some of the funds to build a warehouse that is environmentally controlled.

Right now we have things like the queen's carriage or the princess's bed just in a very not great environment that is not climate controlled. And so those things need to be addressed as well because these are irreplaceable treasures. And so the facility, the warehouse facility will be not as large as we had originally planned.

Because as time goes on, expenses, the expenses of materials has gone up. But we will be able to complete that project as well, hopefully by next year. So most of the CIP projects will be done by next year. So it is significant, significant improvement to our campus. So yes, thank you for that.

Absolutely. Members, any other questions? Okay, final question. Do you folks have like a... I hate to ask this because we're talking about revenue generation, but I'm also wondering what free opportunities you have? Aside from the SNAP program that you folks mentioned for families who qualify for SNAP benefits. What like, do you have like a Kamaʻāina Sunday or opportunities like that where folks can come in and participate in some in all that the museum has to offer if they can't necessarily afford it?

We, aside from the Museums for All, we don't, we do have like for instance with the Micronesian Festival or Museum After Hours, five or $10 admissions, like very much discounted Science and Sustainability Festival. People can just come to the campus. So when we have large campus wide events like Science and Sustainability, we just invite people to come. We don't have anything that's regular, but we do have opportunities for very discounted days.

When they come to those Science and Sustainability Festival, they get to go anywhere though. They can check out the science center.

Okay, so there are many free options then for folks or heavily discounted options. Okay, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your presentation and all the work that you're doing and for giving us an update.

I'm certainly looking forward to being able to join you folks and the committee on a site visit or some field work. So thank you again for the work that you're doing. Perfect. And I think we're adjourned.