House Standing Committee on Labor

Good morning. It is Thursday. I'm calling to order the House Committee on Labor. It is Thursday, March 202025. 9:30am we're in Conference Room 309. First on the agenda we have SB 1536 SD2HD1 relating to the Hawaii Tourism Authority. First to testify we have Daniel Naho Pili, Interim President CEO of HT, in support. Not here.

Anyone else testifying on this measure? Seeing none. We'll be moving on to the next item on the agenda. SB 1651 SD2 relating to public meetings. First to testify on this measure we have Michael Golojuch Jr., Vice Chair for the Hawaii State LGBTQ Commission in opposition on Zoom.

Good morning. Michael Golojuch Jr., Vice Chair of the LGBTQ Commission. He him pronouns. We stand in opposition to this measure in its current form. Well, we supported it in its original form as is written. Now we cannot support this.

To give you a real world perspective on this, as this bill is currently written and would be enforced, is that you're de-incentivizing commissions and boards from actually doing board packets.

They're not required by law, as it states in this law, when are, like I said, a real war perspective is that our, our agendas are posted on a Monday for the following Monday's meeting. This bill would require us to have our board packets ready to go by that Wednesday.

So less than 36 hours from the time that the agenda has to be posted, we would have to have our board packet ready to go. That means 36 hours for volunteers to review the agenda, come up with what they want to submit to the board packets and have that ready.

It also would require the public less than 36 hours for any testimony they want to submit in advance of the board meeting to be available at that point.

While we agree that the board packets are an essential piece of this entire boards and commissions piece, if this bill were to pass the way it is, you're de-incentivizing us from doing actually board packets because they're not required by law.

And so for a majority of the boards and commissions that are, there they are, they are peopled by volunteers like myself.

And so giving us less than 36 hours in our case to turn around any data or reports that we want included in the board packet for everybody to have a chance to see to just doesn't make sense. We, we encourage this Commission, this, this Committee to go back to the original language, which was 48 hours.

And that would give us until Thursday at 2:30 to have our board packets up and up and ready to go another 24 plus hours. So yeah. So we encourage you to revert the bill back to its original form. 48 hour. 40. 48 business hours.

Which in our case would actually give the public 96 hours because we meet on a Monday. The board packets would have to be up by Thursday at 2:30. So yeah, it's. If this bill moves forward, you're just going to de-incentivize any boarding Commission from actually doing a board packet.

And the only thing that would be up there is. And it also impacts the community.

My apologies. Your two minute timeline is exceeded. If you could please summarize your testimony.

Yeah, so it basically would de-incentivize and it hurts the public as well because they only have less than 36 hours to write their testimony, which is a lot, which is less than what you give the public for when it comes to even these hearings. So thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Carola Marino, Director for OIP with comments.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair and Committee Members. I'm Carlotta Amarino, Director at Office of Information Practices. We stand on our written testimony providing comments, but I would like to say there is some misunderstanding, I believe, of a recent opinion that we issued.

So what we did say is that the current law requires that if a board is doing a board packet, it needs to be available two business days before the meeting to the public and to the board members. But testimony may be distributed throughout that final two day period. Also, what we said was there is no deadline.

Excuse me. To provide notice that the board packet's available, but it has to be reasonable. So five minutes before the meeting's not reasonable. And we're available if you have any questions.

Thank you. Next we have Kirby Shaw, Executive Director for the Disabilities and Communication Access Board in support. Not here. Okay. We'll be moving on to Peter Fritz, attorney for Peter Fritz, attorney at law in support on Zoom.

Ah. Okay, I started my video. I want to thank the Director of OIP for some of the comments that she made because I was about to correct some of those as well. I am the person that wrote this bill because I wasn't receiving notice of a board packet availability more than 48 hours prior to the meeting.

And the position of OIP was there was no deadline that they could send it the notice of the availability of the board packet less than 48 hours. So that's the thrust of this, is to make people have the opportunity to review the board packet and notices that the board packet is available.

The changes were made because there's an OIP opinion that says that 482 business days can be one business day and one minute of the next, and that constitutes two full business days. So there's a reason behind each and every one of the changes that were put forth in Senate draft one, I believe.

And so I stand in strong support. I will answer any questions anyone may have. But I'm the one that requested the opinion from OIP regarding the fact that neither I nor the board members, since I was receiving notice at the same time they were, were getting the board package two business days ahead of the meeting.

So I respectfully request that you move this Bill forward. And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them from my perspective. Thank you. Thank you.

Next we have Ben Kreps, Staff Attorney for Public First Law Center in support on Zoom.

Hi, good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Ben Kreps. I'm with the Public First Law Center. You've got our written testimony and strong support.

And I'd also just like to address some of the concerns that were raised in testimony and also just kind of give a little more background on why this Bill is needed.

So board packets are critical to inform public participation for the public to provide testimony based only on on an agenda topic, which would happen if there's no board packets. That would be like asking folks to testify on bills based only on the title of the bill. And that's the same with board packets.

You really need more to be able to comment on the substance of something and not just a one sentence. General summary. So existing law requires board packets to be made available to the public at least two business days before the meeting.

OIP, as was noted before, has interpreted the statute as providing no deadline for boards to provide notice that the board packet is available. So a board under existing law could provide that notice after the meeting, even though they're required to make it available before the meeting. So it just doesn't make sense.

This law would would clean that up and it fixes that by requiring the boards to notify folks that the packet is available at the time it's available. So that's kind of a common sense housekeeping cleanup measure.

OIP has also interpreted the current deadline as requiring board packets to be that makes the deadline anytime on that second business day. So like noted by Mr. Fritz, it could be one business day in one minute. And that's just not consistent with the intent of Act 11, which the Legislature just passed last year.

And I explained that a little more in my written testimony. And we've also offered a friendly amendment in our testimony that I think will address the concerns raised by the opposition testimony. And it does aim to give boards a little bit more flexibility.

Instead of making the deadline 7:45am on the third business day before the meeting, the change we propose would make it any time on that third business day. So I think that allows for some of the flexibility and we can also continue to work with, with anybody, you know, if this bill progresses. So that's my testimony.

This is a good bill. We think it warrants further discussion and we ask that you pass this out of Committee. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you. Are there any other persons here to testify on this measure? You're in person on zoom. Okay.

Seeing none, Members, we do have written testimony with comments from HPHA, the Hawaii Employer Union Health Benefits Trust Fund with comments, support from League of Women's Voters, Hawaii Hawaii Chapter Society of Professional Journalists in support and individual in support. Members, any questions on this measure? I do have questions for OIP.

So setting aside the debate between the two days or three days, three business days for the board packet, I'd like to focus more on the notice aspect because I think that's, you know, if a packet is made available, you know, there should probably be a notice just like we have with our hearing agendas.

So in this bill, as it's currently in its SD1 version, does that satisfy that notice?

We're okay with the SD1 version.

Yes, except for the three business days.

We would defer to the boards on that. I understand that some boards have very little staff. Sometimes it's the chair writing notice and assembling packets. And some boards have tons of support. So I understand it's a challenge for some of them.

Okay, I appreciate that. And you heard some of the testifiers speak a little bit about the concerns and frustration with regards to when this packet is made available. I'd first like to make the just clarify the distinction between the packet and the testimony. Can you please kind of elaborate on that?

So the statute allows written testimony that has been submitted less than two days before the meeting to continue to be.

Distributed to the members and the reasonable time for notice. Right. You said, you know, one minute before the meeting is not reasonable. What is reasonable or considered reasonable?

We didn't specify what would be reasonable in our opinion, but certainly after the meeting or minutes before the meeting would not be reasonable. You know, practically want to come up, I'm going to call up my staff attorney, Jennifer Brooks, who wrote the opinion. Sure.

In the opinion, you know, we were looking at the wording of the statute and found that there wasn't actually a deadline attached to the notice provision. But we did say it has to be in time to operate effectively as notice because otherwise the board is not meeting the notice requirement.

So we said that would be insufficient time for members of the public to get the notice, then go and look at the board packet at the board's office or get it online where it's now required to be posted and review it before the meeting.

So no hard and fast time, but at the same time, that is going to exclude something like 10 minutes before the meeting or after the meeting or some of these other scenarios. As Carlotta said, we are fine with setting a hard notice.

In fact, when we knew we were coming out with this opinion, we had reached out to those who we know were interested in advance, including Mr. Fritz, who had requested the opinion to make sure they knew and could bring a bill to set a hard and fast time.

Appreciate that. No. No further questions from me. Thank you. Okay, Members, any questions? If not, I think we could roll right into decision making. Vice Chair, are you ready?

Okay.

Very good. So first on SB 1536 SD2HD1 relating to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, we're going to be passing this forward with amendments adding language into this bill clarifying that retirements that return to service as President and CEO of HTA are required to be re enrolled into the ERS.

We'll also be adding a defective date of July 13000 Members. Any comments on this measure?

[Roll call]

Chair recommendation is adopted. Thank you. Moving on to SB 1651, SD1 relating to public meetings. My recommendation is actually to pass this forward with amendments. We're going to be reverting back to the two business days currently in statute, but we'll be leaving the rest of the SD1 intact.

And we'll also be, I believe, adding a defective date of July 13,000 Members. Any comments?

Okay. Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote. Thank you. Chair voting on SB1651. SD1 Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments during the excused absence of Representative Capella. Are there any votes with reservations? Any nay votes? Chair recommendation is adopted. Thank you.

This hearing is adjourned.