Senate Standing Committee on Government Operations

Calling to order the Joint Committee on Ways and Means and Government Operations. So this morning we're going to hear from the Department of Accounting and General Services who will present their supplemental budget requests. Good morning.

Good morning. Aloha, Chair. Good morning. Chair McKelvey as well. And Members of Wham. Appreciate the opportunity to be here in front of you today. My name is Keith Regan. I'm the Director, Director of the Department of Accounting and General Services, as well as the Comptroller for the State of Hawaii.

I just want to first and foremost thank you for this opportunity to be in front of all of you today. Wish you a very happy New Year. And we look forward to working very closely with this Committee as we go forward in the budgeting process for the supplemental year. Today.

I'd like to just introduce some of our team that's here with us today. I will note that you'll see that our Deputy Comptroller is not with us. It's not because she doesn't want to be here with us.

It's because we are in the middle of our demonstrations for our Enterprise Financial Systems Upgrade project, and she's participating in those demos today. So unfortunately, she couldn't be here with us. But I really appreciate all of her hard work. I want to introduce some of the team that's here with us today.

Representing our Accounting Division, we have Audit Branch Chief Alan Visitacion. Representing our Audit Division, we have Administrator Ron Shigi. Representing our Office of Information Practices, we have Director Carlotta Amarino. Bless you. By the way, we have from AGS 111, which is Archives, we have Dr. Adam Jansen.

From the Office of Enterprise Technology Services, we have Chief Information Officer Christine Sakuda. From Risk Management, we have our Risk Management Officer, Tracy Kitaoka. From our Land Survey Division, we have Administrator Reet Seurat. From our Public Works Division, we have Administrator Gordon Wood. From our Central Services Division, we have Administrator James Jimmy Kurata.

And from our State Procurement Office, we have Chief Procurement Officer Bonnie Kahakui. From our Automotive Management Division, we have Administrative Services Assistant Sima Suikalo. And from our neighbor Island District offices, representing all four offices is our Kauai District Office Administrator and Engineering Program Manager Eric Agena. Representing the Campaign Spending Commission is General Counsel Christy Chang.

Representing the Office of Elections as Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago. Representing the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts is Executive Director Karen Ewald. From the King Kamehameha Celebration Committee is Executive Director Amy Hammond. From our911 board is Executive Director Royce Murakami. And from our Hawaii Broadband Office is Executive Director Chung Cheng.

Also joining us from the Comptroller's office, we have our Administrative Services office staff, our Business Management Officer, Miyoki Ng, as well as our Management Analyst, Andrew Choi and other staff. Joining us as well, we have our Personnel office representative, our Human Resource Officer, Daleen Liu.

And from our Systems and Procedure, which is our DAGS IT office, we have Anna Louie, Chair Members. Before you see this team here, it's a team that I'm immensely proud of all the hard work that they do day in and day out to help lead us in our mission to support other departments as a central support agency.

So I just want to mahalo them and most importantly, I also want to mahalo all of you for your trust and support in DAGs and the work that we're doing year after year. So thank you for that.

I just would like to, if you don't mind, go into a few accomplishments, if that's okay, that we've been able to achieve over the past year. Would that be acceptable? Okay, I'll do it as quickly as possible. I know time is of the essence.

Our accounting division actually, again, for the 13th year in a row, was the recipient of the GFOA Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in the Financial Reporting, which is part of the annual comprehensive financial report that the GFOA analyzes. That that particular document is so critical to the state of Hawaii.

And I want to congratulate the Accounting division on making this and receiving this award. That document is used when we go out to sell bonds. So it's the audited financial statements for the state of Hawaii. So again, kudos to them. They spent about six months, believe it or not, just focusing in on that document.

So great job from accounting for our Archives division, Adam and his team were able to implement and complete the Radio Frequency ID barcode project at the State Records center down in Mapuna Puna, if you're aware of that project. It was to essentially embed RFID and barcodes on all the boxes that we're storing there.

And this project is actually helping to save hundreds of hours of manpower that would otherwise be used to help to have to go find and hunt down these boxes.

And so this project has been extremely helpful and beneficial to state archives and will be rolled out here in our main archives building, which is right across from the Capitol this year as well, so that it'll make it that much more efficient for them to be able to find documents when they're being requested.

Our Audit division actually was working hard, not only on their typical work.

But they also took on the Inflation Reduction act energy Credit program where they put together a training program and then as well as worked hand in hand with departments to find ways that we could claw back and successfully take advantage of the IRA's energy tax credits.

We held numerous meetings, we held numerous workshops and we're actually able to through that program claw back $400,000 in energy tax credits for the University of Hawaii. And then also we opened it up to the various counties since we wanted to try to be of assistance to them too.

And only the city county took advantage of it and they were able to claw back 90 grand. So this program, what's very interesting about is we used ARPA money. So it wasn't, we didn't use General Fund monies, we had federal monies that were available to be able to Fund it.

And you know, the, the money that we spent was about 130,000 and we're able to claw back almost 500,000 in energy tax credits. So pretty good return on investment there. Our automotive management division over the last year were able to install 48 Level 2 chargers in our various parking garages and lots throughout the state of Hawaii.

We now have 68 total EV charging stations with 195 more that are on the schedule. So this coming fiscal year you'll see a lot of work towards rolling out those 195 more EV charging stations.

We were able to convert three parking facilities from those traditional coin based meters that oftentimes are problematic and just extremely cumbersome to go and have to collect those monies out of those coinbase meters into fully automated kiosks.

So that helps to reduce the amount of time and makes things much more efficient in terms of being able to collect parking fees. Our central services division has been busy this past year. Through the support of all of you and particularly this Committee, we established the cemeteries branch.

Remember we sat here and we were talking to you about that. That's been established and we've just hired the administrator for that. So within that short period of six months since the fiscal year started, we're able to get it established, get the position created and have that person hired. He starts on the 20th of this month.

So we're excited about that. As you know, we've got eight cemeteries across the entire state. And so thank you for your investment in that. I think it's going to pay dividends as we go forward to be able to protect those very sacred places.

We also successfully began the AED project, the Automated External Defibrillator project to install AEDs in, in our state facilities, DAGs. Let me caveat that DAGs managed facilities. So we bought about 100 and ten of these units. They've been delivered not only to Oahu but all the neighbor islands.

So we will be installing those over the next couple of months. We hope to have all of those AEDs installed by our team within the next four to six months. So we're very excited about that project that was also.

We actually had ARPA monies that we're able to utilize so federal monies to be able to use towards making that happen. And we know that that has been a topic that's come up time and time again.

And so in addition to not only acquiring it, it also comes along with the training as well as the maintenance, you know, so we're covered to make sure that those life saving devices are going to be operational in our facilities and people that work there, the occupants will have the proper training on how to use it.

In addition to that, we also acquired all the feminine hygiene product dispensers that are going to be installed in our restrooms throughout the state for all DAGs managed facilities. So all the neighbor islands have their inventory, they've received it and now they're going to be installing it as well.

So our teams there on the neighbor islands as well as central services will be working on that. I want to also just mention about the computer based inventory management system that Jimmy and our DAGs IT guys at Systems and Procedures office were able to put together.

This computer based inventory management system allows Jimmy and his team to be able to track and order supplies more efficiently instead of just sort of ordering it. Not randomly. Right. But just maybe just sort of like on a, on a, on a, on a regular basis.

They're actually able to order it when they need it, when they anticipate it.

So they won't just be putting in orders to put in orders, they're going to actually time it properly so that we're spending our money properly and not wasting it and keeping it in supplies right in a warehouse, you know, and building up too much inventory there. So very excited about that effort. And then.

Yeah, and then he's been doing a lot of many, many other things including, and we could talk about it later, but ETS has been working extremely hard.

They submitted to you the IT consolidation report which I give Christine and her team credit for being able to pull that together and working with all of the departments and the IT staff throughout the entire state.

You have that now, and hopefully that'll be part of discussions that we as, as we go forward on how we can streamline and make it better for the entire state of Hawaii.

In addition to that, she and and their team at ETS launched the Citizen Identity Initiative and integrated with 96 Portal Services using My Hawaii for single sign on. So that just makes that process much more efficient for our citizens as they're accessing the various websites that we have throughout the entire state of Hawaii. Our.

Our land Survey division. Sorry, I got a little bit caught up there. Was very active in supporting Lahaina and the wildfire tragedy that occurred out there this past year.

In fact, they've gone multiple times to Maui to go out there and survey properties, especially shoreline properties, to make sure that we can properly designate where the shoreline ends and where these private properties begin. That's very important from a permitting perspective, especially if you're along the shoreline.

And so Reid and his team have been very active out there helping to support that activity. I want to just thank them for that. Public Works Division, as you know, chair and Members are extremely Busy. They've got 474 projects on their plate right now that they're working through with the approximate value of about $2 billion.

We have projects that we're very excited about in your neck of the woods. The Wahiawa Judiciary and Civic center project is coming along nicely. We track that. I'm actually getting regular reports on that project. I've been out there multiple times, as you have.

Our team is out there almost every other day on site making sure that things are moving forward properly. We're about 77% complete, and we're on track to deliver the project by November 2026. And so it's an exciting project. It's going to be great for the people of Wahiawa as well as for the entire state of Hawaii.

Very excited about that. And I also wanted to mention, I know it's come up before, is that the Kaneohe Civic center project is actually starting construction. I believe it's today. So if you can let your colleague know from that area that we've actually started that project. The delay was more about permitting, unfortunately.

And we've talked about permitting, you know, in the past and. But we will successfully get through it. And now we're starting that project. We've got other projects too, that we've had discussions about that, you know, are highly visible, and we could talk about that as they come up. Chair. Those are the accomplishments.

There's many more accomplishments, but I know that we're limited on time. So I really want to get to sort of the heart of why we're here today, and that is to talk about our supplemental budget requests. As you know, in Table 6, you can see that the requests that we have before you are relatively few.

It seems like relatively large requests because some of them are we've got the $211 million. Well, let me back up, back up a little bit. The total request to you is for $217.2 million in requests in Table 6. $212.8 million of that is actually related to revolving Fund ceiling increases.

So this is not General Fund monies that we're asking for. It is simply to have access to the funds that are in those revolving funds. More specifically, if we get into the details, the first item that's on that list is the $211 million ceiling increase that we're asking for in the Risk Management Revolving Fund. This is important.

We are receiving insurance proceeds from the wildfire disaster. We've got about $125 million now sitting in that Fund. We anticipate collecting the balance of the policy limit, which I think the policy limit is 200 million for property. And so we do anticipate getting, we hope that we're going to get that 200 million.

We're going to meet that $200 million limit. We do expect to have that happen. So, but in order for us to be able to use and access those funds, particularly for projects like the King Kamehameha Third Elementary School project, we're going to need the ceiling increase to be able to have access to it.

And so that's why we're here before you today to ask for it.

I have a question on that. So when you receive these funds, are you in charge of allocating those funds? How is that being done? What criteria are you using?

By statute, it's, it is in the, it is part of the comptroller's responsibility. But you know, we really want to have that open discussion with, with you with this body about how those funds can be utilized.

So the account now, what is the balance in the 25 and have you allocated any of that? So what is your plan?

So right now, the one project that's on our fleet right now is King Kamehameha elementary, King Kamehameha Third elementary School, which is about $146 million project just for the school. There's about another 60 or so million dollars in infrastructure improvements that need to be incorporated in that project to make.

It successful do you have that's, that's your plan of using it for the school? You would probably deplete most of the funds.

In addition, from my understanding is that there's also federal FEMA monies that disaster relief funds that will be available specifically to Fund some of that as well. I want to say right now, my understanding it's around 48 million is what they have available. But we'll see at the end of the day what FEMA comes up with.

There's a lot of moving parts right to that aspect.

So the, the priority is just the schools or is there funds also being allocated elsewhere in terms of priority?

So at this point in time, the only project that we have that's come forward is this elementary school project. There are other projects like this, the library that was destroyed on Front street that also is going to need funding.

And I'm sure that we're going to have to utilize either some of this funds or other funds to be able to support the reconstruction of that facility.

When you say the project that has come forward. So they have to come forward to you or are you overseeing the. Yeah, because what the needs are.

A lot of these projects don't reside in dags. These are not, it's not like a dags specific facility. Unlike maybe like the Lahaina Civic. Like there's some of the buildings in the Lahaina Civic center complex that do belong and are managed by dags. These projects, like the school is doe. The library is Hawaii State Public Library System.

There are some, like the harbor is, you know, Department of Land and Natural Resources. But the only conversations that we've had so far, the only people that have reached out and said that they want to have discussions about it relate to specifically to the school itself. Thank you. Who's asking though, is it doe?

It's coming through the Governor's office and the Department of Education.

But these are insurance proceeds, right? Correct? When something burns down or gets destroyed and you collect insurance proceeds, isn't it operational law that they have to be spent on rebuilding the structure that was destroyed?

So by statute, it does not specify that it must specifically go towards that.

Okay, so there is flexibility then. But don't you think that should be the priority of collecting insurance proceeds to rebuild what was destroyed?

From my perspective, yes. I mean, you get insurance funds, you should be using it to reconstruct whatever facilities were damaged and or destroyed.

That's a good point. Thank you for enlightening on that. There is no hard, fast. Like if you were privately insured Right. No. Okay.

Okay. Thank you, Chair. So it was only the library that was destroyed.

Library. The King Commandment Elementary School, Third. Third elementary School was destroyed. I want to say that. I mean, clearly the harbor itself was severely damaged, some buildings destroyed. There. There was. I want to say there was some public housing that was also impacted as well.

But again, the only discussion that we've had to this point in time has been on the school.

So some of the agencies are coming forward to. To Fund some of these projects. I'm just wondering how much they know of. Of being able to be part of this award that's coming in.

Yeah, I will say that, you know, we, we. I know that our Risk Management Office has had discussions with those departments about their facilities, so they, they have some awareness of, you know, our insurance policy that has been basically tapped for this incident, whether or not they know how to come forward and ask and participate.

I will just say that we've had discussions with cabinet within cabinet about that, and the only ones that we've had any specific interest come forward has been the elementary school.

Would you have a process that you could develop so that you can not just have a Cabinet meeting on it, but, you know, to have a procedure so that it's equally distributed for need?

Yeah, I, you know, we'll certainly make it known to them. We'll certainly make it known to them that this is something that they can look to, to help support that effort.

But you're aware of it now, so, you know, if we do get this ceiling again, the, the project that is ready to go at this point in time is, is the elementary school.

So none of the other government facilities need to be rebuilt? Well, I know if they're not coming to you, they're not coming to us. Right. So does that mean there's no interest in rebuilding?

The only one that I'm, I'm aware of that I've just recently, like, within the last two weeks, had conversations about is the library. The rebuilding of the library in Lahaina. They came to. They came to us specifically because they want to locate.

They're calling it a temporary library facility, but it would be on the grounds of where the Lahaina Civic center is located. Do you know where the parking. There's that big parking lot sort of to the. If you're.

You're looking at the, The Judiciary building, it's to the right, and then sort of between the county parcel and the state parking lot, there's a big strip of grass land over there. That's where they're they want to utilize that land.

They've had conversations with the county about impacts to parking, like for the Maui Invitational, that kind of stuff. And the county said, no, it shouldn't be any issue. Right. There shouldn't be. They don't see it as a conflict. So that's the only most recent discussion that I've had with the library system about Lahaina.

But do you think having this almost piecemeal approach where just because we're having conversations with one Department versus looking at the overall rebuild of Lahaina and prioritizing the dollars so that we can accomplish the overall rebuilding, especially in regards to state buildings.

I think, you know, it's a fair question that you have, that you've presented. I will just say that given the priority of trying to do everything we can to rebuild that Lahaina community, the first project that came up and that we were made aware of was the elementary school. Should we perhaps go back and reevaluate.

To be some plan to say, yes, we're going to rebuild all of it. We're not going to rebuild. We're only going to rebuild some of it. We're only going to. We're only going to rebuild the school?

Yeah. To your point, I think the response is that we want to restore those buildings that were destroyed and. Or damaged. So I think that has been, from at least my perspective, the direction that we're.

But there should be some deadline for the departments to say we're interested. If not, you got to go to. Through the regular budget process. You're not going to be able to access these insurance dollars.

Yeah, yeah. And. And to your point, let me circle back with Haima and the governor's office and have that conversation with them just to make sure that that is being communicated, that we can get that information.

Because the reality is there is a temporary school, so at least it's going on. The other facilities, I'm not sure they're not like you, like you're mentioning. The library doesn't even have a temporary facility, so the public doesn't have. I think they're.

I think they're renting some space at either Lahaina Cannery Mall or the mall across the street there. Mark Market, not my marketplace. I can't remember.

That's. That's an expensive, very poor alternative to. We have state lands. I totally agree, but I think that this point of master plan was critical for the community. People not only know what's going to get rebuilt, but when and why not, so they understand and that's what stops the schisming from happening.

Wouldn't it be too late? I mean, what. Sounds like you're going to end up spending the entire insurance award for one project and then all the other state departments are going to have to go through the process, which could take years. And then what does that mean for the community?

And then if you're going to do the master plan after you already spent all the money on the, on the school, it doesn't seem like the. If there's a right order of how things are occurring.

Yeah, I don't, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just from my perspective, from a DAG's perspective, I'm really just focused on. Who'S in charge of making sure that. I, I think from a coordination aspect it would be. I would start with Haima from that, from that point, from their planning to.

Determine the rebuilding plan to at least.

Help bring, and bring everybody together and collaborate on something like that. There's also an office of recovery, I believe in the governor's office. No, but I think they have one internally as well, so. But I, I would start with Hyma.

I think they're really, they really need to be engaged and involved because they were boots on the ground, you know, for this tragedy right from the get go. So.

Yeah, but they're the disaster response arm. Yeah. They're not the planning rebuild arm. You're the closest thing to it, I.

Think the county, I'm not sure where the county is at. And they're rebuilding plan.

County's got $1 billion. Right. That they're sitting on as part of their effort.

So if these, if these, so if they're, if these things are not coordinated correctly, we are not spending money wisely in an efficient, effective manner.

So in the sense where you're going to use over $100 million in infrastructure, if the county has $1 billion, if they're master plan, you would think there would be a Lahaina wide infrastructure plan and then we can use those monies for rebuilding. I mean there should be a little more coordination instead of this piecemeal reactive approach.

Yeah. Appreciate your comments, Chair.

I mean, I'm not sure. I mean this might be a bit above your pay grade. I think we're all trying to figure out who is it that we have to say what's the plan and what needs to get rebuilt and who's paying for what.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good point. I will just say that getting this school rebuilt, I think is a priority for the entire community.

We're not saying it's not a priority. It's just that if the county has monies, we're using insurance monies, there could be an effect of other agencies being left out, which is I think the fear. So I hear what you're saying, zero yeah, we got the doe, that's a priority.

But then you're not talking about the guys that are going to get left out, which could leave critical services from Lahaina.

One thing I also just want to mention, Chair, is that in our bi weekly meetings, we have bi weekly update meetings with all, all involved parties. The county of Maui is present and actively part of those discussions. And so we have had some discussion about possible cost sharing on infrastructure. So there has been some of that.

I think we have to put a sense of urgency on that before we spend, before we lift the ceiling. There's no sense in lifting the ceiling if with a reactive approach versus something way more comprehensive. Because at least you can let the community know this is the plan. This is where the dollars are going to get spent.

This is the order we're going to rebuild. Because there's no. Really, you don't know which building is going to come up first, what's critical, what's not.

Yeah, One of the concerns that we do have too with this particular, especially with the temporary site, and I don't have all the details in front of me, but I will just tell you that we are going to have to start paying for the operations and maintenance of that facility pretty soon.

FEMA has, has been saying that they're going to turn it over to this, to the state. And, and we're not just talking about.

The, Is it JAGS or DOE that pays?

Um, it's the doe. Yeah. Okay. It's doe. They were the ones assigned to MOU with FEMA on that particular project.

Okay. So before I think we agree to lifting this ceiling though, we want to see a master plan.

Yeah, and, and we, I would just urge and, and, and ask you for your consideration, Chair, that if we can put that together and provide it to you during this session that you please consider.

No, yeah, you have time. But it's not like it's, it's off the table. We just want to see a master plan and a lot more comprehensive, methodical approach. We'll circle back and then we'll get back with you, Chair.

And if you are meeting with the county where this billion dollars are sitting on as well, that plan should include the county.

It should. I Will just say that when you look at where. Yes, I'll disagree with you. I absolutely agree with you.

So part of that plan should be the county and state funding.

Yeah. How do we leverage that to the best possible.

Thank you, Comptroller. I think the other thing, when you put that plan together, I think it's very important to understand what other departments also are going to be required to put funds up. My understanding is there's commitment from the Department of Transportation for a bypass road.

And I think the frustration has been that nothing has been put in writing to tell us. It's all hearsay. There is no true plan of what is our commitment and whose money's coming from. Because I think we need to understand, does it make sense for regional planning?

I think the chair's point is very salient because if we're going to put this much money in. And I think what really bothered me was when people came to see me about the Department of Transportation commitment, they told me it was free money. And I said there is no free money. Right.

That is taking away from other state highway projects that needs to be put in for this elementary school. Because the sites that we selected has no infrastructure. Right. And so part of the site, I'm just like, okay, there's a lot of good sites.

Sites out there, but if we're going to have to put an infrastructure, then we better make sure that there is regional benefit. And, and, and for the library, because they're off on their own. Nobody's really thinking about them.

If, if we're going to put in regional infrastructure, we should put all the state facilities as close as possible together. Right. So I think in that plan needs to be something that's, that's very concrete so we can understand where we're going to go with all this.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, if you're going to spend $160 million on infrastructure, I would think you would want several agencies to benefit from it. And so instead of just one.

Yeah, I, I don't disagree with you.

Okay, but can you.

Yes.

Can you implement that? I mean, it's one thing. It's coming up with a plan to. Make sure that's the case.

Definitely added to our, our list of things to do.

Okay, next item.

Okay, so thank you for that. The next item is actually the AGS. 231. We have a request related to the increase in utility costs. There's four that you see in a row. 520,000 for Oahu, 225 for Hawaii Island. 240,000 for Maui and 80,000 for Kauai.

So when you look at why we're asking for these funds, actually a lot of it goes back to not necessarily electricity, it's actually the water and sewer charges that are increasing. You see that they've all been posted, all these additional rates. And so we're asking for that increase in utilities.

I'm not sure if you have any questions, but just for your awareness, on average our water charges have increased by 14% statewide and our sewer has increased by 4% over last year. So on the previous year, so it continues to go up AGS251.

We're requesting an increase to the motor pool revolving Fund in the amount of 1.3 million, which we're going to use to purchase some additional electric vehicles, zero emission vehicles, as well as install additional charging stations. As I mentioned, we want to install about 195more electric vehicle charging stations throughout the state of Hawaii.

But in order to do that, as well as the needed infrastructure, in order to do that, we need access to the ceiling. Just for your awareness, our current fleet, we've got about 403 vehicles.

In our current DAGs managed fleet, 16 or 4% of those are zero emission vehicles, 17 are plug in hybrids, 87 or 22% are hybrids, and the other balance 70% are actually internal combustion engines.

And we, we want to be able to use some of these funds so that we can move forward and, and buy these electric vehicles in larger chunks. In order to do that, we're going to need access to those funds to.

The vehicles, the, the gas vehicles, when you replace them with EVs.

Well, if we can't repurpose them for other state agencies, then if they're at their end of life, essentially we will auction them off. So.

So you use them all to end of life?

Yes, I will. I can assure you that if you look at some of our vehicles, you can tell that they're at that. Yeah, unfortunately the other thing I wanted to mention, I didn't mention this in the, in, in our accomplishments, but AMD has actually installed telematics into some of our vehicles.

We have 167 of the 403 that have the telematics system installed. We're going to do another batch here. By February we'll be up to 203 total with installed. And then by February, I'm sorry, by the end of fiscal year 2027, we'll have all 403 vehicles with telematics systems installed. And what does that mean?

It means that we can better manage the fleet. We know we'll know where the fleet is, how healthy the fleet is, whether vehicles need to come in for servicing, have and collect all that kind of information to be able to better manage it. So we're very kind of excited about that.

But again, the ceiling increase is going to be used primarily for our zero emission vehicle fleet increasing as well as the EV charging stations.

Okay. What is your balance in that account?

Do have that nation for asking?

Sorry, just give me a moment. I apologize. zero.

Yep.

Ending cash 744. Yep. So currently the balance in that revolving Fund is $744,000.

Senator Lee, Thanks.

Just back on the EV acquisition. I'm sorry. Caltrans recently just procured 600 Rivian pickup trucks for their state fleet.

Part of what informed that decision was a look at not only, obviously, the cost of upfront buying new vehicles, which they have to turn over anyway, like anybody else, but looking at the life cycle costs, including all the maintenance and everything else.

And even though we're thinking of end of life for fleet vehicles and auctioning them off and other things like that, part of what they're finding not only here, but in other states in similar purchases, is that long before you get to actually what would traditionally be deemed end of life for a vehicle because the maintenance costs toward the latter half of that life cycle tend to skyrocket.

It's just way more cost effective at the front end to pay a little more for those.

I'm curious, as you're looking at fleet replacement and all of these things in the calculations, do you guys have an accounting for really what those escalating costs are over time and how that factors into how much you put into turning over the fleet and how fast?

Yeah, we are looking at life cycle costs. Unfortunately, I don't have that data with me here today, but I can tell you that is one of the. One of the items that comes into the calculation as we're looking at the replacement of these vehicles.

The biggest challenge for us, quite frankly, whenever we do put out a bid for EVs, is getting local dealerships to actually submit bids or getting anybody, quite frankly, to submit bids. We would love to have someone like, let's just say Rivian as an example, if they have a dealer to. To consider submitting. Submitting bids, like when we're.

Or, you know, other. Like, I don't want to say, you know, maybe Nissan or Toyota or any one of those Honda, whoever's making these. Ev, if there's no local dealer, like. Anyone could bid on it. Right? It's not. It's not. You're not like I would. We would. Any manufacturer or dealer.

Yeah, we would prefer supporting our local dealer. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, anyone is welcome to submit bids. We just need the vehicles. Right? Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Okay, next item. Okay. All right, let's just see. Sorry, I'm just trying to make sure I'm on track here. The 500,000. So AGS 252. We're requesting a $500,000 ceiling increase.

And by the way, the balance in that revolving Fund is $1.8 million, just in case anyone's curious. But these funds will be utilized for our growing maintenance needs in our facilities, much like our brick and mortar buildings that we all work in. The. The parking garages also need carrying as well, and they have deferred maintenance.

And so in order for us to be able to do things like waterproofing the upper decks of some of these facilities, we're going to need to have access to those funds. So we're just asking for a nominal increase so that we can be able to keep up with the deferred maintenance on, on our facilities.

Okay, if there's no questions, I move on to the next one. AGS 892 relates to the State Building Code Council. As you are all aware, SBCC is an attached agency to dags. It's not a division of dags, you know. But you may be wondering, well, why are we asking for this in our supplemental budget request?

Primarily it's because for. Since this, since SBCC was created, it's essentially been a volunteer group of individuals that have been leading the effort and they've been doing a good job. But by statute, there is a section in there that speaks to an Executive Director position position and an Executive assistant position.

And so we put that forward for consideration in this budget supplemental budget request so that we can have a, a true attached agency with staff and an Executive Director that can be held responsible for the activities of the SBCC as it's laid out in statute. They have a tremendous amount of responsibility.

If you look at 10725 you can see, you know, that they have to go through all of these, the various different codes, plumbing, electrical, international building code, fire code, and do that on a regular basis whenever those updates come out. And, and then the counties have to take them up and incorporate them.

And so it's a really important process. And if you don't have the proper team in place to be the tip of the spear on that responsibility, it's very difficult when you, you know, you're relying on volunteers to get that kind of work done. And so who currently does the administrative rulemaking now?

Well, I mean, the SPCC would be producing the rules, and then it would come through the Department as.

No, so they haven't even. The volunteer group has never did administrative rules.

I, I gotta go back and look, I'm sorry, it's an attached agency. I honestly, you know, because they've Been. Around for a little while?

They've been around for a little while, yes. So have they. They just been reviewing and not making rules, too?

No, I have to say they must have rules because they are. They are performing work and they are putting out updated code. Right. That is then looked at and adopted by the counties. So I just don't have it in front of me.

On that note, is it my understanding that the state Building Code Council is suspended because of the emergency proclamation? Is that your understanding?

That's my understanding.

And so this funding would articulate funding them, but they won't be able to operate unless the EP is lifted.

Yeah, I get the sense that it's sort of. I don't want to say connected, but there is some connection to making sure that the right people, that we have the right people in place, or at least positions in place to be able to turn that switch back on and have them get to work.

There is some work that's being done now, but it's very preliminary on the building codes. But we really need to have this team constituted so that they can take that on and be responsible for.

And I'll just say one more comment on this chair. I think the challenge is, comptroller, that there's a lag of adopting codes and confusion. I know Senator Hashimoto and I, we've attempted to work and still working through these issues, but, you know, there's, there's. That. There's a disconnect. So that's. That's all. And it's just a little frustrating.

Yeah. I have a question as well on the building code console that they may have the rules, but it's, they still have to get the counties to adopt the rules. So there's more than a lag of the building console coming up with rules, but it's also the county's not adopting the rules.

So if, in fact, you have these positions, will they be able to look at the statute as well? So that if we're having the building code changes, they're actually being executed at the colony level, because that's where the building is being reviewed.

Right. The great news about the SBCC is that when you look at the makeup of the sbcc, you have representation from all of the counties that are part of that. They're voting Members on the sbcc. So there's one from each of those counties that sits on that panel.

So hopefully in that process, as they're looking at, you know, these various updated building codes, they're, they're injecting, if you will sort of their Kuleana and their sort of what their needs are from their respective counties, at least at a high level.

So that when it does come to the counties, they're prepared to be able to make those county specific adjustments.

So can this. If we have these positions that are more permanent and not voluntary, that they look at the statute as well. So no sense having building code provisions if it's not being executed in the county.

No, absolutely. And when you look at. What's interesting is when you look at the. The statute 107:23, it says Council shall appoint an Executive Director who sh. Shall serve, blah blah blah, and have administrative and exper. Administrative abilities and experience with the building industry.

And they shall also appoint an Executive assistant who shall have experience in statutory and administrative rulemaking processes. So that speaks to exactly what you're talking about there. So it's not just like hiring, you know, sort of just a, you know, an EA that doesn't have specific responsibilities.

Like they have to find somebody that specifically has that administrative rulemaking experience so that they can go through that process as well as, you know, understanding statute statutes, which is extremely critical.

This one's going to be legit.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Next and okay. All right. Sorry. Thank you for that. The next item is AGS881 that relates to the State Foundation on the Culture and Arts increase in their ceiling for the commissioned works of ART to 2.3 million by an additional $2.3 million. SFCA is an attached agency to DAGS.

We, we support them administratively but from a management oversight. It's. It's their responsibility. So if any questions, the Executive Director is here. We can ask her to come up and provide any answers that you folks might have.

So what is the balance in that account?

I will have to look. Yeah.

Good morning. The cash balance for the special Fund is 22 million. And yeah, and currently our, our ceiling for this fiscal year is 3.3. But we 2 of that is allocated to the capital pools project. So in future fiscal years it will be 1.3 that we can access of that balance.

So we're asking to access more in order to do more commission works of art. There's a demand for that, especially like places like King Kamehameha iii, Kahului Civic center, and then also our acquisitions of works of art. So we're asking to raise the ceiling for that.

So the ceiling increases for what again.

It's for typically we spend about 600,000 on acquisition of relocatable works of art for the entire state. And about, we're projecting to commission about $700,000 worth of commission. Works of art, site specific works of art throughout the state as well. We have like seven open projects now, including the Capital Pools, Wahiawa Civic Center, Kona Airport.

But there's always a demand from Department heads and site facilities for more engagement. Answer your question.

Questions.

Minister Lee. Zero, thanks, thanks very much. Following up on an earlier conversation on some of the other projects that are in that upcoming pipeline, is there anything in particular that's purely just for a, a state facility like say airport or you know, that kind of thing that's yet to be programmed in that.

Yes, there definitely are. I mean the terminal two, the at the airport is one coming up, NASA, the stadium project, again, Kahului Civic Center. There are for new sites many much interest. And we actually just put up, we are within this week putting up a new form online for people to inquire to fill.

So when you have like multiple, let's say, or more projects than there's money for within that, within the prospective budget that you'd be asking for allocating, does the commission itself basically decide which of those projects are the priority for the immediate funding? How does that work?

No, typically what happens is that it's decided upon by the Department head or state, uh, or Department of Education. Those heads or leadership teams reach out to the state foundation. They're the ones who decide what the priority is for their buildings. And then it's at this point it's on a chronological basis.

It's like depending on who comes to us first, we rotate that way. And typically it's been where it's rotated. Well, where there have been schools and libraries and airport, well the airport's a little unique, but it's been able to, we've been able to address all different kinds of facilities.

But is it right that the commission itself still has to approve whatever those projects and expenditures?

No, the commission approves the Art Advisory Committee makeup. So the Art Advisory Committee is made up of stakeholders and community Members. And we go to the commission for approval of that. That Committee, and then we go to the commission for approval of the design phase, mobilization phase, things like that.

But is there a process where, let's say there's not enough time to go through the whole thing because some project, we shift funding because there's a situation like Maui where all of a sudden, right. You got to rebuild a lot of stuff that was not previously programmed. But the commission still need to be engaged for that.

Is there a way you can kind of go around that and fast track in the need that we don't.

Yeah, we don't need to engage the commission on that. We haven't had that, that issue where we've had a backlog of requests. They, they, they come and we plan accordingly. If that makes sense.

Yeah. Okay. And follow us later. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Chair.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Chair. Yes. Good job. All right, moving on to AGS 221. This is a request that release to the establishment of a special project branch within the Public works division of DAGs.

We're asking for three new exempt positions within our Public Works division as well as some operating expenses to allow them to be able to function during the fiscal year. These exempt positions will be unique to the state with as we seek to create the them.

They will be filled with dedicated, highly skilled and specialized and a highly specialized team that will be focused on our more complex and challenging projects such as NASA, OCCC and other P3s that are in the pipe or may be in the pipeline in the future. We're asking for three positions, as I mentioned.

One is a special project Executive, another is a senior project manager, and the third one is a cost management specialist. And the work that would be performed by these, these three positions has been historically outsourced to external consultants.

And so what we want to do is really bring that in house and build that skill set in house so that we don't have to rely on these external consultants all the time who, you know, ends up costing us a significant amount of money. And so we want to be able to try to create this team.

We know we, we do believe there are people that would be interested in these kind of roles out there with the skill sets. We just need to have your support and that effort so we can Create it.

So n would move from Public Works to this division.

It, it was. It. Well, it's a branch. It would be a branch in Public. Works, but then it would.

So yeah, but NASA would be primarily in this branch. Yes.

Okay. Because as you know and we've talked about right now the administrator is splitting his time between everything else.

You said they have how many 400 something projects?

474 projects.

Several billion.

Yes.

And so how many staff does he have now?

Right now he's got 78 filled of 99 positions authorized. Yep.

So you're sure you can get the. The three experts in this, this branch?

We're, we're confident because the reason why we're asking them to be exempt is because we know that these are, these. Are unique, but these.

We have to try this though, right? Because if not, the amount of consulting fees that we're using is just, it's too much. It's going to continue to skyrocket too. Much and then, then the state doesn't have any control. We don't know what's going on in negotiations and we're out, we're left out.

So this will be. They will oversee it like project managers.

Yeah, they're replacing a lot of the consulting contract project management. So this is to bring some of the contract management in house, correct? That is correct, yep.

From the start of a project to execution.

Well, but not every project. So it's like you're saying would be nice. It would be maybe occc some of these, if there's a PPP or not traditional cip, anything almost non traditional CIP would probably go to this, correct.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

Comptroller.

Comptroller, do you have a breakdown of. What is going to salaries, what is going to resources? 728,000 seems to be substantial, but I'm sure you have a breakdown.

I do, actually. So what we're asking for, the special project Executive position, we're asking for 220,000. For the senior project manager, it's 160 and for the cost management specialists, it's 139. It does sound high if you try to compare it to your traditional civil service roles that we have within the state of Hawaii.

But these are extremely unique and specialized skill sets that you're not going to find. These people that are doing this kind of work in the private sector are probably making more.

But, but just to put, I mean there is some sticker shock initially, but however, when you look, when you talk about how much we spent on N already and consultants that's been almost 50 million y. Almost 50 million. And so this will hopefully bring it back in so we can get control of cost. Because when you.

When you do the project management outside, it's not their money. And so the costs and then the communication between the consultant and the. And even the comptroller is very minimal. So you the over. It's. We're paying a contractor, a consultant to manage another contractor, which is why we're losing control of fine timelines, budget communication. And so it's.

We gotta, we gotta.

Yeah, get a hold of it. Just a follow up. How fast would it take you to fill these positions?

I mean as soon as we can get these authorized, we'll go through the reorganization process to create and establish the branch and then establish the positions. We can do that simultaneously. I know that our public works administrator has already been working on some of the PDs for these positions. So it's not like we're starting at zero.

So our hope, much like we did with the cemeteries branch that you supported, is to get it done within that first. At least get it established and the PD's ready and out for recruitment within that first six month window of it being approved in the supplemental year.

So if this is approved, do you know already the contracts in regards to NASA that would have. That could be greatly reduced or eliminated?

I mean we have identified NASAID occc. We know that we've been talking about what do we do with this capital district as it relates to Kinaw Hale and those properties going forward. How can we leverage sort of these kind of internal experiences?

I get that. What I'm saying is right now you have the stadium has some contracts out with other. With ven. With certain vendors. And so once if this is established, then some of those contracts can get greatly. You would pull that back? Okay, yeah, that's the intent. Okay. Which one? Yeah, you're gonna.

What you gotta see it to believe it type of thing.

Is there going to be a state architect? But we gotta try something, right? So. So we do have architects that work within public works division that would be accessible, right. As resources. We don't specifically. I mean one of these people could be an architect. That's what I'm saying.

It's an integral part and part of the thing has been, you know, the fact that we don't have a state architect on this project. We have consultant architects. And then when we have to do change changes in design or things, then we run into another cost overrun, delay, change, order.

So I'd hope You use the opportunity to elevate somebody within that team to that state architect.

There may opportunity for that. But I will just say that whoever that we do select will have complete access to all of the resources that we have within our. At least within our team at tags, which include architects, highly experienced architects. Hopefully there'll be somebody that applies that is an architect. Right. That has that background and experience.

And then maybe once we do prove ourselves, you know, that you. You'll. You know, and. And you'll support us when we come back chair, you know, and ask you for a specific architect on this team right down the road. So we do. We just ask for your support. Let us try this.

Let us see how we can make it work. And then, you know, once we've proven that it's. It's. It's a positive thing for the state, then we can come back and talk about how do we expand it and make it stronger.

The only thing I want to find out is instead of using the A funds because it's specific to CIP projects, why couldn't some of the funding from those project projects be used for these staff? So you're taking contract money away from or that was using for stadium contractors. Why can't we use that money to Fund this?

I. I know. At least initially.

Yeah. So I know that the state did that at 1.0 in time. We had positions within public works that were funded that through that mechanism.

No. So I wouldn't necessarily Fund it how they previously did through cip. What I'm suggesting is build them build stadium just like how the contractor would, at least initially to. We can see. So if this is worth the investment, which, you know, crossing our fingers.

Yeah, I. I think we would be open to exploring whatever options now.

What are they doing with that money?

Yeah.

Because it's already a greatly reduced cost. Yeah. Providing a service.

Yeah. We can work with you, you know, and explore that as an option. Senator Kim.

So what's the timeline for this whole organization approval, setting it up, hiring. What's your target date?

So. Thank you, Senator. So what I was sharing a little bit earlier was that if you folks do approve it. Actually, we've already been working on some of the preliminary.

What's the time? What's the dates?

I have to give me that you approve it. Fiscal year 27 starts in July. We anticipate six months having all of the reorg and PDS approved and out for recruitment. So that's our goal, is to get that done.

And if we can hire within that six months, we'll do so, but we're already working on all of the PDs as well as.

So we're looking like an end of the year December.

Yeah, I mean, well, because June is coming up pretty soon, so the timeline for the graveyard. Yes, so. So we.

We thought we're going to actually take about 12 months to get that done, but Jimmy and his team worked extremely diligently with our ASO staff to get that up running and out there out the door for recruitment in a very.

Short period by December Of. Of this.

That's. That's our target. Yes.

Okay, so in the meantime, what's happening with all the contracts and everything at.

The same meantime, we continue to work with our consultants, the guy behind the object. So.

Okay. And then it turns over and. Okay.

We just. Well, Chris and Lyn said they're gonna have meetings.

So are youRight?

Well. And housing. Yeah.

I have questions that we can utilize. I mean, at this point, we have to stop the bleeding with the contracting and, you know. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

This is the right. This is the. This is the right move from our perspective, and we'd ask for your humble support. Okay, what's the next one? AGS901 is the last financially, I guess, financial addition to our request, and that is for the Hawaii Broadband Office.

As you know, Hawaii Broadband Office was transferred over from DBED as our 12th attached agency within DAGS. Unfortunately, when it was transferred over, there was a. A salary, a deficit in the salaries, and so they're short by about $36,000. We're just asking for you to add that back in. Right now. Broadband Office is under the comptrollers program.

I see. But the transfer was administrative or by Bill. Well, I think it happened in the budget, so. Or by Bill. Yeah, I. I'm sorry, I'm hearing by Bill. So. Yes. Yeah. So. So we're just asking for your support in that effort to restore those funds.

Did you do that on purpose?

And one. One thing I would just. I'm going to throw out there, and I did mention this in House Finance yesterday during our. Our testimony, is that although they're in program ID901, which is the comptroller's office, we would much prefer that they be in their own program ID. We have a program ID set up for them.

It's program ID 8. 95. So if there is any way to. No, but is that going to be part of the governor's budget Bill already? It is not included in there. But if there's any opportunity to make that adjustment by putting them into Prague. Id 8950 because then it's transparent, you can see how they spend.

Correct. Yeah. Right. And it's not that we don't love the Broadband Office, it's just that we think they should be as an administrative.

We attach agents wondering if the Governor is supporting doing the change in his budget. But he said he doesn't think so. So it has to be an amendment.

I know. It's not. It's not. Yeah. So we just ask for your support in that if you can, if it's possible. We do have two non financial requests that are in. It's not in table six, but it's in table four and I'll just let you know what they are. The 11 is a trade off transfer.

They're asking to move a vacant contracts assistant position from Public Works and moving it over to AGS 901 which is our. And specifically in our Human Resources office we want to create an additional Human Resources Specialist. Right now we've got for. For a Department of 856 people. We've got 10 positions in that office.

Right now we're just understaffed, we're underwater. It's hard for them to keep up with all the things that we have going on. And so by adding this additional Human Resource Specialist it's going to allow us to be able to take care of our HR needs, our growing HR needs within that particular office.

So we just ask for your humble support and that request. We're not asking for any money, we're just asking for the position to be transferred over to that program. And the last one is conversion of one position within ETS. AGS131 is to convert a temporary exempt position to a permanent exempt position.

Making this position permanent will allow ETS to be able to. Filled. I believe it's filled. Yeah. Yeah. So it is a filled position. And right now that position supports access to the Access Hawaii Committee and many other related duties.

So we just want to provide some level of comfort to that position and that incumbent that this is not. The work's not going away by the way. I mean this work will continue to be necessary for ETS and for the state. We just want that position to know that they're not temporary anymore.

So we'd ask for your humble support in that change as well.

I just had a question about table 2222 page. I guess it's R page 6. It's R page 83 of 99. So if you look at the. The Telework, Strategic Broadband Coordinator and State Digital Equity Coordinator. It says here number of telework days a week. Both of them have zero, but they're on the, on the list.

So that means they don't telework or they telework.

Well, I'll ask the administrator to come up. She's right behind me, so she can go ahead and clarify. Broadband. Zero, I'm sorry, Broadband. Sorry. Chong Chang, who's here? What is that?

No, I know, but we asked. I see that last, the last page.

Thank you, Chair, for the question. Our telework remote work policy is not. I might get into trouble for this. It's not a perk, it's need based. So telework, I don't know if you have a copy of.

Okay, so zero is the norm. And then every so often you make an exception.

So if they're honored instances. So just to give you an example, like let's say if we have a meeting out at Waianae or an event out at Waianae, the expectation is not to drive into town and go back. Up, you know, go out to. Why not?

Yeah, telework, go to your meeting and then remote work the rest of it. So, yeah, as, as needed. Okay, yeah. Questions.

So you're considering that is teleworking, if that's part of their job, to be out there.

So no office hours? No, I'm in the office, so no.

So if you were saying if they were supposed to come into the office here for a couple hours, then go out to Waianae and then drive back, you, you're saying don't do that. Just go straight to telework, go to the meeting and then.

Yeah, we will work. Yes. Yeah, that's, yeah. So we have my position. Yeah, so our positions are all identified in the, in the job description as telework eligible. So we, we move from there. You've, you know, you need to be eligible to actually participate in the telework policy. And so, yeah, so it's need based.

Yeah, it's zero, but it's identified as telework eligible. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Senator Hashimoto, I have a question on the vacancy report. I think, you know what, I'm a little bit concerned about the level of vacancies, especially essential services that you have because that really is core to the neighbor islands. You know, I think it said in the report that you have no engineers on any brands.

I know you filled the Maui one, but I think we, we should be working on trying to expeditiously fill some of those positions. I know I was looking there. There's one that was. I don't. You have Engineer 5. That was technically vacant for like almost 10 years.

But I, I think, I don't know what your progress is, but I, I think it's. It. There's dire consequences. Right. And I hope we can hone in on trying to figure out how do we solve that. You know, I know you can pay a little bit more, but maybe it's. It needs to be even more than that.

I, I really appreciate that question, Senator. I will just share that we have been actively working with some of our newly minted district District engineers, particularly in on Maui. Believe it or not. Our new. Yes, we, we took them away from the county. We're very fortunate.

But what he has actually been doing now is putting forward requests to recruit above the minimum as well as higher above the minimum. And so through that process we've gotten some great support from D Herd, believe it or not on. On that to give us that flexibility to hire in higher within the range but at the upper.

Upper. So we haven't been trying that before. No.

Relatively new.

Yes. So now that we've got that district engineer in place who by the. Who has that experience, he knows how the system works. He's been implementing it. We're going to, we're going to do the same thing for the other district offices so that we can attract those people to fill those roles.

We feel very confident that there are people on Maui right now that if we were able to do this and get the support from D Herd as, as I've indicated that they would be very interested in putting their resumes in and being considered.

Okay. So we should, we should have some progress.

I'm going to. I will tell you that I hope that I'm sitting here in the next three or four months you and being able to tell you those positions have been filled. Good. So good to hear. Thank you.

Follow up questions. Sorry, follow up? Yeah, go ahead. It's great that you're trying to fill those engineering positions. I just hope that when you do that we're not using engineers just to be project managers because that appears to be happening across the board.

You know, high end engineers, architects and they become project managers and you consult consulted out. So I hope that's not going on. I just wanted to check and see. There are a number of.

And I appreciate the fact that you folks have now put some real dates and I Don't know how real these dates are that you expect to fill, but at least it's not the same date, you know, like last year, over and over again. However, I see like a position on page 28 that you.

It was going to be filled on January 15th, and there's some that's filled 1512 of them supposed to be filled by 15. So were they filled?

Can you identify the position for me?

Yes, I sure can. Let me get.

I just need the position number. I can go ahead and Pull position.

Number 4375 and position number 21598. Both of them said you were going to hire by 15. And I checked your table that said, you know, these are pending or these are contracts. None of them are on there.

And then you have a several that is like 115116 which is just a week away or a few days away. So again, how realistic is these dates that you gave us?

Well, you know this. So just so you know, when we put this together, it was back in November 30th. So prior to November 30th is when we put all of these dates updated for us.

So gonna ask the question.

Yeah, so. So actually that's why I was asking for the position numbers because I do have updates and hopefully I'll be able to provide that to you very shortly. And if I can't do it in this meeting, I will get you that information over to your office.

Have this. I only get it recently and I just glanced through it and it just, you know, it shines red. So I don't know how your staff hasn't picked up on it to, to say, no, we didn't hire yet.

But it, it, it appears that you folks don't want us to take the position because these, some of these positions are old. Right. So you have 56 positions. I counted 56 positions that is supposed to be hired between January and March. 56. Is that realistic? Are you going to fill 56 positions?

Many of them is in January, several of them is in February, and some of them is in March. But there's 56 of them. I may have missed one or two, but.

So, so just so you know, since we turned in this document, we have filled 16 positions that were on the original list that we submitted to you. In addition to that, we've got four.

Is that on the bottom of the page that what's filled and not because I checked those.

But this was turned into December. Right. That's why November.

Yeah, but he has A list on the back that says these are, these are pen. Have contracts or will start.

Yeah, that's right. So, so good news. Thanks to my wonderful staff that's here with us. That position 21598, which is a groundskeeper one, has, is filled.

Great.

So that position has been filled. Okay, so we're, we're hunting down that other one that you, you mentioned as well.

Sure. That, you know, you guys are giving dates and then because you've done that in the past, not just you, but other departments and next year comes and those position is still unfilled.

I hear you. And that's why we sat down with all the administrators and said that if you're going to give us information, it needs to be realistic. Appreciate that we're not just going to be copy and pasting.

Okay, let me ask you a different question. When is the ponds going to be done?

The pond? zero, you're talking about the glass. Okay, so that's a really. Thank you for that question. I appreciate you bringing that up.

And how long has it been?

It's been a while.

Thank you.

You know, but, you know, we, I will just share this. So that we had gone about a year ago, a little less than a year ago, we went out to bid on phase three of the state capital.

Okay, when is it going to be done?

So I have to give you a little bit of context and I'm sorry, I, I will get to the, I will get to the answer. But we went out to bid back in March of last year. The bid was. Was eventually protested by one of the offerors.

It was, it was essentially in protest purgatory for almost about a year. It went back and forth with. Between DCCA as well as all the way up to, I want to say, circuit court. And so. And then it was appealed. And so there we literally spent almost 12 months dealing with the protest on, on that particular bid.

But you've been working.

So there's some work. Yeah, there's work ongoing. But. So we're gonna reissue the new RFP by March. We had to make some changes to it. Essentially what we did was we incorporated the glass portion into the RFP itself and some. A couple other minor adjustments.

But by March we're going to put it out to bid and hopefully we'll have a selection by.

Well, so assuming that. That the. Is not protested or the hotels, what are you.

What are you going out to bid for? I mean, I thought we were.

So this is phase three of the project. Yeah, this.

Yeah. The.

How many phases how many phases? The last phase of the project.

It's a three phase project. Phase one was the Diamond Head pool. Phase two is the EVA pool. Phase three is the. The artwork and. And the other work in both pools. Okay.

Why didn't we do it all in one? Or was not possible.

No, no. It would not have been optimal because of the long duration of pricing that we'd be holding the contractor to. And so we would end up paying more for the early work than it's actually worth. And so as comptroller has said, we expect to go out with the bid for phase three in March.

And assuming that we don't run into protests there, then we should be able to award the project by March, April, May, and start the work in the summer.

And when is the. Okay, my original question is when do we expect.

The original question is a very fair question. And we believe that our schedule looks at it and it's just a little bit more than a year to complete the rest of the work. So we're looking at 27. When 27. Start in 26 and should end towards the end of 27.

I thought you said one here for.

Fall of 27, let's say.

Yeah, his year has 16 months.

Absolutely. Youngest year's Pasadena.

Okay, so I got to hold you to that. Yes. And the other one is, you know these emergency announcements.

Is very disruptive. Nobody pays attention to it. I was in on Sunday. They kept coming up. No, but one day is going to be for real and we're all not going to move from our chairs.

Yes.

So I mean, we think we're on the second floor. So.

So you can jump.

I can run faster than the.

Well, the elevators don't work, so I don't know how you're gonna get down, but you gotta jump.

So. So, so I. First of all, I just want to. Paul, I want to apologize for that. I mean, we. You. As you know, we're dealing with an old building that has its issues. The fire alarm system is not exempt from that.

We do have a contractor that we have multiple contractors because they actually have multiple systems in this building, believe it or not. So that come out whenever there's an issue. This particular issue was the result of a faulty sensor which was identified and replaced yesterday. So hopefully, knock on Wood, you don't get any interruptions today. We.

We recognize what you're talking about. It is unacceptable and we should not be having these kind of failures in our system because to your point, you keep. It's sort of like crying wolf. Right. People Are ignoring it. And at some point, you know, we have to make.

We have to make it clear that you know, when there is. When these alarms do go off, it's going off for a very, very specific and urgent reason.

So excruciating. Especially if you're in my office and the thing.

I'm so sorry.

I really am.

Access the meetings and so forth.

So when you tell people that they. To start pulling it.

So. So you say it's a faulty. A faulty switch. Is that what it is?

It was a sensor.

Sensor.

Yeah.

This the first time this happened last year. This happened months ago. This happened. So I don't know, all of a sudden, only now there a faulty sensor.

I mean I would, I would.

How many sensors are there?

Zero, they're, they're all over the building. I would bet that it was attributed to other faulty sensors that were replace along the way. And so this is going to happen. Unfortunately. I will just say the whole building.

One time though instead of.

Well, that's our plan. Right. So our plan is to.

And thank you by the way, last year you funded that $2 million in pre planning money so that we can put together options for you folks to consider about how we go about essentially shutting down this building, rehabilitating the entire building, things like the fire alarm and suppression system as an example and, and making sure that we don't deal with these kind of issues.

Right. In order for us to really do it, we've got to basically rip everything out, put in new so that we're. Because these systems are you know, patch. Patchwork. Right. Over the last 50 something years. So it's going to happen maybe in the next 10 years. I hope that's kind of our goal because it's a huge project.

Right. There's so many moving parts to it, you know.

But we bought. Well, we're in the process, I think of purchasing the Hawaii Loa campus. So before we actually do permanent transition to Kualoa campus. Just like how we did Capital Place. Right. The Legislature stayed there a little while. Yeah. Until they rehabbed this building and then the Legislature moved back.

So I'm not sure if that's an option where we end up moving.

I think everything's on, everything's on the table. I'll tell you this like, and I, I think I've shared this with you and maybe others is that when we look at, when we look at as an example Kinau Hole, right. That building. Have you. Has DOH. Briefed you yet? Have you gone?

Well, we went during COVID and we saw how bad it was.

Yeah, it's. It's not any better. Okay. So that building is beyond its life cycle like it needs to be. We need to re demolish it and, and utilize better. Utilize.

That was part of the reason why we bought Hawaii Loa campus. Yeah. Was to move DOH out.

Right, right.

But then that didn't work because of the covenant.

Yeah. There's some restrictions that exist there unfortunately. But, but it might be good for dlnr. I mean, I think there's a great opportunity. Okay.

And we just get back. Okay. Sorry. So I understand about the system. I understand it's. zero, I understand we've got to change understand all of this but you know, it takes forever for somebody to come on, is it false alarm?

I mean it goes off like 56 times before somebody comes a false alarm or can they lower the sound or do something Y on well, so.

Our central services administrator is here and I know he's taking copious notes about what you're sharing and we'll, we'll take that and address it.

Then two minutes later it goes off again and, and chair.

I just wanted to mention that again my incredible staff has done the research and the other position that you mentioned, Senator Kim 4375, which is also a groundskeeper, was same on. Was filled on the same date.

So we filled both of those positions.

Okay.

Okay, well you get two stars for that.

Thank you, Senator.

Go ahead. Zero yeah, just real quickly because we're on positions and Tyson is Senator Hashimoto, as I noticed on one of the tables, I think on page 40 you've got a lot. First of all, you talk about a. Lot of position vacancies throughout your entire report.

But then on table 40, I see that you have restrictions that were funded by vacancy savings. Now I, I mean I'm, I'm just to me. But the people on the streets. But we're trying to fill these positions. There's a need for them.

But yet you're taking the money for them and you're putting them to projects which I assume by being restricted was restricted by budget and finance. Right. So doesn't this kind of like still self defeating. If you're using vacancy savings to Fund restricted stuff, that means you don't have the funding available to fill this position anymore.

Yeah. And as we fill them, I mean that's going to happen less and less. So you know, I can assure you that my primary goal is to use the monies that have been given to us to fill those positions. However, Means restricted projects though.

So I mean, well, we're using, I think what, you know, Table seven you're talking about, right? Yeah.

The vacancy savings. Yeah. It says you're bashing savings and then from position. Let me look at this one right here. Yeah. Was it 102 AGS, 102 restriction were covered by vacancy savings. So I'm like, well, how do you fill a vacant position?

Or is there in my mind the vacant position should be eliminated because now you're using it for spending for stuff that BNF said.

No, I would, I, I, I hear what you're saying, but I will say that that position or positions that contributed to what's called vacancy savings, I guarantee you those positions were under active recruitment and had those positions been filled. And it's not because we're saying, hey, we don't want to fill it.

It's just that we get these lists, we do these interviews, people don't accept the positions. We get another list, we do interviews. I literally have an entire encyclopedia already.

No, they're using it for.

No, no, we've not given up on it. We absolutely have not given up on it. I was just curious, but I do appreciate that and I see the perspective but in my mind, and I've made this clear to our team, is that monies that are given to us for positions are for positions.

We need to recruit and fill those positions. To your point, if we don't need them and you're not filling them like you're not actively recruiting and trying to, you know, use every tool possible to get those position filled. Give it back. Give it back. Either maybe there's another division that needs a position like what we're asking for.

Right. The trade off transfer from Public Works. They had that contracts administrator. They have no intent of filling it. If, if we didn't identify the need in our hr, we would have just deleted it, we would have asked you to delete it because we don't have a use for it.

But instead of doing that, we figured, hey, if we can get it for hr, it's going to help us tremendously. It's going to help Daleen and her team so that we don't have these kind of issues.

But like I was saying, chair, I want my, my staff, my administrators to know you got a hard to fill position like an engineer, five or four or whatever it is, recruit above the minimum. Let's do it. We'll, I'll go to bat for you.

I will talk to D Herd, I'll talk to the Director, the deputy, whoever I got to talk to to convince them to approve it and we'll get it done. That's been my message to the team.

Appreciate you walking me through it.

Send it to Cuba on this.

Absolutely.

I just noticed that your 89 day hire, you have one that has 12. There are 12 appointments. 89 day hire. And that position had been open since 2021. You have another one. Again, I'm just glancing through this. Six appointments. You know emergency hire is emergency, right? Which means you don't. You. You don't know there's an emergency and.

And you have to fill it. But if you're going to have 12 appointments, I think that violates the law of emergency hires.

Thank you for that question. I believe that position is in ets. It is an IT storage engineer. This particular employee.

Wait, I'm stop you. The law says 89 day emergency. I don't care what that position is. So how is the emergency?

It is an emergency.

Yeah, but you have every time to fill it. So all of a sudden you have somebody appointed for 12 times. Well, 89 days. How many years is that? That's not an emergency hire. Emergency hire is supposed to be temporary, right? You can't use 89 day hire for a long term. Four year, three years, whatever it is.

Okay, So I would. I would. Beta, who's our CIO is here. She can speak to it. Because I do want to resolve your question on this particular item, I will tell you that whenever a request comes in to extend, we have to send it to D Herd for approval.

I understand that, but again, read the law. As an attorney, read the law and see what the law says. And it says that it's temporary and you shouldn't have 12 appointments. Now that's only two. I see. I haven't gone through this list. I just happened to pull it up.

The next highest is 8, and the next highest after that is 6.

Okay, so you have several. That.

Yeah, so we're tracking it. I mean, we. We want these filled with permanent people. We don't want to have to have these 89 days.

This person, 89 day hire, they're retired or they're. They. They. You know, I know the AG had that issue.

No, it's Lester.

Nakamura and networking.

Well, the AG had it with a lot of investigators and they cleaned it up quite a bit. But I mean, again, we're misusing 89-day hires. I didn't write the law. I wasn't here when that law got written. But it's on the books, so why are we violating it?

We don't intend to violate the law. And the person that's filling that role is a person who had been working in that branch that had retired and we had a hard time filling the role and so, we brought him back and then, we've continued to renew. And I agree, it's not the best way to manage your resources.

And we're trying to rebuild a network and security branch and thank you for the additional positions that we are allowed to bring additional people in that we're hiring for. And so, it's just something that we're trying to resolve internally.

Yeah. So, instead of using 89-day hire, you need to look at some other way to bring back retirees. I have no problem bringing back retirees. Great. But to use 89-day hire, that was not with the intent.

Understand. Thank you.

So, Senator, one of the things that—one of the tools that we have been using are personal service contracts, which is a way for us to be able to bring back retirees, to be able to provide like a specialized service.

So, we'll work with Christine and ETS and if that position—if that potential, particular individual—is critical for the success of ETS to be able to address their network, then we'll look at implementing a personal services contract, rather than continuing the 89-day buyer process.

Appreciate that. Because they have to not work one day and they gotta come back on for another contract. Right? Right.

So, thank you for that.

Thank you.

You know, we appreciate that.

Any other questions? Senator Lee, followed by Senator Fevella.

Thanks. I just want to go back to what Senator Kim had started the conversation on, about five or six minutes ago.

When you're looking at repair work in, whether it's this building and the fire alarms or anywhere else, at what point when you look at a system and say this is broken, and I'll use a couple examples in this building, since we're sitting in this building, but I think it applies fairly across the board to schools and to just public facilities in general. We've had a number of times where the elevators go down, the roll up gates for the garage and others, and whatever the parts are get replaced and so forth.

But at what point do you actually look at the system and say this system, as a baseline, is 40 years old and we just want to replace the entire system? We get a whole new modern roll up gate set that'll last for however long.

So, we're not spending money to fix over and over again and fix what is, by all standards, I think, a totally outdated, outdated system. Do you do that analysis on an ongoing basis? And how does that work?

I will share that our Central Services Division is constantly looking at that because they don't want to be pouring good money after bad, right, and just continuously having to piecemeal and patchwork these systems.

And so, I know Jimmy and his team and he's built up an amazing team there of engineers and highly skilled and qualified staff that are looking at a lot of the mechanical systems that we have in our buildings and trying to find the best way to, to manage those and, and, if it's needed, to replace them.

So, it is an ongoing iterative process that CSD and our Public Works Division, as well as our Automotive Management Division, are going through and looking at, you know, how do we, you know, essentially stop that process and, and to your point, like rip everything out and put new in? Right.

Is there like a forward looking sort of perspective list of these are the things?

We have a list, we do have a list of maintenance projects that we, we try to work through. We got a limited amount of money that we get through our lump sum process. This year, we're asking for, you'll see it in the CIP request, it's a, it's 30.5 million in lump sum.

Just before you get too much in the weeds on that, because I know we're short on time, but I could just follow, I'd love to follow up on that, but the second thing I was going to ask is, and I don't mean to single out DAGS by any stretch. I think across Hawaii, at least in my experience, and based on, I think some of the public feedback we get, whether it's the counties or the state or whatever agency of the state, our public facilities, just in general, tend to be somewhat inferior to those of our counterparts in other states in the mainland, other places you've ever been to, like a public park and anywhere else, or public facilities and buildings or schools.

And I think it's not anybody's fault. I don't single anybody out. I think it's a question of what standards we're using and, and all of that collectively.

So, my question is going to be, because I don't think ultimately, you know, people here in Hawaii are any less deserving than those In California or Texas or Minnesota or wherever else.

My question is, as we sort of rethink these broader issues and the funding that we're putting into a lot of these facilities, are you guys open to kind of collecting some of the stakeholders or maybe concert with the chair and whichever other relevant people are available and actually going to meet those folks and figure out how these other places actually do this well, because obviously they can. And I think there's probably some lessons to be learned there.

Yeah, we would love to be a part of that discussion. I'm always open to looking at best practices from other places and not reinventing the wheel. So, we would definitely be interested in supporting that effort.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Senator Fevella.

Just like talk about your overview on, I guess page nine in paragraph three. Well, pretty much the whole page nine he's talking about you had about 550 days on permits delays, on funds like CIPs, like for...$1 billion. We've been talking about the stadium.

Oh, I thought that was the alarm I was waiting for.

Just making a point.

My concern is, and I know I had these talks with you, you know, a lot of our state projects is that we are held hostage to our counterparts in the city. And I brought this up before with you and Ed and some of my colleagues here.

You know, for state projects, I think we should look into doing our own state permitting project permitting, because, again, even like the road in Waihiwa. Waihiwa, I think, and North Shore. Right? All of delays on permits cost a project twice or maybe even more.

And how I know that is because when I talk to Ed about my four weaver Road widening and connectivity, we have to take some of the money from some districts to put in for the districts that needed to get things done, like in Kahuku, the poly and all that.

But permitting, you guys, you guys stated here in your paragraph in, in page nine, that you guys have 550 calendar days that is delayed for you guys' projects. How are you guys gonna get it moving and not worrying about the money lapsing, especially with projects like we have $1 billion for O triple C, who probably need 20 billion to actually fix the place?

But how are we going to expedite these things if we all always are tied up with the Permitting Department?

Yeah. I will say that I know that our public works, our public works division, construction management operations are constantly looking at, you know, how to—or our planning, I should say our planning branch operations—is constantly looking at ways to ensure that we can as efficiently as possible get these permits through the system.

It's, it's not that the county permitting system is not within our control. Right? As you know. So, so, we need to look at, you know, what mechanisms exist within, as an example, the city and county that would allow us to move forward with projects while we're simultaneously requesting the permit. Right?

They have these, what's called courtesy inspections that can be ordered, depending on where you are in the project. Which means that, you know, although the permit hasn't been issued, you can still move forward with the project, but you are subject to these inspections that need to occur along the way.

And so, there is that mechanism that we've utilized. But to your point, if there's a way that we can avoid having to be in permit purgatory for 550 days, we want to explore that, quite frankly, because it's, it's becoming worse and it is costing money.

Reason why I bring it up, I know DOE...had done some of the projects, especially in my community. They expedited it and they went ahead and did it. But again, if, if it comes back that the city doesn't really care for what had happened, it costs more money to fix it or try, try get around it.

Like I give you guys a great example. Okay. My school, we'll talk about my football stadium, the permitting process, okay? Waiting for the permits, delayed, delayed, cost more money, right. And, and thank to my colleagues, I got a lot of money to, to try to get that stadium completed.

They do sitting, sitting out, do an inspection, tells my school, who's 3,000 plus students, that they're only going to give us 600 spectator side bleachers because the parking lot doesn't consist in that, even though they took away 1,200 seating in the saber zone, by the end zone. So, that's what I'm saying. They cause turmoil.

I just give you my example because I go to the meetings. They put delays on these projects that needs to be ahead and to have again now like 2000 or 19, excuse me, 2000 something, that they don't all use stadiums is going to fall within that criteria. But it shouldn't fall into a criteria because that's not law.

Again, we're going to what the city is recommend, what the state should need. When they never came to my school and see that none of our kids can fit in the gym, none of our kids can fit in the stadium. We don't have enough room.

So, to tell us that we're only going to have 600 spectator site, not the 1500 that we needed—I supposed to get 3000 plus seating—because of parking lot. Okay. Now again, I'm gonna give you this. Our schools was made for walking, events, everything school, not for parking.

It wasn't for to take 33,000 parking stalls to have our spectators. But again, I talk, like I said, I talked to my colleagues, and I talked to Ed. Ed said within his Department, he asked the engineers if we pass one bill to put the permitting park, because we, we—our schools right now in our districts in, in Ever Beach.

I think we had a bill last year.

I mean, we would be open to trying to find a solution. If Ed, if Ed and his team are willing to be the state permitting, you know, department essentially, then, you know, I think we would be—and there's a law that, that directs that, let's try it. I mean, I, I mean, I gotta—I think we got to do whatever we can to try to expedite that, that entire process.

761 from last year.

I wouldn't be opposed to it. I, I think it's something we should explore.

Yeah. So, it basically says that as long as we comply with state laws and county laws, you don't need the permit for state facilities.

So, did you—were you able to?

Okay, from Ewa to Hilo, table 15, CIP, you do have the Hawaii State Archives new facility for Oahu. Have you gotten message from DLNR Hilo?

We finally got a site that we're moving to take care of the archives building at KIAA, the industrial area that this Committee, four or five years ago, was stunned to see the archives building in Hilo in such dismay.

No, no, no, no. That's two different—Shipti archives and their things are different than DAGS archives.

I'm sorry, Senator. Yeah, we don't have an archives facility.

DLNR is next at 12.

Okay.

My apologies.

Sorry. I see your archives.

No, yeah, sorry. I was, I was looking at my administrator going. Why not know about. No, no, no. You're talking the Shifti building. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Sorry, Senator. Archive section.

Yeah, thank you, Senator. We have 10 minutes before DLNR.

Okay, just real fast. HB 761, the chair's talking about. Okay, you looked at that and can you look at that to see if it will accomplish what we're talking about?