House Standing Committee on Finance

Aloha. We are reconvening the Committee on Finance for the purpose of budget briefings. It's January 14, 2026 around 9 am and we're joined today by the Department of Education's Executive Office of On Early Learning and we'll be following up afterward with the School Facilities Authority. Are you ready? Please proceed.

Thank you. Hi, Good morning Chair Todd, Vice Chair Takenouchi and Members of the Committee. I'm Yuko Arikawa Cross, Director of the Executive Office on Early Learning. I'm here today with my colleagues Jennifer, Kelly, Tara and Lane. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

Happy New so the Executive Office on Early Learning's vision is that every child in Hawaii has access to high quality early learning, early childhood development and learning experiences which lay the foundation for lifelong well being.

Our approach is through collaboration and partnerships we work to establish a system that ensures a solid foundation of early childhood development and learning for Hawaii's youngest children prenatal to age 5, meaningful engagement and supports for their families and a stable, competent and supported early childhood workforce.

The two main functions of our office are to coordinate and improve the early childhood system and we also host the Head Start State Collaboration Office Director in our office and we also work in partnership with the Hawaii Department of Education to administer the EOEL Public Pre-K Program.

This is how our this is our 2027 base budget that goes to personnel, services, other current expenses and equipment, with the majority of our positions being funded at the school level for teachers and education assistants in our EOEL Public Pre-K program.

For this year Supplemental Budget Request we are requesting General Fund position counts to support the growing workload and responsibilities of our office in coordinating the early learning system.

We are looking for two FTEs for program specialist fours to sustain and advance our statewide initiatives to support the early learning system, ensuring continuity of work and implementation of the Hawaii Early Childhood Students State Plan.

These positions were originally funded through the Federal Preschool Development Grant Program which sunset in December and the new Preschool Development Grants moving forward are only going to be in one year terms, so one year at a time and so these positions are likely to not be available through future Preschool Development grants at this time.

We are also looking for an Evaluation Specialist 2 position to provide leadership, planning and coordination and evaluating the effectiveness of programs and assessing the extent to which the objectives of our early learning system are being realized at the state level.

And so we are only requesting the FTEs for these positions because the funding for these positions are going to be covered through transfers from other current expenses to personnel.

What we've really been working hard to do is to look at travel and how we travel to support all of our schools on each of our all of on each of the islands. And these efficiencies and travel planning and logistics have helped to reduce some expenses.

And also we've had lower costs for professional development events, facility rentals, trying to take a look at what else is available in the broader community where we can also lower these expenses as well. And so again, three FTEs for this upcoming year I wanted to highlight our Preschool Development grant Birth through Five that we just recently concluded.

It was just shy of $20 million in partnership with the Hawaii P20 for partnerships for Education. Through our grant we updated our comprehensive birth to 5 needs assessment. We updated our plan, our Early Childhood State Plan. We maximize parent and family engagement in the Birth to Five system. We extended supports to the workforce and disseminated best practices.

We looked at quality improvement and we also enhanced quality and expanded access to new programs.

The photo is of a brochure that we handed out at our PDGV5 symposium at the culmination of our event and we do have extra copies if you're interested in it to see all the work that's been happening across the Early Learning center system.

One exciting new piece that came out of our Preschool Development grant is called First 5 Hawaii in partnership with the Hawaii Children's Action Network. The First 5 Hawaii is a common eligibility portal across 18 different programs that are available for families of children from prenatal to age 5.

And it's really exciting because any program person in our community can log into the portal, enter some simple information and it will screen them across these 18 programs to see what they might be eligible for in terms of early learning, health and safety opportunities, food and nutrition, special needs and early intervention, parenting, family support and housing.

And so we're really excited about the launch of first five Hawaii. And we think we do have some media if you think that this might be of interest to your constituents as well. The other piece that came out of our Preschool Development GR was updating our Hawaii Early Childhood State Plan.

We held convenings and also did visits island in Hawaii to to take a look at these building blocks. And so building block one is Keiki Ohana Health Safety and well Being. Building block two is Ohana Partnerships and Engagement. Building block three, Keiki Learning and Development. Building block four, Early Childhood Workforce.

Building Block five, Access to Early Care and Learning Opportunities and Building Block 6, Early Childhood Systems. And what was really neat about this is we ensured that each Building block group consisted of different representation across state philanthropic and community based programs and also had representation from each island.

One more thing about our Early Childhood State Plan, we are intending to do a public lunch launch within the next month and so we will be able to share this with you.

At that time when I was speaking about community engagement and outreach for our state plan, we did have 296 responses from people across all of our islands who are helping to inform us terms of what are they looking for? What are their hopes and dreams for their children and their families and their communities.

So you can see some photos here from our outreach on Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Oahu. Another partnership that we entered into with was with Early Childhood Action Strategies and the Children's Funding Project.

So a couple of years ago I attended the Hunt Institute with a Senator and a representative at that time and one of them attended a session that talked about the Children's Funding Project fiscal map and said that it would be really helpful for Hawaii. And so we took a look at it.

We attended their webinars and in partnership with the Early Childhood Action Strategy, we submitted our interest and we were selected to be a part of their cohort.

So over the past two years we have worked together to piece together public investments for all children 0 to 24 years old and created this fiscal map platform which will be released as soon as Children Funding Project releases it. But it's essentially complete at this time.

It Tracks funding from 2019 to 2023 and it shows us the funding landscape across state, federal and federal relief funds. It tells us how Hawaii has been progressing towards specific outcomes, how we Fund specific services, how we Fund in this building recession.

Please proceed. No reason to be alarmed probably.

Thank you. So again, this fiscal map will share how Hawaii has been making progress towards outcomes, how we utilize our funds for specific services, age groups and also populations. And again, as soon as we get the authorization to fully release it from the Children's Funding Project, we will make this available to you.

We wanted to highlight the growth that has been made through the support of the Legislature, the Governor, the lieutenant Governor and the Ready Keiki Initiative partners. The number of EOEL public pre-k classrooms have more than tripled since 2022.

So you can see the number of classrooms that we had year over year on the left side, starting with 18 classrooms and then going over to the right side when we're looking at our seats. So as of this year we do have 89 sites. We have 117 classrooms and 2,275 seats.

And so while this is really excellent news, our applications as of January were 4979, so clearly more than the amount of seats that we have available. And of those total applications, there were 3,491, which is still more unique applications because there were 42 sets of twins in those applications. And so that's generally the interest of people.

As we expand the public pre-k program, EOEL is also committed to maintaining high quality early learning environments for our children. We utilize the near, the National Institute for Early Education Research to measure our progress and keep track of our quality.

And we're also happy to report that EOEL and also public charter schools have met 10 out of 10 benchmarks in the latest near public pre-k report. We are one of five states to do so. So interest in our program remains strong with a number of applications far exceeding the number of seats that that we have statewide.

We also know that the educator workforce is critical to the success of our children. So we continue to promote the early Childhood Educator Stipend program. So far there have been 162 recipients of our stipend. With 61 completers, there could technically be 163 because one person has actually gone through the program twice for advancement in their degrees.

And so we're really excited about that. People are finding value and also finding ways to meaningfully contribute to the early childhood field. One of the questions that we've been asked is are we making progress towards Act 46 goals?

Back in 2020, the Legislature passed Act 46 which said that by 202750% of the then unserved children will have a seat. And by 2032100% of children will have a seat.

And so when you take a look at this representation, the black line that starts on your top left is reflective of the population according to Department of Health vital statistics. The blue on the very bottom are the number of seats that are available to families in Hawaii.

The Orange is the 2027 target and you can see it holds firm there. So right now it looks like we are very much on track to hit that 2027 target, which we're really excited about. When you look at 2032, if you look at the top line, the top gray line, that is if our target population stays flat.

And then if you look at the gray line just below that, that's if our target population continues to decline as it has. I believe it's been a. I can't remember the figure, but it's like a 1.0 something percent decline over time.

And so we know that there are going to be more seats created over time, especially with the seats that are in the pipeline through the School Facilities Authority, charter schools and potentially EOEL future expansion.

But this is generally how we're taking a look at our Act 46 progress at this time that it looks very, very likely that we'll hit our 2027 target. And then we're going to have to kind of just watch and see what happens with our population and other factors. A 1.97 annually decline.

So where we're at this year is, as I mentioned previously, our preschool development grant. That was from 2022 sunset at the end of 2025 and at the very end of 2025, there was an opportunity to apply for a one year preschool development grant. And so EOEL pulled our team together and we applied.

It's the first time that EOEL ever applied for a federal grant on our own. So the Department of Education really helped us stand up all the processes that it would take for us to be able to apply on our own. There were 34 states that applied in 23 were selected and we were one of them.

So we're really excited to share that we have a one year systems building grant for 2026 and we're going to be looking at statewide needs, our statewide needs assessment. So there are three critical elements in the new systems building preschool development grants.

So building off of our needs assessment and our strategic plan looking at reconciling fragmented elements to create a unified system, expanding opportunity, aligning data systems and tracking progress. Our other initiative for this year is to open our next 25 new classrooms, which the Legislature approved last year. So last year we received permission to open 50 new classrooms.

So 25 opened this current school year and we are on Track to open 25 next school year in partnership with the Ready Keiki Initiative partners, Hawaii School Facilities Authority, the Department of Education, and also, you know, funding our workforce through the Early Childhood Educator staging program.

All right, thank you very much. I have one brief question and then we'll turn it over to Members. This is more of like a technical thing and relatively small in the scale of things.

But you talk about total seat count, you know, and potential, like, are we going to be at, you know, x percentage or 100% of our need? But is 100% real, you know, utilization of those seats realistic given, you know, variability between certain communities where you may be at 120% need and somewhere you'll be at 70 to 80%.

So you're asking if we create enough seats for 100% of the population, will all 100% of our population?

Yeah. Or I mean, and I know the answer is no, but maybe, like what is that? What do you project? Does that mean we end up with, you know, 10 to 15% that can't quite find the right situation for themselves, or do we know kind of what that looks like?

Well, one thing that we do know, if we take a look at the lieutenant governor's Ready KQ figures, there typically is a 20% what we call opt out or people who choose something else besides a formal program for their children. So there are other options like family child interaction learning programs or other things like that.

So there are people who do utilize that in terms of access to seats? Well, we are right now we are still tracking and looking at access and opportunity across the islands and trying to ensure. But we still have a sizable number of applications per seat in pretty much every community. Except there's like three.

But it's just shy by like one or two, you know. But we are actually. So when you look at being more strategic as we move forward now, that is one of the things that we are looking at in terms of target expansion is trying to be more precise on the counts.

And also we're looking at traffic patterns as well, because sometimes people may want it closer to their work or there may be some kind of traffic pattern in different communities. So trying to be as strategic as possible.

Okay. And then, you know, related to a question that came up the other day, because I asked it and then questions, I'm sure what we asked in the doe, you know, I realized that a majority of, you know, your job is trying to scale up.

What happens when we have to scale down because the student population is crashing? And if we get to that point, you know, we have projections for some somewhere around a 30% decline in enrollment the next 15 to 20 years. So what do we do with all of that space and that investment?

Like, is there a plan, Is there a conversation with the broader DOE for what to do? Because we're not even going to have that need at the doe, probably. Is there a conversion plan as you have to scale down later on?

So that's a really great.

Is that like a future problem?

I think that that's a really good question. So right now the EOEL Public Pre-K classrooms that are currently open are on DOE campuses in existing rooms that are being renovated. So for us, no new builds have actually been built for this.

So anything that the DOE would have to do with this inventory and its property would apply to EOEL as well. When we've been looking at other states and how they've been expanding, a lot of them have been able to add this additional, I would say grade level, although we don't want to look at it quite like that.

But this additional layer, as their populations have been declining and the room space about actually opened up to repurpose this space so that it's still being utilized by community. So that's where we're at at this time. But if the, the population continued to decline and there was this excess inventory, it would, we were still fall within.

This part of the broader DOE issue. I got you. Okay, thank you. Thanks for your indulgence. Members, additional questions. Brett Peruso.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for being here. So my first question is about the teacher apprenticeship program.

And I'm wondering if the teachers that you work with will be able to benefit from that and if you have mentors in your program that will similarly benefit and if you can tell me what kind of planning you're doing to implement that program.

So the teacher apprenticeship program is actually being run through the University of Hawaii and also predominantly Keikyouka Aina and another partner on the neighbor island. And so it doesn't technically come through the Executive Office on Early Learning. So they have their own structure of how they're actually running their programs.

So our early learning state office teacher mentors are solely dedicated to the EOEL Public Pre-K classrooms at this time. And the apprenticeship program actually does not run through Executive Office on Early Learning. So those mentors won't be eligible for those stipends. They are. Okay. I'm so sorry. I apologize for that.

So, yes, anybody who is participating in the apprenticeship program can utilize Early Childhood Educator Stipend program. Yes. Because it leads to a degree.

Yes.

Right?

Can I ask one more question? So I'm concerned about the potential loss of federal funds. And if we see federal Head Start funds start to decline, it's my understanding that, you know, you folks might shift eligible children from that into eoel.

And I'm wondering what we're looking at in terms of the cost to the state to backfill those losses and the number of seats. So. So how many additional seats would that require? And then what would the per cost, I mean, per seat cost be?

I mean, and I'm not expecting you to have that like at the tip of your fingertips, but, you know, if you could share that with me at some point. That'd be great.

Thank you. We will work on that. So we do know that children who are in Head Start are eligible to apply to any charter school and also EOEL Public Pre-K School and they also qualify for preschool open door subsidies.

So what we do for any child who sits on the EOEL wait list is direct them to these other programs and opportunities for them and their families to hopefully get them connected to something. Now, in terms of quantity, I can get you quantity and cost.

We know the cost per child in EOEL Public Pre-K and I can get that for you. And then we can just run a straight number hypothetically.

Like if we have to take every Head Start child and Fund them through, let's say preschool open doors or take every Head Start child and Fund them through EOEL Pre-K, we can get that number for you. I'd really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you Chair.

Great.

Thank you. Members, additional questions.

Thanks, Chair.

I'll figure it out. I just don't want to mess it up, you know what I mean?

Thank you so much. I really do appreciate that. One of the pillars that you guys have is this area for special needs because that's definitely a passion area for me.

I was just really curious and I know the collection of data is rather early, but just curious about how many seat or student seats are kind of assigned to this area for future planning.

Because we also recognize that as they go through the seat system there's definite need for more specialized teachers along with housing opportunities which take a really long time to develop. So my question is, have you started to collect that data? I know it's for me.

So in terms of public pre-k we do have the number and gentlemen finders back there, but we do have the number of children attention and emerge recommend.

Okay, welcome back. Go ahead.

So we do know that as of January, 211 students with individualized educational programs have applied to EOEL Public Pre-K and so in. So there's a couple of things. So in EOEL Public Pre-K of course we do accept students who have IEPs whose placement is a General education placement and principals work to.

Sometimes they may hold a couple of seats or one or two seats for students in case they may become eligible or enter their school and already be eligible from another location. And so that is how they are holding space for those students.

Additionally, we have a preschool interagency workgroup that's been happening competing by the Department of Education's special education section that includes Head Start community based providers Department of Health, Early Intervention, EOEL Public Pre-K. And I'm probably missing a lot of other people.

And what we've been really looking at is what do inclusive practices look like across the early learning system. And so in terms of the number of community based sites that currently accept students with special needs, I do not have that information. But we do know that there's active work happening to take a look the at.

Yeah. And I'm just thinking about future forecasts. Right. And you know, as we develop this pipeline and as Chair mentioned, there's definitely need for education and then there's specialized needs for education. And I'm just trying to look around the corner even further for the development of housing or workforce programs that fit this community.

I just acknowledge it takes a while, but if, if we're learning it when they're at 5 years old, hopefully we. Can get our act together by the. Time they're 18 and have options. Great, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Great, thank you. Rep Hussey.

Thanks for coming this morning. A couple questions. One is the geographic distribution of interest, is that available publicly?

We can get it. We can get it to you. So publicly we can show you where the current EOEL Public Pre-K locations are. Are you asking for application data by geographic region?

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm asking about is where are the people requesting this program?

Okay, so I can get that. We don't necessarily publish that publicly, but I can definitely make that available.

My second question is Chairman. No, go ahead. Is are there any Hawaiian language opportunities within this program?

Thank you. Yeah, so one thing that we learned is that our charter schools have six Hawaiian language EOEL Public Pre-K Programs and the Executive Office on Early Learning. Had our first at Pope Elementary School, then we had our second at Hana. And then we opened two more.

I think Hana and Lanai, and then this year's Hau' Ula. So we have four now.

Anything additional? Okay. Okay. We are going to recess briefly to allow for the transition to the School Facilities Authority. Thank you very much for your time. And it's always nice to see an area of the state that's like functioning as we planned. So great job. Always, always reassuring recess.

Thank you, everyone. We're going to reconvene the Committee on Finance. It's 9:34. And now we have a budget briefing from the Department of Education School Facilities Authority. Please proceed. Thank you.

Chair, Vice Chair, Members of House Finance. My name is Riki Fujitani. I'm with the School Facilities Authority. We were created to redefine what is. Possible for school facilities. The philosophy that we follow is called. Build less, solve more. It's a design construction philosophy that emphasizes three key things. Efficiency.

Minimal viable solution, which means no more fancy schmancy, just basics. Yeah, back to basics. The minimal viable solution. And third, focus on the core problem. Address what the real need. It's kind of like the 8020 rule. Focus on the 20, which gives you the 80% return on your money. So we'll apply that philosophy to the.

Three what we call initiatives or programs that we're running. The first is universal pre-k. And. So if you apply that philosophy, the first question is, why, Bill? And that's the core problem, right? Are we addressing the core problem? And the core problem is, yes. Right. We got to finally walk the talk.

For pre-k. I mean, we've been talking about it for 30 years. We have to deliver now. And that's the why, Bill. The second one is what to build. Let's focus on the minimal requirement. Don't overbuild. Focus on what's needed.

And the way we do it with pre-k is the first thing we do is we just do renovations because that infrastructure is already there. You don't have to get permitting. You don't have to go through all these hoops. Just renovate. And that's quick. So we can do that in months.

And that's what we've been doing on a clip every summer. Renovate, renovate, renovate. Then the next easiest way is projects. That are already in flight, like the libraries. University of Hawaii Department of Transportation. Just drop in a preschool classroom. That's a project already in design. So that can get done fast.

So that's phase two and the phase through three, because the need is great, is Bill. That's the last option. It takes long. It's expensive, right? Then you have this asset for the next 65 years that you have to deal with repair. You have to operate and maintain. So the third thing, how to build.

And that's again, the efficiency thing. You build with standards consistent. So if you look at these renovations, they all have the same tile. It's porcelain. They all have the same furniture, they. Have the same carpet. That's how you get your efficiencies through standardization. How do you get efficient? You don't low bid.

So all these things are done with pre qualified contractors. The worst, to get the lowest bidder. You pre qualify them ahead of time. There's no protests and you can do it in weeks and months. This is what normally took years. The third thing is you want multiple construction options, especially in this environment, right?

If there's a tariff on steel, there. Goes your cold formed steel plan out the window. You have to look at locally sourced. Mass timber or worst case concrete block. Because that's the most expensive, most structurally expensive. So that's your third option. But you want to be construction agnostic. So that's that philosophy being applied to.

Pre-k. Next swim lane, new school, central Maui. Same thing, same mantra, right? Why build? Because first of all, Maui schools are. Overcrowded, especially central Maui. People have moved from west Maui to central Maui. There's only two middle schools. It's overcrowded. More importantly, next to Oahu, central Maui.

Is where the most real estate development is going to be. There's 4,800 homes projected in the next 10 years. So that's the why. Why build? But what to build, that's the big question. What's the minimum viable solution to build for new schools? So Hawaii's history of schools has drastically. Changed, right from the 60s.

Most of our physical plant was built. Between 1960 and 1950 to 1970. That's where all the schools were built and they were all standardized. They all look the same. We have to go back to that. It's not going to be as boring, it's not going to be as inflexible. So we need viable solutions.

Like what they call open buildings. Open architecture, you build a floor and you can infinitely configure it internally. If you want classrooms, you demise classrooms. If you want Da Vinci Studios, you demise Da Vinci Studios. If you want black box theaters, you. Build a black box theater. What's good for now is going to.

Be completely different 20 years from now. But you don't care because it's like an office building. I used to run a business on the private side. When you become a tenant in an. Office building, you gut the floor and you build whatever you want.

We built a data center in an office building that was never meant for that purpose. So that's the same thing. What's happening in schools? Everyone's building open architecture buildings. The shining example is Santa Monica high recently built 260,000 square foot one building. For a high school.

It could become a shopping mall 30 years or it could become a health center. That's what you have to build. Open architecture. And third again, how to build standardization. Right. There are five key standards before you. Even build a school. It's what your aspects are, what your. Design guides are, what your construction specs are. Standard technical drawings.

And the last one is commissioning. You do all that ahead of time. Before you even start. Otherwise you get chop swing. You get every different light switch, every different window, different doors. Nothing standard, nothing is maintainable. So that's what we're developing now.

An emergency has been reported in this building. How to build the efficiency. Right.

So Maui School it will be. We've awarded it the first progressive design. Build contract in Hawaii. Design build seems innovative, but that's already. What 20 years old. What school district across the mainland are doing is bringing in the contractor in. Before you even do schematic. That way you can get construction estimates.

For your cost as you design the school. You don't have to wait the typical path, right. Three years later when you're doing permitting. Then you, you, you do your bid set. So you get a cost and estimate. As you go and you can fit the budget that you procure for us. Yeah. And then finally again, construction options.

Because we have more time now than the preschool hubs, we're looking at prefabricated flat pack cold form steel, which is. A very, very good construction option. It's optimized for anything below six floors. Structurally. Yeah. And it's a great option as long as steel terrace don't get imposed upon us. So that's what we're doing for useful.

Central lobby, last swim lane. Workforce housing again. What's the core problem? Teacher recruitment, teacher retention, Teacher housing survey in 2024. Milani was the number one location. 9,688 responses. We're only building 100 units, so the need is there. The why, what to build. That's what we're building. It's 100 unit complex on one end.

Of the school that's not being used. The target market is entry teachers, which is an AMI of 60 to 80%. So that's key. That's all going to be predicated on financing. And then the third thing applied to that is again how to build. Can't build it the old way. So this is a P3, it's a

design, build, operate, finance, maintain DB, fom developers responsible for the next 65 years. Right now we're at the stage of. Variances and permitting height restrictions. Then we go to financing. So that's the same philosophy built by Solve More, applied now to workforce housing. The final thing is this whole mentality has to be applied statewide, not just.

To these programs that we've assigned, but. If you look at the state as a whole, first of all, why build? We have to find out what we have first. We don't have an inventory of what's in the entire state. We need to show what the condition is. There's no point in fixing the gym.

And Hilo when it should have been torn down. So that was awarded. Contractor said, I don't want to touch it. This thing is going to fall down. I don't want to be liable. So you got to assess what the condition is.

And finally, you have to assess what the utilization is if the school is not being highly utilized. If enrollment declines in the next 30 years, don't support it. Don't invest in that school. Invest in the optimal schools and then what to build. There are four key things to build to me.

Key infrastructure is first, because if sewer, water, air condition, cafeteria break, you have to close school. So fix key infrastructure first. Then you look at additional capacity because you don't want to be overcrowded. Third, you look at functional adequacy, does. It support education, arts, stem? And then lastly, actually, it's not. Lastly, just as important is legal compliance.

ADA Title 9, all those other things. And then finally, right, how do you build system wide? You don't go the usual way. Right. There's a better way to procure, there's. A better way to construct, to be agnostic. So that same mantra has to be applied statewide.

That's what we're trying to do. Thank you. Thank you very much. And also just thank you for the time you put in during the interim to help bring me up to speed, or at least close to being up to speed. Members, questions, go ahead.

So actually you answered all of my questions in your presentation, so I really appreciate that. And I just want to say that I appreciate your passion for the work and your commitment to excellence. So thank you.

This is my first state job. Hopefully it's my last state job. I used to work for a local. Investment firm and I used to be a construction litigator. So I used to be involved in all the bad state construction projects and there's a lot of them.

Yeah, but this is more fun because you're trying to fix it in the front, not at the end. Yeah, let's get it correct at the start.

Thank you, Members. Additional questions, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Morning, Ricky. Thank you for being here. The Central Maui, the new Central Maui Middle School is very important to the families in Central Maui. Do you have like a plan or start date on when you can do at least some groundwork for the Central Maui Middle School?

Yes, it's important to me too because I'm from Maui. So if I mess up, all Maui's going to be mad at me. And Rip. We're joined at the hip with him. The idea is once we set the budget, which is not set, then we know what we have to build, then we can start doing site work.

Because if the budget is this big, the site work is this much and we want to do site work. Once you want to site develop this site and it's on a slope lot. So it has to be graded, it's a lot of money in site work. So the idea is then start applying. For the grading permits.

So that would be 2027. I know it. You want to do something because right now it's a piece of dirt. There's a water tower. P.B. Sullivan. That's about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair. Go ahead, keep it going.

Thanks for being here. I have some follow ups to what Rep. Miyake asked about Central Maui. So I did visit the empty site last year on a site visit to Maui and there was nothing there. So I know there's supposed to be planned housing and other things going in.

But just to confirm, right, there's no infrastructure there yet or is the infrastructure being built? Where are we sort of on that part.

So key infrastructure first is sewer. That's the most important one because that's the most expensive. Right. Central Maui sewer plant supposed to come online 203031. Uncertain. There is capacity at the Kahuli plant. In order to accommodate the flow. So we have requested that set aside for the school. So sewer is taken care of. Water.

The developer drilled his own well, so there's enough water. Last is electrical and roads. A LIHTC project just got funded adjacent to the school that will build some more infrastructure. The developer also just got county approval to apply for a DIRF loan for. The roads and the utilities.

So all the critical paths are sort of lined up, but there's lots of. Critical paths for a 2031 opening. So you'll have sewer capacity, water from. The wells, electrical and roads through the dirt loan for the developer.

So because those are all lined up now, we're not going to be using any of our money that we allocated for Central Maui to build infrastructure.

Ours is purely on the Lot demise for us. Right. Developer's responsibility is taken to the lot line. Everything else is internal to us.

Okay. And that's still all within your timeline of building?

Yes. Okay.

I also saw that you have, you requested, but the Governor did not Fund 92 million more. I know you got funding last year. Was it 35 last year. And then you had money in previous years. So I'm assuming you've encumbered or you're going to encumber whatever we have given already.

And so can you move forward with just the money that you're previously given because the Governor did not put the 92 million in the budget.

Yes, if we go to the next slide. It's our financials. It's just an Excel table. We will get there soon. And it tracks. The second column is the new Central Maui School. It shows. I think you just scroll down. Yeah, there it is. Okay, so look at the second column. Central Maui School.

All the funds available appropriated by this. Legislature today is 76 million. Yeah. And it shows you the appropriations Governor has released 39 million. What hasn't been encumbered yet is 18. And we are in the process for it. Actually, I think this week we're encumbering the design build contract. We're also encumbering the additional design funds.

For that project and the last amount, the 37 million. We haven't put any allotment requests yet. That's lapsing in two more years. So depending upon what the steering Committee and ultimately the legislation or budget. Emergency has been reported in this building, please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the nearest exit or fire exit stairway.

Do not use elevators. Repeat, do not use elevators.

Attention, attention.

All right, please continue. So our proposal is a open architecture school, single phase, $200 million. We will need a hundred, another 124 million. If we were to do that. If you go with a different approach. Which is the traditional phased approach, multi phases, that's a 300 plus million dollar funding and that will come in phases.

The way we're building it is with. Two core buildings, open building, where you go multiple floors, there's no way you can mobilize it in phases. You just build that building. Once you build three floors, you don't. Have to rough out the third floor. But you should do it all at once. Because every year you wait for construction.

That's 8%. 8% or more. Yeah, that's, that's conservative. Maui even higher. So yes, 76 will be encumbered. It's still not enough. Depending upon if we go left or. Right on the design. You're going to either need another 124 or another $225 million.

Okay.

And that's very expensive for a school. Not even close to any national benchmarks. Primarily because the cost of construction in Maui is astronomic four to five times New York City. It's crazy. That's the reality of building on Maui.

Okay, so you've seen, because I feel like we've had this conversation and 200 million is way over what I thought it was going to be. So in the last year it's just gone up that much.

We can build, it's all based on square footage. If you can operate a square footage. Of say 40,000, you can build it 450 million. You know it. It's just that in Hawaii you're either going to have to build smaller schools. You got to build smaller schools because sure cross is four times times the national average.

You can't build to the norm of. What the nation's doing. We have to operate schools differently.

So that 200 million would include like the cafeteria, the, you know, whatever other requirements a school, middle school needs to have.

Right. The way we're doing it, again, the. Most cost effective way is a three. The sweet spot for construction is a. Three story building just from a structural component, square footage. So we're building one academic three story building. That's where the bulk of the thing is demise.

The floors, however you want one multifunction cafeteria which now has evolved into what. They call student commons, which is dining. Areas, food service, student commons, gathering areas. All in one place and Assembly Hall. Two buildings. Okay. At the same time, no phases. Occupy with occupancy in. 2031.

Okay, that and then, but that, sorry, but that doesn't include like any of the outside. Like if they need a field.

Outdoor play court, the outdoor play. Court. That all includes. 200. You have a functional middle school for 600. Students. Nothing. Phase one phase. Okay, yeah. Okay. Great.

And then one more follow up question but about preschools. So in your write up you had written that with this CIP funds that you're requesting, it would expand 41 new classrooms. So those 41 are already identified as, you know, like there's spaces for it.

Maybe I should have asked eol, but those are already identified spaces that you know, like okay, I mean is there a list, you know, so say we can't give the full amount for 41 classrooms. Do you have a list already of like here's the high need. Spaces? Absolutely.

We have we have lots of. Lists and lots of. Data. We have a data heat map. That shows you where the need. Is. Then we have the cases where. The renovations are being held. And then we, at this time we have about 15 sites identified for hubs. We don't have enough money to build those hubs.

So you want to build the hubs where the best use is. Right. Because if someday we have to contract, these are going to be where you're going to channel all the work. And most of the time it's where people work because people want childcare where they work, not necessarily where a school is. Yeah.

Can you share that data or list with. Us? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank. You. Thanks. Go. Ahead.

Thank you for being here. I got super excited just where you're going with this. I was just really curious about the idea of this design build. Right. And kind of coming up with this cookie cutter process. But I also recognize there's those standard guidelines that you created. Curious if along the way, for example, construction options. Right.

We meant you mentioned construction options and there's more innovative solutions. What might be more expensive?

So rather than the circle cmu, the aac, which is the aerated concrete, if there was an analysis that although that product type was a little more expensive, in the long run, the cost savings because it's lighter transportation cost modification or modernization goes better.

And you mentioned list and you don't have to give it to me now, just thinking out loud and again trying to think around the corner a little bit through the. These design guidelines where there would be options where a particular line item might be more expensive. But in the overall lifespan of this facility, we actually spend.

Money.

Yes. So for the hubs, the first three hubs, one is going to be traditional stick built, one will be innovative mass timber, and the third will be standard concrete block. We're going to try them all. We don't have enough time to do panelized cold steel form because that. Takes a lot more. Time.

But definitely with this open building model for Maui, they will be. That'll be an option. So in addition to, in addition to this, we just launched this thing we call. Akamai. It's a digital. Configurator. I was here one year ago. Where I talked about this, where my. Analogy was an emergency has been reported in this building.

Please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the nearest exit or fire exit stairway. Do not use elevators. Repeat.

So my analogy was cool Ridge and dear Horton, right? You can go buy a home. You can configure how many rooms. You want you can do the furnishings. We can do that now for. Class glass ropes with that tool though, because it's construction agnostic. If you want it through mass.

Timber, you can do it through mass timber using blue lamp blue laminated cross. Trimble frames or cross. Laminated. You can use cold form steel or you can use Hume Block. So that'll give you the options. Ultimately it will generate all the rivet diagrams, repeatable construction documents even further. You can order the furniture ahead of time.

You can pre order carpeting, everything. You know, this is again, this has been done before in the 1960s, but you just had one group doing. It, repeating it over and over. Again. Now you can do it with. Software. So that's what we're doing with software. The standardization is going to be imposed through software. You can make deviations.

You can get the standard edition or the luxury edition, maybe if you want the deluxe edition. But it's still going to be. A Honda, Honda Accord base model as the. Guts.

Yeah, thank you. I, I would really look forward to that and toggling with the construction material. And.

Yeah, and it's important, right? Carpenter's want mass timber, Mesas wants CMU block steel. Workers want heavy. Steel. But that's really expensive. So we got to look at options.

So thank you. Chair.

No problem. Anything else? Go ahead. Repre.

So regarding school facilities and focusing on addressing problems that we have with solutions, I want to ask you, because I know that you look at statewide enrollment and projected enrollment, looking at that, what would be, you know, being responsible stewards of state money, what would be the best use of state monies for choosing the selection site of another school building based on the enrollment.

Data?

Absolutely. You got to make data, informed decisions, Right? So this is my own, my own story right. Up. The Department of Health building built in 1961. I was born in 1961. I have to apply for Medicare. Soon. I looked up how many students we had in 1961.

We have the same amount of students that we have in 2026, yet we have 43 more schools, same students, 43 more schools. So the state's gotta, we gotta, we gotta make tough choices. We gotta, we gotta do something. We gotta close schools where they're not needed. And we gotta build schools in.

Liber Oahu where they're overcrowded and has to go technology track. But you can only do it with data. Right? And then once you get that data, we present it to you, you. Make the tough decisions because that's political and it's very, very. Difficult. But then we got to build a quicker, faster. Better. Right.

We can't build a deal the way. It can't be a. Can't be a 160 million dollar elementary school. It's got to be 70 million dollars. Got to do it differently. That's the only. Way. I don't see any other way. You got to do more with. Less and you got to build. Smarter. I'm not the smartest guy, but.

We hire really smart. People.

Okay. Any additional questions? Sinan? We're going to. Adjourn. We will be reconvening today at 1 o'clock with the Department of Education, public libraries, as well as the broader DOE.

Thank you very much for your.

One.

Aloha. We are convening the House Committee on Finance for budget briefings. We are joined today by the public libraries. Is it a branch or division?

System.

System. I like that better. Public library system, part of the Department of Education. Thank you for joining us today and whenever you're ready you can get on with it.

Thank you very much. Happy New Year. It's so nice to see you. To you all. We're excited about 2026. I'm Stacy Aldridge, the state librarian of the Hawaii State Public Library System and I have my colleague Ali Fujitani who is our special assistant to the state librarian.

We are grateful for this time to share a little bit about what's going on with the libraries and also our small budget requests for this session. And I think what's exciting about our libraries is we really continue to be these hubs of helping people to relearn and connect for reading.

This past year we had a summer reading program and we had 23,967 people join in which last the previous year was only 16,000. So we're really excited that people are getting into reading and we're encouraging our communities to read for more learning. We did digital literacy classes last year across the state and had amazing input.

We now are doing digital navigators last for the past three months. So October, November, December. By December we've had 5261 on one connections across the state. Community Members are trying to learn to use technology and the library is that place for them. And our libraries continue to be the place that people connect to the Internet.

We had over 473,000 connections to the Internet in our libraries, over 141,000 connections to Wi Fi and we had 117,000 people attend a little over 4,000 public programs. So people love the library as this place to connect to technology, to connect with each other.

And so our 50 branches, we're working on 51 with Lanai bringing them back online, continue to evolve with our communities. And I wanted to do just a light touch on federal funds. So our libraries receive funding from the Institute of the Museum and Library Services called Library Service and Technology act. We receive about $1.5 million a year.

Last year, many thanks to the AG for Hawaii went to bat with 20 other states to ensure that the Institute for Museum of Library Services was not closed, which DOGE closed it. They did win. And so we've continued to have our funding through our 2025 budget. We can spend it through September of 2025.

We don't know if we'll have 2026 funding. We're still waiting for the federal budget. From what I understand at the federal level, the committees that are reviewing the budget have, in the House and in the Senate have both put funding in for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

So we're not sure what will happen if we don't receive the money. It will impact our ability to provide New York Times, Wall Street Journal, a lot of our online databases that and information access points for the state. So we have our fingers crossed. There's a lot of advocacy going on for funding continuing to Fund libraries.

That said, all the usage that we had last year, I want to thank you all because you gave us funding to do rebranding to make sure that people were aware of what we had. And so last year we launched our rebranding project and we have seen boost in almost every database.

Also Libby in our ebooks, we saw an increase of at least 2,000 by 2,000 people a month, new library cards. So it did really open up to the communities what's in the library and people are curious. We also have an E newsletter which hopefully you all get.

It goes to about 400,000 emails and we have a 47 to 50% read rate, which is really good for any newsletter. And again, that is because of you all. So I just wanted to also thank you for supporting that because I think more people in the community are aware of libraries are not just books.

So thank you for this year. We have one request. The Governor did not approve in his budget this request, but we need $1.5 million added to the base budget for our security. We have had security for many, many years and we had to switch our security firm again.

We had issues with them being able to actually provide services. There were training issues. It was just an ongoing challenge for us. So we used the state list, state procurement office list, and we were able to procure the second of the two organizations. And we are now with a new contract and we have much better.

The challenge for us is that the cost is more and we're using the same service that the Department of Ed uses and also the capital. And they're very good and they're local, which makes a huge difference.

But in order for us to continue to serve our libraries, and that's 35 libraries across the islands that have security, we need this 1.5 added to the base. If we don't have this 1.5 added to the base, just a million dollars is about 1010 libraries or about 25% of our hours we would have to cut.

And so we've already made a few adjustments. We looked at the data to identify were there areas where we didn't necessarily need security service. And we already cut back about five libraries, one of which asked not to have a service. They said we don't need a guard service. So we were very strategic.

We looked at how many incident reports we had, we looked at the demographics, but we know it's a challenge and we want to make sure that our libraries are safe.

So that 1.5 million helps us to ensure that we have security within our buildings for the community, which in some places, like downtown here in hsl, we have three guards. We have to. I was just reading security reports and they're just dealing with all kinds of incidents, fights in the bathroom, fights over computers.

So having security is vital for us. And then I'm going to turn it over to Mallory to share about our CIP request.

Good afternoon. So we thank the Legislature for your continued support of the public library system. We're trying to make a concerted effort to address our deferred maintenance.

And so last year we were very fortunate and we thank you for the increase in base budget for the regular RNM as well as we got a substantially larger amount of lump sum funding which helps us with our CIP projects.

And so we did ask the Governor for an additional 5 million in planning and design, despite the increases that we got last year so that we could start new projects. The current biennium budget, we have 25 million lump sum for 26 and for 27. I can tell you that we've already kind of quote unquote spent the money.

We already have projects that are ready to go and we'll use up all of the funds. So none of that 50 million for this biennium budget will lapse.

So we, what we're trying to do, what we try to do is always use a little bit of the lump sum if there's extra to start the process because it takes so long to start the planning and design side.

That takes a good year to two years to really get a full understanding of what building improvements need to be done or it should be done as we project out what the age of the building, you know, the equipment, the, you know, the increase in failure of some of the current equipment.

So with that, you know, we, we are actually only asking for 5 million for additional in 27. The 27 budget for planning and design. And that would be for of a beach Kalihi Palama Mililani and Wakanuki.

So they're all Oahu libraries, in part because we've spent a lot of effort recently to try to start up some of the other libraries that are on neighbor islands.

So happy to answer any questions. So as we look ahead, we remain grounded in our mission and inspired by the belief that every person who walks through our doors or connects with us online does deserves access to resources, support, and a welcoming space to learn, dream, and think and thrive. Thank you very much for your attention.

We're happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you. I have a quick one, and then I'll turn it over to the Committee. So checkouts of digital items. Is that all through, like, the Libby app and that sort of thing?

Yes.

Do you have any. Have you done any, like, analysis of, like, the public's awareness, those resources of.

Just Libby or those.

Even those, like, the options that are available to them?

I guess so. In 2022, we actually did a survey of the public, and they didn't know very much about many of the resources that we had. So that was why we came to you all to do the rebranding. And what we're finding is there's a larger number of people signing up to create accounts for Libby.

So there has been an increase, and I believe they circulated 1.51.7 million digital items last year. The year before it was 1.5. So we are seeing an increase in use. And it's word of mouth, too.

That's what I would imagine. I would think, like, and I think it's somewhat generational, but I remember when my mom found out about it, because we were kind of hyping it up, and all of a sudden it's like all she does. Right. So, you know, for better or worse. Right. But thank you for that.

And then before we get started, I also wanted to thank you for the role you folks played in collecting food during the food drive during the shutdown. It's not something that is in your job description, but I thought it was super helpful just giving community a resource like that, Members questions for the Department.

I feel like you have library questions. Yeah, sure, go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. I did want to, you know, maybe circle back a little bit to the security issue. I know that's been something that's come to this Committee every year since I've been here.

And I do think it's very important that, you know, there is a safe space because, you know, libraries still are basically one of the only free spaces that anyone can kind of go to and get access to actual resources to kind of help them do all kinds of things.

So, you know, can you talk a little bit about the increasing ask that we've been talking about every year and thank you for, you know, doing the assessment of, you know, cutting back where you can, some of the lower incident libraries. But as we're kind of.

Can you talk, I guess, a little more in detail about what the staff is like, the need for, the increasing need we're seeing across the system of these incidents, more detail what they are and you know, without the stable funding, what happens?

Are we going to be closing sites because of the lack of security, because it's just not safe, or what. What's that gonna look like? Or how many libraries? I guess maybe every year we've been seeing that we're getting these like million. Dollar requests for increase in services.

So if I start first with the cost and then I can talk a little bit more about the why we need security and sadly, well, maybe I'll go backwards. I'm gonna go the other way. People are not the way they used to be. I think the pandemic broke a lot of people. And I appreciate you saying that.

The library is the only place that's open to everybody, which means everybody's invited into our libraries. And as long as you're behaving and following the rules and not causing any problems, you're welcome in the library to use all the resources.

Unfortunately, we still have a lot of people who have mental health issues who are coming into the library. We do have, and I don't. Some people have asked about unhoused. There are a lot of people who are unhoused. We don't care if you're unhoused. I think the real issue is mental health and we're seeing more.

We have an incident tracker. So I can watch. I read all the incident reports and I kind of watch what's coming in. And I would say sometimes the full moon does affect people in terms of when we get incident reports, but we're seeing a lot more incidents where people are just agitated or they're fighting.

I just read one where a guy was in the bathroom and he went to grab a paper towel and somebody went into his stall with his stuff and then they got into a fist fight. And so then we have to have a security guard come in.

We have libraries that are really small and they don't have a lot of staff. And sometimes security is actually helping us stay open safely for the public. So for our staff, security Provides a little comfort that there's somebody extra in the building who can help them if there's a situation that becomes out of control or uncomfortable.

And unfortunately we have a few sites that's pretty common. Some are larger is Kailuka, Hilo, Kaimuki, in a three year period had 52 incidents as opposed to Ina Haina, which is one of the locations that we did pull back on. They only had 10 incident reports. So it varies community to community.

But we want to make sure that there's somebody there who's trained, who can de escalate or can see something happening while our staff are trying to do their job, help help the patrons to prevent things from happening in the library. In terms of the cost, when I first came the costs were about 1.21.25 million.

And it went up a little bit to accommodate some pay raises for the staff. But we had problems with the agency. They didn't pay their employees enough money. And so we didn't always have guards and the ones we did have weren't trained. So we went back out, put a bid out. We used the state procurement offices list.

We got the bid, we went with the, which was still $4 million to provide services. And we came back and we said we need more funding so that we can up the cost. Now we're going to have trained staff, we're going to have what we need. Sadly, that did not happen with the second group.

So now we've gone with this third group and we are actually seeing the results. And it is about 4.1 million to provide the services and the 35 branches. So the 5 million that's in there, 500 million or 500,000.

Part of the request is if we need to bring guards into another library because we, as you know, we don't have them in every branch. But sometimes we need them and sometimes we need to put down like a specified, we have to address a specified issue.

So right now Hilo, we have some issues on the outside of our building with people being very naughty, drugs and sexual activity in the ramp. And it's causing some problems for us.

So you should use that in your marketing.

Yeah, really, please come to the library. So for situations like that, we would work with a guard company and have them like sit overnight for, you know, two weeks and try to break the pattern and then maybe do drive by. So we have 35 branches and one drive by at night, every night.

And that's for Liliha, Kalihi, Palama, Macaulay and Waikiki because those are the areas where we see the most incidents or damage at night. And it's preventing that. So the cost is a lot. And it's sad to me that we have to do this, but we also wanted to make sure we have safe places.

The other thing I'm concerned about is losing staff because if they don't feel safe and we've had some staff who they keep trying to move around, they'll try to go to the library that doesn't have as much, you know, as many incidents. And we've. We're doing more.

We can continue to try to train staff, but it's just nice to have someone there who can be paying attention to what's happening in the space while you're trying to help the patrons.

And then the 10 libraries that you referenced that might not be able to be covered, then does that mean a reduction of hours or the staff's just going to have to deal with it for better or for worse?

Or what does that kind of look like if those funds don't come through for those 10 potential spaces that have been identified as needing that added security?

Yeah, we'll have to. They won't have security, so we'll have to again do another review and see, even try to refine it even more. We could look at cutting back hours, but that amount of money is 21,000 hours. So it's a lot of hours over a year to cut back from the 35 branches that we have.

We have been talking with the sheriff's office about trying some newer technologies to address people who are communities who may not feel as safe if we don't have a guard there. But that would even cost money to do, you know, to have some solution, whether it's like a panic button or something for the staff.

And sorry, as you were talking, since a lot of these, since you referenced a lot of them are mental health incidents potentially. Is there coordination across some of. With our service providers, the corps for.

You know, some of our staff do have all the numbers and they call and we have had lots of conversations in every community trying to figure out how we can work better together. But it just, it is what it is what the population is, you know, for the community.

Thank you.

I think we have rep. Kush and then reparusa.

Thank you. And all the work you do. I'm sorry to hear about the Hilo library. That's unfortunate. It's kind of a great kid spot from the inter in high school.

Have you looked at any kind of cursory analysis of whether would be more cost effective if we internalized as employees those security positions versus paying a firm that has to bake in a profit. And I mean I realize fringe is a big issue, but just listening to those numbers.

We've talked about it. I don't think we've done a full analysis. We actually used to have a position. Right. We had our own in house security guard positions, but then I think they eliminated.

I think it was called a security attendant. So they were unarmed. Zero yeah, yeah. And I think that class was wiped out of the.

Do you find that like you need have. The current guards are armed and they pull their guns.

They're not. They're not armed but they are trained to deal with conflict.

This group is. Yeah, sure. No, I think that's an important conversation as I know like I feel like a lot of people are considering DLE for roles but they have a tough enough time to recruit as is. Maybe there's another opportunity that's a cost effective one. Just I don't see the environment changing.

A lot in the near term. But something to consider just to get a hold of those costs and then you have a much easier glide path instead of always going out to rfp, which also is competing with the whole sea of needs out there, which escalates costs.

I think the only thing I'd be concerned about if we took it on. I would actually prefer to have our own staff. It'd be a lot easier to manage is how difficult it is to find people to do the work.

So even the best security guard company that we have now, it's taken them some time in some locations to actually find the right guards. And they're very picky. They don't just hire anybody and they do keep doing retraining which really makes a big deal for good securities. But I think we should definitely look at it.

We did try to think about when we were looking at bidding before, could we try to just bid by island? Like are there security companies that could do by island? And that's really. And they're not. They're not interested in like the local. The local kind of contracts people aren't interested in. But we'll do.

We'll do more analysis on.

It was just. Just a thought to like get a hold of your. That's one way to button down your costs in a more predictable fashion.

And I don't know, we'd have to figure out too what if there is a position now? Because if they eliminated this SR class.

And all those things. Yeah, it's a Big lift. I just was curious if that had been toyed with. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Okay, Rep. Russo, thank you for being here. So my question is about the data set that you said you were collecting through the incident reports. And I was wondering if you code that data in a way that kind of indicates maybe how the broader social service or social safety net is fraying.

So like if you identify, we know that this person is suffering from some mental illness. And you know, we also maybe know that this person because I mean, in Wahiawa we know who the regular people are, you know, at the library.

So I'm wondering if you do that kind of coding in your data because I think it would be really helpful to kind of map out where our public health system and with regard to behavioral health is really falling apart. So do you have that kind of data or it's not as maybe specific. We have by.

So we have General categories of behaviors that are standardized and then their descriptors. And then we do add the names of people who have been denied service for having issues. And we do have some people that we know are a challenge because if you're denied use in one library, you can go and use another one.

And so the staff will talk to each other and there are times when they do call local services and say, can you come and help this. This person? And oftentimes the person doesn't want any assistance. But our staff are pretty good about trying to.

We haven't done like the real study about where I think we could, we could look at the data by location and the types of incidents.

86 list.

No, not an 86 list. How we're failing them list.

I like that.

Thanks. I have a question regarding the table 12 and the last ones for the transit and public library. And I understand there was kind of a partnership and a site selected and that kind of felt. Can you just give me a status update on that and I'll also circle. Back around on the cow weave.

Yeah. So we partnered with the county because we were. We were informed that they were looking at doing a transit hub in the Pahoa area. And so we participated. There were community meetings, there was environmental assessment. Then part of that project. We. What we were hoping is that we. Would. Get a long term lease with the county.

Our understanding is the county was going to have federal funds to purchase the lot and then in some kind of, with some kind of agreement we would co locate on the site. I believe that this county has still not been able to purchase the property. Or I don't know where they are in that process.

But the reason there's an issue with the CIP appropriation is that it's labeled Pahoa Public and School Library and Transit hub. So first of all, we can't do the transit hub part. So it's really a more technical issue with the CIP appropriation. And so that's why we have to lapse that.

And also those funds will need to be used or encumbered by June 30 this year. And there's. As far as I know, that's not going to happen.

Yeah, I understand, but. And so two parts, right. It's labeled wrong.

Yeah.

And then county stalled with their portion of acquiring the property working out.

Okay. So we don't have site control, so we can't. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Additional questions for our library system. Go ahead.

Just quickly, I was wondering if you could tell me any. What the project that you guys are working on in Ewa Beach, we'd like.

To get funding and sign funds to start the process to do a full. Renovation, to get input from the community and do a whole redesign.

Thank you. And so for that request, would it be a pretty even distribution of about a million and a quarter per? Because I know you're requesting five as kind of a lump.

We lump them together because it's not going to be. And we feel that whenever we get lump sums, we don't end up lapsing any funds because I know that certain of those four are probably going to have. Need more design work than the others. Like Kali PL was smaller, less issues. It's going to need some.

But you know, and in Kaimuki, actually there's bigger issues and it's also a regional library, so. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. So it's. I didn't want to like. I kind of don't like line item appropriations because I worry that we're going to lapse money or whatever.

Yeah. I mean, I think it may be helpful for Members in those districts if you provide them because. Because it's something that they can prioritize, too.

Okay.

I don't think that would hurt your cause at least, but we'll keep that your preference in mind, though. Anything else? Okay, go ahead. And then Rep. Temple.

Okay, so Ewa Beach is one of the few public and school libraries. The question I have is because I don't know, because it's called public and school, does the DOE chip in any money to any of these? Nothing. Okay.

They haven't. They haven't.

Go ahead, though.

Sometimes they do. They used to put in money for collections. They have the state when they have a school library.

Yeah.

But not, not always.

Now I just want to say thank you for all that you guys do. And I know that my students in my community at Farrington, they all go to the library and they really identify you guys as a safe space. Would you guys have some numbers on capacity? When I go to your guys library, it's like packed.

So I'm just wanting to know for meeting the needs of the community. And by chance, are you planning on doing some kind of like gaming? Kind like you know the one at library, at the Waipahu library. Are you guys going to expand on that? Because in my community I think they're doing that type of thing.

It really for the gaming and the types of programs. It is the branch managers and the libraries who are looking at who like what's happening in their community and they'll implement if they see there's a need or a desire. We have a lot of projects this. Year where libraries are more kinds of games, more kinds of opportunities.

We have libraries that put out chess sets in the afternoon and kids are coming in and playing chess. We also have someone who had donated a whole bunch of Dungeons and Dragons things to the library. His wife would not let him take it with him when they moved and so he gave it to the library.

And we're going to have Dungeons and Dragon kits that can be checked out and taken home with all the maps and all the. I'm not a real big D and D. I don't. I tried it once. But our libraries are doing more because they're finding that those kinds of activities really are great for kids after school.

And kids really aren't at chess right now. I know, I'm not sure what was driver but we are trying to do more those kinds of activities. And it really just depends on the community. So if you see something in your community, just talk with our librarian because they're always interested.

And on the kupuna end there's a lot of interest in mahjong. Mahjong is very popular.

My auntie's obsessed waiting list at some of the libraries. Do you guys have any like inputs on E gaming, like having those gaming labs?

So we have Waipahu, we have esports.

Lab esports.

Thank you. Yeah. And it's been interesting. So we started off, we had a lot of support. We had two cohorts that went through training. So we had a person come in and train small groups of kids to be Good esports players. And they did a little bit of coding.

It feels like a fax machine right now, like there's nowhere else for them to play against. So we actually did purchase some more equipment and we've identified another library and we're going to bring up the two libraries again. So we'll bring up another library and then we'll create some opportunities for them to play against each other.

Because esports is actually pretty expensive for kids and we want to be sort of like the YMCA version where you can still get the experience and you have the capacity because our libraries do have broadband. And if you're playing esports and you've got a slow connection, you could be dead before you know it or miss something.

So we're trying. We want to create that opportunity for another. Another library. So it's not a fact machine that we actually have two libraries. And then we were hoping to hire some folks who can come in and work with two teams. It was pretty popular. It's sort of hard to grab attention sometimes.

And a lot of high school already have esports, you know, teams, so it's nice just to have a secondary place for kids. Good to hear.

We did build out a tech lab at the KL and UK that's under construction because there's a middle school right there. Yeah, yeah. Where we can do esports and then. The high school is down. Thank you.

Go ahead, Rep. Gideon.

Also want to thank you for the hard work that you all do. I grew up going to the Hua Kai library. Many fond memories of spending hours and hours reading books about Sharks. Your community digital navigator project. Been doing some reading on that. I think it's great. How do you decide which locations to have the program at?

The Plano? I don't believe Huai Kai has that. We do have an older demographic and I think that my constituents could benefit from.

Should be at Hawaii Kai now. So we have enough money to do at least four hours twice a week in every branch. And so they've been bringing up all the branches and I think Hawaii Kai does have. There should be a sign. I'll double check. Okay.

I was looking on the website.

Yeah, yeah, we should have them up by now. The group we're working with is Mapuna by Inc. And they're fantastic and they have great navigators who hang out and they take appointments too, so some people can walk in.

But yeah, we are noticing there's a higher percentage of kupuna who use it right now, but they're also the ones who have the greatest need to know basics, like how do I use my phone, how do I use email? It's a lot of basics.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll get back with you, though. I think they are an Hawaii.

Okay, perfect. And then one last comment on the Dungeon Dragons. I have a lot of friends that play it. Not saying I do, but they're always looking for places to host. If you're looking to get more bodies in there, you can either bring the offer if there's space, you know, a table or something.

Yeah, we'd be happy to. And in fact, we are doing Dungeons and Dragons at our library for the blind and printable. There are blind versions of the dice and all the things. And we have, like, a really hardcore group that show up. I think they're playing this weekend. But, yeah, we do. We do have spaces.

So if people are interested, some of our libraries have meeting rooms and other places there are tables. And if they're not being too disruptive.

They could always see you about checking out the meeting room space.

Again, thank you for the work.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions as we wrap up? If not, we're going to recess briefly to allow the DOE to file in and the whole transition. Thank you very much for your time and for everything you guys are doing. Recession.

Aloha. Reconvening the Committee on Finance for the State house. For our 1pm agenda, we are joined now by the State Department of Education. Welcome and thank you for being here. Please proceed.

Good afternoon, Chair Todd, Vice Chair Takenouchi. Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to present the Department Supplemental Budget request and to provide context around our operating and capital requests.

Joining me today are Board of Education Vice Chair, Bill Arakati, Deputy Superintendents, Heidi Armstrong, for academics, Tammi Oyadomari-Chun for Strategy and Administration, and Jesse Souki for Operations. Our team of Assistant superintendents are also present.

Our goal today is to be clear about our fiscal position, the risk we're managing and how we're prioritizing resources to support students statewide.

I'll begin with a brief overview of the Department, our mission, the skill of the system that we manage and the outcomes we're working toward before turning to federal funds, non general funds and our supplemental budget requests. The Department of Education's okay, the Department of Education's Kuleana is straightforward.

Preparing a young people for their future and for the future of our state. Our core mission is to educate. We recognize that during the legislative session there are many questions about operations. We take our responsibility seriously as the state's second largest employer and as a significant part of the state's budget.

At the same time, it's important to remember that our operations and our workforce exist to support students, their learning, their growth and their success. This year we're updating the state's vision of a Hawaii public school graduate and the prior vision served us well, but it's nearly 20 years old.

The revised vision builds on that foundation and recommits us to preparing graduates who are both globally competitive and locally committed. That emphasis on being locally committed is critical. The future of our state depends on our young people seeing a future for themselves here in Hawaii, in our communities, our workforce and our civic life.

I want to pause briefly on what we mean by globally competitive and locally committed because it frames everything that follows in this budget discussion. I also want to thank the Legislature for your continued support through both policy and budget actions that strengthen workforce development and Hawaiian education.

Those actions help create real opportunities for students that connect learning to Hawaiis long term needs. Being locally committed requires a strong academic foundation and so that students can apply what they learn, adapt to an ever changing world, and contribute meaningfully to their communities. That balance is at the heart of the vision you see here.

Our responsibility as a public education system is to prepare our students with the knowledge, skills, and adaptability they need, whether their path leads to higher education, careers here at home or opportunities beyond Hawaii. The budget decisions we'll discuss today are intended to support that long term responsibility.

I'm going to turn things now over to academic achievement and Deputy Superintendent, Heidi Armstrong, will walk you through the next set of slides. What you'll see is that we have real momentum in student learning. Over the past two decades, Hawaii has made significant gains and more recently we are on the verge of academic recovery from the pandemic.

Our standing compared with other states has improved across multiple measures. I'm proud of the work that's happening in our schools. The recovery gains we're seeing reflect the hard work, care, and professionalism of our educators and school leaders, something I see firsthand when I visit campuses across the state.

I also want to thank the Legislature and the Board of Education. Your long term support and sustained investment have helped make this progress possible and are directly connected to the student learning reflected in these areas.

Good afternoon. So the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP as it's commonly referred to, shows that Hawaii has made sustained progress, sustained gains in academic achievement over time, both in student performance and in our national standing. And NAEP is the only consistent comparison across states.

So we do really look at the results and take value from them. But this slide focuses on the fourth grade reading and as you see results from 2003 and 2024, the yellow is the national public average scale score and Hawaii you'll see in the orange bars.

So over the past two decades, Hawaii has moved from the bottom 10 states to the top 15 nationwide and fourth grade reading is currently our strongest academic area. This progress reflects long term focus, stability in instructional practices, and sustained efforts across the system.

We're also showing, we're also showing NAEP results for 8th grade math which you see in front of you. And math does remain a very challenging subject for us, so it is a very important focus point for us at this time. But when we look over the long term trend, Hawaii has made meaningful progress.

Over the past two decades. We've moved from the bottom 10 states to performing at the national average for 8th grade math. So while continued improvement in math is still a priority and it is, this trend shows steady forward movement and provides a solid foundation for the work ahead.

The previous slides showed long term progress and national comparisons using NAEP. I'll now shift to our state assessment results which give us a more current and detailed picture of the student learning across Hawaii. This slide shows statewide proficiency in language arts that's the blue, math in the green, and our science proficiency in the red.

What we see is that Hawaii is returning to a pre pandemic proficiency level in both language arts and math. And that said, though academic recovery is not our end goal, our expectation is that we see growth in all of our students every year, no matter what their starting point.

But returning to pre pandemic levels is an important milestone and it helps us establish a stable foundation for continued improvement. So Hawaii's academic recovery stands out when compared to other states. And that pattern is consistent across both NAEP and the Smarter Balanced Assessment.

Hawaii is about one of a dozen states that administers the Smarter Balanced Assessment, our statewide assessment. And when we compare results among states using this same assessment, many are still struggling to return to their pre pandemic levels. Even states that historically have performed higher in proficiency rates than Hawaii.

So when you look at this chart, the dark blue bars and the green bars are current levels of proficiency. The shaded bar behind is the different states pre pandemic proficiency. And of course Hawaii is listed in the orange bar. So in that context, Hawaii performs comparatively well among the Smarter Balanced states.

Hawaii currently has the highest proficiency levels in language arts and the third highest in mathematics. I'll turn it over to superintendent.

I'll be calling up deputy superintendent Tammi Oyadomari-Chun who will go over overall scope of our schools and our impact.

Good afternoon, Deputy Armstrong shared about the academic progress of our schools. Those outcomes reflect the work of our 258 schools across the state. The Kuleana is truly statewide. We operate schools on six islands serving very different communities, geographies and needs. As of Monday, our student enrollment for DOE stands at 153,672 students.

This represents an increase since the beginning of the school year when we publicly reported this year's enrollment and an increase from last year's enrollment which is shown on the slide. The needs of our students closely reflect the challenges that face Hawaii's families.

About half of our students come from households with incomes at or below 185% federal poverty level. That's about $66,000 for a family of four. That amount or less. In addition, about 9% of our students receive support to develop English language proficiency.

This context is very important as we discuss the budget, the scale of our public schools, and the needs of the students that we serve directly shape how resources are used and where pressures exist across the Department of Education. As we as requested by the Committee, this slide shows the department's current organizational structure.

I want to note that the chart reflects our ongoing organizational alignment initiative that is focused on how to improve our state offices support schools. The effort is guided by staff feedback and an external review that was conducted in 2024 by the Council of Great City Schools.

Over the past year, our Executive Leadership team has been analyzing the consultants recommendations and identifying alignment proposals that prioritize student outcomes, reduce fragmentation, improve coordination across offices and improve effectiveness. With legislative support last year we were able to create the Office of Campus Operations and Support which became effective last summer.

This office brings together critical school facing functions including school food services and student transportation, and bringing them together strengthens our coordination and accountability in the support that we provide for school campuses. We have also taken steps to address staffing shortages through targeted repricing for hard to fill roles. This includes educational assistance, vice principals, engineers, and architects within the last year.

Those adjustments have been implemented and are showing results. For example, the repriced salaries for architects and engineers have allowed us to recruit and hire five new architects and engineers recently. Any organizational changes that affect staffing in the process will continue to follow the union consultation process.

Future phases of this Organizational Alignment, we'll look at alignment beyond the state offices, including our complex area offices, and we'll also incorporate the impacts of modernization of our systems and technology. I'm going to turn to federal funds. It's an important part of this department's overall picture. As of today, the federal education budget remains pending Congressional action.

As you know, the continuing resolution goes until the end of January for the federal budget. Federal funds make up about 11% of the Department of Education's budget. While it's not our primary funding source, the state is, the sources, the federal sources are significant.

Like most other states, our K12 funds are received by formula based on state population data. More so than competitive grants. These funds depend on congressional action and the amount of funding is less affected by administrative actions than higher education.

However, there was a significant issue last summer when the U.S. Department of Education did not release congressional appropriations on time for the upcoming school year. Eventually, it was released after political pressure and our state also participated with other states in legal action. The situation continues to evolve with the US Department of Education.

This morning, we received a grant termination notice that affects programs and personnel. We're closely monitoring the federal budget and are in discussion with the congressional delegation. At this point, there's been no significant congressional action to make changes to federal laws regarding K12 education.

So, Every Student Succeeds Act, IDEA, which supports special education, those laws are still in place as they were prior to this current Administration. While these laws that govern major education programs remain in place. The U.S. Department of Education has implemented major staff reductions and has plans to move administration of certain programs to other departments. But we have not yet seen the impacts of those changes.

We're concerned, but the impacts are unknown. We're monitoring the situation closely. In our board approved budget, we have included placeholders for federal programs that were targeted last summer. The federal uncertainty is one of the factors informing our budget planning and informed our plan for a lean and focused supplemental budget request.

The federal funds that I mentioned, the action that Congress will take regarding the federal budget will impact the federal funds that are available for schools for next school year. This chart shows the total federal budget for education.

The column that's FFY 25 Appropriation shows the total amount nationally that was congressionally appropriated that we are currently using this school year. And then you can see in the subsequent columns the President's proposal and the Senate and House positions on the major federal funds.

So you can see in the House draft the programs that show zero being zeroed out or being reduced. Key ones being Title Three, which is English Language Acquisition so supporting our English learners and the Adult Education State Grants which support our community schools for adults as an example. That said, we'll turn to our state budget request.

So in developing our state budget we really focused on presenting a lean budget. This was developed over a six month period with the needs of schools and students at the center. And recognizing that this was going to be a constrained fiscal year is also a supplemental year.

The total supplementing supplemental operating request before Executive adjustments that was presented by the Department to the Board of Education and approved by the board was $25.8 million. This was a much more lean and focused than we presented in the past. In fiscal 25 supplemental year we requested 198 million.

So this is a really deliberate shift on our part towards restraint and prioritization. Throughout the process, we looked first at where the Department of Education could prioritize and look within to realign and reallocate existing resources. And we applied creative priorities for being able to rise things to the level of making a request for additional funds.

Both the supplemental and this cockpit improvement budget request were reviewed and approved by the Board of Education in October and prior to submission to the Governor. Summary of our request is that you can see that we broke it down into different categories.

We recognize the state budget is one of the most critical pieces of legislation every year and that the session comes with uncertainty, especially with the federal changes. At the same time council and revenues recent projection gives us some cautious optimism.

This slide shows our budget request by category that and moving from left to right we have different items so I'm going to just talk about so you have an idea of what the categories are. Globally Competitive Locally Committed category this is 3.69 million to sustain and build student progress. It includes funding to support our math initiative.

Deputy Armstrong talked about our focus on improving math and that includes, for example, math flows for every complex area. The school food category includes 3.56 million to support 26 positions and 1.64 million to support regional kitchen operations. Critical Infrastructure category addresses essential operational, physical, and technology needs, including $1 million for repair and maintenance for neighbor island schools.

Health and safety includes supports such as refuse disposal and wildfire prevention. These are largely to deal with inflationary costs. The realignment category, which is net zero in terms of cost, reflects our continued effort to redeploy and reallocate existing resources to current priorities.

And finally, we've included a placeholder here for federal fund replacement or federal funding that the state might provide depending on how the congressional budget goes. Together, this makes up 25.8 million that the Department requested and the board approved. The Governor's budget was unable to accommodate the majority of the Department's board approved requests.

As reflected here, the Executive budget includes a $30 million reduction in general funds for preventative maintenance. These are the 75 million in operating funds that the Legislature appropriated last year that were reduced to 30 million in the final budget and these funds are currently restricted.

The increases that were included in the Governor's budget include support for regional kitchen operations. These are key funds to support our state progress towards the state goal for locally sourced products. Overall, the net effect of the Executive adjustments is a reduction of approximately 28.4 million to the department's General Fund based budget.

As we move into the legislative session, we look forward to working with you to discuss the remaining student focus needs and operational impacts of the budget. Slide 20 is a little further detail of the Governor's Executive budget. I can describe this in more detail if you have questions.

So, looking ahead to next year and beyond, it's imperative that we sustain the momentum for positive student outcomes. Student learning cannot be deferred. We deface challenges. We face challenges known and unknown moving forward. First is the uncertainty about the federal education role as well as the funding.

Next, inflationary costs for goods and services that are supported by both the operating and the CFP budgets. Third, is recruiting and retaining qualified staff. Fourth, we know that our student enrollment is changing. We see small declines annually. We also see shifting enrollment of families moving to communities with new developments like West Oahu.

We're taking action to address student enrollment. This includes both requests for new campuses where population has shifted to and reviewing enrollment and school programs where population shifted from. And finally, the condition of our school facilities continues to be a challenge.

Deputy Souki will now describe our CIP requests related to our school.

Thank you, Chair, Vice Chair, Members. These priorities on this slide were considered when preparing the Department's supplemental CIP request for fiscal year 26-27. The Department CIP request is significant because we manage over 21.5 million square feet of facilities across approximately 260 sites and 4,000 plus facilities.

We appreciate the Legislature's continued support for the lump sum approach to CIP budgeting, which has really made a difference since Act 15. The Department has reevaluated and will continue to reassess CIP and deferred maintenance priorities. With this updated perspective, we are refining our prioritization process to better distinguish necessities from wants.

Much of this request is organized into the 11 lump sum categories of buckets, which provide an efficient and manageable way to group facility and infrastructure projects. We continue to work closely with complex area superintendents and principals as we implement the Department's CIP program.

We also engage with legislators and other partners to help provide clarity and status of CIP. For example, we periodically send letters, I believe we recently sent one that updates each legislator on projects in the district. We hope you find that helpful.

Overall, this request reflects a continued step toward a more fiscally responsible, targeted and sustainable approach to to addressing the basic infrastructure needs of a changing public education system. The next slide starts one of three slides that summarize the Department supplemental budget request. It shows Act 250 what we requested and the Executive budget that was carry forward.

The Board of Education approved 784.4 million and when combined with Act 250 the total is 950.9 million. The Executive budget request includes 475.5 million. The table shows how the Executive request differs from the budget approved request across the lump sum categories. These differences reflect reductions across multiple categories starting with deferred maintenance funding.

This supplements the Act 250 funds and provides a total budget to meet the biennium funding needs to maintain campuses statewide. This funding will improve facilities in need of repairs or replacements along useful life infrastructure and facilities and this results in future cost savings. Our financing challenges compound our inability to address the growing maintenance backlog.

The Department is not requesting any federal funding on that line item since lump sum federal grant funding was already appropriated in Act 250. Health and safety funding addresses fire alarm replacements, elevator replacements and the modernization, electrical upgrades, sewer and water systems, traffic safety, flood mitigation, etc. for various schools.

Our capacity funding bucket covers project costs for new schools, including King Kamehameha, the third elementary school replacement that was 141 million, construction of East Kapolei Elementary School we have at 142.028 million plus 3.9 million in fair share, and the start of planning and design for the Koa Ridge Elementary School 1.308 million of fair share. Compliance Funding bucket includes ADA improvements for public accommodations program access, public and student accommodations, gender equity and other types of compliance and required CIP Fund. Instructional funds will address facilities for special education and medically fragile science facilities upgrades band room renovations, science, technology, engineering, arts, math, career, and technical education spaces.

The support facilities funds are intended to cover overdue replacement facilities including a gymnasium, administration, library, and baseball field improvements. Our project completion funds were to allow the completion of ongoing CIP projects including furnishing new buildings and facilities with student and non position related furniture and contingency funding to complete projects already in construction.

The telecommunications bucket were to address the replacement bell and paging systems for eight schools. Finally, for the CIP request, the Hawaii 3Rs statewide project is for the renovation or conversion of the Waiakea High School library to a medical health services lab for career and technical education.

This is a project to support workforce development initiatives that are a partnership with Hawaii Healthcare association of Hawaii. This project was not part of the Board approved budget, but we are supportive of the opportunity that it provides for our students to meet community needs. And finally, this slide highlights the Department's capital requests related to new schools.

Our requests include funding for construction of the replacement school for King Kamehameha 3rd Elementary School in Lahaina, new construction of East Kapolei Elementary School, which is driven by housing and population growth in that area.

We are also requesting funding to begin planning and design for Koa Ridge Elementary School so that we can align future school capacity with planned residential development and be ready to move efficiently when construction funding becomes available for that project. These requests reflect the Department's focus on addressing critical facility needs while planning responsibly for future growth. Turn it back to the Superintendent.

Yeah. On the topic of new builds, I want to briefly note that the Department has demonstrated its ability to deliver complex school construction projects efficiently.

A recent example is Mokapu Elementary School completed the first phase of a full campus reconstruction in two and a half years from when we receive funding. With the school remaining fully operational throughout the Bill. Model to Representative Lee for joining us at the opening event.

And I must say that that school is designed such that it really supports student learning. It has the necessary space to do activities both inside the classroom and outside in the hall. Fully air conditioned that supports what we need for our students moving forward.

This first phase replaced a campus originally built in 1960 with modern learning environments, including a new administration, library, and classroom facilities with capacity for nearly 1,000 students. The $147 million project was delivered through a strong partnership with the US Department of Defense which covered 80% of the project costs with state funds providing a 20% match.

The project demonstrates our capacity to plan, coordinate, and eschew large scale school construction while maintaining continuity for students and staff. I really invite our Committee Members here today who are interested to visit the new school, Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

I know that you will be truly amazed at a school that the Department has built in partnership with the Federal Government. I also want to share a little bit about the Lahaina Workforce Housing project. That's a 29 million dollar project, 47 unit permanent housing. The groundbreaking is going to be in May.

I'm sorry, groundbreaking in May 2025, started. We anticipate opening in March 2026. So less than a year later to support our employees in lineup to move into 47 units, 47 permanent housing. At the core of the Department of Education's work is simple, it's a simple charge to educate Hawaii's children.

Everything we've shared today, our academic progress, our budget requests, our capital planning is a service of that responsibility. We recognize that you're weighing many competing needs across state government, particularly in a time of fiscal austerity.

Our approach this year has been disciplined and intentional, focusing on essential needs, managing risk and prioritizing resources where they have the greatest impact on students. The long term health of our state depends on today's students being prepared not only to succeed academically, but to build their lives, careers and communities here in Hawaii.

That outcome requires sustained investment, careful planning, and shared accountability. I want to thank you for your continued attention to our schools, our employees, and most importantly, our students. The partnership between the Legislature and the Department in policy, in resources and in oversight is essential to fulfilling our mission.

We approach this work in the spirit of nepapa, working together in unison toward a common goal. We look forward to continuing that work with you. Mahalo very much for your support, for your continued support and investment in the students in our public school system. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Members, questions for the Department who wants to start us. Off? Okay, Rep. Kucsh, go ahead.

Thank you for both for coming and highlighting all what the DOE does. Three daughters went through the school system, two still in high school. So appreciate it.

I have some questions regarding the maintenance factor roughly 20 years ago, DAGS used to do a much greater portion of the maintenance factor and then it switched. And I think as an outer island legislator, we can celebrate the successes here on Oahu because that's well known in the DOE sphere. When you're outer island, sometimes harder. And the folks on the outer islands hands are a little bit tied because it's very centralized and it's difficult to coordinate even small tasks like painting.

And I'm wondering what's your opinion on maybe, you know, going back to when DAGS had a greater hand at performing maintenance beyond just like changing a doorknob, like for like, you know, they have a very limited menu that they can tackle and it seems very inefficient because a lot of times they will show up and then there's, you know, there's more to the issue.

The reason the door handle needs replacing is because the door is falling off and the stud is rotten or whatever. Just using as an example. And then that goes to an Oahu centric base to go out for bit, you know, just like, I mean, I could go on and on and on.

And I'm just wondering where, where can we find a better balance to take those maintenance needs where we have personnel on island who can, you know, these are not complex things. We're not rebuilding a whole school or painting. We're switching out fans or lights and minor electrical, doing these things. Any, any thoughts on that, or?

Thank you very much for question. First off, I really want to thank Comptroller Keith Regan. We have a really good relationship with DAGS, I think.

You know, and I really appreciate his efforts that he's made with DAGS personnel in doing the best that they can to be working together with us to be responsive to the needs of our schools on the neighbor islands.

As you're aware, you know, we do have a service level agreement with DAGS that we're actually revisiting and taking a look at to see, you know, what agency would be responsible to, to improve the responsiveness supports to our schools.

I hear what you're saying, and I'm going to let Deputy Souki and if our other folks in the Office of Facilities and Operations have any other insights. I do know, though, that our neighbor island schools are tremendously important to us and we want to be definitely responsive to the needs on all of our islands. So with that, Deputy Souki

Yeah, we are constantly working to improve how we address issues in the repair maintenance program through our facilities maintenance branch. There was sort of a mix of different types of response issues that you mentioned, they all get a different level of addressing depending on what they are.

So if you're talking about, for example, electrical, those can morph into larger project than just a repair and maintenance that requires working with the electric company and sometimes evolves into a capital improvement project. And so it comes out from the RNM.

But generally for projects and service labor agreement that superintendent mentioned, there are projects that are listed out that DAGS responds to on island. They have people on island. They just hired someone to coordinate work on Maui. They're filling those positions and they are responsive and we have some oversight over that.

But they are the first ones in the field. And when there are issues we hear from campus principals calling about this might not be addressed. We do make an effort to talk with DAGS, see where it is. My staff knows their staff and they try to work on it to get the problem resolved.

And if it is a larger issue than just, you know, painting, it's a larger issue than we work on how we get that into CIP and work through the buckets that you folks are working for us and get that work done.

Program, project, which might take a little longer to program, but it's, you know, it's, it's in the pipe. We're doing our best to address it and the needs of the neighbor islands. Just to reiterate, I'm a Maui boy. I went through the public school system. I know what it's like.

And I'm just, trust me, I'm just your unfiltered version of what your employees are saying and what's out there in the zeitgeist. Because I don't work for you and I don't, you know, and until I'm advocating on the students, the parents, the teachers, the admin, the maintenance people, there's.

I feel like there's room for expansion to change that. And I hope when you, when you look at your service agreements that you allow some expansion of DAGs. Maybe because they have the people in the field. I know there's a. And maybe it can be a limited time and just see how that goes.

A three year trial or something, test the waters. I just, you know, that's the feedback and I'm just being unfiltered because I can play that middleman. Yeah. And I appreciate all of your efforts. Trust me. Don't get it. Wrong.

We did have actually a discussion related to the resources that's needed to be able to address preventive and deferred maintenance. And the discussion that we had was really bring clarity to preventive maintenance. In my head is looking at what do we do proactively to be sure that something doesn't break. Right?

That we're addressing those things and being proactive to it. Deferred maintenance in my head is things that have broken, but we don't have the resources to be able to address it. So we need to defer that until we get resources to fix. It. Right?

And so they work hand in hand because as we can build up the preventative maintenance, we can lessen the deferred . And I think that speaks to the importance of the resources that the Department needs to be able to address the deferred maintenance needs that we have in our schools.

And so I hear you about, definitely about the responsiveness and how we can. We'll continue to work with our schools on that. And let me tell you, I do have principals that call me and say, hey, Keith, you know, what about this and what about that? Which is great. Yeah, I know they call awful to do the same thing.

When I go out to the field and I visit schools and I'm talking with them and we do a walkthrough, you know, we're able to talk and discuss and problem solve together. So I think that that's really important.

So we'll continue to work together with our schools and reach out to them and work together with our partners in Department of Accounting and General Services.

Okay. Yeah. Anything we can encourage to decentralize and take some of the load off the Administration here at Oahu. So you got some great people on the field out there. Jeff, Arnold, on my side of the island, West Hawaii. Those are good people. They're resourceful.

And maybe some of those dividing lines could be moved out of Oahu, give a little more autonomy to the outer islands. I think that would be a good move. And along with DAGS opening up their ability to take on more than just like, for, like, doorknobs.

Because everything escalates a little bit when you're working with older stuff. But it's, but it's definitely in their wheelhouse. Thank. You. Thank you. Chair.

If I could just add about, if I could just add about the preventative maintenance.

Sure.

One thing that happened in the budget that I think is important to look at is we requested 30 million in operating for preventative maintenance, and the Executive request removed it to CIP.

We're not going to turn down money,

Sure.

But it does tie our hands to use preventative maintenance money, which is more flexible on the operating side than to have it in CIP.

Yeah, no, I understood. I am not barking at you guys. I get the guard rails. But at the same time I feel like you got a bunch of great talent between here and there and we just might need to shift some responsibilities and it might free up bandwidth. Thank you.

Rep. Keohokapu-Lee Loy followed by Rep. Hussey.

Thanks, Chair. Thanks gentlemen for being here. Excited to see you here. Strong hand when it comes to land planning and development. So thank you for joining. I'm going to be a little bit more filtered than my colleague from the big island and I too share those concerns.

Right? Neighbor islands go through a very different process when it comes to repair and maintenance of our school facilities, which I keep asking this question not only of your Department.

I'm looking for a needs assessment where we see a number of repair and maintenance and or deferred maintenance costs and we gave you guys lump sum monies but I'm trying to prioritize it one because I know a roof repair actually extends the lifespan of a facility compared to doorknobs and paint.

And so mentally and strategically I'm trying to assist the Department but I don't see that type of needs assessment as in immediately emergency repairs compared to it can wait five more years. Is there a development of that type of needs assessment for our state school assets on the neighbor islands?

We have. We know.

Okay.

We know what the deferred maintenance items are and those are funded through the buckets, through prioritization across all 258 or so schools across the state. There's all these needs. And so we know what the neighbor island and Oahu schools needs are.

But through that, however much ever money we have, you know, we deploy it and you can see over the past few bienniums how much we asked for and how much we received in those buckets. A big, big difference. So it's a question of funding, not necessarily identifying the needs.

Absolutely. Because I believe in priority funding. Right? Sometimes just put it all in one place because you're going to improve 10 things rather than one small thing across 10 different assets. Absolutely.

Which then walks me into the question about your CIP lists, specifically your method of funding, your P funding and your X funding, which is your federal grants. And I heard you kind of discuss about the potential of loss in federal funds funding. That's on slide, looks like 23, what the plan is specifically for the P funding and the X funding and more of the federal grants. If we don't realize that from.

The CIP perspective we're not aware of any federal fund, CIP fund.

Can you clarify if your question is about the CIP federal impacts for CIP or federal impacts cooperating?

It's on slide 23 which is capital improvement, CIP request. And then they have the lump fund, lump sum funding. There's lump sum, CIP federal grants statewide and then method of funding.

So. So, I know it's not my area, but I know the answer.

Okay.

The federal funds you receive for CIP are related to the public schools and military installations program. So that's like Mocapu for example. So this is the funds that appear here would be the state share and we're not asking for any this year. So.

But they're not at risk either.

There's been Department of. So the funds that we already have committed themselves that are in the budget are, those are not at risk. The Federal Government is relooking at future projects and how much share they would put in versus us.

So we've seen recently like with Mocapu, they put in 80%, we put in 20%, and then we get a new rebuild. It looks like that that proportion might change. So we might not.

Formula might change rather than 80/20 split or what. Okay. And then is that the same for the X?

Okay, I'm gonna have to let somebody else take that.

On slide 23, lump sum CIP capacity statewide method of funding we have the letter X.

Public works Administrative.

Hi, good afternoon. So the X funds that are in there is what we call other funds that is specifically in this particular ask is for, from our fair share developer agreements that existed back in the day a long time ago. And so developers that were developing in areas statewide had to contribute. And so that's the money.

And so this particular instance we're asking for the funding in the area of the Campbell Kapolei area which is for the new East Kapolei elementary school. So whatever funding we have have that was allocated into that, we're trying to use all of that and, and minimize the amount of the bigger ask.

It's on the table. Go get it. I understand.

And then the other one is for the Koa Ridge to start the design on that.

Okay. And then my last question as a Waikia High school graduate and alumni, absolutely thrilled tee the work for the library and the modification of modernization. Just curious. In building off my colleagues questions about the neighbor islands, we're seeing construction costs beyond premiums. It's 30, 40 almost 60% higher because of shipping costs.

Just asking out loud, has that been factored into the repair and maintenance as it applies to our neighbor island schools. Because even if you're changing, like for like, it's rather unfortunate because of shipping costs, a doorknob here is a dollar, but on the neighbor islands, specifically Big Island, it's a buck 75.

So I'm just asking if any thought was given into this deferred maintenance, repair maintenance for the premiums that the neighbor islands have to consider.

So. Yeah, that's a, That's a very good question. Again, these are when we put budgets together, it's estimates and it's point in time. Right? So a lot of things could change. We could get more tariffs, there could be a strike, there could be a shortage. So we can't factor things that we don't have control over.

But for what we know at point in time. And it's not just the Big Island, Maui is also way higher. So, yes, we try to factor that in as well.

Okay. Yeah. And just a filtered push. I think there's DAGS, there's how repair, maintenance, and how things are scheduled for DOE through DAGS for the neighbor islands, which is very different from city and county of Honolulu. And just how we can do that better open to putting our heads together and/or legislation, if necessary, to help our neighbor island campuses. Thank you.

Rep. Hussey

Thank you. Okay, I have three quick questions and then you can just respond to them as you feel. I guess the first one isn't really a question, but a comment about the $30 million that the Governor has decided to withdraw from your preventative maintenance piece of the budget.

And I think that's a great challenge to our, you know, to the third and fourth floors and the second floor of this building to figure out how do we restore some of that funding, because obviously that would be preferable to have that 30 million back in. I had a question about East Kapolei Elementary.

Curious what the timing looks like for that. Obviously, that's not my district, but there were some folks in the community who had asked me for information about that. So I just wanted to ask that question. And the second question is, you know, last August there was that report from the auditor's office regarding air conditioning in DOE schools.

And I'm curious if there's an update on where we are with that. Thank you.

Thank you very much. For the first question.

What was the question exactly, about the 30 million?

It wasn't really a question. It was more of a political statement. But maybe the East Kapolei Elementary?

So thank you very much for considering that and our needs in that area. East Kapolei Elementary. The, the timing? Related to East Kapolei?

Yeah. You know, if the money is appropriated then, then we'd move into construction and that take goes to the normal course. You know, it takes about five years to get through everything you need to get through to put a project open it. Right? So I don't know if Jadine has specific dates or times for that.

Yeah.

Im asking her to come up because she, she puts the projects together.

So if we get the funding this year, we will move forward to. Because it's already in design. I mean it.

We're, we're going in for permitting right now and then we would, once we get the funding, we would go ahead and bid it out and then construction could then progress and be finished within the 2, 2 and a half year time frame.

Okay, thanks. I'll follow up with for more specifics later.

The last question was regarding the AC audit, the air conditioning audit. So we have looked at the two parts of that audit and so the first part was related to the cooling the classrooms. So I think either Jadine or Jesse can address that, the first component.

And the second component is what do we do to continue to cool classrooms. And the process that we put in place now working with principals to be able to replace like for like.

I do realize also that when we look at air conditioning, it's sometimes a bigger picture in terms of it's connected to the electrical, meaning electrical upgrade to bring them up to the point where we can go ahead and put air conditioning in. So let's start with the first part on the.

Yeah. What we can say about the cooling is that these are the ACs that were put in with the money that Governor appropriated to that program.

We can say that 100% of those units that were installed as part of those PV AC unvetted projects are operating and we know the way they are maintaining them. So that's for that sort of chunk of it.

For the other, cooling the other schools, you know, there's about 523 or so schools that are cooled and we are working on as funds become available, doing CIP to, you know, bring forward other cooling, schools as superintendent had mentioned, now have an opportunity to request cooling at the schools.

But we have brought the decision on how to cool, when to cool the school back to the Department as it was before.

Because what had happened in the past was that these systems were being put in without kind of following the property procedure about is electrical upgrades required and you know, that could cause problems, require follow up and additional work.

So it's being evaluated now by OFO, the Office of Facilities, who are ensuring that when these requests are made and these projects are put into programming to be installed, that all of the T's are crossed I's are dotted, that the proper permits are being obtained and that the systems are going to work and not impact the school itself.

So turn on the light switch in one place, things will burn out. So we are, we feel comfortable that we can address the cooling of the schools as funds become available and as requests are made for these types of systems.

Okay. We can also follow up with any other additional questions.

Maybe what I will request in writing is just a list of which schools, which classrooms do not yet have appropriate cooling.

Okay. Anything additional?

No. Thank you.

Okay. Repre. Soda.

Thank you, superintendent and the Department for coming. We all know that West Oahu, specifically the Campbell complex for Ewa Beach, is overcrowded. We are lucky to have our former complex area superintendent in here, Sean Tajima, for many years. He would know that better than anybody else in this room.

Can you explain to me what your vision or plan is to meet the needs of leeward Oahu in terms of school facilities for the future?

Definitely. And I can ask. I can start. So definitely, when we look. At what communities are growing. West Oahu Campbell comp definitely. We have a lot more units and it's growing quickly. This past year, we've. We have had to reconfigure boundaries and where students are attending, which has impacted some of the students and their families.

The growth in Campbell and Kapolei is definitely there. It's growing. And we do need additional supports and facilities to address that growth. One of the requests we have in is for East Kapolei Elementary School. That would be one ask that I think as we look at what's happening with families that are moving into the area, there may be additional asks that are needed in the future to address. To address the expansion of Kapolei especially.

Okay. So from my understanding, after listening to some of the Department coming up here, designs have been completed for East Kapolei in 2020. Right? But there's another ask for 3.9 million for design. Can you tell me what, what that is different than the design that was appropriated or spent before.

For the East Kapolei Elementary School, the again, the total funding, I think it's like roughly about that 3.9 million that you've mentioned.

So a lot of that will go into supporting the what we call post design services during construction that will be needed to review and take over the submittals, the request for information and ensuring that the design is being constructed properly.

So then my question to that would be, what do you anticipate as roadblocks to be able to get the construction for East Coppola Elementary School started and finished in two and a half years?