Senate Standing Committee on Education

Good afternoon, everyone. Calling to order the Committee on education. Today's Friday, January 23rd. It is 1:03pm Conference room 2 to 9. And today I would like to also bring. This is our very first meeting of the year of the Committee by itself. Introduce my Members.

To my left is Vice Chair Senator Kidani, and to her left is Senator Fukunaga. To my right is Senator Hashimoto and Senator DeCorte. So we're all here, all five Members of the Committee.

So today's informational briefing is about accountability at the Hawaii Department of Education in light of two recent state auditor reports, one on classroom heat abatement and the other on driver's education program on heat abatement. The Legislature approved 100 million to cool 1,000 public classrooms in 2016.

These investments were made because excessive heat directly affects student health, learning and teacher retention. The auditor's report raises serious concerns about planning, execution and whether those funds are translating into timely relief for students and educators. The driver's education audit similarly identifies gaps in access, oversight and program delivery.

Despite continued legislative funding for many students, especially in rural and underserved areas, driver education is essential and not optional. When programs fall short, students lose opportunities and public dollars are not used as intended. In both cases, the Legislature did its part. We provided the funding.

The audits call into question whether Department has the management systems and accountability measures in place to deliver results consistent with the legislative intent. So this briefing is not just about reviewing the audits. We expect clear answers on how much funding has been spent, what outcomes have been achieved, where delays occurred, and what corrective actions are underway.

So going forward, we expect a written corrective action plan, clear timelines, measurable benchmarks, and regular reporting to the Legislature when public funds are appropriated, especially at this scale, we do expect transparency, accountability and results. And more importantly, we expect our students to benefit from this.

And so for our first audit, we will be taking up Audit 2506 Department of Education and Department of Transportation, administrative Administration of driver education programs and calling on the auditor's office to give us an overview of the audits. And then we will have responders from the appropriate departments come up. Ok, Les.

Good afternoon. Thank you for hosting this briefing. We like these briefings about our reports. My name is Les Kondo. I'm the state auditor. We issued this report about driver education in April of last year, 2025.

We started this audit because of Concurrent Resolution that that requested us to audit both the Department of Education and the Department of Transportation's driver education program. Specifically, it asked us to look at whether the Department of Transportation was Department of Education was providing driver education in its public schools. What they were doing to address the backlog.

It also asks us to look more broadly at both programs, their procedures, their policies. I think maybe Senator Hashimoto was one of the introducers of this resolution. So we appreciate the ask, really enjoy doing this report. Driver education in Department of Education and Department of Transportation. Those programs, they are separate distinct programs. They are not one program.

They each have their own separate distinct program. And because of that. Sorry, because of that, it's really two separate audits.

So I'm going to talk first about Department of Education's driver education program and perhaps maybe we'll take a second or two and talk to the Department of Education and I can come back and talk about the Department of Transportation's program that relates to driver education. So first about the Department of Education.

Little background about DOE and their and their Department their driver education program. Driver education in Department of Education schools It was created by the Legislature in 196660 years ago. And this is the language from the Department of. From that Act Act 42 in 1966. And it identified the Legislature at that time.

It identified this problem that these motor vehicle accidents were causing deaths and. And injuries and and just kind of a side note for Director Sniffin.

According to the act that year there were a Hundred and in 1965, the year before the act, 105 people died on our roads and 8,300 people were injured in motor vehicle accidents in 1965.

Of course not.

See wasn't even for so Senator, you are not one of the people driving on the roads in those days. Some of us may have been. No, not really. Anyway. Sorry, but the I was dead.

Thank God.

The Legislature directed the Department to create a driver education and training program in its public high schools after hours on Saturdays and during summer recess. And then explain the purpose of the program. The Legislature did cite the grave problems created by high motor vehicle accident and death and death rates.

And it deemed this program to be a matter of urgency that the Department provide this instruction to minors as a solution to protect and preserve health, safety and welfare of the public. In 1999, the Legislature made completion of formal driver education program mandatory to get a driver's license for drivers under the age of 18.

So this will age some of us because some of us may be in one never took formal driver education class. 1999 that's when it was became a requirement that started Bill passed in 1999 effective in 2001 in 20202005 sorry, the Legislature passed another law that required graduated driver licensing requirements.

In other words, there were three steps to becoming a licensed driver in the state of Hawaii starting in 2005. But the law today, it still in essence, mirrors the law that was enacted by the Legislature in 1966.

It's been now codified or re codified as Section 302A413, which is on the screen right here, and it directs the Department, or actually, I take that back, it says the Department may authorize or establish a driver education program. It also says that the Department, for purposes of this section, shall do certain things.

Those things being that they must set priorities and prerequisites. They must establish and employ the necessary requirements for and employ the necessary instructors, and they are going to issue or required to issue a certificate of completion of the course upon successful completion by the students. I got to note that this statute, this is the only statute.

I take it back. There's another statute I'm going to show you in a second. But this is the only statute, really, that defines this program, that sets up the structure of this program. There's no other more detailed provisions in the law about how the Department of Education is supposed to deliver driver education.

The Department also may implement or adopt administrative rules, specifically in 302A413. And it's a really important provision. I'm going to come back and talk about administrative rules in a little bit. The other provision in the statute, the only other provision that relates to driver education in the Department of Education schools is this provision.

And this provision says that the Department of Education will hold classes, will certify their own instructors. They'll have courses to certify their own instructors. This is an important provision. I'm going to come back and talk about it later on when we talk about the Department of Transportation's Administration of their program.

But this is something that is important for the Department of Education and something that the Department of Education was not able to do when the Department of Transportation had taken over or when they were administering their program. So I'll talk about this in a second. So what did we find?

We basically found in a nutshell that the Department of Education did not complete the program structure for driver education in its schools. The Legislature created some broad General framework, and it directed the Department of Education to complete that framework, the structure of the program through administrative rules, and the Department did not.

What we found instead is the Department had offered driver education in 35 of its 68 high schools. The 68 high schools includes 21 public charter schools. And of the 35 schools where driver education was offered, three of them were in public charter schools.

So in total, 35 out of 68 public high school offered driver education when we performed this audit. And that would have probably been around the timeframe being late 2024, early 2025.

So what we also found is, we found the Department had not promulgated rules, as they were required by law to do those necessary details to complete the program. That's what's missing from this program. It had not established the prerequisites and priorities that the law directed them to do. It had not.

It had stopped providing training for its own instructors. And like I said earlier, that's at the direction, I think, of the Department of Transportation. We'll talk about that in a second. The Department also didn't have any policies and procedures to guide how driver education was going to be administered in its schools.

Instead of a program, it was treated just like any other after school extracurricular activity. But the Legislature determined that it was the state policy that driver education was going to be a Department program. There's a very big difference between that policy directive and just any other extracurricular activity after school, like robotics or debate.

So as a result, what we found is, we found that there was no uniform manner in which driver education was offered at Department of Education High Schools. 35 schools offered instruction, in essence, the way that they want to do, 35 different ways.

School principals, the school's driver education coordinators, they really had control over whether the school was going to offer driver education and then how they were going to offer it. And I mean, by how that means how they were going to, in essence, advertise so that students or people who were under the age of 19 could apply.

And I forgot something.

The law requires driver education to be available to students, sorry, residents of the state of Hawaii, who, who are age 15 and under the age of 19, regardless of whether they attend that particular high school, whether they attend private school, whether they've graduated already, or whether they've just dropped out from school or maybe they're homeschooled.

But the law requires driver education to be available equally to students or residents who are 15 and under 19 between that age period.

So what we found is the schools, the principals, the coordinators, they were deciding how they were going to advertise, my word, advertise that people could apply for driver education, how that application process worked, who got into the courses, how wait lists, if waitlists were maintained at all what the purpose was and how those were administered.

All of that was decided by the schools and the principal, the school principals and the driver education coordinators at the school. It was not a centralized, uniform, consistent process, as you'd expect with a program that the Department of education was supposed to create. It's that lack of structure.

It really created an opportunity which we'll talk about where it was every man for themselves, kind of the wild wild West. And we see examples where there was favoritism, where there was unfair treatment for people, students, residents, kids, teenagers who wanted to take driver education.

That opportunity was not available to them because of this lack of structure, lack of policy, lack of what we would call controls, where management could ensure that the program was operating the way that they intended and have some supervisory oversight to make sure that it was being off grid the way that they intended.

What we did see, so what we did is it was very difficult for us to locate driver education information on the school websites. How are is a student or resident supposed to understand what opportunities are available for them? So we looked at many school websites and we found that there were different approaches to advertising driver education.

Some didn't have any information about driver education. We did find a number of schools were using Google forms for the application. Handful of them, not all of them, but the forms were different. Some of them required certain information, others required other information. One form required students to provide their, their permit number.

They some one school required them to indicate where they went to school. And it only listed a handful of schools. The schools within that or near that district. Other schools required other information on their Google form document. Their application, it was different. It wasn't standardized. It wasn't one size or one way. It was done differently.

But we also found that some schools like Waipahu is an example. Many schools, they didn't use an electronic online system. They required paper forms. Here's an example, and it's from the Waipahu newsletter. You'd have to find the newsletter to be able to find this information.

I'm not sure how widely disseminated that newsletter is, but it says that you need to pick up the packet in this room. Stop by P36 to pick up an application. Here's another example. Roosevelt High School students must turn in a hard copy of their application. Another example from Kalani.

Here's the hard copy application that needs to be filled out and turned in. This is a good example too. This is Kylie High School online form. Not online form, paper form that we could access through their website.

The Problem is when we looked at this and we found this in late 2024, Kaiser High School, sorry, Kailua High School had stopped offering driver education in 2022. They had the application still up, no information about the fact that driver education was no longer offered at the school.

It was something that a student might to access, fill out and then turn in. But they're not offering driver education at that school. We did see some schools. Sorry. So what we did find because of this lack of structure is often how you get in is who you know.

And we have a little text box here which is this slide. We little. We did a little text box about a situation at Radford High School where some Punahou students were allowed to take driver education during the school day. So that's a four credit course.

A little different than the extracurricular after school courses that we primarily, primarily looked at here. We looked at this one and we highlight this one. Just because by DOE rule, only students registered at the school are supposed to be allowed to take four credit courses during the school day at the school.

These students, initially the allegation was 10. We ended up finding that there were. Well, we ended up talking about the Department of Education's investigation or Department of Transportation's investigation. They only identified two students. The students were Puno students and there was some relationship to faculty at the school.

The students had a relationship with faculty at Radford High School.

So actually they'll be able to take. Take the class during the school day. They're not at school.

They're not supposed to. So that I think. I'm sorry, that was my point is that without any kind of structure, any kind of oversight, these kind of favoritism issues, it certainly arose. No, no, our scope is very limited. Maybe the superintendent can answer that question. Oh, just kidding.

Anyway, so this who, you know, thing, we suspect it's probably more than just this incident. Incident, because when we talk to other driver education coordinators, how do you select people for, for the class? One person told us, well, I asked the, the teammates of my football, of my son's football team whether they're interested.

So there's other ways that people would be able to get enrolled in a driver education class. That is really not fair. It's not transparent. It's not equal access to all. So that's the point that we're making here, that with a program without that structure, every school was doing it their own way.

And the result of that was inequity was unequal treatment was sometimes favoritism. Not the way a program really should be operated. So one school, casel they did have a wait list. So online, something that you fill out. Not every school maintained a wait list required by DOE rules or policy to have a wait list at every school.

So without a wait list, the Department cannot understand the demand. And that was, I think, one of the Senators concerns about what is the demand for driver education? How can the Department of Education perhaps meet that demand? Kind of. It is aside.

Department of Education charges $10 a student to enroll and participate in Department of Education driver education instruction. If you're not able to take that instruction and you have to go to take driver education in a private. In the private sector, the cost is about $550.

So that $10. Was that the initial amount in 60 years ago?

I believe so, but I'm not 100% sure. I don't think the amount has changed. I'm not sure. Maybe the Department can answer that question better than I can about how long it's been $10. But the difference between the 10 and the 550, it's significant. But without a wait list, it's very difficult to gauge demand.

Some wait lists maintained by coordinators in their head, not on paper. Not some kind of record that somebody could see, not some way that somebody else could determine whether or not they were going down the wait list if there's openings or maybe for future years.

One coordinator told us that people sign up when they're freshme, but she takes the seniors. So in other words, the freshmen eventually may get into the class, but they're going to have to wait a few years before they're able to enroll in the class.

She felt that it was more appropriate, better for her to service the people that were older and not necessarily the people that were younger. That's not a Department policy. That's certainly not in the statute without that structure in the rules. She just made that.

She just made a decision about how she was going to select students to be part of the class.

So I wanted to talk quickly about the significance of the program. I keep talking about program, program, program. I know initially the Department questioned what a program was. They didn't think they needed to establish a program because the language of the laws may establish and administer a program, not mandatory. So the Department suggested that they did not have to create a program. `

They suggested, and we do not say this, that they don't have to have a program in every school. I agree with that. The law doesn't require them to have driver education in every school, and we did not suggest that.

So I hope that got clarified or cleared up with the Department. But there's a significance when the Legislature decides, as state policy, that driver education is going to be a program. That's state policy. It's not an extracurricular activity.

You know, like I mentioned, drama, robotics, where perhaps the principal or the Department decides they want to offer this type of instruction. This is state policy. State policy requires consistency, requires structure. So the importance of this is that there needs to be a program started in 1966, continued through Section 302A413 today.

Can you summarize?

Surely.

What was the response from the Department?

Okay. And what's important is the rules. That's how you develop the structure. They got the authority to implement rules. They need to do that. We have a little thing about rules here. You guys probably are familiar with rules. We try to educate the Department and other readers of our report about what administrative rules are and why they're required by law.

One difference is, perhaps it may be discretionary from the department's perspective, but once you do certain things and you affect the rights of people that use your program required by law to have administrative rules, these are our recommendations.

We included many recommendations in every report. I got to talk to you real quick, because I looked real quick yesterday or the day before about what the Department education is done. They actually have a new website, and this is one of the pages. They actually have other information on that website.

And one of the things that they've added, hopefully across the board, consistent through all their programs, is they put prerequisites and priorities for people to enroll in their classes at different schools. One of that is you got to live in the district. So I was surprised.

So you didn't have this website when you were doing?

Oh no, it's new. I hope it's in response to the audit. We always want agencies to improve and to do things better, to address the problems that we've identified. So I was surprised, happily surprised. But at the end of the day, it's not a rule. And they still need to put all this stuff in administrative rules.

The significance of that is it cannot be changed at the whim of a new administrator or new superintendent. There's a process, it's transparent. People get a chance to offer public testimony on those rules. So that's the significance of why it needs to be in a rule.

This is where our report is in case anyone here, maybe people that are watching are interested. And. Well, that's it. So anyway, sorry I rushed through the end, but thank you for the opportunity to talk about our report.

So Members, we can ask questions of the auditor who can bring up DOE. Who has questions for the auditor first?

Hey Les, thanks for that great presentation. I think good overview. I think what you told us heavily on the DOE side. I don't know if you're going to. I don't know about the DOT side.

Oh no, we have the DOT side in a separate...

Okay, we're going to do that after?

Yeah. What do you guys prefer?

Maybe a quick deal on the DOT side and then...

[Okay... Sorry...] The DOT program is like I mentioned earlier, is a different, separate, distinct program from DOE. They have their own responsibilities. Different from what DOE's responsibilities are. DOE's responsibilities, its program, it started much more recently than DOE's program. Right.

It started in, I think the year is 1999 is when the Legislature established through statute, the Department of Education, Department of Transportation's program. Again, it allowed them, authorized them to promulgate administrative rules. Unlike DOE, DOT has adopted administrative rules. They did it six years later.

But they have administrative rules that provide structure to their program, defines their responsibilities like it's supposed to do, defines the rights of people that use the program. So DOE, sorry, DOT really has two responsibilities.

Just to certify the driver, the curriculum that's going to be used to train people who are called master trainers, or train the trainers, people that train the driver instructors, certify the curriculum for the driver education instructors that teach the students and certify the curriculum that will be taught to the students. That's one of their responsibilities.

The other responsibility is to certify driver education instructors. Really, I would call it license the instructors. And I would suggest that second responsibility is somewhat ministerial. The statute or the rules provide what an instructor needs to provide, amongst other things, driver abstract, copy of their driver's license. They can't have moving violations within the last year.

No Drug or alcohol related incidents, relating to driving under the influence within the last five years, things like that, they need to show proof of that. Once they show proof of that, in my opinion, what the rule says is that the Department of Transportation shall issue the driver instructor the certificate or the license.

So what we found is the Department is doing things very differently. So, in a nutshell, what we found is the Department of Transportation allowed a relatively low level employee to run rampant, without adequate supervision to run the program if she wanted to, whether authorized by law or not. That's what we found in a nutshell.

So the Director did not certify any curriculum. And the Director by the rules, he is supposed to convene a Committee task force, curriculum task force, to review the curriculum and provide him recommendations. He eventually is supposed to certify that curriculum, which is a fundamental part of the entire program.

Without that certified curriculum, hard to issue certificates of completion of curriculum or program without the curriculum being first certified. So anyway, I want to talk a little real quickly about what we found. The highway safety specialist, the relatively low level employee, what she did, how she expanded, greatly expanded her authority under the statute. DOT's authority.

She approved curriculum. The Director did not certify curriculum. He did not delegate that responsibility down to the highway safety specialist. She just took it on herself to decide what curriculum was appropriate. Right? She substituted her decision as to what she thought was appropriate. And we would question whether that's really appropriate. She's certified master trainers.

Master trainers are the trainer people. The law or the rules do not provide for certification of master trainers. Department of Transportation's sole responsibility, with respect to master trainers, is to certify the curriculum that they must pass successfully to be a master trainer. She certified it.

She certified three people, three that had relationships or she had relationships to them. The first one that she certified was based upon this training course that they went to. She and the person who she eventually certified went to this training course. I think it's in Western Washington University. And the PowerPoint presentation really is very enlightening.

It says specifically, this is not that course. This course is not to train or to help people become trainers of other instructors. Yet it was based on this course that she certified those instructors, that person to be a master trainer.

And the thing about certifying or limiting who would become a master trainer is because those people eventually would train people that wanted to be driver education instructors at a cost, not free, not part of the Department of Transportation's program. Where they would provide this for free. They would be private citizens, private individuals who would be able to charge people who wanted to become an instructor.

And it's just not DOE instructors. It's also private driving school instructors. These requirements apply to private driving school instructors just as well as DOE driver education instructors.

Another comment, and this is about the lack of any kind of oversight by the Department of Transportation as to what this person was doing. This person was using, allowing the master trainers to use the Department of Transportation seal and the State of Hawaii seal on their information that they were pushing out advertising for classes for other instructors to take.

You can't use the State of Hawaii seal to represent that you're part of the state or part of the Department. Frankly, it's illegal. But that was allowed. That was being done and without any kind of oversight pushback, any comment by anybody.

It likely was approved by the highway safety specialist, but that's my speculation. But that's based upon her relationship with the three master trainers that she had selected. This is where we get back to the DOE law. The DOE is responsible for training their own master trainers. Train the trainers.

But by limiting the number of people or the people that she decided that she certified, again, certification is not part of the requirements under the rule. But by her taking on that responsibility, she excluded the Department of Education instructors. 11 who had been previously training Department of Education instructors, she certified none of them to be master trainers.

Zero. So that required the Department of Education to send people who wanted to be driver education instructors under the Department of education to one of the three master trainers. So we saw in 2024, fiscal year 2024, four DOE employees went to private instruction with these master trainers at a cost of about $1,900 each, which the Department paid.

Department of Education paid. She also interfered with how the Department of Education was providing driver education. She dictated to them how they would provide courses. During the pandemic, she limited online or virtual courses. Not online... virtual courses, to 14 people. She never changed that once the pandemic stopped. She limited in person instruction to 10 people.

She told the Department of Education how to provide instruction. The Department of Transportation has no authority under the rules under the statute to dictate how that instruction is provided. In fact, all the Department of Transportation's rules has is the instructor has these responsibilities.

He or she is supposed to be able to decide how they provide instruction so that they can issue the certificate. She also, this may be out of order of my slides, but she also decided that if an instructor was sick and could not complete the course.

Another certified instructor could not then step in and substitute to complete the course. The students who were under the instructor who could not finish the course for whatever reason, sick or otherwise, they had to start again from step one, square one.

[She decided that people who...] She decided when instructors, their certificates were not renewed timely, even though the course that they taught was done, when the certificate was in place, that those students, that certificate that they had received from the instructor, it was invalid.

So she made up some rules on her own that greatly affected the Department of Education's instruction and the students that they provided instruction to. She required instructors to attend different kinds of classes to maintain their certificate or their license. Nott required by rules, not things that are outside of the rules.

And those classes were taught by one of the master trainers, one of the three people that she selected. And again, it's not free. It's. They had to pay. She suspended driver education instructors in a way that was not fair, not equal, not across the board. It was very arbitrary. Some people she, she suspended for different things.

They were late in renewing their certificate, they didn't do certain things. In any event, it was not a fair process. She processed driver education applications or certificates for renewal untimely.

We have a number of examples where, this is a letter dated April 6th, telling an instructor that their certificate for May 2020 through May 2021 was now approved a year earlier. Here's another letter, same date, approving a renewal for another period of time the next year. And a third letter, same date for the future year.

So clearly she was doing things very differently for different people. For other instructors, if you were late and you didn't renew on time, your certificate was suspended.

She directed county licensing departments not to honor student completion certificates if a instructor had been had been suspended even though the course had been completed by the student, the certificate was signed by the instructor while the instructor was still licensed.

She directly contacted the DMV's Department of Motor Vehicles on the different counties and instructed the vehicle examiners not to accept the statement or the certificate of completion for those students. There were times when she suspended or refused to allow the DMVs to honor certificates where the certificate didn't include the student's middle name.

There were many instances where some of her decisions and her authority, well outside of the legal authority, but some of her decisions and authority very arbitrary, very questionable. Anyway, so these are the things that we identified where she greatly exceeded her authority. We detailed it in a lot more in our report itself. We added a lot of recommendations.

Certify the curriculum, develop some consistent, clear, documented policies and procedures so that people would know how to run this program. And specifically just relating to licensing or certification of driver education instructors. So the Department of Transportation really has to understand what its roles and responsibilities are, how limited they are.

It's really akin to DCCA and PVL and them licensing other professionals. You present the application, you give the required documents, you walk away with your license unless there's an issue that comes up later that you're investigated. Anyway, here's our file. Here's our report again. And this is our website. Happy to answer any questions.

I'm sorry that I did the speed dating speed.

I have a question because I read the audit and what also troubled me is about this DOT court monitored project paid members of a non profit volleyball club around $200,000 a year and half of questionable work.

And this is the same person that you talked about that was controlling this whole program that also had this other program was doing also in conjunction with DOT. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Can you just give a brief? That's on page 46 and 47 members, If you have follow along.

This review of the Department of Transportation's driver education program, it was a very messy. We weren't messy, but understanding how things were being done, it was unbelievable. We would get a lot of different responses from the same person at different times when we talked to her.

So it was even hard for us to understand what she was doing or what she was describing. Things moved. So what we ended up trying to understand is what other responsibilities did she have? And this was one of them, the court monitoring program.

And as we learned about this, and in fact during one of the interviews she jokingly or otherwise, told somebody in my office that was talking to her, at the end of the interview, if your daughter's interested in, give me a call. So it's another one of these things where I think, it's who you knew.

And I think a lot of these people that were involved in the court monitoring, were people that had some affiliation with her volleyball club or volleyball more generally. Some of them are high school students.

Can you explain what this court monitoring is and how it's related to DOT?

I think it's through a federal grant. I'm not sure. You'd have to ask DOT. But it's where the Department of Transportation and specifically this particular program is, I'm not sure the value in Court monitoring.

But it relates to how courts are sentencing, or that what they're doing with people who are found to have driven under the influence. I think it's alcohol and how courts are dealing with that.

And I think she told us the value she felt is the judge would see somebody sitting there and would not be lenient with their defendant.

I'm not sure the judge even knew that this high school kid that's sitting there is somehow monitoring whatever sentence that he imposed on somebody that had been convicted or had fled to some drunk driving.

It's not a high school student.

I don't know if there's any... It's supposed to be a student at all. But certainly it raised questions about not only that there are high school students and you know, court does not operate on the weekends and after school hours. It's during the school day.

We didn't go into that too far, Senator, because it was outside of the driver education program. It was just part of her other responsibilities that really raised some big flags about what's going on.

And it tied to many of the affiliations that she has or had with her own volleyball club and just volleyball in the state more generally.

So one of the people, or maybe all three of the people, who were the people she designated to be the master trainers, there's some affiliation with her and maybe a volleyball affiliation. One of the people that she designated seems to have a personal relationship with her. Their address is the same address. They co own a house together.

She denied it being her her boyfriend or any other kind of personal relationship, but there's a lot of connection there.

And certainly the fact that they co own a residence together suggests that there's some monetary interest, so to speak, when she selects people for different roles and she forces or mandates that instructors go for different kinds of training through these three designated master trainers.

So this person is still with...? According to this, she left the Department?

Department of Transportation can provide more information about this. [But she went, as far as we know...] Or, we did talk to her when she had moved from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Human Services. So we had some challenges in getting her to come back to talk to us, but those got resolved through the Director.

But as far as I understand, she's still there. I don't have any information to suggest that she's no longer at DHS, but certainly even the leaving the Department of Transportation. And like I said, the Department can talk about that probably in More detail, [but I don't think].I think she gave notice after her last day kind of thing.

It was very odd. She was a very challenging person to talk with. And I'm sure the Department was challenged in having her on staff and supervising her, but I think the point is they didn't supervise her.

Any other questions for the auditor? He'll still be around because he has another auditor. So why don't we start with DOT then? I know Ed might have to leave and is really not involved in the other next audit. So why don't we start? Do you want to comment?

Yeah, so following up on the audit, I appreciate Les coming through and his staff coming through to get us the information. We followed up with all of his recommendations. So all of the recommendations are done. We've completed all those pieces, especially getting rid of the employee that was there.

Is that? You agree that all the recommendations...?

I don't know. I don't know. We have not done any assessment in a couple years, three years or so, we'll go back and we'll review the implementation of the audit recommendations. But right now, we don't know.

And the only reason why we know a little about DOE is just because I was looking around to see if they had done anything to address some of the recommendations.

So perhaps you, to save some time, you can provide the Committee with a list and what exactly that you folks done to satisfy recommendations.

Yes, definitely.

Members questions, Senator?

So, Ed, I guess how do we prevent this from happening? Because I think, you know, as the person that introduced the RESO originally, you were aware of what was going on. And then I think just the frustration with your department's response is why we had to do this RESO.

And I don't think it should have been taken to this far, although we learned a lot, right? But I think how do we prevent this kind of thing from happening? Because the symptoms were all there, right? I think the DOE was so frustrated. I was so frustrated. And so we had to do the RESO.

So why did it have to get to that? Why couldn't you guys be more proactive and really understand that there was a lack of oversight of this individual? Right?

Since we started that conversation, we took a lot of action on that employee, limiting her scope as much as possible and resetting the program. It was in such a disarray, it took a while to reset the program. So it's not that nothing got done during that timeframe.

We had to reset everything that was being done during that time, especially the relationships with the DOE. So part of it was making sure that we reset with DOE, made sure that their instructors were certified, and made sure that we started resetting the master trainers throughout the state. Right now we only have one.

The whole goal for this year is to make sure we have at least two per island throughout the state. So part of the discussion is bringing in that class to Hawaii to make sure we get those master trainers going. But bottom line, we had an employee that wasn't being managed.

We put management rails around that employee, then started resetting the whole program and everything she had, she had worked on. We're taking action on that employee and then she left. But before she left, she was on sick leave for long periods of time. That made it more challenging to take those corrective actions.

So to answer your question on how we make sure this doesn't happen again, we've already reset what the requirements are for the driver's education program from the DOT's perspective, we have reset the priorities and reset up our Committee to ensure that those curricula for drivers education trainers is already set as well.

So I guess what is the system now? So who's overseeing? You probably have someone under you overseeing, but I guess it would be helpful for us to understand what is that hierarchy now? How has that changed?

The program is run out of our highway safety office and our highway safety administrator and her direct assign is directly involved in the program.

The person that runs the program is two levels below, but they're directly involved throughout and they report up to the deputy on this to ensure that we and our relationship with DOE, reset how many, or how we can get more people trained in the state.

Right. So who was, who was her supervisor to begin with?

So under the, the highway safety office, we have a Highway Safety Officer. And below that was our driver's ed specialist.

So that person. Is that person still, still doing that?

The supervisor was brand new that we brought in to take care of this person. We brought in a person from DOH who's really good. When she came in, she helped us reset the program.

Okay so now, that's who's overseeing?

Before that was the person that left the interim, so that the position was open and, or being filled and unfilled throughout. There are people who are oscillating in that position.

That was supposed to supervise? [Yes] But who was supervising that person?

The highway safety administrator. And who was that is Lee Nagano.

And that same person?

She's still there, yeah.

Okay, well, that's, that's questionable. If she's still there, how come she didn't monitor this? Knowing that position was filtering and so forth, knowing that all this was going on? I mean, there needs to be accountability. And if that person is still there.

Well, I'm not sure what kind of performance they have otherwise, but that raises concern because if that can happen on her watch for that long period of time, certainly, I don't know what else is falling through the cracks.

Yeah, we've reset the requirements and the expectations for this program with her. Outside of this program, she is a high producer. So now we, we have rails around it.

I don't understamd how that happens that now you have to set rails that...I'm sorry, I'm just...

[Check] You know, I would just like to follow up with that as well. I think we should open that also to the scope of who this individual staff was, because these people have been a part of potentially seeing and maybe turning the other way while this obvious abuse of power was taking place.

And so I think that you were able to switch out leadership.

But I'm talking about the staff, and I'm not sure if this is in the auditor's report of people that were in the office at the time, but this concept of tolerating, enabling, or just like how I said, looking the other way, I mean, this is what continues to create and breed abuse of power, not only in this Department, but further than that.

I totally agree. So you're asking for us to send out the person's name and everything?

No, no, sorry. So just to clarify my comment, not necessarily a question, but anybody that was within her Department or her office at the time; these people have been trained on bad behavior and abuse of power. So it's important that that gets another internal look as well, because they've seen this bad behavior.

And I'm not sure how this individual had left the Department. Maybe she resigned, maybe she retired. But I think that it's important to the Department in the office to know that there are severe consequences when you abuse power. I mean, the auditor had said it was illegal to use state logos.

So, I mean, we can really take this thing deep if we need to, but I think it's important for the office in general to just really see that there are harsh consequences with this.

Totally agree.

Thank you for that. I think maybe what would be helpful to you and to this body would be to ask the AG to intervene also and let her set up the investigation. So that we do it properly.

We've already, we've already approached the AG with the information to do an investigation.

When was that?

I can get the date for you and I can send it to the Committee. I want to say it was last year, but I'll send you the information. I gotta check on where it's at.

Yeah, I would like to get a report because I don't know that things should stay longer, you know, and they're talking about investigating who got $35,000 and this person have spent and possibly 200 something thousand and a lot of other infractions. I would think those kinds of things would get investigated as well, if not more so.

I'll follow up on the dates and I'll get it to you.

And it's not that that's important.

It's to make sure that, you know, all of us, your superintendent, as well as the Department heads and everybody under you and under them know that we have policies in place and we don't want all of us to be under suspicion of protecting someone and not knowing the truth of what really happened.

Agreed.

Thank you.

And I think it's also important that there are checks and balances. It seems to be no checks and balances in the situation. And what worries me is that we don't know where else in the Department until we get another audit, that we might find some of this stuff going on.

I mean, this program has been going on for 60 years and only now all of this stuff comes to light. If it wasn't for a resolution, it might still be going on. We don't know. And that's what concerns me as we go forward. So we want to have faith in our state workers.

We want to have confidence that they're doing their job and that, you know, but yet, we hear these kinds of incidences and it makes for bad morale, I think, overall.

Totally agree.

Yeah.

And overall this is my Fault because since 2014 I was running highways and up to this point that's all under my purview. I'll tell you quite frankly, that program was very small on my focus.

Okay. Just pave our roads. Okay.

So bringing it to light through Senator, and through the audit was a good thing to make sure that we can readdress everything to move forward.

Thank you for stepping up and taking your responsibility because so many times I hear excuses, but at the end of day it stops at you, right? [Absolutely.] Well, the Director, you were just highways at the time, but you also had somebody above you.

So we took the action after we started the conversations with Senator and after the audit team came in and we started having the conversations. We didn't wait for the audit to be completed to start taking the actions.

Okay, well, certainly appreciate you responding to the auditor's report as well. Any other questions of DOT? Can we move on? Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you.

Okay. Superintendent, you're up.

Hello Chair Kim, Vice Chair Kidani, Members of the Committee, Kieth Hayashi, Superintendent. First off, I also want to thank all of you for the opportunity to respond as well as the state auditor for providing their hard work and their insights into our driver's education program.

Let me just make a little comment right here. I just want it to be known to the public as well. You know, I'm not just picking on DOE or picking on...

I have had a Bill for years now that said that every audit that we pay for and every study that we pay for, that should have a public hearing, the results should have a public hearing.

And so I am doing exactly what I expect others to do, other chairs to do because so often we do these studies, we do these audits, and it sits on the shelf or it comes by a desk. We're inundated with all kinds of reports and studies.

We don't read it, but it should get heard and the public should know what's going on. So I just wanted to preface that. That is not just picking on a certain audit or because I would hear it all if it's up to me. Okay, go ahead.

Thank you Chair. So again, thank you very much, the state auditor for bringing these recommendations to light for us. Out of the 10 recommendations that the Department received, eight have been implemented and are done. One, the first recommendation.

As far as the HR administrative rules, we've started that process already and we're following the 12 to 18 month process to get everything done. We anticipate it being completed by January 2027 so that that process has already started.

As well as recommendation number 10, which deals with reporting to the Board of Education, we are in the process of getting that agenda for the board.

So I think within the next two or three months we should be taking it to the board for to provide that the in response to the information in response to the auditor's recommendation.

I don't believe any board Member is here in person, but I do believe we might have one on zoom. Is he on zoom? But I guess my question is, did the board at any time take up the audit. This Audit or the next audit?

For this audit, we are agendizing it with the board.

No, but I'm saying that the board, before you agendize it, because they can take up whatever. I mean, this was out in the public already, so, did the board ever bring this up in the meetings?

No, not to my knowledge.

Bring up the heat abatement?

Did we discuss the agreement?

Yeah. Did the board ever take this up?

We had a brief discussion in August.

August of? For which?

Shortly after.

For the driver's license. How about this? Both of them? And did they take any action or did anything?

Yeah, sure. Question?

Just the discussion.

Just the discussion?

Yes, sorry. You had mentioned the DOE recommendations you folks did eight out of the ten?

Yes.

Which were the ones, the two that you?

The first and the last one. Number one and number ten. HR for number one and board head for number ten.

Let me ask this while you're doing that. So, Superintendent, I looked at your response and I was a little troubled by that. Because according to the auditor, they originally asked for your response and you didn't give a response. Then you met with the Committee. Right? You...

What?

I don't know.

Sorry about that. Chair. That would be on our end. You may continue.

What? Okay. IT, is there something going on with our system?

We're good to go. Chair. Sorry about that.

Okay. Okay. So going back so that you provide, you. You could have provided written comments to the draft report but chose not to.

And while you didn't participate according to the report, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the assistant superintendent, Office of Curriculum, Instruction Design and others, including resource teacher who works at the high schools met and they didn't bring up anything that you brought up in, in your letter that you subsequently came up with.

So I'm just concerned that, you know, and then they called, they followed up and called and then they were told that we do not intend to provide any written comments to the draft report. And that was on all in August.

Great.

Is that August or April?

April.

Chair, yeah, you're correct. We did. We did not provide any written responses to the audit. We do take the audit very seriously and so we did take a look into the recommendations.

And why didn't you guys take it seriously when it came out and provided any comments at the time?

We were in the process of. After we read the audit, the draft report, we started already working on the responses to the recommendations.

Okay. I'm sorry. Having a hard time. Yes, please.

With every audit, we provide a draft to the auditee and we asked to meet and talk about the draft before you publish it. That's correct. We don't, we don't share with legislators or anyone else.

So we did that and we did meet with people from the Department and we had a good conversation about concerns that they had about the report. We had a typo or some other mistake that we ended up correcting after as a result of that meeting.

And then we waited for the response and when we didn't get it, we followed up to ask, are you going to provide us something in writing? Do you have written comments? And we were told no. And then the superintendent wrote to us three months later. So we had a good discussion.

So why was there no, no response? You didn't think it was important? Didn't think it was.

No, definitely. We take the auditor's report as very important. My understanding was that we, we didn't write a response because we, we're going to adjust the recommendations in the audit.

Okay. Now I'm going to take that in issue because according to your letter that you followed up three months later, three months later you wrote a, you wrote a letter saying you don't Agree with anything that you folks didn't have to do.

Rules that you didn't have to do this, you, you faulted and said you didn't agree with that. So how can you be working on his recommendations when you send a letter saying you disagree with everything? Not everything, but a great deal of what he said.

So I, I am getting, Yes, I, I know. Yeah. Thank you.

Who wrote the letter?

So it, it was under my signature.

I know, but who wrote the letter? Obviously whoever wrote the letter didn't read everything because you subsequently sent another letter saying, we agree with you. Right. So you went from no response to and then a meeting in no response. And then you went to a letter saying, you know what?

We don't agree with this because we didn't have to do this. It's not mandatory. Wrote back. And then you came back with another letter saying, okay, we agree with you.

I, I, I take responsibility. V. Chair. This was actually the first audit that in, in my years time that I started as a superintendent. This is the first audit actually that I put, if I'm not getting correct. That's the first one. It is. And so I, I take responsibility for any mix up. We do.

At the end of the day, I take responsibility. We've addressed the audit. It is very important. I think what Mr. Conte had brought up in terms of providing our students with opportunities. We looked at where we are offering driver's ed courses where we're not.

We need to the best of our ability to expand a number of offerings for our students. We have developed the webpage. We're able to assess now what the need is. I think that was part of the audit that we weren't able to or we are able to now assess the need.

We know where the, where there are wait lists at different schools.

Wait, sorry, but you're not being direct in your answer. She's asking you why you didn't respond, why there wasn't an urgency. Now, I understand that this might have been your first audit, but anybody who's anybody knows that when the auditor is auditing, it's the most important thing. Right? So, so why didn't you respond urgently?

So I take responsibility for that. We did it. It's me.

Well, you're going to take responsibility because you're the guy in the seat. So whether you do or not, the finger is pointed to you. Why didn't you respond immediately?

Well, oh, let me just add to that. The people that met, they've been around, they know audits. Right. The people that work for You. They know audits. Part of them. Part of them were in the meeting. So again, there were no response. So you cannot just say this is your first audit. And.

And not only that is that. How can you write a letter that did. Saying that you didn't agree with any of it and then turn out that you did. Somebody were advising you to tell you that the auditor was wrong. And that worries me to send out a letter that is clearly in error. I mean I get.

I get upset with my staff if they send out stuff to me that is in error, you know, because it's my. I'm the responsible one to make sure that whatever is going on at the end of the day that it's correct. Okay. And being superintendent of education with all you guys degrees, I cannot. I. I'm sorry.

I am just flabbergasted that you could send out a letter that said that they were completely wrong. And I think it says that in the letter. It. It blows my mind that you can say that they are completely. What was the words that you used? I'll find it somewhere in here.

But what was the word that they use in the letter? You said the gross. Gross era or. Anybody have the letter.

Les, do you have the letter? Okay, can you give that to the Chair, please? Okay.

Clarify statements of the state office of the auditor. The audit report raises as a. However is inaccurate. The Legislature has never mandated Department establish and administer a motor vehicle driver education and training program. Rather it's been permissible. This has not changed since the law's inception.

The audit report is correct that the Legislature first addressed that however did not require Department to establish a driver education program. Merely states the Department is hereby authorized Legislature. Let's see. To this day the program remains permissible. Not once during the nearly six decades after Act 42 inception has the Legislature made any such mandate.

Department is unaware of why the Legislature did not mandate the program like the driver education program in General. Department's interpretation of the statutes that the Department authorized is not required to do that. So. And it goes on and you cite things and then. And then the next letter you send out and you agree with them.

I mean somebody did some research to say that we didn't mandate that. I mean, I'd like to know who did that.

That was in reference Chair to when the state auditor did reference. I believe it was 302A 413.

But the whole gist of this is that you're saying that you're not required to do rules. You're not. It's not Mandated that. Right. I mean, that's the gist of your letter.

We are working on the har. And in the process of that. That'll be finished by January 27th. 27. 2027.

Good. Questions. Members?

Yes, please. I can appreciate, you know, on the neighbor islands, you know, the, the fact that there is a shortage of available opportunities. Do you have a number, I guess between the auditor and Department of Education as to the level of unmet need both on Oahu and on the Negro Islands?

We do. I believe we do have that number, Senator.

Well, that can be provided. We can provide it to you, to the Committee chair. I think, you know, the goal would be to really see how we can assist the development and, you know, respond to whatever unmet need there is. But it's, it's hard to know how, how, how much is needed.

And so that's kind of why I wanted to get a ballpark, just, you know, to get a sense of what it might take to address that unmet need.

Thank you. Beniture. When we were looking at the audit, because that was one of the Concurrent Resolutions request, without the wait list, there was no way for us to determine or understand, you know, what that demand was.

So I'm not sure what the Department has implemented since then, but hopefully they've implemented some tool allow them to calculate the demand. One more comment before I, before I get off my podium here. And unfortunately the DOT directors left, but it allows driver education could be.

Can be obtained or completed through online courses, which the Director needs to certify those courses or that curriculum online is different than virtual when the teacher is right there in the room and you're watching on video. So the opportunity for students on neighbor islands, for instance, or other places to be able to complete driver education.

There are other opportunities. It's just right now we're talking in person instruction and. Or virtual and not online courses, which the statute of the rules certainly allow.

Let me ask you.

Thank you for that question. The website that we have stood up for driver's education. So if students want to apply for a driver's ed program going into that website, they would select the school that they want to apply to, put the application in. And so it's to that site now that we're able to calculate the need and.

Yeah, right. So thank you.

Superintendent, what is the cost to deliver this driver's ed program?

We don't have that. Okay. Ter.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members of the Committee, Teri Ushijima. So we receive from the Insurance Commission's Fund 2,200. I mean 2,200,000 a year. And of that 1,000,500 is used for projected school programs. Like 52% of it is for instructor fees, administrator time for the coordinators. It's also for maintenance, things like vehicle gas maintenance, repairs and equipment.

Some, you know, you have question is.

What does it cost the DOE to deliver the program? Not what's in your budget, not how much money you get. What is the cost to deliver this program so far?

So currently it's about 22.9 to 2.7 million a year.

Okay, so the amount of money that's provided to you is enough to cover the delivery of this program?

Yes.

Okay. The delivery of the program such that it doesn't necessarily mean you've been delivering it the way it should be delivered. So is there an anticipated amount? What is going to cost to be able to deliver the program the way it was intended to be? A statewide program, consistency across the board and so forth. What is that?

I think, Senator, what we'll do is we'll take a look at how many students have signed up. We can take a look at also expanding the program. So we need some time to do a further analysis, then we can get that to the Committee.

Okay. My concern is that this program has been going on for 60 years and 60 years we have no data. I mean, according to, we don't know the wait list. And these are stuff that you should know because the next question is who determined the cost? Who determines the cost that we're charging the participants?

I think that cost has been set over time. I think there's something else in it that we need to reevaluate.

So you've never reevaluated the costs?

To my knowledge, no.

Why not? So it's determined by the board of Education and it's been $10. And the fees that's collected goes back into the General.

Yeah, it's middle school. Right. $10. It was not 60 years ago. $10. Nothing stayed the same 60 years ago what it is today. I'm not saying that we should be charging, you know, whatever it cost us to do the program, but the fact that one you haven't even reviewed it to see, I mean, we review bus fares.

You, you review school lunches, you review everything. But for Some reason this 10, I mean, it seems like again, what the auditor pointed out is that is, it's not been taken seriously, the program. I, I, I don't know how else to.

We'll do a re analysis and we'll do a reassessment of the charges Chair.

How much, how much. How many students are we serving right now?

I have that. So when. Well, we're still in this school year, so last school year we serviced 3,637 students. Well, they enrolled. And of that 2,975 students pass the course.

Do you know how many, how many wanted to take the program and couldn't for whatever reason?

No. And that's where the audit was helpful. We are now looking to track that.

You guys never thought about tracking that before?

Well, are we starting to track though? Because we must have the wait list now, right?

Yes, we do.

And we, we don't have some preliminary data.

I do have some preliminary data, so. And these could be duplicate counts because a student is able to request more than one site to be on the list. So for Kauai, for Kauai we have. And it's.

It fluctuates because when it's an ongoing list, so as they open up seats for upcoming courses, they could be taken off, but more people add, you know, constantly. So right now we have 37 for Kauai, 95 for Maui, 200 for Hawaii Island. And Oahu is fairly large. We have 633.

But a large portion of this is because we have 171at one of our large high schools. And we're taking steps to partner with another instructor from another school to do the virtual part of the program. So we're trying to bring that number.

Down because part of it is. It's the hard part. I'm sure you can do the in classroom instruction fairly easily. It's behind the wheel instruction that I'm sure is a little bit more complicated. So it's kind of like a bifurcation of how you got to figure this all out, right?

Yeah. So by partnering with another school to do it virtually, then we could free up that other instructor's time to do. The behind the wheel.

Just super.

If I can redirect to page 21 or if we still want to stay on the data at the appropriate time. Okay, page 21 please, of the state auditor's report. It is stated in there that a deputy superintendent who is over this program has mentioned to have limited understanding of the program.

Is that deputy attendant still with us or previous deputy superintendent. Hi, deputy superintendent. So in your, in the state auditor's report, it was mentioned that you had said you had limited understanding of the program. If you have limited understanding of the program, why are you overseeing it?

Correct. I don't directly oversee the program, but I do oversee the office and the conversations in the audit here or in the audit meetings were very helpful to grow my understanding of the details of the program. Who directly oversees it? The assistant superintendent for the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Design. Who is that? Terry Ushijima.

Okay, but you're over her, right? Correct. Okay, so ultimately you oversee her. Who oversees the program. Okay. So it brings me to my next point where you had mentioned you had just learned that in the state auditors report that you had just learned this is a two Department program. That seems pretty basic.

Did you not have understanding that this was DOE in collaboration with dot?

I did know that it was a. I didn't know the details of the responsibilities of each program. And that is something that the auditor helped clarify in the audit report. There was confusion about who was responsible for what under each Department. And I think that was a big finding of the auditor's report.

You had also mentioned that you were lacking guidance. Who were you expecting to give you guidance being that you are the overseer?

No, we were. That was referring to guidance for the driver education program, which was one of the recommendations in the report. And so we now have clear curriculum and clear protocols for implementation.

Yeah. So this is very concerning. That deputy superintendent that's supposed to be overseeing this program has limited understanding, not even knowing the basics of this is a two Department program.

So how are we expecting to move forward if you still have the same people that are in these position overseeing these programs that are not taking initiative and being proactive in getting to know these programs?

And how are we going to have confidence that these are the people that are going to be helping to promote our programs, make sure that there's all the checks and balances in these programs. I mean, where can we really start getting some accountability?

Because the state auditor, according to his statement, is sick and tired of auditing the state, the Department of Education. Okay, so this is where we are finding ourselves. Not sick of it. I'm. I'm not sick. Not sick of it. Frustrated. Frustrated. Yes. Because.

Because this is where we've got to get to the root of really what this is. And time and time again the arrows are always pointing to leadership. It's always pointed to the deputy superintendents, the superintendents.

So where can we start getting some hardco accountability where people are just knowing the basics, that this program is a two departmental program? I mean, that sounds pretty basic.

Thank you, Senator. Ultimately, the accountability rest with me. I. I am the one that's accountable for it. We are. We have reviewed the audit we've made the. Addressed the recommendations. I think there is definitely additional.

More articulation going on within the, within the section to be sure that everyone is well aware of what the requirements are, what the driver's education program is and our, our. The importance of us working together with the Department of Transportation, who has been very helpful in helping to secure the necessary certifications for employees.

So is it. Is it not. Does this deputy superintendents just not take a proactive approach in learning the programs that are under her purview?

They are very proactive in.

Well, it seems like they' not because it says here that they have limited understanding of the program.

And I. And I think so.

That doesn't sound proactive. It sounds very apathetic.

They. I think in any situation, even, even for me, I, I'll to admit, you know, I think coming into a Department, it's not an excuse, but there are many programs in the Department and you know, it's a continuous learning. Even for me as a superintendent, I learn every day something new.

It is my responsibility though, saying that to be able to oversee the Department and then the breadth of what we have to do, the importance of it. You know, it is very. Every program is important. Yeah.

These deputy positions, although, Superintendent, with all due respect, this is not a learning on the job type of task. You don't come in and then learn. You learn, you master it and then you come in. And so maybe these deputy superintendents are just not equipped for the job.

Okay, if I may, Senator, the selection of the deputy superintendents go through a very rigorous selection and the ultimate decision is, is mine on who seats in that very important seat.

The deputy superintendents that we have, are we fortunate to have working in the Department right now, are very adept, very knowledgeable in their area, you know, and we'll continue to, all of us to work together to ensure that we're delivering quality programs for our students.

Or maybe they're too in depth. They don't know the real ground level things. We're finding that they're so educated, maybe they're too educated to help us with very basic things that our school needs. So I'll say that. Thank you, Chair, follow up.

Is it always going to take an audit before folks understand what your responsibilities and roles are going to be? Is that, Is it always going to take.

No, it will not do that.

No, that's what appears. Because you know what. Yeah, you can see now that the audit made you aware, but the, the result was introduced back in 2022 when the when the result was introduced already you should have been looking into your program. If, if you had no idea, which you should have an idea. That's why you.

And you have hundreds of people working for you. You have a whole slew of administrative people working for you. You know, I have. During the year I have two people and during session, I have two. I have four people. Four people. And I can. I know more about some of your programs than you do.

How is that possible? Right. I'm just saying, how is that possible? And you're asking for more people and money for more, more leadership people. That worries me. I'm sorry. It does.

It worries me because in 2022, when this was introduced, I don't know how come you folks didn't say what's going on without driver's license, you got to wait for an audit to come out to know what your respons are to understand the program.

I mean, 60 years, this program on the books, you've been coming to the Legislature, you know, and yet. I don't know. I don't understand. I. I'm sorry, I. I just don't understand how that's can slip you folks and not understand. What do. I mean, it's not like this is a.

A tiny little program, you know, in some school in the rural area. No, it's not.

We'll be definitely more village vigilant in.

Is there a reason why in 2022, when the audit, when the resolution was introduced, that you folks didn't then say and be more aware so by the time the audit came in, you could answer his questions.

We'll be, we'll be much more aware, Senator, of different resolutions that come in from the Legislature.

No, it's not.

And continue to take them seriously.

Folks are supposed to know your programs. And if you don't when we bring this stuff up and then we have to go to a resolution, but even then, then that should even light the fire at that point, right?

I mean, it's not like, you know, I mean, come on, this is your program. We, we have started taking some steps as we work with the auditor's office even before the final report. But I understand, yes, we provide support back to him.

You guys didn't even respond even after your meeting, even when you didn't know how to. You didn't understand what you're limited understanding. You guys didn't even bother to write a report or, or give a response. It's like thumbing your noes.

But it definitely wasn't that. And, and we'll do better to. In the future, too, be more. Be more responsive.

Okay.

Yeah. No, I, I think. I think at the end of the day, this. This was a good, you know, audit. I think it gave a lot of information.

And I understand as the person that was pushing this, you guys were in a really tough position that, you know, the DOT was kind of micromanaging the doe and so I think at least we have a breakthrough now, and hopefully they're not micromanaging the Department. So I think there was some really good takeaways from this.

At the end of the day, all we want are, you know, to increase driver's education, to increase enrollment. I think, I think there was probably a lot of helpful things. I think when we introduced this audit, we didn't know that there was structural issues that you really needed to work on.

And so I think at least now, you know, and, and we can. We can move forward. So hopefully you can get those last two recommendations completed. Yes. And, but. But I think I have to say we. We're in a far better place than we were back in 2022.

We're not quite there, but I think we're in a much better place. So. Thank you, Chair. Thank you.

Okay, we are going to move to the next audit, the heat abatement audit. And let me just say, part of my frustration, Superintendent, is that we're going to see a thread running through everything today with this next audit, we're going to see a thread as to the DOE and the failures of the information.

And when we get to Medicay, the same thing, we're going to see that. So that's why it's just building. So when you say we're going to do better, it just worries me because it's the theme that's running through this whole thing.

Senator, may I ask a comment about what you guys were talking about? I think it's important and necessary that any state Department, any program, be accountable for state resources and state money. Absolutely. By the way, I never said I was tired of the deal.

I was being dramatic.

But I think it's very important. And our job is to provide recommendations. Our suggestions is how to make them accountable, how to address the issues that we identified, meaningful recommendations. And the Department is, I guess, trying to address those recommendations.

I gotta say, both for transportation and education, the key is they need to have policies and procedures, documented processes, so that the people who are on the ground doing the work, they know how management expects them to do that task, to do that work. We would call them controls. My office Senator called them checks and balances.

You need that. They need to have document processes.

Yes, I'm going to interrupt right now because you know what? As instructors, as educators of our students, they have to do that in the classroom. They have to do that with the students. They know that already.

So I don't know why it's falling apart at the upper level when on the lower level, you got to have all of these reports, you have to have all these policies in place. Right. Or the parents are going to be up in arms, or you cannot. They cannot get go to college.

You don't have the SAT scores if you don't have those things in place. So it's falling apart there. So we're preaching to the choir. You're here because we. That. But it's important. So.

But for this, it would allow the assistant superintendent and deputy superintendent to make sure that things are being done the way that they expect it to be done. And they would have a process to be able to evaluate that.

And we would, when we come back for an audit, to be able to actually evaluate that process, that program, whatever they have in place. But thank you.

I think the individuals in these positions should also be evaluated. And that's another thing with, with Board of Education. Are you folks evaluating that? You know, I know you folks made some salary adjustments and stuff. Where's the evaluation and where's your evaluation of the people under you delivering the programs? So that's important as well. So. Okay, bless.

This is on report number 2509, auditor, an update on the Department of Education's heat abatement efforts. So for those of you out there, heat abatement, air conditioning of our schools. Okay.

Can I share my screen again? Yes. Do I just.

Not sure what the message I have is.

It. Do you. We need help on this.

I think it's getting. Hi. Yes. So we're just going to do the same exact thing as earlier. Mr. Kondo. Okay. Through Zoom.

Did it not work? Is it working? Nope. Hold on.

Okay, Mr. Kondo, Ricky is going to go down to help you out with that.

Why don't you start anyway?

Okay, I'll start anyway. I don't need the slides. My presentation is way shorter, much shorter. And that's because. So what we did is we did a report, a report about the Cool Classrooms initiative. And as well as at the time, what was the current air conditioning initiative which was school directed ac.

We looked at both of those programs. Neither of those programs are in existence today. The initiative has completed or finished and the school directed AC program, it's my understanding has been been revised and is no longer the program that schools can use to air condition their classrooms. So this report. Our. Our.

My discussion is much shorter just because those are things of the past. Act 47 in. So in. In the Governor. Governor Ige state of the state address in early 2016, he announced that he was going to cool a thousand classrooms by the end of the year.

And, and in 2016, the Legislature appropriated $100 million to support that effort. So what we intended is, we intended, because we had capacity, just to do a relatively quick and dirty accounting of that money. How did the Department spend the $100 million? Was there any left? How many classrooms were cooled?

How successful was this initiative from the department's perspective? That's what we intended to do. We had done a similar accounting in, I think it's 2017 or 2018, about the cost of the Hawaii Super Ferry to the state of Hawaii.

And very interesting, at least to me, we discovered and reported that until the year 2028, the state continues to pay millions of dollars on bonds, on go bonds that the state had issued to support the Hawaii Super Ferry specifically for the barges and the ramps that the state had built in the harbors.

So we wanted to do a very similar kind of report, just a report, not an audit, to account for how the Department spent 100 million. We expected it was going to be easy.

We expected the Department was just going to be able to provide us accounting records or some kind of spreadsh that would show where the money went from this specific appropriation. It wasn't part of the department's General appropriation operating budget. It was specific for air conditioning classrooms. What we found is we couldn't do that.

The Department couldn't provide us with the accounting of the $100 million. They couldn't tell us where that money went and whether it was 100 million or they used some money from prior years that made it more than 100 million. We were able to.

We were able to get a number of different lists from the Department about what classrooms, what schools were air conditioned. But those lists were not consistent. They were different. They had different classrooms, different number of classrooms, different schools, as well as different amounts.

So what we thought we were going to do to try to determine how much was spent, we decided we wanted to go look at the contracts themselves, the contracts the Department had executed to facilitate this initiative to put AC in class classrooms. So we went, actually, those documents are maintained in paper form.

So we went actually to their office in Kaimuki so that we could look at the boxes, the contract boxes. And unfortunately, not all of the contract boxes were there. They were missing a number of contract boxes. Information in the boxes themselves were missing.

For instance, we hope to find final closeout information to see whether or not contracts had been amended, whether there had been any change orders that would have added to the cost of the project. We could see the contracts, but we couldn't see any other documents in those. In those boxes. But at the end of the day.

Sorry, now I have a screen. At the end of the day, wrong. Anyway. Darn it. Oh. Oh, well, anyway, at the end of the day, what we were able to calculate was, was that. And by the way, we put a disclaimer in the report at the very beginning, full page, which we never do, about our.

The lack of confidence that we have in the actual data. And we explained how we ended up calculating. This was an audit. We probably wouldn't have been able to complete it. This was just a report.

So we put a big disclaimer, which is right at the beginning of the report, to explain how difficult it was for us to get information about the Cool Classrooms initiative.

Anyway, we ended up determining that for the 100 million or maybe a little more than 100 million, about 25, 25 million of that was spent on consultants, design consultants. We also determined that most of the AC that was installed was solar. Solar AC, in other words, it was not connected to the. To the grid.

It was a separate contained system. Solar panels directly to an inverter, directly to a split system AC unit. They were not window units. Most of them were.

Were split system units that were installed on average, including design cost, on average is about $120,000 per classroom that was cooled so we ended up determining based upon information that we had gathered and we have a nice graphic in our report with the different schools that we believed were air conditioned under the initiative with the amounts of the design consulting costs as well as the construction costs.

And we calculated that they. The Department had air conditioned 838 classrooms over the state at a cost of about $105 million. That's as best as we could determine. And a lot of that from our review of contract files of those boxes that I described as well as other information. We.

We determined also that there was a lot of. Maybe it was because it was rushed, but there was a lot of design, I want to call them errors where contracts were entered into by the Department to air conditioned classrooms that were already air conditioned, that air conditioning was installed or PV panels were installed on.

And most of these were installed in. In temporary what I want to call portable units, portable classrooms. Some of these are very old, 60 years old or maybe even long older. And the reason for that it was much quicker for the Department to install in those.

In those classrooms because the classroom, the structure of the classroom, it's a contained Un. Wooden structure generally. So they could easily, more easily install the PV panels on the top and install the air conditioning. The ventilation in those Units. Not the most, most insulated type of classrooms. A lot of leakage.

So at the end of the day we identified where. Where these panels were installed under big banyan trees. Nobody said anything. We talked to the people at Castle High School and they questioned why the contractor went ahead and installed them. We that we talked to other principals at other schools.

They questioned why AC was installed in certain classrooms when other classrooms really needed AC, not the ones that they were installed in. They were installed at Mokapu. And I saw an article recently. The new Mokapu Elementary School has been. Has been built and dedicated. They were installed at Mokapu elementary even though even knowing the school was.

Was destined to be destroyed and rebuilt. So there was a lot of errors in how the Department implemented this mandate or this initiative. Governor Ige's initiative to get to a thousand classrooms by the end of the. The calendar year. At the end of the day our challenge was we couldn't see any records.

There's many people in the Department that were involved in the initiative who are no longer there. One person who was the primary person, he retired and he passed away. So in addition to the fact that there were no records for us to review to understand what the Department did, how the Department spent the.

There was no one for us to talk to. And I think that's really the big takeaway from this is the Department needs to keep records. The Department needs to do better record keeping. They need to develop these procedures.

We don't have any understanding as the criteria as to how classrooms are selected, how schools were selected for installation of AC units. So I think that's the big takeaway for the Committee is the Department needs to improve its record keeping.

It needs, like I said earlier with respect to driver education, they need to develop documented processes, these controls, these checks and balances so that people that are doing the work that they can do it to make sure they achieve the mission of the purpose of the Department or whatever that program is, that their supervisors up to the superintendent, they can make sure the work is being done in a way that they expect it to be done to achieve that purpose or that mission.

And then the supervisor can make sure by looking at what their doing, documentation of that process to make sure the person who's responsible is actually doing it the way that they expected to do. And of course when we come into audit, we can actually audit that process. We can see the record, we can see the documented processes.

So to me that's, that's what the Department needs to do. 100 million. It's passed, it's gone. But without documentation we don't know how it was spent. The Department needs to be more accountable. I know that we're well sacked all this. It's okay. It's okay. Good. Okay.

And then real quick with cool school directed ac so the Department took a huge pivot before the. Okay. The. Okay, you gotta put full screen or do it from that slide. It's fine. Current slide. Thank you.

Thank you.

So this is the graphic I was talking about that, that we have in our report. It nice looking graphic. It tells you a lot of the information per school and island about where AC was installed, the cost of design as well as the cost of construction for those schools. Picture of Castle High School where they installed the.

The PV panels under this big banyan tree. So the, the production from those panels must be very limited just because it's under shade for most of the day. Moving to school directed AC.

The Department took a big pivot in moving from the cool classrooms initiative or just generally how they were air conditioning classrooms under CIP monies where it was Department controlled. The Department controlled the construction. They executed contracts to install AC.

The big pivot was they went to the school directed AC where they put the responsibility to air conditioned classrooms on the schools themselves. Individual schools now had the ability under this different program to air condition their own classrooms.

And it was generated, or maybe it came about because there were some reports about parents and student organizations dropping off air conditioners at schools because students were complaining about how hot their classrooms were. So it was an opportunity for, for schools to be able to, to install those window units. And they were window units. Not they were.

People weren't likely dropping off the split systems. It was window units and it was an opportunity for them to be able to install those AC without having it be a Department wide effort.

So what happened is the Department issued the assistant superintendent, deputy superintendent at that time, sorry, the assistant superintendent at the time, he issued this memo which created this program. Very little detail to the program, it's just this one memo that provides some information about this new program.

And the concept of this program was that in exchange for the. So what the Department really wanted to do, which is kind of an interesting side story, Department doesn't have, or at least when we spoke to them when we started this audit, they didn't have an accurate inventory of classrooms that had AC.

Which seems really odd to me that these are your buildings, Department of Education. You can't tell me which classrooms, which schools and which classrooms in those schools have AC? No, we don't know.

And I was told, or we were told by the deputy superintendent at that time that, and I don't remember his title, but somebody else that was also very involved in, in this area that the principals, school principals kind of dictated their own. It was kind of like their own kingdom. If they asked, they didn't.

If the Department asked, the principal sometimes wouldn't respond. And the example that had been raised to us is the Department wanted to install PV panels ab parking lot at a school. The Department owns the school, the Department pays the energy bill. But the principal said no. The principal said no. And we see that all over the place.

We see that in some of the DOE offices where they have the PV panels, which is great, it provides shade, but it generates energy. But we were told in that school, the principal said no. So that was the big question, was what's the inventory?

So this program was intended to help the, to help the Department gain that inventory, understand what classrooms at what schools had AC. So in exchange for that, what the Department was offering these schools that went through this school directed AC program is they were offering the Department a free electrical assessment.

Electrical assessment may cost, we were told, up to $10,000. It was really to assess whether or not the school or specifically the Buildings where they wanted to install ac, whether the electrical system could handle that additional electric load. If it can't, there could be serious safety issues, short circuits, maybe in fires, we were told.

But that was the. The carrot. It was to incentivize schools to participate in this program, report their inventory of AC in exchange for this service that the Department was going to pay for, for the electrical assessment at the schools. We had trouble understanding what schools participated in this. The website that we were given.

I'm sorry, I'm just talking about the. Without the PowerPoint at this point. But we were struggling to. To understand which schools had participated, what the inventory was, how recently that inventory had been updated. We were given first a dead website and then later on a live website.

But even that website, it didn't seem like every school was inputting the. The information, the active inventory, the current inventory, and they were inputting it different ways. Again, it gets back to my point about you need to have some control.

You need to have some procedure, some process, so everyone does it the same way so that you can understand that this is. This is, you know, this school and this school. We can compare the apples to the apples and not an apple to the orange. But anyway, so my long thing here is again, this program got scrapped.

We were told at the end of our audit that this program was no longer being. No longer a current program and the program was being revised to something else. Where the schools now would lose some of the control over their AC, where contractors are now going to be.

The contracts with contractors to install any kind of AC units or any kind of other work relating to these AC units were now going to be. Those contracts are going to be procured and entered into by the Department.

So it took some of the control, or maybe a lot of the control out of the school and put it back into the Department to deal with contracts to. To do, to. To relating to AC classrooms. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, given that perhaps that challenge of procuring contractors, that process.

It's not easy and perhaps maybe the expertise is not at the school level.

I'm not sure exactly how things were done at the school level to install window units, but the window units that were installed, by the way, the cost per unit was maybe about $5,000 we reported, and I'm sorry, I don't have the slide right here right now, but it was about $5,000 per unit.

In contrast or in comparison to the split systems that were done under the school directed. Sorry, under the Cool Classrooms initiative. That penciled out to about 120,000 per classroom. So there's a significant difference in, in the, in the cost to air conditioning classrooms under the school initiative class, school classrooms initiative and the school directed AC program.

I'm sorry, that's all I really wanted to talk about. I just think that we didn't offer recommendations. These are, it was just a report but at the end of the day the Department is really not accountable for that money and they need to be better account to account more for that. That money.

100 million is a lot of money. Where it went, how it was spent, the process they went through to ensure that they were spending it reasonably and responsibly. That needs to be documented. And that was my point initially about the quote classrooms initiative. No documentation. They need to document better.

I have a follow up question on page 23. You state from the start many of the solar AC systems failed or didn't work properly resulting in a salvage effort with an estimated cost between 3.3 to $6 million.

The troubleshooting team dispatched by DOE would later discover that from the start many of the solar AC systems failed or didn't work properly. They noted that contractors final inspections found obvious insulation issues such as missing insulation, exposed wires and other but were not able to identify many of the hidden PV and battery problems.

The troubleshooting team also found air conditioners that were damaged by geckos or rodents which contractors and contract managers considered act of God damages which they were not obligated to repair. They also found fundamental issues that could have been addressed during the design and planning stage.

So all of this I think that the department's challenge and partly I'm speculating, I think they also told us some of this, that there was not one contractor or one manufacturer that could provide all of the installation of ac. So they distributed the work through many different contractors using many different types of equipment.

And because of that lack of any kind of standardization, so to speak, there was some challenges with who was installing, how it was installed and the equipment that was installed. The other big challenge is many of the classrooms weren't cool.

They went the, the parameters for the AC it was something like 75 to 78 degrees or something like that. And teachers may not have been aware of that. And they're trying to run the AC to cool their classrooms well below that, that that parameter of 75 or 78 degrees or whatever it was.

And to your point Senator, I know you called it the AC thing but the response was by one of the consultants is this is Heat abatement. It's not ac, so it's to reduce the heat in the classrooms, you know.

And then we also report in our report about challenges where the Department decided they were going to seal jealousy windows in the portable classrooms so that they could keep the cool air inside better. But, you know, that also created a very hot environment when the AC wasn't on, like in the evenings or after school.

So it became a very hot classroom. We also have an MK Think study which commissioned or paid for by the Department of Education, where they comment about the air quality when you close up these portable classrooms where the carbon monoxide level or carbon dioxide level gets to the point where it could impair learning. Compare cognitive thinking.

There are a lot of challenges in what the Department did, and I would suggest it's because there was a rush, a rush to spend $100 million within this very short amount of time and maybe even more than $100 million.

Thank you.

So I think at the end of the day, we have very few of these units that continue to work in the way that you'd expect them to work. Many of them are dying. You know, the warranties or the lifespan of not only units, but also the PV panels, but maybe more importantly the batteries that were installed.

They're reaching the end of that lifestyle life cycle or lifespan. And I think some now are getting plugged into the wall, into the grid. And, you know, I don't know, we report about it too.

But there's also another law that the Legislature enacted that same year that requires the Department to be net energy zero by a certain time very quick, very, very soon, if not now. Very challenging when you're sticking in AC into the wall without taking out a bunch of other kind of electrical loads that likely are present in classrooms.

Anyway, thank you.

So the numbers you quote in the audit, those are best guesstimates then, because you couldn't get. Yes. Concrete data. So that 108, whatever, that's 103. That's. That's the best that you could come.

Up with based looking at files and things. There's other numbers that we. That got. We report some of them that get tossed out, but we're not confident. Got it, Got it. Thank you.

Also, Chair, before with the new website, it looks like it requires a login. How did you get the login?

Zero, wow. We requested and they gave us a login. It was first to a website that was not active and then they gave us another login to the active site. But I'm not sure. We haven't logged in since we issued the report. So I'm not sure if it's still the active site.

Okay. And then at, at the time when you did log in, it was outdated data information.

It's inconsistent data. Some schools seem to be current and other schools seem not to be current in terms of their inventory.

And I think we know that because we feel like there's some schools that got sent or AC through Cool Classrooms Initiative, and we don't see those classrooms identified in the website that you're referring to, Senator, where the schools are required or supposed to report their inventory.

So according to your report, you can't quantify or prioritize where these ACs were put in, what districts in what schools.

I think we did a good job. I think we did our best. And that's that chart in our report to identify, you know, where, where the, where the Department put, put the air conditioning.

So we identify, you know, by, by island schools on each island where we saw contracts relating to AC under what we think is the initiative funding. Is that what you're asking me, Sandra?

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you. Granted, you were not here in 2016, but you know, I'm sure there's people on your staff that were here and I understand that, you know, you took over in 2022, but still this issue remains as a concern. I am pleased that you did respond, did send a response in to this audit.

You didn't address many of the issues. However, the main one of the documents and the contracts and the number of schools that have air conditioning. But you did say that the Department had already initiated proactive measures to enhance procedures for the school directed air conditioning.

Oh grant which I would want to know what was initiated prior to them concluding their audit, which is what you state in your vote.

Thank you, Senator. Joining me, Deputy Superintendent of Operations Jesse Suki. Senator, for, for to your question, one of the proactive measures was the Department the state office did from the school initiated ACS institute a process where now schools would work with the Office of Facilities and operations to request ACs whether they're going to put ACs or not.

And I think that was that was in response to Department Facilities and Operations being able to really assess and get a better handle on where our ACs are and what else needed to be done to get based on analysis. But Deputy Suki, if you want to.

Add anything else, let me ask this first. Is there still a school directed AC program?

It's been modified.

It's been modified, yes. And what it's called, Is it called that?

It's not the same thing though. Yes.

And how long has you had this modified program?

Is it two? The memo went out in January 2025 to all complex superintendents and principals and then the follow up guidance was sent around is dated November 5th, 2025. Yeah.

So one year.

November 5th.

January. No, but one. You said in January 2005 you sent the memoir.

January 29th, 2025. There were a memo about the procedural changes and talking about what the SDAC new program would be and then the guidance after that that really went into detail about what needs to be done in the process.

Here it's November, so very, very reset. So you never provided the list of schools that participate in the school AC program. According to the auditor, he never got that list. So are you attempting to get that list or are you.

We, we have a list. We have a list.

Was that list given to the auditor?

I, I don't think we did we send it over? We didn't send it over.

But if, when did you, when did you finally compile this?

I, I, I started five months ago, but I asked for it and we, we have a list. It shows all the, it shows where the money was spent, it shows what schools it was at, all of the money that was under act, the, the $100 million. Act 47. It's, it's accounted for in our fiscal management system.

So we know where the money was spent and what for. And we have a list of schools.

So you came on just about the time that this letter was written for the audit.

September. Yeah, yeah.

So the, the letter is dated August 1st. How many, how many architects. Remind me that you folks have in your main facility. We talked about this in the architects and engineer. Yes, we talked about that. Right. In.

24 positions. Chair architects and engineers.

Okay. Because we asked this question, we asked this question in reason.

Yes, yes, sorry, I, I took notes after you asked. So 34 architects and engineer A&E. 24 engineers, 10 architects.

Well, thank you for taking notes and looking at. Because I'm concerned on page nine and I've said this before, I sound like a broken record. I'm concerned about the number of consultants we hire, the number of apps we rely on or Department relies on.

But on this page there were seven design consultants for 25.3 million, which I think the auditor did mention. And under this, Miller Kelly. Architects. Architects. We have architects. But we had to hire these architects. And they're not the only one. We also hired Pacific Architects and then it's 5.3 million.

But on the bottom it says DOE would end up shelving much of MK tank multi prong conceptual framework for cooling classrooms as bids for installation expensive solar AC system classroom consumed its 100 million budget 25 million. I mean 5.3 million just dumpster. And yet we have all these architects.

But why, why do we have architects if we're going to hire it all?

It was 100 million. And this, this is just me like reviewing all of the materials and trying to figure out the same question. 100 million in a very short period. But the contractors help deploy the money because it's a lot to do in a short period of time. So I.

But you can still do that to this day. That we brought that up in Wham. You still hire architects. We have all the contracts that we went through in Wham, all the architects, all the engineering firms. And yet you still have them on staff. And I understand that some of them are doing what, overseas work, right?

They oversee the projects, right. Project management work. But then you hire a consultant to do project management. And then so the architects and engineers that license oversee the overseas here. And I've brought this up before and it's like here in writing, all of this money being spent and I, I have a hard time understanding that we.

We are trying and looking at, we are looking at. It's one of the deliverables we have for our strategic plan to look at how we handle our contractors and to sort of reduce our reliance on them. But having at least some contractors helps us deploy CIP.

Some contractors, yes. But it seems like that's the standard because. So for some reason, after you hire state workers, be it architects, engineers, I think they are afraid to maybe do the work because they don't want to get audited. I don't know what it is. So it's easier to hire a consultant.

And you guys are the only one. DOT does it all the time at the airports. We even had engineering from these companies would sit at the desk on the seventh floor of DOT and if you walked in, you wouldn't know who was the, who was the consultant and who was the, the worker.

And they didn't stop that because we kept harping on it. But these are the kinds of things that goes on in state government.

So it's either, or you either hire all these architects and engineers and they do the drawings and they do the stuff, or you hire out and there are going to be times when you're going to need some outside help, but it shouldn't be the nor form or we don't need them.

Hire project managers and hire them all out. Contract them all out. Right. I mean, it's, we've got to look at that. So I hope you folks will, I don't want to have to do an audit on that, but I'd like for you folks to look at that.

Yes.

Okay. I have other questions, but I will go ahead. Yeah.