House Standing Committee on Public Safety

Good morning. Happy Aloha Friday to everyone. It is Friday, February 6th, 2026, 8:30 AM in Conference Room 411. We are here for a Committee hearing on public safety. Members, we have a very busy day so we're going to jump right into it. First, a couple of announcements.

We may have people on Zoom and if they are there, please make sure you don't have anything that has trademarks. If you find that we are bumped off, we will restart and re-notice if needed.

But I hope that this will be very expeditious because we have, I believe, three bills that we can quickly move through to get onto our day. So, first up, is House Bill 2235 relating to Military and Community Relations Office—or the Military and Community Relations Office, appropriating funds to the DBEDT's Military Affairs Community Relations Office to strengthen intergovernmental coordination for military and defense activities.

First, we have, in support, Brigadier General Walter Ross, Hawaii National Guard Department of Defense.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair. I'm Brigadier General Ross, Director of Joint Staff of Hawaii National Guard. We stand in support of this Bill and I'm here for any questions that you may have.

Thank you. We'll ask questions at the end, Members. In support we have Ms. Zoe Wilkins from the Military and Community Relations Office, DBED or.

Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Vice Chair and Committee Members. Lori Moore, Executive Director for the Military and Community Relations Office. We stand in support of our written testimony and are here for any questions. Thank you.

Ms. Moore, I'm sorry, I thought you were not going to be here today.

I'm so sorry.

We have testimony in support via Zoom from Sherry Manor, Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. Okay, Members, you have all of this in front of you. This has been with you for, since last—yesterday afternoon, correct, Vice Chair?

Yes.

We have testimony in support from individual Mike Golouch. Any other members in the room? Any other members on Zoom? Seeing none. Members, questions? Any questions? Yes, go ahead.

For Ms. Moore. Thank you for your testimony. So, this Bill seeks $1.3 million in general funds from state taxpayers to go towards military or things that will help the Department of Defense or Department of War with executed some programs here locally in our state. Are—has the budget for the Department of—is it Department of War or now...?

We say Department of Defense.

The name is not officially changed via Congress, so we still say DOD.

Okay, thank you. Has—is it, is it true that it's one of the largest budget items in the federal budget?

It is. Absolutely.

And has it continued to increase?

I believe it did increase this year, yes.

Okay. And I think you and I have spoken before about impact aid. The Department of—that the Hawaii Department of Education, according to several different formulas of how we calculate impact aid on our state education, given that almost 10% of our...

Vice Chair, I'm going to ask you to ask a question and make it germane to the Bill.

Yes. It is germane.

Okay.

Because of—it's my understanding that it's around maybe $300 million in impact aid that is not delivered for whatever reasons, according, you know, there's—we get maybe 78 million, but we're really due, according to various calculations, maybe $378 million a year. And over span of 20 years, it's $6 billion dollars that we.

And we're like, well, so my point being, how do you, how do you, how do you, how does it, how do you explain asking a state that's already being under reimbursed for $1.3 million of taxpayer, state taxpayer monies, to execute the Department of Defense's programs when you guys are?

Two things, if I may. One, agree that that formula is something we need to work on, right, for impact aid, but that's something we have to do with our congressional delegation. That program has been consistently underfunded by Congress. And so, that comes into play. So, we need to, we need to work on that.

Second, we need to work on the formula. Third, I want to be very specific that our office is a state office. Right? We are working for the people of Hawaii. While we may be funded by DOD, our focus is our community.

And so, we see this 1.3 million as an opportunity to help our folks understand federal contracting, help them understand USA jobs, and also help our young people prepare for these federal jobs that are very well paying and would help keep our kids here in Hawaii. Any other questions?

I don't see any. No. Thank you very much.

Can I ask a question?

Yes, Representative Shimizu, go ahead.

Just following up. So, do you folks have—two questions. One is how is it going right now? You just had a startup with your Department. Just briefly. And secondly is do you have a plan of action that you could maybe share with us?

I can. Yes. Thank you. We have a notebook about the size of yours that is our plan of action. And happy to sit down with you and share that, but I can tell you right now that I think it's going very well. We've done some recent work with the TAG and our State Department of—sorry, no, no, sorry, no. Sorry. OHS.

So, Homeland Security, our state Department of Homeland Security. Thank you. Working on critical infrastructure, super important to our state as we look at drone attacks and things like that that are happening internationally. So, we've just finished that project.

We just finished a factbook that we will be sending the newest addition to your office next week. But that is really kind of level setting in terms of economic impact here in the state of Hawaii that the DoD provides. So, those are very recent projects that we've completed.

You will see us in the month of March just, again, to give you kind of a couple of items that we're doing, will be hosting three open houses. All of our military components, along with Indopacom, along with our state agencies, will be there for community to come.

And let's have some hard and good conversations and do some level setting and just some, you know, really learning about what is the role of DoD here, what are the challenges associated with that, how do we mitigate some of those challenges, as well as get community input on land retention and those kind of items.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Anything else? Nope. Seeing no further questions. Members, we're going to move on to, relating to military families. House Bill 2263, authorizing an eligible employee to take family leave for qualifying military ex exigency under the law. We have testimony in support from the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, Director Jade Butai.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, and Members of the Committee. Cheryl Lee, on behalf of Director Butai for the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. We stand on our written testimony and support and will be here for any questions.

Thank you. We have testimony in support again from Ms. Moore, Military and Community Relations Office...

Thank you so much. Good morning again, Chair, Vice Chair, and Committee Members. Just want to say we stand on our written testimony in strong support. We believe this measure is critical in expanding Hawaii's family leave law to include qualifying military exigencies. Our office sees firsthand the unpredictable demands military life places on families.

Short notice deployments, relocation orders, mandatory briefings, and urgent legal, financial, or childcare arrangements frequently require immediate time away from work. These responsibilities are not optional, and they are simply part of supporting a loved one's service to our country.

How—under current state law, these circumstances are not recognized as qualifying leave, often requiring our employees and employers to rely on ad hoc arrangements rather than clear, consistent policy. So, aligning our state law with established federal standards provides clarity for our employers, consistency for employees, and ensures that Hawaii's military families are taken care of when needed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Moore. We have Brigadier General Ross for the Hawaii National Guard, in support.

Aloha, Chair. Vice Chair. I'm Brigadier General Ross, Director of the Joint Staff of Hawaii National Guard. We stand in support of this measure and here for any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Testimony in support from Mike Golius, Senior. Any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers via zoom? Seeing none. Members, questions?

All right, moving on to House Bill 2291 relating to the Hawaii National Guard, clarifying that employees of the National Guard youth and educational programs are excluded from collective bargaining, renaming the program and codifying its Hawaiian name. We have testimony in support from Major General Stephen Logan or his representative from the Department of Defense.

Yeah. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. Brigadier General Retired Neil Mitsuyoshi representing General Logan. We stand on our written testimony in support and prepare to answer any questions you have.

Thank you. Testimony in support from Brigadier General Bruce Oliveira, Department of Defense, Director of Hawaii National Guard Civil Military Programs.

Good morning, Chair. Vice Chair, Committee. I'm Brigadier General Retired Bruce Olivera, Director of the Civil Military Programs for the Hawaii National Guard, and I provide written testimony in strong support of House Bill 2291. It is a housekeeping bill. We don't ask for any money for this bill.

There is a couple changes that we want to point out very quickly in the Job and Youth Challenge Academy. First, we changed the Hilo Youth Challenge Academy to a Job Challenge Academy. We also have a Starbase Academy, which is a STEM program in Keaau, on the Big Island.

And then, we recently picked up the Hawaii State approving agency that certifies schools for GI bills that veterans go through. I also wanted to mention, finally, that this act exempts and excludes position in the Hawaii National Guard, but it only mentions the Master Cooperative Agreement that we fall under.

I want to make sure that we also include which has changed since the Master Cooperative Agreement. We have the Chief International Guard Bureau Manual, dated March 22nd, 2023, and the Department of Defense instruction dated September 11th, 2015. For these reasons, I respectfully urge your support of measure, and I'll be standing by for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any other Members in the room wishing to testify? Any Members on Zoom? Seeing none. Members, questions?

For this gentleman. Thank you so much. Are there currently any positions that are within collective bargaining in this program, in the Youth Challenge?

Currently there are, in our Starbase Program. In the Youth Challenge Academy and the Job Challenge Academy, we have none. But in our Starbase Academy, we do. The issue we have with that is that the Starbase Academy is 100% funded by the Federal Government.

And when Bartley Unit, for good reason, will bargain for their union and then give us raises, we can't afford that raises. The budget is already set from the Federal Government.

So, what we have to do is we have to release the employees that we have at Starbase for one day and then rehire them again at the same pay that they had previously. So, that's the conflict we have between.

Okay, I just want to—have you guys been in negotiations at all with HGA? Because I noticed they didn't provide testimony.

No, no.

Just checking. Thank you.

Thank you.

Actually, Brigadier General, I have one question. I'm open to adding the amendment that you're requesting, but I'm not sure where in the Bill it should be placed. So, if there's a possibility for you to provide me with some language before 11:30 AM today and I will make that recommendation at decision making, that would be very helpful.

All right. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Members. Any other questions? All right, Members, I'm gonna announce what my decision making is. And again, for our purposes, I typically do decision making on all of our agendas at 11:30. But I wanna do this for the public now, so you don't have to stay here. My inclination is going to be to pass all of these out with H for HB 2235.

It will be to blank out appropriation, place the requested amount in the Committee report, any tech amendments, a defective date of July 1, 3000 and throughout the bill, amend the language to reflect the Military affairs and Community Relations Office title for relating to military families.

House Bill 2263, also to pass this out with an HD1 with a defective effective date and any tech amendments.

And then 2291 is also to pass this out with a defective date and then the amendment being requested by Hawaii National Guard, pending that information being given to us, because I want to reflect and make sure that we align the authorities if it's necessary.

Again, Members, those are going to be my recommendations when we reconvene at 11.30am for decision making on this matter. Otherwise, seeing no further business, we are in recess to be reconvened at 11:30am for decision making.

Recess.

Good morning. Convening our joint Committee hearing on Public Safety and Human Services and Homelessness. Today is Friday, February 6th, 2026, on our 10:00 AM agenda. Members, we have a busy morning. I just want to remind those who are on Zoom, please keep yourself muted.

If there should be a malfunction, we will have—we will restart and we if we have to, we will re-notice and then restart. Please avoid using any trademark or copyrighted images on the zoom and please refrain from any profanity or uncivil behavior.

Members, we, again, as I said, we have a busy morning of lots of joint committee hearings throughout the Capitol, so, we will proceed with this expeditiously. We are likely going to recess this and then reconvene this for decision making at the time that we have quorum for both committees.

So, thank you and welcome to the Committee on Human Services and Homelessness on this very important measure we have before us. The measure we are taking up is HB 676 relating to youth and adult correctional facilities. This is a bill that we saw last year and it's moving again.

This is related to voice communication services for incarcerated persons and youth in state—in our state correctional facilities. Members, first up, we have testimony from the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation Director, Tommy Johnson.

Good morning, Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Olds, Vice Chair Iwamoto, members of both committees. I'll summarize my testimony since it's four pages long. We support the intent of this measure and appreciate the legislatures having this discussion.

We did submit amended testimony because we found an error in our testimony calculations on the bottom of page three and near the bottom of page four. So, hopefully you receive that. We sent it directly to your office. So, so, in short, some other states went down this road to completely provide free telephone service.

For instance, Connecticut provided free telephone service with $11 million from closing facilities and found out that they still need to come up with another $3.08 million or $3.43 million. At the same time, other states tried the same thing.

The Bureau of Prisons tried this as well and ended up having to change the way it provided services because of the cost. The number of minutes use doubled. And then, so, I just want to be I want to caution the Legislature about getting rid of the putting the burden of the cost of running...on the taxpayer.

And then, if you take a look at page four at the bottom of our testimony, we estimate that at the current rate, the Legislature would need to appropriate between 1.4 and $1.5 million at the lower rate and at the higher rate of 0.12%, 12 cents per minute, they would need to appropriate between $2.8 to $2.9 million a year for this program.

Thank you very much. I'll be available to answer questions.

Thank you, Director. We have testimony in support from the Office of the Public Defender. Good morning, Ms. Chang.

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. My name is Haley Chang. I am the First Deputy of the Office of the Public Defenders. We stand in strong support of this measure. We supported this measure last year as well.

I do want to first caveat my testimony by saying that we understand and appreciate the importance of victim notification. Nothing about our testimony is meant to be interpreted as we don't believe that there is a necessity for that system. However, we want to distinguish the issue from open communication for those who are incarcerated.

The Office of the Public Defender across the state represents the majority of incarcerated individuals. We can tell you firsthand how important and critical it is that these individuals have some sort of line to their family and to their loved ones.

Not only is this important for just basic human connection, but the lack of communication can often be more disruptive to the situation prior to their eventual release.

I would also like to highlight for this Committee that in the last—since I've been practicing in the recent years, the correctional facilities, at least on Oahu, specifically Halawa Prison and Oahu Correctional, Community Correctional Center, have stopped contact visits for loved ones. What that means is they are still able to visit in person, but they are not able to be in the same physical space without a barrier.

So, even in person visits are extremely limited. They are often hard to schedule and very challenging for people trying to navigate these correctional facilities as laypeople. So, I cannot begin to emphasize enough. We are in the facilities every day with our clients.

We hear how devastating it is it is for them to have the financial barrier to communication with their family Members. So we stand in very strong support of this measure and I will remain available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Chang. We have testimony in support with amendments from the Public Utilities Commission.

...I stand on our written testimony...your questions. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. We have testimony, comments, Office of Youth Services. Any, anyone here for Office of Youth Services? All right. Seeing none. Testimony in opposition. Savin Governance Committee.

Good morning. Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Kim Iwamoto, and Members of the Committee of the Public Safety. My name is Ana Malafu Eliesa. I am the Victim Witness Director for the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney in Maui as well as the Chairperson of the Savin Governance Committee, and I'm here today to respectfully oppose House Bill 676.

While I appreciate the intent behind this legislation to promote free and accessible communication services for persons in correctional facilities, I have significant concerns about its potential impact on public safety and victim services. This Bill proposes to require correctional facilities to provide free services—voice services to incarcerated individuals.

While we support the idea of maintaining family connections, our primary concern is that legislation would eliminate a crucial funding source for Hawaii Statewide Automated Victim Information and Notification Program, which is known as SAVIN. SAVIN plays an essential role in our community by providing timely notifications via phone, email, and text regarding inmate releases and parole hearings.

Currently, a substantial portion of SAVIN's funding comes from the telephone tax which this bill seeks to eliminate. Removing this funding will jeopardize the program's ability to operate effectively. Without SAVIN, victims and their families may remain unaware of critical updates such as parole hearings or release dates, which could compromise their safety and their ability to participate in the justice process.

Public safety must be a priority and ensuring ongoing funding for victim notification services is a vital part of that.

Eliminating this key funding source without establishing a long-term alternative could undermine victim support and compromise community safety. For these reasons, I respectfully oppose HB 676 in its current form and urge the Committee to consider deferring this Bill until a sustainable funding mechanism can be established for SAVIN.

Thank you for your time and consideration and I'll be available for questions.

Thank you. We just need to take a look a little bit. For our interpreter, you can come and sit on this side. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Malafu Eliesa. We have testimony in opposition from the Maui County Department of the Prosecuting Attorney. Testimony in opposition from County of Hawaii Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.

Testimony in support, Community Alliance on Prisons. Ms. Kat Brady. And I urge that we be—we do have your testimony. So, if, to be very brief.

I can be very brief. Thank you so much. Good morning committees and thank you to both of you for hearing this measure. Really, really important. You know, President Biden's FCC made great strides toward actually addressing this issue and helping families stay connected.

Families are charged exorbitant fees, higher prices for regular phone charges and to maintain vital communication with their people. And while we acknowledge that the corporate telephone providers are really greedy corporations that are just trying to make as much money as they can, they're doing it at the expense of justice.

We know DCR supports keeping families connected and they like to say that all the time, but when push comes to shove, something is missing. This legislation would remove the economic burden. We can't impress enough upon the committees how much it is to—how important it is for reentry for people to stay connected with their families.

So, I included in my testimony a whole bunch of comments from people inside who are just underscoring that, that it is so important to stay connected, for them to come out and have support. To release people after they've had no connection is probably the greatest threat to public safety.

So, I just want to underscore that revenge is not justice. And I direct you to look at Civil Beat this morning because a victim, Alvin Jardine, spent 20 years in prison and with no compensation, the Maui prosecutors have denied any further hearings and now, he's dead at 56. Thank you.

And innocent.

Thank you, Ms. Brady. Testimony in opposition from the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, in Person. Anyone from Sex Abuse Treatment Center? Testimony in support. We have two pieces of testimony from Worth Rises, from Ms. Bianca Tylek and Ms. Chapman. I ask, is there anyone on Zoom for Worth Rises?

Yes. Hi, we're here. I don't know if you can see us, but we're waiting.

Yes, we can. Go ahead.

Sure, I can get started. Thank you so much for having us. My name is Selena Chapin. I am the Chief Advocacy Officer at Worth Rises.

We are a national nonprofit dedicated to ending the exploitation of people impacted by incarceration. And I'm also here on behalf of the Connecting Family of—Connecting Families Hawaii. It is a coalition of directly impacted and allied organizations in support of this bill to make prison communication free for incarcerated people and their families.

We are here because for years, Hawaii families have had to make unconscionable decisions to stay connected with their incarcerated loved ones.

A few cents might not make a big difference to you, but trust me, as a child of a formerly incarcerated woman, a few cents to a kid who is not making money, of an incarcerated person who is not making money, makes a huge, huge, huge difference.

And despite years of pleas for help, Hawaii families continue to have to penny pinch just so that the child can hear the sound of their parent's voice for a few minutes. And it is time for us to, you know, take a stand.

Right now, Hawaii is the only state that sends incarcerated individuals hundreds of miles away, out of state from their families, from their children. And so, somehow, families have to like purchase a six-hour plane ticket across an ocean to see their incarcerated loved one, which makes free communication even more urgent.

And I cannot stress enough how much communication increases positive outcomes for youth for public safety as someone else had said just before me. I also can't emphasize enough because I've been hearing a lot about it. This Bill does not defund SAVIN but secures funding for it.

As of April 2026, federal law has an absolute, an absolute prohibition, on site commissions, and that will prohibit the state from using any revenue from prison phone or video calls to fund SAVIN, regardless of what rates are charged.

So, if the state continues to fund SAVIN using these revenues paid from site commissions from the DOC's telecom provider, the state will be in violation of federal law and will be exposed to substantial legal risk. Accordingly, the state has to find alternative funding within the next few months for SAVIN.

And so, that is why we provided an additional appropriation to address that need. I'm not going to do my whole testimony here because you all have it, but thank you so much for your time and I really, really, really urge you to support this Bill. And I'm going to pass it over to Bianca.

Okay, go ahead, Ms. Tylek, I really want to emphasize very brief. We've got the main point, I think, but go ahead, Ms. Tylek.

So much and I, I'm going to be quick because I think Selena kind of covered a lot of things that I wanted to mention. I wanted to say that we have passed this and helped pass this Bill in six other states in the federal system and in more than two different counties.

It is not accurate to represent this Bill as anything that would jeopardize public safety. In fact, we have correctional staff all over the country talking about the success of this Bill, for not just people who are incarcerated, but also for correctional officers.

I, myself, am a survivor of domestic violence, of sexual assault, and my own loved one was murdered. I do not take lightly the comments that were made are made by those who are...I appreciate and understand, understand the deep need for SAVIN and other things.

This Bill is exactly what it will allow Savin to continue because it establishes that appropriation once federal law prohibits revenues from phone calls to be used for SAVIN. So, it is just simply misguided testimony to suggest that this does anything otherwise.

Thank you, Ms. Tylek. Members, I'm going to take a pause for a little bit. We're going to recess this. I have to open up our 10:15 agenda. Then I'm going to recess our 10:15 agenda and reopen this to make sure that we don't lose the ability to have both hearings.

So, recess. Convening our Committee on Public Safety Agenda. Members, we're going to resist this until about 10:35 in order to allow the finishing of the other, other Committee hearing. So, we are now in recess. Reopening our 10:10 AM Joint Committee meeting of the Public Safety and Health and Human Services Committee. Next testifier.

As you can see, we are on a very tight schedule. So, our next testifier in support is Hawaii Friends of Restorative Justice. Seeing no testifier. We have to, we have to recess. I'm sorry. Can we—you need to recess. Recess.

Services. We're going to recess this and reopen this at 10:45. Is it still going? Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry, Members, as you can see into the public, this is a very difficult time, but we are going to keep moving with this hearing. We have testimony in support from ACLU of Hawaii. Again, I remember we have your written testimony.

Please be brief. We have all the information we need in front of us.

Yes. Thank you, Chair, Vice Chair, Committee Members. My name is Josh Frost. I'm a Policy Advocate at the ACLU of Hawaii. The ACLU defends and protects the rights of incarcerated persons of victims and their families. I just want to reiterate again, this Bill does not defund...does the opposite.

We agree with the work that the...does and believe that it needs to be funded. The FCC has said with rules that go into effect in April, that the fees for phone calls can only be spent on phone calls. They can't be used for government programs for anything. So, that's why we have this Bill.

I also want to point out that communication with the outside beyond prison is vitally important for rehabilitation. To suggest that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shouldn't be spending tax dollars to that end, I find bizarre. So, I hope you guys will support the Bill and move it out, and I'll stick around if you have any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Frost. We have testimony in opposition from the Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

We stand on our written testimony. Thank you, Chair, Vice Chair.

Thank you. We received numerous support from individuals in support. One individual in opposition. Is anyone here in the gallery that would like to testify in person?

Aloha. Henry Curtis, Executive Director of Life of the Land. Thank you for hearing this important Bill. We agree with the first section of the PUC's proposed amendment that they should be able to by rule or order, take up this issue. We think the second paragraph, the third word changed from shall to may, they may ask for legislation.

They may file something with the Legislature, but it's not necessary for them to issue an order. Mahalo.

Thank you. We have testimony in opposition from Dennis Dunn, former Director here, in opposition. Go ahead, Mr. Dunn.

Very quickly. I'll summarize. You see, I have lengthy testimony. I'm in opposition primarily because we've spent the last 13 years building Sabin, making sure the victims have notification. If we don't have a dedicated funding source and there are other options. I noticed some of my testimony.

Victims who are registered going back numerous years, thousands of people will suddenly be dropped off. I would also note that with our current situation where an increasing number of people are being released at the police departments and in court and not being held in custody, victims currently do not get any notification of that.

We need money to be able to roll this out to the police cell blocks and to the courts. Right now, we don't have that. I'm only concerned because I see a blank appropriation here for the victims. Million dollar appropriation for the prisoners, that concerns me.

Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Any other testifiers in person?

I'm sorry, I've submitted testimony. Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair. Pam Ferguson Bray. I'm the Executive Director of the Crime Victim Compensation Commission. We're also a member of the Governance Committee for Savin and the Director really talked, I think, on about the interests that victims have in this program.

What I want to talk specifically about is the funding mechanism for Savin. The Savin program was part of a 2012 bill by the Women's Caucus.

And when they created the program, what they understood is that a victim program that was housed in a correctional setting and that needed continuous funding, needed a dedicated funding source in order to be able to continue.

They knew that, you know, corrections, in doing their budget, they need to focus on corrections and that what in their wisdom and the discussions around that time were about, they need to make sure that there's a space carved out so that the rights of victims to notification, which is a gateway right for any other right that victims have, that that program is protected and that victims can get services through—in a post conviction.

We were the only state that did not have a program in corrections to serve victims at the time. So, our opposition really is to eliminating a dedicated funding source.

And also, our concern is that should there be in funding Savin, the consideration of needing the funds to go into the special fund that is dedicated to the Savin program, is, I think, of the greatest importance. Otherwise, when there's budget cuts, what will happen is that victim services always go, go first.

I've been doing this kind of work with Dennis for, you know, 20, 30 years, you know, testifying. And what we always say to each other in the victim programs is whenever there are funding cuts, it's the victim programs that go first.

So, this program was protected by the Women's Caucus at the time in a bill in recognition of that fact. So, we urge you to, in whatever resolution that you have to funding Savin, that you do it in a way that enables the program to continue. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers on Zoom. Seeing none. Members, questions?

I have a question for Savin.

Very briefly because we're going to go to 7:35.

Are you the Director of Savin?

I'm the chairperson.

Chairperson, please.

Sorry. So, given the information that you've been hearing that the Federal Government is going to end the funding through the collection of phone call, where are you going to get your money from, but, but from this Bill? You know what I mean?

This is my understanding of Section 6 of this Bill, specifically saying we got to fund you guys, we got. You know what I mean?

Yeah, that is my understanding too. But I will have Tommy speak on that.

Before the Director speaks, do you—I want the, I want the advocates to understand. Do you understand the effect of the FEC ruling that in April 2026, we are not going to be allowed to use these funds?

Yes.

You understand that?

We do understand that.

That's what I want to understand. Okay, thank you. Now let's pose that question to Director.

Thank you.

And this is a Federal Government that wants to find us for everything that we might be doing wrong. So, go ahead, Director.

Well said. Real quick. I want to make it clear that we understand the Federal Government's ruling. All we're saying is that the state will end up paying more than what you suspect you're going to pay because the minutes are going to double as other states did. I'll give you an example.

Right now, we provide 5 minutes free to every inmate every week. We're working to provide 15 minutes free to every inmate every week, which is an hour.

Director, that's a fair clarification, but we have to untangle these two things. You're concerned about cost containment. The victim advocates are concerned that they're not going to get funding. But the victim advocates need to understand funding is going away not because of something that the state is doing. It's something because of what the Federal Government has done.

I understand. So, we do support the Savin. And, but we would, we would say that if you're going to appropriate money, which we, which I do recommend you do, that we sit down and we come up with an exact number, so we're clear on what, what is going to be needed and what the state's going to be on the hook for moving forward.

We do get 4% of the commissary that goes towards Savin. That is nowhere near enough. In order to make up for the difference, we have to raise that to like somewhere between 8 and 12%.

That's not fair to the inmates or their families.

And this is precisely why the hearing process is very good because we're untangling the miscommunication and misinformation that's going out there in the community. Thank you, Director. Any further questions? Representative Shimizu.

One brief question for Director. If this goes through and inmates are afforded free phone calls and they increase their minutes, how does that affect your operations?

We have to have the staff want them to run the telephone calls. So, right now, we have the tablets, which I think they can do telephone calls on the tablets enough. Yes. So, right now, we have TTL tablets. We're looking at a different vendor now and we're trying to look for getting the—I know it's off the subject some, but we're looking at getting a tablet for every convicted felon.

So, it's manageable, is that what you say?

I'm saying it's manageable, but we need the funding. Funding. We just need to make sure we get enough funding to sustain the program moving forward.

Thank you, Director. Thank you, Chair.

Seeing any other questions? All right, Members, seeing none, we're going to recess the joint committee hearing. We're going to reconvene this for decision making at 11:30 AM and hopefully, we'll have a quorum from our sister Committee, Health and Human Services—or Human Services and Homelessness. Thank you, Vice Chair.

We are in recess. We are reopening...15 AM agenda and we will—I will start to talk slowly so that we can allow folks to move out. But I do want to keep us going. Getting situated. We are on our 10:15 AM agenda. I am going to take a Bill out of order because we have with us an ASL interpreter.

So Members, I'm going to take up first House Bill 2443 relating to disaster services. This integrates the needs of individuals with disabilities and others with access and functional needs into emergency planning, preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation activities.

This establishes a disability integration specialist position to be located in the Hawai'i Emergency Management Agency who shall provide programming support for disability community projects that promote accessibility, inclusion and equity in disposal management. House Bill 2443 Members is before us. And first up we have testimony with comments from the Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Ryan Endo.

Thank you, Mr. Endo, for being here.

Good morning, Chair Belatti, Vice Chairs, Members of the Committee, the depart. I'm Ryan Endo, Deputy Attorney General from the Department of the Attorney General. Our comments are contained in our written testimony. I will be available for any questions.

And we also have an amendment from. From you proposed amendment. We have testimony and support from Hawaii State Council on developmental disabilities. Ms. Daintree Bartoldes or her.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, and Committee Members. My name is Savannah Peskin. I'm the Maui Program Specialist with the Hawaii State Council on Developmental Disabilities. Here on behalf of Dainty Bartoldos, our Executive administrator, you folks have a written testimony and strong support. We just wanted to emphasize a couple of key points.

We wanted to clarify that the purpose of this position is to serve people with disabilities and also those with access and functional needs. Access and functional needs can be a very broad population of folks. It can be folks that need refrigerated medication, women that are pregnant, or people that might have a limited English proficiency.

So it's a very broad scope of people. We had the opportunity to connect with Colorado's Disability Integration Specialist. She advised us on the position's role in emergency management. And so that led us to respectfully recommend the following changes in our proposed HD one that you folks have attached. On page three, line four.

We recommended adding language on bringing best and promising practices to Hawaii. On page three, line six. Seven. And page four is line five. We recommend adding language to clarify the duties of the Disability Integration Specialist to not only serve those with disabilities, but also those with access and functional needs as well.

And then our added language on page nine. We are integrating the position into all duties of the Hawai' I Emergency Management Agency, ensuring that accessible communication is in all forms of emergency management. And then also clarifying that the Disability Integration specialists will be supporting all counties across the state of Hawaii.

Thank you for this opportunity to submit testimony, and we are available for any questions.

Thank you. Next up, we have. Testimony in support from Mr. Barrows, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, James Rouse, the administrator for HEMA. We submitted our written testimony standby in support of this bill, and we really look to strengthen our collaboration with our partners across the state. So this bill helps do that.

Thank you, Mr. Barros. Thank you for your support. We have testimony and support from the Disability and Communication Access Board.

Aloha. Good morning. My name is Christine Pagano and I am from DCAB, the Disability Communication Access Board. So good morning to you, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. We stand on our testimony that we. Have submitted. And I'm here to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you. We have testimony and support from the Executive Office on Aging via Zoom or in person. Okay. We have testimony and support, Office of Wellness and Resilience, comments from Hawai' I Civil Rights Commission, testimony and support from Lou Erdicek, Hawaii Disability Rights Center. In person or via Zoom?

Yes, I'm on Zoom. Thank you. We definitely support this bill. As I indicated in the testimony. I mean, anytime a disaster hits, it hits everybody. But if you have a disability, it hits you even more. And so if you're going to have. The lead agency for emergency management, especially.

With all the lack of planning and the problems that we saw in the Maui fires where we didn't have a lot of accessible facilities, this thing makes perfect sense. So we certainly hope that you'll support the bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Mr. ER. Testimony and support response Caregivers of Hawaii testimony and support Hawaii Self Advisory Advocacy Advisory Council testimony and support from Josh Getz, also with the Hawaii Self Advocacy Advisory Council. Testimony from. Support we received from. From individuals Jackie Keith, Kaili Swan and Annette Shiro.

I'm here. Chair.

Hi, Mr. Swan. Go ahead.

Good morning, Chair, Vice chair, Committee Members. My name is Kylie Swan. I'm a strong supporter. bill. Because emergency preparedness is most important with people with disabilities. We have a Feeling Safe Being safe program that we offer in state of Hawaii to teach people with intellectual disability without. Without intellectual disability. Sorry. And health prepared in case of emergency.

It was started in the state of California by self advocate Sam Durbin, a feeding State Being Safe certified trainer in state of California. Thank you for allowing me to testify. And please know every question that you may have. Thank you. Allow me to testify.

Thank you, Mr. Swan. Any other testifiers, any questions? Members?

Question.

Go ahead, Mr. Shimizu. Representative Shimizu.

Question would be after this is implemented and started up, do you anticipate a significant ongoing maintenance cost to support it just with the individual that we would hire you in this position.

So not so much in O and M cost, but mainly just for the personnel. We would add that some of that money that we'd use in our public affairs budget. So just personnel mostly. Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Any other questions, Members? This is an unusual situation, but I'm actually going because we have quorum for this Committee. I'm going to take the vote on this because we have the interpreter here and I want to be able to take the vote while the interpreter is here.

So Chair's recommendation For this Bill, Hospital 2443 is to pass it out with an HD1. If there is any appropriation in here. Let me just make sure we're going to blank it out. Okay. Blanking out any of the appropriations and putting them into the Committee report.

I'm going to adopt the proposed amendments from the State Council on Developmental Disabilities. I am not going to adopt the recommendations from the Department of the Attorney General. Then I'll leave that question of whether it's an exempt position to finance if they should make it there.

And then any tech amendments for consistency, clarity and style and defective date of July 1st 3,000 Members. Any questions on this? Any concerns? Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay, voting on HB 224-324-32. I'm sorry, 2443. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. [Roll Call] Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Thank you, Members, for indulgence in taking this. And we will dismiss the interpreter at this moment because we won't need a frank for their bills. Okay. And as we do that, Members, we're going to return to the top of the agenda relating to House Bill 2290 relating to Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Members.

We have testimony in support from Major Adjutant. Excuse me, Adjutant General, Major General Stephen Logan, Department of Defense. In support. We have testimony in support from Mr. James Barrows, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

Good morning, Chair. Vice Chair. You guys have our written testimony. I just wanted to kind of reiterate as the conversations at the federal level talk about FEMA and what that role is.

You know, we had those conversations in the state, and both General Logan and I believe elevating the administrator to a deputy Director would solve and really provide a solution that elevates emergency management without having to create another Department.

Thank you, Mr. Barros. Yes. FEMA and HYMA are going through a lot of changes right now because of the Federal Government's actions. Do we have any other testifiers in the room? Any testifiers via zoom? Seeing none. Members. Questions? Seeing none. Let's move on then. House Bill 2581.

This relates to emergency management clarifying the types of events that constitute disasters and emergencies for the purposes. Purposes of emergency management. First, we have an opposition, Mr. Barros, from HYMA.

We oppose this bill at this time because of the nature of emergency management across the state and across the country. There's so much uncertainty right now. We see this bill as bringing in and putting emergency management in a box rather than opening up the aperture for emergency management to really respond to any event in the state.

So I'm available to question that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Barros. We may have a difference of opinion, Mr. Barros, but we will continue. Comments from Mr. Elton Mushil Administrator of Kauai Emergency Management Agency so we have comments or support from earthjustice Vice Chair Committee Members.

My name is Drew Hara, I'm an attorney with Earth Justice. So we submitted written testimony and support this measure which we think is really important to restore the proper constitutional balance of powers between the Legislature and the Executive branch.

And really this is particularly important in light of the Supreme Hawaii Supreme Court's recent Nakoa decision in last year where there the court held that under Chapter 127a, the Governor could issue emergency proclamations not just to address typical types of natural disasters or man made disasters that you might think of, but also any long term issues of public policy relating to public health, safety or welfare.

That latter broader definition really encompasses pretty much the entire body of material that the Legislature is charged to address under Article 3 of our Hawaii Constitution. So would really encourage you to consider these amendments. In response to some of the opposition from HYMA and this idea of being overly limiting.

I would point out that the definitions or the terms provided in this bill are borrowed from House Bill 596 which last year was approved by both the House and the Senate and made it to conference, didn't make it out of conference. And also that the focus really is on resulting from any sudden or natural cause, including.

And then there's a list of sort of disasters that would be covered. That including language is important as a matter of statutory interpretation. It's not an exclusive list. And also say we're not married to the language.

So if there are things like cyber attacks, other things that were mentioned specifically I believe by the Kaua'i Emergency Management in their testimony, that's something we'd certainly be open to adding that in. And I think it would already be covered under the extension.

So we appreciate this opportunity to really bring back the function of this bill and the scope of this bill in line with what we consider to be the original legislative intent behind the emergency management statute. Thank you. We're available for questions.

Thank you. And you're Drew Hara? Yeah, thank you. Mr. Hara. Yeah, nice to meet you. We have testimony and support from Grassroots Institute of Hawaii. Do we have any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers via Zoom Seeing on Members questions. I have a question, Mr. Hara. When did the Nicola decision come down?

This came down. I can't remember the exact month, but it would have been, I believe in the fall of last year, 2025 or late summer.

And this would have. So this bill is really now in response to that yeah.

And that's reflected in the preamble of this bill. And I think it's important that that remains part of this legislation and this legislative history so that ultimately one thing that came out of that decision is that emergency proclamations are judicially reviewable.

And so this is something that when this issue comes up, it will ultimately be decided by the courts. And so when future courts are looking to the statute, I think it's important that the Nicola decision and this sort of specific response of reining in the Executive power is something that's expressly stated in the history.

And would you be open? Because the testimony in opposition seems very concerned about cyber attacks. So what is there? Could we put cyber attacks into this list?

Certainly, yeah. I think our concern is not necessarily the nature of the disaster in terms of what is the source. It's more having something that's sudden or unforeseen rather than a long, a long standing issue of public policy that could be adequately addressed in due course of the regular legislative process.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Burros. Maybe cyber attacks might not be an accurate word, but do you think cyber terrorism would be sufficient to quell some of the opposition coming from the emergency management lobby.

Perhaps? Chair? Yes. One example, when we look at emergency management and getting an EP by the Governor, two years ago within the emergency management enterprise, we had conversations about sirens and can we use an EP to address some critical sirens. And we had those conversations. It never got to the governor's desk because we found ways to.

Not really we're addressing it, but I think when it eps, I was in the room advocating for an emergency proclamation for sirens in the tsunami zones. Other people across the table will say no, use the process that it already exists. So that would be something that I would have advocated and I did advocate for an ep, so.

And that that wouldn't be covered if we change the law. So. But to address cyber attacks and terrorisms, the impacts of it. Absolutely.

Thank you, Mr. Barrows. Any other questions? All right, seeing none. Moving on to House Bill 2554. We have relating to search and rescue Members. Actually the next two bills are relating to search and rescue and I really put these two bills on so we could a conversation about this.

So we'll take up House Bill 2554, which takes one tact of establishing within the office of the Governor of the Office of the State and Rescue Coordinator. We have testimony.

Hold on.

Comments from Office of Information Practices testimony and support from Hawaii Search and Rescue Alliance, Hawaii Star Alliance via Zoom. Not present. Okay, testimony. Go ahead, Ms. Rosemary Johnson, are you there? Yes, I am. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead, Ms. Johnson.

Okay, thank you, Chair, Vice Chair and Committee Members. This is a very important bill and I'm very grateful that you put it on your agenda to be heard. This has actually been years in the making and I just want to be you. I do stand by my written testimony.

I am here for questions and I just wanted to be very clear that this is to provide daily centralized oversight and administrative accountability for interagency communications. And this is for anywhere from maritime, wilderness, urban sar, including missing persons investigations. That is why it was placed under the Office of the Governor temporarily for special purposes.

That language is not in either of these bills and that does need to be amended so that it can move forward. Thank you.

Okay. We have testimony in support from Stacy Haraguchi, President. Go ahead. Is Stacy present or not present? Yes.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair. I am online. Thank you. So I stand by my testimony.

One thing I would like to add is right now kind of alluding to my original testimony right now, all counties have a memo of understanding with the US Coast Guard, a federal agency, that if they are unable to affect a rescue, let's say, you know, lost kayaker, they can call the Coast Guard for support within one hour.

They're kind of violating the basic principle of the National Incident Management system where you start small, you go county to county or county to state requesting support. You normally don't jump, you know, a full echelon of the government to affect this.

However, search and rescue is a different animal because we're talking about minutes making a huge difference, you know, people living or dying. State SAR coordinator be extremely valuable in that if you have an inland SAR situation, they can now ask for support. It's not a tasking.

It's not like that organization is going to give money to get people to participate. That's not the way SAR works for the National SAR Plan. So I stand by for additional questions and I would suggest contacting the US Coast Guard watch floor because they had this method down pat. They're just. The thing is, they're a federal agency.

They cannot act on behalf of the state if it is a situation that exceeds the capability of a county. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other testifiers in the realm? Any other testifiers via Zoom? Go ahead. If you can state your name, if you're affiliated with an organization and provide your testimony.

My name is Dana McLaughlin and I'm with the Hawaii Civil Air Patrol. And I did submit some testimony, but it may have come in late. So I apologize for that. But I stand by that testimony that I did submit.

And I just wanted to underscore that having the search and rescue Coordinator's office under the governor's office temporarily allows that authority of what Colonel Hiraguchi was just saying to pass from the counties to the state before jumping to the federal level. Having it in the governor's office means the Governor now has an information hub of resources.

But the one thing that's in the bill that I do think needs to be amended is this authority. This coordinator should not be responsible for conducting or doing trainings. Right. They need to not be responsible for. For doing search and rescue trainings. They need to be more of a coordinator. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Okay, Members, seeing no other testifiers questions, let's take up House Bill 2 for which is also relating to search and rescue. Go ahead, Representative Shimizu. Or 25. Yes, Mr. Haraguchi, if you could come back on.

Line. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Haraguchi, for being here. I guess I'm trying to understand this whole structure. So if we create this new position or system is, wouldn't there be some redundancy? I guess in my mind there must be something already in place that we have to address this scope of work.

Do you know? So at this point, as I understand it, and I'll defer some of this to Administrator Barros on this, the example I have, which is fairly common or I'm sorry, common between 2022 and 2024, summer of, during those time periods, we had two real world search and rescue events that occurred in.

I believe it was July 2024. A helicopter crashed on the north shore of Kauai, Kauai County, Erwan Ocean Safety Fire Department, all those folks immediately got involved. They knew it was going to be on their capability. So they immediately called in Coast Guard per their existing MOU. The Hawaii Army National Guard also provided an 860.

And they did talk to Lieutenant Governor Luka about it after the fact and she said yes, she was involved. Yes, she had to approve the use of that National Guard helicopter. What I don't know. And again, I'll defer to Administrator Barros on this. I believe Jaima did get involved in that process.

But that's as far as I understand, that's not a process that is written down in a plan. We do not currently have a state ESF 9 search and rescue plan, which kind of means that the process is undefined. People do what they need to do, you know, to make sure we try to save lives.

However, it does create confusion and it does lead to some inefficiencies when we don't have a written plan or somebody that knows how to orchestrate that plan. I hope that answers the question.

Am I able to ask Mr. Barros? He's not a testifier, so I'm not able to ask him a question.

Or let's. Can you pause on that? Sure. And let's go through the next set and then I will indulge in that, in that question after we go through the next bill. Any other questions on House Bill 2554?

All right, Members, moving to our second option on the table is House Bill 2.39, also relating to establishing an Office of the State Search and Rescue Coordinator within the Office of the Governor. We have first up, Comments from the Attorney General.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Committee Deputy Attorney General Ryan Endo. Our written comments. Our comments are in our written testimony. I will be available for any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Endo. We have comments in support again from the Hawaii Star Alliance. Rosemary Johnson, I believe is on Zoom.

Yes, again, hello. Thank you very much for hearing this. It is very similar to the last agenda item and it is basically the same thing. The language also does need to be amended to specifically say for a temporary, special sorry, temporary basis for special purposes.

And I would like to defer to the adjunct General to see if there are any questions or dispute against having it as a temporary basis for special purposes because this did work very well with the Office of Wellness and Resilience and based on our again, the Hawaii Star Alliance is built up of experts within the state and nationally.

And for the last couple of years, in preparation to submitting the proposal for this bill, we have had meetings with HYMA, DOD, Coast Guard, all of the relevant agencies.

And because of our state being so specific in nature and because of all of the suggestions that Sergeant Hermiguchi had just said, as well as Dana McLaughlin, even though it's for a different Bill, it is very related, this is very specific in nature to our state.

Thus the reason for it to be under the Office of the Governor temporarily for special purposes until it gets its footing and then we can find a permanent home for it. There is no duplication of this anywhere in the state.

That's why we are requesting it, because there is a states, our coordinator for the maritime and that is the Coast Guard. That is federal. There is nothing within the state.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson. We have testimony in support from Kauai Search and Rescue, Noel Hamilton, Cambay. Written testimony, only testimony and support from, again, the Civil Air Patrol Hawaii wing. Dana McLaughlin via Zoom. Are you still there?

I'm still here and I don't really have anything to add other than to underscore that this position isn't redundant because it doesn't exist today.

The incident that might happen, whether it's the helicopter crash on Kauai, when that local agency needs help, they don't have anybody that they can call other than the Coast Guard to say, hey, can we get another resource in here? Can we get more air assets? Can we get more boats over here?

We have something that has gotten bigger. Hyma doesn't currently do that kind of directory service capability to be able to connect the islands together and to connect resources that are incident specific unless it's been declared by the Governor as an emergency that affects the entire state. So that's the gap.

We're talking about these local incidents as they get slightly bigger but before they get to the state level. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Testimony again in support from Mr. Stacy Haraguchi, individual.

Thank you, Chair. The testimony provided is almost identical to the previous on 2554. I stand by for questions.

Thank you. Any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers via Zoom? Seeing a member's questions.

I have a question.

Go ahead. Representative Shimizu.

For STAR Alliance. So that is Ms. Rosemary Johnson. Go ahead. Go ahead.

We have two bills that are very similar. Do you have a take on which one you would suggest or prefer? I didn't mean to put you on.

The spot, but yeah, no, they are both. They are almost identical. I would like the one that is the strongest going forward to pass. This has been unlit. This has been, like I said, years in the making.

So we have worked with different House representatives and unknowingly different representatives were working on it at different time at the same time. And so we ended up. There's two of them. I believe that the. The. I don't know, a number. What are. What are the two numbers again, please? It's okay.

You don't have to make answer to that question. You just want the strongest.

You want the strongest. I believe that, you know, one does focus more on missing persons. The writing in that one does say that it is a pilot, like a temporary basis.

The other one, you know, in it, the language I have in my notes and in my testimony that the language in that particular One, I think it's 554, does need to be amended a little bit. But again, whichever one you guys choose to move forward with. I think that's, it's both. I don't really have an opinion.

Thank you. I'm sorry, one follow up question. Chair, Go ahead, Representative. Same person. So these introducers, the introducers of both Bill, did they have conversation with you?

Yes, I've had conversations in depth with both of them. I believe that House Rep. Amato, they were very interested in being a companion Bill to Senator McKelvey's Bill from the Senate and Rep. Cochran also was very interested. But Amato is jumped on as being a House companion. They are both great House companion bills in my opinion.

We've spoken with a lot of House Representatives as well as the Senators because, and this has been going on for years.

As a matter of fact, the day of the fires, I was at the state legislator, I was having a meeting with the leadership team on a root cause analysis and all of the research we had done in best practices and it was the same day my town was burning down. So it got shelved.

So it is very important.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Johnson, for your advocacy. Any other questions? I'm not going to ask that we indulge in questions of the Director at this time. If this bill moves forward, they can comment as it moves forward. And there's one more clear bill that's in front of the Legislature.

Good call. Thank you, Chair.

Any other questions Members? All right, if there are none. Thank you all. We are moving on to House Bill 2622, which is relating to language access. And this would appropriate funds for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to increase access to bilingual resources and services for residents with limited English proficiency.

Members, we have testimony and support from Mr. Barros, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

Aloha. We made leaps and bounds when we picked up a language access coordinator and we want to keep that. We were thought, you know, I thought we were doing great until Rep. Ichiyama said, hey, take a look at this. And it was like, Oh, so now we have somebody that's dedicated to look at that.

So we support this bill. We support the other access bill that just connects all the community with emergency management. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Barros. Testimony and support from Mr. Jack Lewin, state Health Planning and Development Agency. Testimony with comments from Hawaii Civil Rights Commission. Any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers via zoom. Members, questions? Seeing none. We are catching up. Members, we are the last bill we may be able to vote on this.

So staff want to start to get call for quorum for this agenda. We can do that. Otherwise let's move to hospital.

2498 relating to care homes requires an appropriate funds for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to establish a Central Oahu Care Home Community Resilience pilot program to assist eligible care home facilities to implement structural and operational resilience improvements. We have testimony first in support from Mr. Barros, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

We did submit rest written testimony in support. I just wanted to kind of talk about in 20 in. Earlier in 2023 we tried to start a pilot program what we call R21k residential retrofits. We wanted to do 1,000 homes.

Now we're looking at this as being that that pilot of how can we retrofit some long term care homes and that's what the task force would look at. So we support this bill.

Thank you, Mr. Barrows. We have comments from the Department of Health.

Good morning Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Paul Osorio. I am the chief for the Office of Health Care Assurance and my Department licenses and regulates care homes. So the Department stands on. That's testimony that we submitted and recommended some amendments and I'm available for questions if you have. Thank you.

We have testimony and support from the Hawaii Insurers Council.

Good morning Chair Bellatti, Vice Chair Yamoto and Members of the Council the Committee. My name is Leslie Doer. I'm the Director of Product Risk and Regulatory Compliance for Zephyr Insurance and the Property Chair for Hawaii Insurers Council. Hawaii Insurance Council supports this bill which establishes the Central Oahu Care Home Community Resilience Pilot Program.

The bill takes a practical, targeted and fiscally responsible approach by establishing the pilot program in a defined geographic area, allowing the state to evaluate effectiveness before considering broader expansion. Importantly, more importantly, it emphasizes mitigation preparedness rather than post disaster response which is both more humane and more cost effective.

HIC believes that investing in care home resilience is not only a moral obligation to protect our most vulnerable residents, but also a sound public policy decision that can reduce emergency response cost, minimize displacement and support faster community recovery. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and I'm here if you have any questions.

Thank you. Testimony and support From Navion Hawaii, Mr. Richmond Luzar.

Chair. Vice Chair Richmond Lazar testifying on behalf of Navion Hawaii. We'll stand on our written testimony and support.

I would just add that we work with a number of care homes and individuals throughout Oahu and we recognize the need for increased structural resilience for a lot of these facilities and as the population, as the Kupuna population grows over the next 25 years, that need is more important than ever. So we, we support the pilot program.

Thank you. We have comments from Mr. John McDermott, state long term care Ombudsman. All right, any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers via zoom? Seeing none Members, questions? Question, Representative Shimizu.

I just want to clarify with Mr. Barros this, this is just a study. And then to establish action plan and then as far as the actual work, that's, that's a whole other second, second phase. Am I correct?

Ideally, the task force would do both. Because when we, when we talked about this, this concept, when I talk about the R21k, we were looking at getting donations, getting corporate donations, getting volunteers, so putting that kind of plan together for long term care homes. So ideally we'd like to get after both in my district.

Okay, thank you.

All right, Members, any other questions? Seeing none Members, we are at the end of our agenda. We're going to recess. So in order to be able to get our material, materials and ready for decision making, I'm going to reconvene this at 11:20. So we got 10 minutes or. Yeah, 11:20.

And then we'll roll into our 11:30am Agendas as well. So we got 10 minutes for attendance. Members, any questions? All right, recess. We can.

Good morning. Reconvening our 10:15am agenda for the Committee on Public Safety. Members, we've had a busy morning. Thank you for all of your hard work. I think we all got our steps in today.

So taking up House Bill 2291, relating to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Bill, we have testimony and support kind of just really realigning the command structure. Chair's recommendation is to pass this with technical non sensitive amendments for clarity, consistency and style to put in a July 1, 3000 defective effective date. Members, any questions, comments or concerns? Seeing none.

Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay. Voting on HB 2290 Chair's recommendation is passed with amendments noting the. Okay, do it. Roll call Sorry, sorry. [Roll Call] Recommendation is adopted.

Moving on to the next bill, Members. House Bill 2581, relating to emergency management. I really want to thank the introducer for continuing to push this bill. I think in light of the developments of Nakoa III that was rendered by the Hawaii Supreme Court in the Fall of 2025 that this is a measure that we should move forward.

My recommendation is to add into the list of instances where emergency calculations would be needed to include the term cyberterrorism after bioterrorism. And then to add a July 1st, 3000 defective effective date. Any questions, comments, or concerns? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Voting on HB 2581. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Given that all are present. Are there any noes? Any with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Okay, Members, on our next Bill, House Bill 2554 and 2439, I'm going to defer House Bill 2439 and allow House Bill 2554 to be a vehicle that moves forward. Clearly, there is some gaps in our system, as evidenced by the number of individuals who have come forward to say that we need some kind of office.

So, Chair's recommendation in 2554 is going to be to convert this to a pilot program and not have it codified in Hawaii Revised Statutes but have it be in session law, a repeal date of for five years, but then keeping and maintaining much of what's in the language in House Bill 2554 and that it would be a temporary—temporarily—positioned in the Office of the Governor to avoid the problem of it having to be permanently in a separate Department at this time.

Any tech amendments identified by HNSO and defect the effective date of 7-1-3000. Members, this is really to kind of continue the conversation. There's much more work that does need to be done on this and we need more eyes on this idea. So, any comments, questions, or concerns?

Thank you, Chair, for your cooperation and moving this Bill forward.

Vice Chair for the vote.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Members, I just want to note House Bill 2443. I apologize. We voted on it earlier. Just as a note moving forward, when we have bills that involve the need for interpreter, if I have quorum, I'm going to exercise my discretion to conduct the vote. Just because we have some challenges with resources.

That interpreter is often needed in other hearings, so we have to move forward. But that bill did move forward just for your information. And you will have an opportunity to vote for it on the floor. Moving next to House Bill 2662 or 2622, relating to language access.

Chair's recommendation is to pass this form with an HD 1. Just with a defective date of July 1st, 3000. And then noting for the future committee report, we don't have an evaluation at the moment, but we will ask Finance obviously to look into this matter. Any comments, questions, or concerns? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Voting on HB 2622. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Seeing that everyone is present. Are there any Members voting no? Any Members voting with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Members, moving on to the last bill on this agenda. We will... This is House Bill 2498, relating to care homes. Chair's recommendation is going to be to move this forward with an HD 1 to create a sunset date of five years. Did I say defective effective date of July 1st, 3000? And then let the future committees...

I know that there's some questions about whether or not kupuna should be further defined, but we should allow the next committee to take a look at that issue. And any tech amendments identified by HNSO. Members, questions, comments, or concerns? Representative Iwamoto.

Chair, I'll be voting with reservations given the Department of Health's testimony on this.

Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay, voting on HB 2498. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Noting that all Members are present. Are there any voting no? Other than myself, are there any voting with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Members, thank you. We are done with our 10:15am agenda. We are adjourned.

All right. We are reconvening our 10am agenda for our Joint Committee on Public Safety, Human Services and Homelessness. I know we've had busy morning, Members, and so thank you for all of your hard work. Thank you, Chair, for being here. We're going to take up the bill, House Bill 676, relating to youth in adult correctional facilities.

We had a lot of discussion, we had a lot of clarification about the effect of the April 2026 impending deadline where the federal, the FCC is essentially telling us and directing us that we're going to have to find other funds for the, for SAVIN. So this is actually the only measure that highlights an appropriation clause that will actually continue to fund SAVIN.

So after consulting with a Chair from Human Services, my recommendation is to pass forward an HD 1 blanking out the sum of $1,000,000 in Section 5, as well as maintaining the blanked out some in Section 6, and inserting a defective date of July 1st, 3000.

In the committee report, we're going to ask and direct that the next committees take a look at how do we both ensure... Excuse me. How do we address the other question that was raised, which is how do we contain costs in light of the other states' experiences where costs just ballooned.

And so we're going to put that question into the committee report for both CPC and FIN to consider. Any tech amendments, as well as a July 1st, 3000 defective effective date. Members of the Committee on Public Safety, any comments, questions, or concerns? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay. Voting on HB 676. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair vote aye. [Roll Call] Thank you. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

And now for the Committee on Human Services and Homelessness, it is the same recommendation. Vice Chair.

Voting on HB 676. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair vote aye. [Roll Call] Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Chair, we are adjourned. Thank you. Members, we have...

Good morning. Reconvening our 8:30 AM agenda for Committee on Public Safety, Friday, February 6th, 2026. Members, first up, we have House Bill 2235, relating to Military and Community Relations Office. Members, Chair's recommendation is to pass for an HD 1, blank out the appropriation, and place the requested amount in the Committee Report.

Throughout the Bill, amend the title so that it reads "Military Affairs and Community Relations Office," as well as have a defective effective date of July 1st, 3000, and 10 technical, non-subjective amendments needed for clarity, consistency, and style. Members, any questions, comments, or concerns? Go ahead.

Thank you. Chair, I just want to let you know I was going to vote no given my concerns that I raised, my questioning regarding the funding coming from the state when the Department of Defense actually has a lot of money that they could have used to fund some of these services. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Vice Chair for the vote.

[Roll Call]

Members, taking up House Bill 2263 relating to military families, Chair's recommendation is to pass this with an HD 1 with a defective effective date of July 1st, 3000. Comments, questions, or concerns?

Question, we're concerned.

Okay, that's just a good question. Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Members, moving to HB 2291, relating to the Hawaii National Guard.

Chair's recommendation is to insert amended language stating that the Chief of the National Guard Manual and Department of Defense Instruction applies to all states which have entered into a cooperative agreement with the National Guard Bureau for the purpose of establishing and operating a National Guard Youth Challenge Program.

This is an amendment that was presented us—presented to us from the Department of Defense to make sure that we are in alignment with the federal statutory authorities that are governing this program to include technical, non-substantive amendments needed for clarity, consistency, and style, and a defective date of July 1st, 3000. Members, comments, questions, or concerns? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

[Roll Call]

Members, we are done and concluded with the 8:30 AM agenda, so we are adjourned and we are reopening our 11:30 AM agenda for House Bill 1577, relating to 911 services.

Members, this is the one which would require 911 board to establish, implement, and maintain a statewide emergency safety profile system that allows residents to voluntarily create and manage secure personnel file profiles containing information and relevant to emergency responses.

Chair's recommendation is going to be to move this forward to continue to allow conversation to make a defective effective date of 7-1-3000, to make this like a pilot program for five years, and to create a working group to consist of the various stakeholders from the counties, as well as the Hawaii Emergency Response Community and from the Kupuna Disability community.

Okay. Comments, questions, or concerns—and I said a defective effective date of July 1st, 3000 and any tech amendments identified by the by our drafting agency. Comments, questions, or concerns? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

[Roll Call]

Okay. Members, moving to House Bill 1531, relating to emergency announcements. This is a measure again also dealing with our disability community and ensuring that there's sufficient American Sign Language Interpreter services at these very critical announcements where emergencies are proclaimed.

Chair's recommendation is going to be to amend this measure so to say that the Governor's Office or Mayor's Office shall provide a primary co-feed for any live official announcement that includes an American Sign Language interpreter in a picture in picture window.

Broadcasters rebroadcasting the official announcement shall not be required to independently generate or insert this accessibility feature. Chair's recommendation will be to also include any technical amendments identified by our drafting agency, as well as defective effective date of July 1st, 3000. And let this move forward for continued discussion. Members, any comments, questions, or concerns? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Voting on HB 1531. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Noting that all Members are present. Would anybody like to vote no? Would any Members like to vote with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.