House Standing Committee on Public Safety

Good morning convening our Committee on Public Safety. Today is Wednesday February 11th, 2026. It is 8:30am we are here in Conference Room 411. Just a couple of housekeeping matters.

If we have anyone present on Zoom to testify should there be any technical difficulties we will may have to cut off the feed but we will attempt to restart as soon as possible.

For those of you who are on Zoom, please please avoid using any trademark or copyrighted images as this will not allow us to be able to put this on YouTube for the public to see. Again, no time limits and we will, but we will.

We want to also move through this expeditiously as we have other meeting agenda items. This is a bill that was previously on another agenda for Febraury 4, 2026 House Bill 1769 relating to correctional facilities. We are hearing it today. Again Today is Wednesday, February 11th. We have seen similar bills like this.

This is relating to correctional facilities requiring the DCCR or the DCR to incrementally reduce the number of individuals incarcerated in private out of state correctional institutions. We have first up testimony in opposition from dcr. Director. Welcome.

Thank you. Morning Chair, Vice Chair. DCR stands in opposition to this matter. I want to make it clear we want to bring the our inmates home. But I do not control the population in this state.

And so what happens is like today I couldn't tell you how many inmates we have until the court run comes in today for those who are held over from the court. So also Halawa is the. The Halawa Correctional Facility is our only medium male facility. It has a design capacity of 496.

At present there are 818 inmates there. That's 165% over design capacity. Currently we have 799 offenders in Eloy, Arizona. There's no way I would be able to bring 25% back because I can't control the population. Of course in HPA controls the population.

The population I do have control over is the 5% that are eligible for furlough and extended furlough. That is it.

So I think it's not an issue of I think this bill, while it's well intended, in short, in order to bring the image back, we need to build a medium security prison in addition to replacing the current oc. Thank you very much.

Thank you Director. We have testimony and support from Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Ms. Woodward.

Aloha Kakahiaka Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee, McKenna Woodward on behalf of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in strong support of this measure. HB 1769 creates a phased and accountable framework to reduce Hawaii's reliance on private out of state prisons and requires regular progress reporting on bringing our home.

This bill does not require immediate closure of out of state placements, but instead sets a measured timeline that allows for capacity planning and system reform. Native Hawaiians make up the highest percentage of people Hawaii sends to out of state facilities, so this policy has a disproportionate impact on OHOP beneficiaries.

Incarcerating people thousands of miles away separates them from Ohana culture and ina which weakens family connection and undermines culturally grounded rehabilitation and reentry. OHA does recognize current in state capacity limits as DCR mentioned, but also notes that many people in custody are held pretrial or are primarily impacted by substance use and mental health needs.

That reality underscores the importance of continued investment in diversion treatment, re entry support and fair sentencing measures that safely reduce populations over time and prevent some of the front end entries into our facilities. OHA has consistently supported those those smart on safety approaches and HB 1769 aligns with that policy direction.

Mahalo for the opportunity to testify and I will be available for questions.

Thank you. Testimony in support from Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission. Okay. Testimony in support from Committee alliance on Public safety on prisons. Ms. Pat Brady. Testimony in support from Ohana Unity Party. Mr. Shelby Pikachu Billionaire. Go ahead Mr. Billionaire.

Oh, I'll keep it short and sweet. I approve. Yeah. You. Happy holidays to all of you.

All right, thank you. We have testimony and support on Zoom. Lea Lanikinikini, Ph.D. testimony and support. Carrie Ann Chibota individual on Zoom. Oh, present in person. Go ahead, Ms. She wrote that.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair, Committee Members. Hard to top the billionaire with his rhyming. I don't have that ability. I am here to strongly support this measure. It's been decades since Governor Cayetano made this pronouncement that we would send our people out of state as a temporary solution due to overcrowding decree.

We have had decades to invest in best practices and to bring people incrementally home. And while we have made strides towards that over a number of directors with the Department, there's more that we can do.

And this is the opportunity for the Legislature to set the policy and intention that has been in line with every Governor since who has announced that we would make it a policy to return our people home. And I just like to sort of respond to some of the things that Director Johnson has said.

Number one, that they that they can't control the population. That is partially true. Whoever enters their doors from the court, that's not their Kuleana. But there are a number of ways that the Department determines the revolving door. Are people getting the services they need, Reentry services.

From day one, if people are leaving, they're not prepared, either through probation, revocation or parole revocation or no services at all. Being released, maxing out, excuse me, with a trash bag, no id, that's something within their control.

And so I think each Department, the judiciary, the Executive branch, needs to look at what's within their lane and what they can control. I want to point out that the House Concurrent resolution task force, 85 residential, recommended that we bring our people home. So did the Native Hawaiian Criminal Justice Task Force.

We have numerous recommendations to do so. Second, I'm sorry I didn't bring the population count with me. But if you look at my testimony on page four, the idea that we don't have bed space, Halawa is overpropped.

But if you look at the other facilities, Kulani on Hawaii island, this is of January 26th, had 118 empty beds, waiable, which is on Oahu, 165 beds. Maui, 92, Kauai 52. And while there's a distinction between our jail and prison population, the Department controls, they've designated Halawa medium.

They could designate Kulani a medium facility or a migs that is within their control. And so I think we need to step back and look at what's within the department's control. The fact that these beds are empty and people want to come home and we're still paying Corecivic to incarcerate them thousands of miles away. Who's benefiting?

Is our people, their loved ones, their families? Or is it the shareholders of Corecivic? Corecivic is the same entity that is contracting with the Federal Government to detain people, immigrants, citizens separating families and children. This is the exact same entity.

So if we, as a matter of public policy, want to invest in Corecivic and private prisons, then by all means don't pass this bill. But if we're looking to bring our people home and focus on corrections and rehabilitation, at minimum, we need to have this process. Okay, can you wrap up, please?

Because we do have a testimony and we need to move on. Yes, and work furlough is also within the purview of the Department. Both work furlough as well as educational furlough that has been underutilized in every single oversight commission report. That is another area that people can come back home. So please pass this measure for humanitarian reasons.

If we truly believe in Ohana and rehabilitation, let's do this collectively. Thank you.

Thank you Ms. Chibota. We have testimony and support from Ekolomeanui co Executive Director Jamie Miller testimony and support from ACLU of Hawaii Donovan Kamakani Albano testimony and support from Lauren Walker testimony and opposition from individual Victor Ramos and support from Colleen Ross Bannock support from Veronica Moore and support from Lisa Seki Darcy.

Any other testifiers in the in the room Any other testifiers via Zoom. Members? Questions? Go ahead.

Question for Director please. Thank you Director for being here. Thank you for testimony. Just grasp in a limited sense the scope of your work. My question is do we have reporting requirements for our units in Saguaro?

We send yes we do. When you say reporting I want to be clear. We send an audit team there every quarter to make sure that they are following the scope of services. We have a contract monitor on the ground that works eight hours a day, 40 hours a week. There.

Is the data that's collected, the specific metrics, is it consistent with what we are able to capture here in Hawaii? Yes. So if I'm so. I'm sorry, Chair.

No, go ahead.

So if. If you were to look at recidivism. I have trouble saying that word. Would you like information on how the data compares for our people on the mainland versus the people here?

Yes. The most recent recidivism rate that compared the mainland population, and when I say mainland population, it is that the offender spent the majority of their sentence on the mainland versus those that spent the majority of the sentence here. It's negligible.

But the recidivism rate was 3% higher for the inmate who spent their time in Hawaii as opposed to on the mainland. 3%.

Any other questions?

I do, but I'll defer.

Okay. Questions.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director. You know, we heard a previous testifier indicate that there's more that either your Department or the Governor, you know, the Executive branch, who's in charge of administering our corrections and rehabilitation programs, including possibly negotiating better collective bargaining contracts so that you guys can more competitively recruit.

Because I know staffing does pose a problem to some of this. Is there, in fact, more that you or the Governor can do to actually make this happen, what this Bill is trying to do?

Well, yes and no. We're kind of limited. The collective bargaining would be done by the Office of Collective Bargaining of the Department of Human Resources Development. So I did provide proposals to the Director of D Herd to. One was to increase the.

I believe to increase the pay of corrections officers was to pay bonuses to corrections officers when they complete training. Another was longevity pay for those who have spent in corrections 1015 and 20 years, providing they came to work 80% of the time of their regular shift.

So those are kind of things I gave to the Director Deere. Now, my understanding is that may be part of the next negotiating round because they just approved the contract late last year. So that would be like four years from now.

Unfortunately, internally, what I can do is we've looked at, for those inmates, for those ACOs that come to work 80% of the time. And the reason why I say 80% of the time is you get 21 days vacation and 21 days sick leave every year, plus nine paid holidays.

So 80% of the time is really, if you earn and burn all of that, but if you come to work 80% of the time of your regular shift, not overtime shift, then providing we had the resources, I would allow corrections officers to Cash in two weeks of their accrued vacation just before Christmas, like beginning November 5th through December 5th.

So they would have the money right before Christmas. That would, I think, help them. One, during the holidays. But two, something to strive for so they would come to work during the year. That's what I have control over. So that is a proposal I'm looking at trying to implement and work with upw.

And that would facilitate bringing more of our inmates?

No, we simply don't have the space. I want to make it clear Kulani and Waiaba have space because they're minimum security facilities. The vast majority of inmates on the mainland are minimum medium security and higher. They cannot go to a minimum security facility.

While we can take one of the minimum security facilities as Kerry Anshrota indicated and make it a medium security facility, it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to do so. Because you have to have a double fence. You have to have certain security features that minimum securities don't have.

Wajava and Kulani both, they don't have fences around them at all. So we'd have to build two fences. You have to have a dead men zone in the middle and you have to have two fences.

So if a person gets into the, is going over the fence and they get into the dead men zone, then you can, you can shoot to kill. You also have to have towers. We have to have security measures and cells. Neither one of those facilities are set up for that.

So we would have to literally build a medium security facility there because the dormitories are not set up that way. Medium security inmates require cells, not dorms. So if we really want to fix the problem, then we need to build a medium security facility. Hawaii started sending out the first 300 inmates in 1995.

Since that time, we have spent hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars to a private company to house our immigrants that money.

This questioning is going on. Any further questions? I just wanted to follow up because I think you were starting to get at it. Have you ever looked at Kulani and Waiala and to try to upgrade those?

No.

Okay. What is the stalling of filling those 118 empty beds and 165 empty beds in Kulani and Waiawa?

Because if it's a matter of flow and moving people through and the issues of the problems of reclassification, if we were to do all of those other things that you're purportedly supposed to be working on, does there create more room in Halawa? Because we're flowing people more through the system and getting them to actual reentry.

The vast majority of the folks at Halawa are there for. I'll give you an example. There are, I think Christian Johnson identified supposedly 34. No, 194. 194 minimum security folks at Halawa. So I went through and as part of the response you're going to get in a few days, we went through and looked at that 194.

So I'll give you the breakdown. Like 34 of them are in programming. We don't want to disrupt the programming by transferring them. So they're going to stay there to complete the programming. Otherwise, if we transfer them, they got to start the programming all over again. So I'll give you that breakdown.

The bottom line is the vast majority of inmates in Arizona do not meet the classification requirements to go to a minimum security facility. And that's why you have the open bed space at the minimum. Minimum security facilities.

Okay, but on the numbers that you just gave us, if 34 have to stay because of programming, that leaves you 164 that could possibly be moved.

I have the breakdown to give you for that. Every category I'll give you. And you'll see why they can't move because we provide an explanation as to why. Now some of them will be transferred because they are getting reclassified.

Okay, I'd like to see that. And we do have some time on this Bill. So. So, Members, any other questions?

Yes, Chair.

Okay, one more and then we have to move on to our next agenda.

Thank you, Chair. Kind of in line with Chair's questioning. I know that we do have space. You did clarify that the people that are on the mainland are Halawa only. And in our restrictive housing work group, there was discussion on reclassification.

Obviously we need to reclassify people from Halawa to make room in Halawa because that's the only place that you're saying would be available for people coming in. So I guess what would help is having some kind of, like you said, breakdown of the numbers so we can understand better the numbers.

Because that's, that's basically what we're saying, you know, 25% of 800 is 200. 200 inmates. This Bill is requiring by 29. So we're talking about like three years from now. Yeah. So, you know, realistically, that might be achievable right now. It's not. But, you know, that's the conversation we need to have. So again, giving you.

Giving us the numbers and looking at 200 in three years. Yeah. And if we can factor in as we discuss this, maybe 25% isn't achievable. Would 20% be achievable? You know, we need to just move the needle forward.

And I think that's what the public is seeing, is just seeing something where not just stuck where we're at, but we're progressing to a place where, you know, we're showing compassion to our people. We're showing that we're trying our best. Yeah.

So I think, like I said, Director, I don't envy your job, but we need to have these conversations to again move the discussion forward. So I appreciate the information and consideration of what I just asked.

Sure. I would just like to state one last word. I think you have to understand that the system isn't a stagnant system. And so while we got inmates on the mainland and you say bring them back, we want to bring them back, there's still inmates coming into the system in that two year time frame.

And I have no idea how many are coming to me. Sure, sure. So I just want to make that clear that since I don't know how many are coming, I can't guarantee I can reduce the numbers because I could get 400. Sure, understood. I mean, we could put language in that has qualifications like that.

Thank you. Excuse me, Chair.

No, I'm going to cut this off because we can have this discussion later. I want to acknowledge that we have late testimony from individual Carolyn Eaton, Kristen Young in support. Those came in late. Thank you for submitting that.

Members, my recommendation for House Bill 1769 is to defer to Wednesday, February 18th for decision making at 11:30am so give us the opportunity to consider some of the information that we would like requested from Director. And so we will move this forward for decision making on Wednesday, February 18th at 11:30am this meeting is adjourned. Okay.

We are opening up our hearing on our 8:40am agenda for Wednesday, February 11th. Committee on Public Safety, we are in conference room 411 Members, we have a full agenda. I want to remind testifiers, we have your testimony. The critical part of these hearings are in fact the questions and answers.

So while I don't urge you necessarily to stand on your written testimony, please highlight what's important and then if you you want to, we do have the materials. We have been able to read these overnight.

So I really, really want to urge folks to be, you know, as brief as possible, concise, just highlighting what's in your written testimony. We have first up relating to parole eligibility. This would amend Section 35364 HRS to include participation in correctional programs for parole eligibility along a number of items.

First up, we have testimony in support from away Paroling Authority.

Morning Chair, Vice Chair inke Administrator of the Hawaii Polling Authority standing in for Chairman Gene DeMello Jr. I'll just summarize our testimony. The benefits of the benefits of requiring substance abuse, mental health for work, for loans, gradual transition with improved stability and readiness for release on parole, facilitate secured housing, employment and increased financial stability.

HPA has seen a better outcome to parolees release after completing these programs. Additionally, the proposed amendment allows the pro board to waive these programs for inmates who have employment history and or completed these programs in the past. I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. We have testimony in opposition by the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Kristen Johnson. I'm the Oversight Coordinator of the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission. I'll keep this very brief. I know it seems bizarre that the commission would be in opposition of a bill that is requiring more participation in programming.

But what the Commission has consistently seen over the years is that access to this programming is a consistent problem. One of our biggest concerns about this bill is that it would require participation in furlough. Specifically, we love the furlough program. We support the furlough program. We know it's effective and it works.

But the reality is that it's severely underutilized. You know, as of January 28th, we found that there were 60 individuals classified as community status. So these are folks who are eligible for furlough placement but are still being housed in minimum custody.

In addition to that, we found that there are hundreds of people, just like in the last conversation, who are classified as minimum who are housed in medium or higher facilities.

And so the fact of the matter is until the system actually moves forward and puts people where they belong so that they can access the programming and opportunities that they need, the reality is that this bill will only keep more people incarcerated because if they don't have the access to furlough, they can't participate in furlough.

If they can't participate in furlough, they're not going to be able to get paroles. So thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you. We have testimony and support from Office of the Public Defender. Ms. Haley Chang.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Haley Chang. I'm the First Deputy of the Office of the Public Defender. We did submit testimony and support, but I do want to Caveat our testimony just a little bit.

We of course are supportive of programming, but I do want the Committee to, you know, please place close attention to what Ms. Johnson said about the availability of the programming.

Our support for this measure really came and as we discussed in our written testimony, was for the provision in the Bill that allows HPA to waive programming if they deem that it is not necessary.

And the reason that we think that it's so important is to address the situation that Ms. Johnson just raised, which is that oftentimes when they're initially seen for the parole board for their minimum and programs are ordered, or whether it's a RAD recommendation or at the minimum setting, things are not, should not be stuck at that time.

It's a case by case basis. Each inmate should be reevaluated as they're coming up for parole. So I do just want to caveat our support in that way. Nothing should be read to undermine what Ms. Johnson has said because she is absolutely correct. Really.

What we are supporting is the provision that allows HPA to waive their programming for that very reason. We also offered in our written testimony a proposed amendment to that language on the second page that that might clarify the intention of the bill. I'll be available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. We have testimony and support from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Ms. McKenna Woodward.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. We'll stand on our written testimony for the most part. Just wanted to highlight that OHA is generally supportive of measures that support successful. Re entry back into into community. So that being said, we also want. To echo the comments of the Oversight. Commission and the Office of the Public.

Defender, just making sure that this policy is implemented and functions as intended and if any guardrails are necessary, we would be supportive of that also. Mahalo.

Thank you. We have testimony and support from Mr. Fred Huynh, testimony and support from Ms. Anela Young. Any other testifiers in the audience? Any other testifiers via Zoom seeing? None. Members, question? Yes. Yes, I'm going to testify. Chair. All right, Ms. Young, go ahead.

Thank you so much. Chair Angela Melody Young testifying on behalf of CARES. So I noticed that in this legislation you put very vaguely other programs designed to assist with successful reintegration. And so perhaps I can offer an amendment.

And we do see that in Hawaii, the Hawaii Corrections Department of Corrections, in conjunction with the Hawaii Paroling Authority, already works with faith based organizations. So if you could provide more specificity in language by statue to create. The.

Policy to empower networks of service providers to help inmates transition, then I think it would be more effective and it would effectuate the intent of this legislation because the Halawa Correction facility already works with Total Life Recovery, which follows the genesis process. So these are faith based programs.

And again. And it's not. Yeah. And okay. Yes.

Thank you, Ms. Young. We have, we have your recommended Amendment. We have Ms. Chibota in the, in the audience.

Thank you, Chair. I want to issue some comments. I also support programming and robust programming and support services in general. But I also oppose this measure for the reasons that Ms. Johnson from the oversight commission mentioned. But I wanted to add some other points in addition to accessibility to these programs.

Sometimes these programs, there's question about the efficacy of these programs. Are these programs based on best practices? Are they just giving programs to people to keep them busy? And there's this constant thread sometimes of having people to do the same program again and again. Now sometimes that can be effective, but sometimes that is not.

And that could result in delay. You've heard earlier that sometimes they'll keep people in a higher custody facility because they don't want to interrupt their programming. We should have a seamless system so people can move to the lower custody facility and get into the community instead of holding them back.

And I had a client who was held back because he didn't finish his programming in Saguaro when Covid was happening and he was severely ill. And even that wasn't enough to move him at home where he could have transitioned. Also, there's a lot of literature showing that involuntary voluntary programs, that there's better outcomes if it's voluntary.

And I want to give an example. Having worked for EMEO's reintegration program, individuals convicted of class A and B felonies. All of our programming and joining our program was voluntary.

And I can tell you every person who met the eligibility criteria joined our program, took advantage of what was offered to meet their needs and the needs of their family.

So much so that they were advocating for our program to seek additional funding outside of federal funds to expand to individuals with Class C. And thankfully the Legislature answered that call and gave us additional funding to serve more people. In terms of programming, again, the question of efficacy.

In the past, the state had more contracts with YWCA going home. EMEO, can you wrap it up? We need to invest in more of those community based programs which have better results, less recidivism. And there are individuals who might not do their programming for various reasons, including people who are wrong.

For convicted Alvin Jardine III who did not complete his sex offender treatment because he was innocent. And as we know, he died without any compensation after 20 years of serving sentence. So for all of these reasons, I ask that you be very cautious. And if anything, the message is, if you're going to have.

Instead of having mandatory program, have it incentive. Have incentive that if you complete your program, you can reduce your time, earn credits. And that's something that the polling authority and the Department in the past has opposed. Let's invest incentives, which is a best practice. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other testifiers? Seeing none. Members, questions?

Representative Iwamoto.

Thank you for Johnson. So here it says program requirements can be waived at the discretion of the Hawaii Parole Authority. Would you. Could we amend this bill to say that the way.

Why don't I suggest. Do you agree with the amendment that's being offered by the public defenders that relaxes the mandatory kind of requirement that you're concerned with?

Yeah, I think the big concern was just the mandatory piece. We just don't want to see people be incarcerated because they weren't given the opportunity or access to what's being required of them.

Yes, but also what I heard was that the stat, their status of completion shouldn't be used to. Shouldn't be a barrier to reclassification, including entry into other programs that it doesn't need to be.

There needs to be some discretion to say that you can be in the middle of one program and still be reclassified, like as was said, and also reclassified into a furlough status. So I think.

Yeah, I mean, I think in general, I tend to agree with Director Johnson that if somebody is in the thick of a program like, it is ideal for them to finish it, not before being reclassified, but at least before being moved to the next facility. Otherwise, what's the point of the program?

So, in general, I agree with director's comment about that, but. But my biggest concern is again, like requiring specifically a program that you have to be at a specific facility for the challenge. If the Department isn't moving people, they're not gonna have access to that. So that's ultimately, that's the biggest concern for us.

Okay, just a clarifying question. This is the statute for parole, though. This is not what you guys are talking about.

Right. So. But for parole. So parole can recommend programs. It's the Department, though, that has to give the programs. So understand.

But when you're having this conversation about classifications to move from facility to facility, that's not actually the parole process. No, but it deeply impacts the parole process. Understood. But I just want to make sure, so that what Vice Chair is asking is not really on point to the statute we're amending. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Just want to clarify that. Okay, go ahead, Representative.

Since you're up there, I'll ask you. We're giving HPA discretion, sole discretion to make this adjustment. So are there concerns that by doing that? I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot, hpe, but are they trustworthy? Are they able to make this determination?

Yeah, I think in General, HPA does a great job in looking at somebody's entire case and figuring out what they feel is best needed for that person to succeed. I don't think that HPA is the potential issue here.

I think the issue is that when HPA is requiring a specific program, if the Department is not giving that person access to that program and it's not that person's fault if it's required, then HPA really gets put in a position where it's like, well, you didn't finish the program, so we're not going to let you out.

So I think. I think that's the challenge. I think if HPA can have full discretion in looking at the entire situation and saying, you know what, we see that the Department wasn't able to get you there for whatever reason, you know, abcd, then that's one thing, but it's the full requirement that we're really concerned about.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, hpa.

Thank you, hpa. I have a question. Any other questions for Members? So you've heard through the testimony, kind of this challenge of being able to complete requirements, and so do you oppose the amended language that the PD's is offering?

Because I think it further clarifies that you guys would have discretion and it doesn't handcuff you folks, and it allows you to still do this.

Don't oppose it. Okay.

I also appreciate that, you know, the inclusion in this proposed Bill is to actually call out treatment, treatment programming, and that's something that your office came up with. So can you explain to me, like, what are some of those treatment programs that we would see?

One of them we've been in discussion with DCR would be domestic violence courses. We're seeing an uptick in convictions of abuse of a family Member. There's really nothing within the facilities right now where they can partake in a domestic violence class.

Obviously an increase in COG classes, because a lot of our parlays who do go back into custody obviously make poor choices. So that would be another option.

Are there any other programming examples that would follow under treatment that you're adding here?

Well, there's the current ones like sex offender drug treatment 2.53.0, which is intensive drug treatment which the facilities do have right now. But I can say that I'm probably the only person in this room that actually supervised cases in the past. In 23 years I've been with parole.

And you can have thousands of programs, whether it be in the facility or the community. It's really up to the offender if they want to complete said program.

Okay. All right, thank you Members. Any other questions? All right, see. Now let's move on to House Bill 2287 relating to peer support. No, wait. Relating to two House Bill. 2356, relating to offender re entry. Requiring DCR to provide a certificate of suitability for employment to offenders who have satisfied all sentencing and post release requirements, among other things.

First up, we have testimony. In opposition by Director Tommy Johnson, DCR.

Hello, Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwaqmoto, Members of the Committee. I'm San, I'm with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. We respectfully oppose House Bill 2356. DCR already provides transcripts for all completed programs.

Participants also receive certificates of completion from the actual program and they also get credit for participation with college programs added to as part of their college records. We believe it should remain with the respective employers to determine suitability of employment in positions with their respective organizations.

Certifying suitability would put us as district at risk of litigation should the individual not meet requirements of the employment or unfortunately rest rate. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony and respect for opposition and I'll be here for questions.

Thank you. Testimony in support from Office of the Public Defender. Assistant Public Defender, Ms. Chang.

Good morning again, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. The public defender stands in strong support of this measure and again, the Committee has our written testimony.

I do just want to impress upon the Committee the biggest takeaway that I hope you will receive from our office is how critical it is that our offenders and formerly incarcerated have assistance with securing employment. This goes far deeper than just they need to get a job.

Not having income, not having stability, not having employment will lead to all sorts of issues which we have outlined in our testimony and we believe it increases recidivism.

Additionally, the component of the measure that we appreciate is that DCR is being asked to educate other employers agencies about what it means to get a certificate of suitability and trying to stand up and make sure that the reentry process is easier. So again, I will submit on our my written testimony in very strong support.

Emphasize the critical need for something like this and I will be available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Chang. Testimony and support from Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission.

Ms. Kristen Johnson, Aloha Chair, Vice Chair. Members of the Committee. I'll keep this as brief as possible. The Commission supports the intent of this bill. We really appreciate that a certificate of suitability for employment could serve as a meaningful tool for folks coming out of prison.

But there's just a couple areas in the bill we wanted to highlight. So regarding section C1, fulfillment of sentence and all post release obligations, we just wanted to clarify the HPA is really the primary responsibility for tracking and monitoring all post release obligations.

And so we just didn't want to set the Department up for failure by potentially stepping on HPA's toes there. Also section C3 noting successful rehabilitation efforts. We just noted that's a bit vague. We were a little bit concerned that somebody who is really putting in great effort may be unintentionally penalized due to the vagueness there.

Also concerns regarding C4, diminished likelihood of reoccurrence. It is extremely difficult to determine whether somebody may recidivate or not, especially when there could be factors outside of their control like housing stability, employment availability and also community support. So the Commission actually recommends striking that completely.

The last part is Section E, that the Department shall work with U.S. Department of Defense to increase the likelihood that eligible offenders will obtain security clearance post release, if relevant to their employment pursuits.

We just wanted to know that, you know, the Federal Government is not required to coordinate or defer to state agencies in any determination like this. And so again, we just didn't want to set the Department up for failure by requiring them to do something that just seems a bit beyond what they may be able to do.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Yeah. Could I testify?

Thank you, Ms. Johnson. We have testimony and support from a number of individuals including Veronica Moore, Terry Savainaya, Terry Yoshinaga, Mary Smart, Alice Abelameda, Lori Jean Searcy, and we have Mr. Shelby Pikachu, billionaire I believe, who might still be on Zoom. Not present any other testifiers in the room. Any other testifiers via Zoom?

Yes. Ms. Young, one minute.

Okay. Yeah. So you know, I do ministry with. Incarcerated. And I'm wishing to comment. I'm neutral. I'd like to provide suggested language for an amendment because of my work in ministry with inmates who I have seen and witnessed that they have successful reintegration into society. And, and you know, we work with the public safety sector.

So I understand what the state offices and the county's offices, they're saying is that it is a burden upon them. So then would it help if perhaps the Committee could consider that instead of putting the sole responsibility upon the Department of Corrections, then it could be a task force. Right.

First, so the Department of Corrections to work with the county's prosecuting attorney's office and other offices to come up with a plan. Right. So

Thank you, Ms. Young.

And then you could also consult with federal. You can consult with federal agencies in the legislation. Thank you. Okay, bye.

Thank you. For your amendment. Members. Any questions? Go ahead. Representative Shimizu.

Director Johnson, please. I understand again, your limitations and what's being asked. Is there anything in this bill that could be taken as a positive just for our understanding?

Well, I think the intent of the bill is good, but I think we simply shouldn't be certifying someone's employability. That should be the employer that does it, I think, because we provide the transcript and certificates.

And just so you know, as Officer Suffixon, our goal is to provide inmates with access to their electronic training and treatment records up to one year after their release because they may lose the documents. So as part of our new contract for the tablets, we're going to include that.

So I think the Bill means well, but I think we're well on our way already to addressing those issues, and we do provide them transcripts already. Thank you.

Follow up. Chair, in your experience, is there any prison system that uses this kind of certification of suitability?

Only Kentucky, to my understanding, provides a certification that the person has completed the required programming, but not employment suitability.

Okay, thank you. Any other question, Members? Ms. Johnson, same question. Do you know if other systems have any kind of coordinating document? Maybe it's not called a certificate of employment suitability. This reference to Kentucky, do you know of any systems that have this kind of document?

Yeah, I'll give an example. The state of Michigan, actually, which is one of the jurisdictions I used to oversee, they have something pretty similar where it's very, very comprehensive. They also, before anybody is released, actually work with, with the workforce within the person's community. They're going back to, to secure a job before the person's released.

So by the time they're released, they have a job, they have housing, they have everything they need before release. And so all of this is kind of incorporated in that process.

And is there a document that is like a capstone of that process or.

Something that captures that yeah, so it captures kind of like Director Wood Johnson was saying, like all the programming that they completed, their institutional history, their resume, their cover letter. I mean, it's all just one document.

Maybe another way to ask this, because over the interim, you know, talking with inmates and having visited some of the facilities, they would talk about discharge planning. And so for me, that triggers my experience in the health. Is there any kind of document that prison systems use for discharge? Reentry programming like that?

Do you like to give the document to a potential program on the outside.

Or to provide to the person who's leaving? The incarcerated person who's like, you know.

Yeah, yeah, like that. I mean, Michigan does that. Where it's like they get to. It's theirs. So as they're leaving, they can. Am I misunderstanding?

Yeah, I mean, I guess so. This is like a certification. This idea intrigues me, okay. And it's both a communication piece of what the person has accomplished, and it's also something that can be used. It's like a transcript. Like you're getting out, right. And so high school. You have a high school transcript.

So like the value of it is that it's a communication. Now, concerns about liability. I hear concerns about what's the content of it. I hear from your testimony. I guess it's just. But it's a document that I'm wondering if it's something that prison systems use to help the re entry process.

They definitely, yes, prison system.

And we might not be using the correct word for it, like the certificate of employment. Suitability may not be the correct word for it. I'm looking for what that word is.

Yeah, I don't know the exact. I'm sure that every state has a different language for it, but it's definitely common within the reentry world for somebody to have, you know, a very easily readable document to show exactly what they've done and all their successes.

One last question, since you referenced it. Do you have any experience with the Federal Government working with prison systems to work with offenders?

I don't. I talked to our commissioner, commissioner, attorney about this and she. She wasn't aware of the Federal Government really being willing to work at least with specific state corrections agencies, which is where that concern came from. But I will say, you know, this state government has a huge vacancy rate.

And when you have all these folks coming out who are very, very eager to work, I think that one monumental benefit could be really encouraging state agencies to hire people with lived experience. And just a very brief example of this, I actually recently Tried to hire an intern who is out of Halawa.

I actually attended his graduation at Halawah. He's one of the first to graduate with his bachelor's at Halawa. He's working out his master's now in Shamaddad. And I was denied. I couldn't take him because he has a criminal history when actually that criminal history would be very beneficial to our office.

So I think before we look at the Federal Government, I think we need to look in house, especially with our monumental vacancy rate across the board. It was very disappointing, pointing to me that, you know, as an oversight agency of corrections, we had to fight that hard to show the value of lived experience.

Okay, thank you for the response. I'd actually like to follow up that question. Director, are you aware of the U.S. Department of Defense wanting to work with state agencies to help with offender reentries?

Not that I'm aware of. I can tell you this. So we used to be able to have offenders work on military bases via contract with private companies. After Covid, the Federal Government changed their policy. So they will not allow convicted offenders, even if they work for a private company, to come onto facility grounds.

So those private companies either had to let those people go or kind of change the project they were working on at the time.

Do you see more cooperation and ability to maybe work with state agencies as Ms. Johnson just suggested?

I think what you'd have to do is for Ms. Johnson, what she's talking about. She's talking about a suitability issue. That's an issue for the Department of Human Resources Development to address because it's a statewide classification of suitability requirements. And so all state agencies have to follow those suitability requirements.

And I don't disagree with the lived experience issue. And employment can be assistance, but I would caution the state to be careful about putting certain folks who have certain type of offenses in certain positions.

But I mean, if, you know, we're looking for, like you have a program hoping that inmates can get work in construction.

Yes.

So if there's construction type work in the state agencies, like, I know HPHA has that kind of rapid response team that goes out and renovates stuff. I mean, that is an exact place where we could put somebody.

I don't disagree.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Vice Chair for Ms. Shirota.

Thank you, Chair. Yes, I just wanted to add some years ago, I know I work for MEO Best Reintegration Program. We were looking into the certificate. It was called a certificate of rehabilitation. And I'm sorry, it's 20 plus years ago. I don't have all the research in front of me, but I could provide that.

But I can state that in the state of California they have a certificate of rehabilitation, but it's not provided by the Department of Corrections. It's provided by the court. And it essentially says that an individual has been convicted of a felony, served time in a state or local prison and has been rehabilitated.

Now it provides essentially symbolic the nature that somebody has taken programs.

And so I think even though it's not clean slate and I just want to bring up, I think that's something that the Legislature needs to, to consider in the future is to over a period of time, if people are living a law abiding life, that we wipe the state clean so that they have more opportunities for housing, et cetera.

But again, I think what we're looking for, a certificate of rehabilitation.

I recall that a few states had that, but I know for our program we would usually try to issue certificates and have our case managers work with individual to place them into housing, into jobs and that would, we could attest to the character of that person that they were taking advantage of person program.

So again, I am a little concerned that if you put this on the Department, they're already short staff. Is this the best use of their time? But I think the concept is something we should further explore. But people leaving should have copies of all of their reports and to show that they took advantage of that.

Thank you. Thank you. And then for the record, I'm just going to note that we have Carrie Ann Shirota, individual providing comments. Thank you, Members. Any other questions? Seeing none. Moving on to House Bill 2287 relating to peer support counseling.

This measure includes correctional workers as protected participants in peer support counseling sessions, giving them the same confidentiality protections provided to law enforcement officers and emergency services personnel. We have testimony first in support by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Aloha Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto, Members of the Committee. My name is Melanie Martin. I'm with the Department of Correction and. Rehabilitation and we stand in strong support of this measure. Last year we put together a staff Wellness Response Team, which is a peer.

Support group that's trained to go out and address and assist staff after critical incidents. And when we solicited feedback from staff via the union consultation process, there were concerns about confidentiality. So this measure will extend. This measure will extend these protections to. Correctional office correctional officers, correctional staff, correctional. Workers, as they are already afforded to.

Law enforcement and first responders. Thank you for this Opportunity to testify. We're here for questions.

Thank you. We have testimony and support from the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. The commission is also in very strong support of this measure. First, I just want to give credit to Deputy Director Melanie Martinez. She's. She's a true blessing to staff that they don't even realize. Creating that crisis intervention response team was a huge issue that came from our staffing report.

And I'll give you just one brief example of how monumental this bill is. When we went back into the facilities to do our talk stories with the staff, we really got in depth at HALAVA about staff having to cut people down and witnessing suicides of those in custody.

There was a sergeant who was a 30 year sergeant, very large man, very proud, who came up to me in tears afterwards and gave me the biggest hug and said, you were the first person to come in here and just openly talk about staff mental health and what it's like for us to cut somebody down.

So that moment really elevated the importance for me. It was a large reason why we did the report that we did. The Department has taken that report really seriously. We deeply appreciate that partnership. And so we really, really support this bill. It's very important.

Thank you. We have testimony and support from Upwell, testimony and support from Hawaii Government Employees Association, HGA testimony and support from Veronica Moore individual and any other testifiers in the room. Any other testifiers via Zoom Members. Questions? This one seems like it's easy bill. I'm going to just comment on that. Okay. See, no questions.

All right, let us move on to relating to emergency preparedness. Members are kind of shifting gears to the next arena. To those of you who are here, Chair's recommendation is going to be to do decision making at 11:30.

So we're going to defer this to 11:30, but so you don't have to stick around if you don't want to. Hold on. So just so just for your planning purposes, for other folks who are in the room, we will defer Decision making to 11:30. Moving to House Bill 2457. Emergency preparedness community Resiliency Hubs.

We have testimony and support from. Ruben Juarez via Zoom. Okay. We also have testimony from Quang Tran individual. Any other testifiers? Any other testifiers via Zoom. All right. Seeing none. Moving on. Relating to, I assume no questions. I mean, who do we ask? Yeah. No, qu.

All right, moving on to House Bill 1976 HD1 relating to dementia health public. I mean, sorry. We have testimony, comments from Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, Mr. Barros administrator.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Committee Members, we provided comment. We like the intent of the bill. We're just not clear on HYEMA's role in this training because we don't have first responders. And the intent was for training for the first responders on how they deal with patients with dementia. Thank you.

We have testimony and support from Executive Office on Aging. Testimony and support from Hawaii Disability Rights Center, Lou Erdashek, testimony and support from here for Hope. Testimony and support from ARP Hawaii, Ms. Audrey Suga-Nakagawa.

Good morning, Chair, Members of the Committee. I'm Audrey Suga-Nakagawa from AARP and we stand in strong support of this measure.

We really appreciate the value and importance of having our first responders understand and recognize the symptoms of dementia and more importantly, knowing the techniques and approaches, how to handle the bad word for it, but how to approach the individuals in the very distressful situations, able to calm them down and then to help them move to where they need to be safe.

I did hear the comments from Haima and it's really important, especially in the area of disaster, having training and having preparation of how to evacuate safely for individuals when there's an impending threat, whether it's a wildfire or a hurricane or tidal wave, the individuals who may be living alone and have dementia or will need to know how to be safely escorted out.

And so, yes, it falls upon the job of the first responders, like the police and the fire Department and the paramedics. But I think in terms of preparation and being anticipating of this particular situation will be really, well beneficial for the safety of our people. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Ms. Sugona Kagawa. We have testimony and support from Alzheimer's Caregiving and the caregivers. Tony Varicella testimony in support. Hawaii Primary Care association testimony and support. Alzheimer's Association Hawaii support. Hawaii Parkinson Association leading Age Pacific west in support. And then we have support from numerous individuals. Anyone else here to testify in the room?

On Zoom with the Alzheimer's association?

Go ahead, Mr. Chalk,

Aloha Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto and Members of the Committee. Koby Chalk with the Alzheimer's Association and we're in strong support of this bill. As you guys are all aware, this is a growing issue in the state.

There's over 31,000 people in the state that we estimate that are living with Alzheimer's disease at some point in their journey.

We expect through estimates that about 60% will wander at some point, meaning that they will be in the community, that first responders, law enforcement, will be the first ones on the scene and having to deal with this situation. And then beyond that, as Audrey mentioned, wildfires have become an increased risk in many communities across the state.

And when you have a disaster situation with heat and bright light and smoke, it's already a confusing time for someone living with Alzheimer's or dementia.

Add to the fact that you now have someone who's actually saving them, a firefighter, but they are breaking into their house, it is quite confusing, and we need to make sure that everyone is prepared for that. Beyond that, there's about 1,248 people going to the ER every year with Alzheimer's for every 1,000 people living with Alzheimer's.

So as you can see, over one to one is attending or attending. Sorry, going to the ER very frequently. And EMS would likely be the first on the scene in the most emergent of situations where we need to make sure we keep our community and kupuna safe. Thank you, Chair, Members of the Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chalk. Any other testifiers, Members, questions?

I have a question for Executive Office of Aging, but they're not here yet.

Yes, go ahead.

Mr. Barros, please. You know, I understand your. Your testimony count and questioning whether it's applicable because of first responders, and you don't technically have any first responders. And I initially thought, yeah, that's a good exclusion.

But I guess as we're talking about it, and especially with AARP's testimony, I'm just wondering, would you consider it to be applicable? Because just for awareness and understanding, that would help in your administrative role to have that kind of, you know, it's one hour of training.

Yes. And again, what we're looking for is clarification on who in HEYMA, because I think it's something that we would very much like to leverage in our community efforts because the evacuation will be executed at the community level. So as we build these community readiness communities, having people that understand that piece of it.

So I don't see the value in having the entire agency take the training, but perhaps some selected individuals.

Okay, thank you.

I think I have questions. It's either for Mr. Chalk or for AARP. And the question is generally about how is this bill crafted in consultation with any of these agencies that have been identified. Okay, Mr. Chalk, I just need some background and context to understanding how you folks develop this legislation.

And then did you guys consult with any of the agencies that have been identified through these various chapters? Whether it's Hyema, the fire, county fire and county guys, law enforcement, I don't know who Chapter 139 applies to. But the board or board's designee. Can you.

Yeah. So the board's designee would be the Law Enforcement Standards Board. So we have met about this priority with the administrator when he first started. We have also, I know even before I started, have met with various police departments across the state.

We met with the HPD and at the time it was Chief Logan in the position and they were supportive of doing this through the Law Enforcement Standards Board. However, as you are well aware, many of the counties lost their police chief over the past year. So it's been a challenge with constant revolving door of leadership. Leadership.

And that's where we kind of get stuck. We are setting up a meeting with hfd, but we weren't able to secure it until next month. But that's who we've spoken to so far, who we've been able to secure, meeting with and discuss this with.

Okay, thank you. Further follow up. So I know that this bill is a priority and I certainly think that we have. We have to focus on this. Part of this bill is actually eliminating statute that says that created dementia training. What has been your experience with working with this HRS?

And I think I know the answer because it sounds like it's been frustrating, but this, the language that we're repealing is actually not working for you folks. Is that correct to say, and can you describe why and how it's not working for you?

So I can't speak to that exactly. I wasn't with the association at the time that that bill passed, I believe his Republic Yamani at the time, who passed that in 2021. It actually started out with, you know, the Department shall receive training. By the end, they may receive training or the first responder.

So that was kind of the problem there. There's just inconsistency across what the training actually includes across the state. We're not sure what everyone is exactly doing. We also know that in some cases they're saying some departments say they do it, not particularly for this one, but it's very light. Whereas others we know on, like the big.

They took a strong initiative in their fire Department to create their own program and we admire the work that they've done there. So this is just to create like a baseline consistency across the state and then every Department can adapt it to be their own.

There's even a provision in there that would allow departments to propose their own training. That EOA would just sign off, making sure that we have the components that are necessary, especially when it comes to Communication and recognizing the disease. But we don't want to create undue burden. So that's why it's only one hour.

And we want to make sure that it's relevant to each Department.

So that's where there is some flexibility in the way we drafted it, where EOA will put together a full list and then from that the departments can pick from that list and the departments can propose their own training or other trainings as well, as long as it meets certain criteria as listed there.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chalk, for the context. I think it's really helpful also about the legislative history for that 2021 piece of legislation that we passed.

Chair question yes, Mr. Barros, you know, as you, you left and you asked the question who would get trained? I think maybe you might be the best person to answer that in your Department and in knowing your organization, who.

Would, I think getting some clarification on, you know, what the, what the training would look like.

I think the leadership at HYEMA and we would definitely want to do more beyond just one hour with organizations that are helping us identify vulnerable communities, but particularly this one hour training, probably the leadership at HYEMA, our outreach, community outreach team that's helping build communities.

And I would like to discuss on the value of the state warning point, perhaps. I'm not clear on that one.

Good question. Any other questions?

None for you, Mr. Barros. Could I ask Mr. Chalk a question, please? Mr. Chalk, can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay.

Can you speak up?

Actually, it sounds like you were involved in crafting this bill and talking to stakeholders. When I look at the testimony from the Executive Office on Aging, it sounds like they're deferring this responsibility.

I don't know if you saw their testimony, but they pretty much, it looked like they're punting it to somebody else because they don't want to be be responsible for crafting the curriculum or the training requirements. Can you comment on that?

So we have spoke with Rep. Takayama, not Rep. Takayama, sorry, Caroline, at the Executive Office on Aging on that. And so they had some amendments that were proposed in the Health Committee with Rep. Takayama and in the Committee hearing, we did support some of the amendments that were made.

I believe that's in the draft that you have now where the Executive Office on Aging asks for some flexibility and exactly what's included in the training because they want to make sure that they're able to find appropriate training for each Department to put in that list.

I'll note that the Alzheimer's association does offer one hour training online that's free. So it wouldn't cost the state anything if they just put that one on the list by itself. But we don't want to limit it to just ours because we recognize that different departments may have different needs, as Mr. Barros mentioned.

So we wanted to make sure that in addition to what we have to offer, we also do have physical care and support team here live. And they've been providing trainings to the new recruits at HPD every class that they've had for the past year or two now.

And aside from that, we'd be willing to provide specific training to each Department depending on what their needs are. So we'd be happy to work with HYEMA and any other departments on developing the specific curriculum.

But EOA's role in this would truly be just ensuring that the curriculum that they are recommending to these departments meets the criteria listed in the in the bill.

All right, thank you. Thank you.

Chair okay. Any other questions? Seeing no, no. Thank you for the great, great conversation.

Moving on to House Bill 2236 relating to emergency management, Clari identifying state and local authority during a state or local state of emergency, adding definitions of severe weather warning, allowing the Legislature to terminate a state of emergency and city councils to terminate a local state of emergency.

We had testimony in opposition from Mr. Barros and this is our second go around on a bill just like this. So go ahead Mr. Barros.

Chair, Vice Chair, same with this bill. You know we, we oppose that first part of records request and that just gives us the time during a response in our life saving efforts that early on in the disaster and then. No. Real issue with the definition of severe weather. I think we're okay with that.

But then at the end of the bill on that 2/3 rule, we still oppose that. I'm not sure that needs to be captured in 127 Alpha.

Okay, thank you Mr. Barros. We have testimony comments from Office of Information Practices testimony support Grassroots Institute of Hawaii. Any other testifiers in the room? Any testifiers via Zoom Seeing non Members questions Seeing none. Oh go ahead. Representative Shimizu.

Representative Mr. Barros, I heard you say you are okay with the definition of severe weather warning. I understand your concern of being able to have flexibility as you stated in your testimony, to respond accordingly. I'm just wondering what in the bill do you see as limiting your flexibility?

I think that first part of the records request that part and there was another piece because for us it was important that when a disaster, a state of emergency is declared, our job is to be able to articulate to the Governor what conditions are met so that we can move out of the disaster into recovery.

And I wasn't clear on where we captured that piece.

Yeah, I was kind of wondering why we have to increase transparency on record requests. How is that related to a disaster response?

We get bombarded on the initial onset. So just giving us that time and space because if not, once we get that request, the clock starts and we get penalized. So giving us that time and space to work the response, we're still answering media we're still answering media requests and interviews.

What what that piece is, is, you know, outside agencies or some somebody else requesting information from us to see everything out.

And once we're out of it, once we're out of of this response phase, this initial response phase, then we have the bandwidth to go ahead and answer all these little questions on, you know, we want to see all the inputs on Web voc. We want to see the drill downs of certain aspects of our response.

Thank you, Mr. Barros. Thank you.

Chair follow up question, Mr. Barros. So in Office of Information Practices testimony, they say that in the pandemic there was a two and a half month full suspension of WEPA and then a subsequent year plus partial suspension.

So, you know, could we look towards an amendment where it said, you know, you would have a maybe six months, up to six months delay?

Yes, I don't disagree with that, but it depends on the emergency itself. Six months would have been, for example, in 23 during Maui. Six months would have been sufficient timeframe.

I wasn't in this position for Covid, but I'll go back to this agency communicating to our Executive, here's the conditions that are met that we're moving away from it.

So that's really important for HYEMA that we communicate to you folks, these are the conditions that when we meet these conditions, we're out of this emergency phase and we're moving into a different phase, perhaps recovery. So I think that would work. Chair okay.

And six months would have been enough during the wildfires?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. All right. Any other questions? I I'm not going to ask the question of what would have been enough in Covid because I think we would disagree on that, but and I think that a lot of people would disagree on that. So let's try something. All right.

Seeing no further questions, we will move on to House Bill 2480 relating to emergency response, protecting emergency responders from liability during periods of evacuation. First up, we have comments from the Hawaii association for justice in person. Okay. No testimony in support from Mr. Shelby Pikachu billionaire.

Aloha, guys. Pikachu Shelby Billionaire. Kingdom of Hawaii Allies. Well, how you in the party? I support this bill. Keep it short and sweet. Chris Muraoka wrote it. An example of this, when the tsunami warning came and they're supposed to have 810 foot waves, 20 foot waves hitting from Russia earthquake to Pokai Bay.

Like the crazy Pikachu I am, I went to Pokai Bay because they didn't trust the news. I did the math and there was no tsunami that came.

Now, the first responders like written in the bill, they shouldn't risk their lives to come and rescue me if I'm in the ocean and I dare to go swim and challenge the tsunami because they didn't come.

So when you're looking at this Bill, you know there's going to be special occasions like hurricanes, craziness, like the Lahaina fathers, that we're not gonna be able to protect everything.

But I believe this Bill has good intentions and you shouldn't risk the first responder's life if you got crazy people that don't want to leave because it's gonna have a hard time with the rescue efforts. For in and out especially we're talking about Waianae or Lahaina. There's only one way in and one way out.

We need helicopters and stuff. So thank you very much. Appreciate you guys.

Allah, thank you, Mr. Billionaire. Testimony and support from Alice Abel, Anita. Testimony and support from Terry Savai Naya. Support from Terry Yoshinaga, support from Brett Colbus, support from Jacqueline Beckman and support from Nancy Valdez. Any other testifiers in the room? Any other testifiers?

Oh, go ahead, share. Angela Melody Young testifying on behalf of cares. I'm wishing to comment so in response to this series of the emergency preparedness legislations. So I think what could be helpful is thinking about what format of a legislation is best to work with, with where the offices are at at this point in the conversation.

So clarification of responsibilities between state and counties with various nonprofits providing training can help create a task force if people are not in agreement or, you know, there's just a lot to talk about. And so what I heard is how you might handles press releases. The county's office Department of Emergency Management prepares citizens for disasters.

Ms. Young, Ms. Young, I'm sorry. We're testifying on a bill about liability for.

Yes. Emergency responders from liability of responding to emergencies. Yeah. So include in this task force how to work with the counties and the state offices to protect both the state and the county's emergency responders from liability.

I think that this can help clear up the confusion in seeking clarification of responsibilities for everything we talked about, including training with those with disabilities to amend the language in this. In all the statues, maybe do a combination of the statues to do a task force. Right. Okay.

Thank you. Ms. Young, I think I understand your. Yeah, I understand your amendment to have a task force to look at this issue. Thank you.

Yeah. So we should anticipate future emergencies. Thank you.

Members, Any questions?

Chair, Did I miss it? But were there any first responders testifying here today or on Zoom? Nope. Okay. Thank you. This is a lot.

All right. Next. Next. Build up House Bills 2292 relating to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. This would authorize HYEMA to convert temporary special project positions created for FEMA funded disaster recovery operations into permanent positions exempt from civil service, subject to certain limitations.

First up, we have testimony in support from the Department of Defense Adjutant General or his designee. Good morning.

Good morning. Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Brigadier General retired Nao Tsuyoshi with the Department of Defense. We stand on our written testimony in support of this measure. But I just want to add one comment.

We do appreciate the open communication and transparent dialogue with hda and we're aware of their current testimony and we're available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. We have testimony and support from Mr. Barros, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

Chair, we stand on our written testimony in support of this bill to transition 80 positions in HYEMA. Thank you.

Thank you. And we have comments from HGEA, Mr. Randy Pereira or his designee.

Morning, Chair. Vice Chair. Members, Nui Sebast for HGA. We'll stand on our comments for this measure. We. We can appreciate the intent of this bill, which is to transition permanent exempt positions to start temporary exempt positions to permanent exempt positions.

We do kind of question the need for a blanket exemption since we trust that there are support service staff that would be impacted and those staff should be civil service positions. Thank you.

Okay. Any other testifiers in the room? Any testifiers via Zoom Members, questions? Thank you for.

Thank you. For HGA. How many support Members of the 80 positions, how many are. Do you think should be retained as a part of a collective bargaining.

Thank you for your question. I would need to get back to you on a specific number, but generally.

Is it like closer to 79 or is it closer to 1?

I'll follow up with you on that request.

Can I Ask a follow up question of HGA. So given how many times we look at bills that are doing this kind of moving from temporary to permanent exempt, is there a more broader solution that HTA can offer? Are we getting stuck in collective bargaining?

How are we creating this situation where so many departments are asking for this exemption?

I appreciate your question. I think generally speaking, I think it just speaks to kind of our civil service hiring and how we're not competitive with the private sector and also the Federal Government.

I think just generally as a state, we need to look at compensating our employees at a more competitive market rate and also hiring employees efficiently so that we can.

That's just to cl. That's for you guys as the collective bargaining negotiator to push for higher wages for your Members. Right. So, I mean.

Well, Senator. Representative, we can negotiate with the employer to increase higher wages, but it also will take agreement on their end to do that. We always push for higher wages for our Members.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Representative Shimizu.

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Barrows, the way I understand this, this Bill is there were positions created by the FEMA funded positions which have been proven to be valuable and necessary. So now we're creating permanent positions and being exempt.

Is that correct? Yes. So what happens when a disaster is declared and we'll get federal funding is we, we go to the Governor and we get a special project open. These designated these positions will support that disaster and it's federally reimbursed positions.

So to your question, of the 10 of the 80, about 10 are accountants or office assistants. So about 10. The other 70 would be disaster specialists that would deal with public assistance programs with Fema.

Right now, the hazard mitigation team that's working on all the hazard mitigation projects that are open right now, they're being funded by the special projects for Wildfire. So that entire mitigation team is made up of federally funded positions that are working on two Covid positions, one Kauai positions, and 45 from the Maui Wildfire.

So what we want to do is we want to retain that talent and not let these special projects close and perhaps lose the talent. Because they're really focused a lot on the mitigation, the pa, some of our logistics support, and our EMPG grants.

Follow up question. Chair.

Yes.

So if there was no emergency in Fema, then these positions would not have existed if.

If we didn't have a disaster? Yes.

And when did the FEMA funding end or the reimbursement?

Well, none of this. None of these projects ended because there's open projects. So for example, we're still working on, we have positions that are funded with 2018 Hurricane Lane. That's a special projects. 2024, severe weather and landslides. 2018 Kilauea. Those were federally declared disasters.

We did special projects and we brought people on to help with the public assistance. So those, those disasters are still open.

Last question. Sure.

Yes, please.

So when, when is this funding going to be required for us to Fund these new positions that's being requested?

We don't anticipate that until worst case scenario, the next budget cycle. But if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, it would be not next budget cycle, but the following one.

And by the tea leaves, you mean because of the changes happening at the federal level?

Yes, Chair.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you.

Seeing no further questions. All right, Members, we've hit the end of our agenda again. By practice, we're going to resume for decision making at 11:30. And so I'll see you. See you then. Thank you. We are able to move.

Convening our 8:40am agenda on Committee on Public Safety. I will read somewhat slowly, Members, but let's get started. So starting on House Bill 2288 relating to parole eligibility, Chair's recommendation is going to be to do a House draft one adding the public defenders proposed language as well as.

Making a defective effective date of January 1, 3000 and any tech amendments as identified by HMSO for clarity, consistency or style.

Any questions or comments? Members seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay, we are voting on HB2288. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. [Roll Call] Chair your recommendation.

Yes. This is a full Committee.

Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Wonderful. Thank you, Vice Chair.

Okay, Members moving to House Bill 2356 relating to offender reentry. Members, this is a really good example of a Bill that's we're making it as we're flying the plane. Chair's recommendation is going to be to change the certificate of suitability for employment to one of certificate of rehabilitation.

What we learned in the hearing was that there is actually examples of these in other states, California. So we'll look to that as we move this Bill forward.

I'm going to adopt some of the amendments of the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission by modifying at page two, fulfillment of sentence in all post release obligations, providing that the Hawaii Paroling Authority retains primary responsibility for tracking and confirming post release obligations, altering number three from successful rehabilitation to summary of rehabilitation efforts.

I'm going to strike the diminished likelihood of recurrence because that is something that is not easily easily defined or measured. Then I'm going to convert. And again, this is coming from the testimony.

I'm going to strike the language that the Department shall work with the U.S. Department of Defense and instead the Department may work with state agencies to increase the availability and likelihood that eligible offenders will obtain a security clearance post release, if relevant to their employment pursuits with the state.

So we're shifting it away from the Federal Government to the state to encourage some of our employment efforts. Chair is going to also make any technical non substantive amendments identified by HMSO for clarity, consistency and style and make the effective date defective to 7-1-3000. Members, any questions? Thank you for your indulgence in letting this Bill move forward.

For discussion's sake, I think this is actually something that could be really beneficial and we hadn't seen it on the radar. So. Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay, voting on HB2356. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments noting that all Members are present. Are there any Members voting? No. Any Members voting with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Thank you. Chair's recommendation for House Bill 2287 relating to peer support counseling. This is an unusual bill. Members there was unanimous support and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't keep moving this forward with a good effective date. So my recommendation is going to be to pass this forward unamended questions, comments or concerns.

Seeing on Vice Chair for the vote voting on HB2287. Chair's recommendation is to pass as is noting the presence of all Members. Are there any who wish to vote no? Any who wish to vote with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Okay. Moving on to House Bill 2457 relating to emergency preparedness Members. I want to acknowledge that this is really just a funding mechanism bill for Community Resiliency Hubs, which is a topic that we actually had taken up last session in, in a hearing on bill, House Bill 1060.

And I was disappointed a little that there was sparse to little testimony on it. But I would like to continue to move this one forward for continued discussions. We'll also be planning an informational briefing around the activities that are going on around Community Resilience Hubs that are actually occurring across the state on all islands.

So my recommendation for this bill to continue the conversation is to do a House Draft 1 establishing within a HYEMA the Community Resilient Hubs pilot program. And then identifying that they should, in addition to creating the pilot program for these various communities, they should look to partnering with an agency or.

A subject matter group that is equipped to assist communities to plan, design and execute their own Community Readiness Centers or Resilience hubs and Members. This is actually in reference to two groups that are working actually currently within the community, both the center for Resilient Neighborhoods as well as Vibrant Hawaii. But I don't want to name those two.

So those are, those are the, those are the two organizations that we know are working. They are affiliated. Serene in particular is affiliated with the University of Hawaii. But so rather than naming them specifically is to work with groups that assist communities to plan, design and execute their own community Readiness centers or resilience hubs.

Any technical non substantive amendments identified by HMSO for clarity, consistency and style and an effective date of July 1st, 3000 Members. Any questions? All right. Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay. Voting on HB 2457, Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments noting all Members are present. Are there any who wish to vote no? Any who wish to vote with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Okay. For HB 1976 HD1 relating to dementia. Chair's recommendation is going to continue to move this forward for discussion purposes. I hope that other agencies will come forward to help identify how we can make this measure more workable.

Members, as noted in the testimony, this is really trying to improve the law we passed in 2021 that required dementia training and that we find is not actually being executed with the various agencies that we need them to be doing this dementia training.

So Chair's recommendation is going to be to pass this as is because it already has a. A blank. Excuse me, a defective date already contained. So to pass this as is. Questions, comments or concerns. Seeing on Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay. Voting on HB 1976 HD1. Chair's recommendation is to pass as is, noting the presence of all Members. Are there any wishing to vote no? Any wishing to vote with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Okay. Moving to House Bill 2236 relating to emergency management. Chair's recommendation is to move this with an HD1 at page 2 based on the conversation of with the HYEMA administrator to put into the timeline for when an agency could have a delayed response.

So on page two, lines 14 to 15, due to extenuating circumstances, there may be a reasonable delay of up to six months in an agency's response to a request and this is a way to address that issue, to make a defective date of July 1st, 3000 and to keep moving this along for conversations.

And there are no texts identified by hmso. Vice Chair for questions, comments or concerns. Vice Chair for the vote voting on.

HR 2236, Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments noting that every Member is present. Are there any Members wishing to vote no? Any Members wishing to vote with reservations? Seen none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Okay. Chair's Recommendation for Hospital 2480 is to continue the conversation and hopefully more of the affected agencies will step forward in the next Committee. Chair's recommendation is to move hospital 2480 relating to emergency response with defective date and any technical, non substantive amendments needed for clarity, consistency and style. Questions, comments or concerns? Chair?

Yes, I just wanted to note that I will be voting with reservations as there was no testimony from any first responders. And.

Yeah, no, fair enough. Thank you. Fair enough. Any other questions, comments or concerns? All right. Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Voting on HB 2480. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments noting that all Members are present. Are there any Members wishing to vote no? Any Members other than myself wishing to vote with reservations? Thank you, Chair. Your recommendation is adopted.

Okay. For House Bill 2292, the last Bill on our 8:40am agenda relating to Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Members we received, I had asked the stakeholders to take a look at some amending language to effectuate the recommendations of HGA testimony.

And so my recommendation is going to be to insert at page 13 of of the bill in Section 2 more specific language about the 82 special project positions created for FEMA funded disaster recovery operations, provided that no more than 70% will be part of this exemption.

Also at page 19, applicable to 127A3 of subsection F, creating a subsection F that says the agency, with approval of the Governor and subject to positions authorized by the Legislature, may establish permanent special project positions exempt from Chapter 76 that are created for female funded disaster recovery oper operations.

30% of the special project positions will be transitioned to civil service over a period not to exceed 5 years. Any technical, non substantive amendments identified by HMSO and a defective date of July 1, 3000 so that we can continue this conversation. Members, any questions, comments or concerns?

Chair, I'll be flooding with reservations because of my concerns regarding the exemptions exempt positions from civil service.

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

Voting on HB 2292. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments noting that all Members are present. Are there any Members wishing to vote no? Are there any other. Are there any Members wishing to vote with reservations other than myself? Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Okay. Thank you. Members. Moving to our agenda 11:30am agenda for measures that were previously heard on February 4, 2026. First up is relating to compassionate release. House Bill 1628.

Chair's recommendation is going to be to add some preamble language that really focuses and clarifies the economic reasons why the Legislature finds that the early release of elderly and seriously ill incarcerated persons will reduce state spending. Chair's recommendation is also to be to adopt the striking of the term chronic.

I believe that was offered up by the testimony. And it was either it might have been Hawaii Paroling Authority or DCCR that offered up that testimony and then to Clarify for.

Compassionate release 353 subsection 4 to insert medical needs and then at 353 subsection H, clarify and add language at least 48 hours prior to an incarcerated person's administrative hearing. The HPA shall provide notice of the hearing to the prosecuting attorney.

So this is going to be addressing some of the concerns that were raised about victim notification and just kind of tightening the language around the conditions that would be applied for compassionate release. Any tech amendments offered by HMSO and a defective date of July 13,000 Members. Any questions? Seeing none. Vice Chair for the vote.

Okay, voting on HB 1628. Chair's recommendation is passed with amendments noting that all Members are present. Are there any Members wishing to vote no? Any Members wishing to vote with reservations? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Members, House Bill 1517 relating to sentencing review. We had a lot of mixed testimony on this and I think don't think this one is ready for prime time yet. I've talked with the introducer of the bill and we're going to work on potentially other mechanisms in which to address this particular issue.

So Chair's recommendation is going to be to defer this measure to differ questions, comments or concerns. Seeing none Members, House Bill 2044 relating to offender re entry. We're still waiting on some language potentially for criteria for reentry. So Chair's recommendation is going to be to move this for hearing on our Wednesday, February 18th, 11:30am agenda. All right.

That should give time for stakeholders to work on this. That takes us to the completion of our 11:30am agenda. Members, I just want to remind folks, if you are not yet informed BY staff, our 8:30am agenda, House Bill 1769, was moved for decision making to Wednesday, February 18th at 11:30am all right, any, any questions? We're all set.

We'll see you on Friday. Members, thank you for all your hard work. We are adjourned.