House Standing Committee on Finance

Aloha. We are convening the House Committee on Finance in Conference Room 306 at the Hawaii State Capitol, scheduled for Thursday, February 19, 2026. Today, you know, just first off, thank you for being here and for everyone who's here in person or on Zoom. My name is Chris Todd. I'm the chair of the Committee.

I'm not going to say that every single day, but we get that one out of the way. Some brief ground rules which again, this will kind of stand for the rest of the session, but we will review from time to time.

So as to not be super repetitive though as much as possible, we're going to restrict everyone to a two minute testifying time so that we can provide equal time for Members of public down the road instead of having one person or two people really kind of eat into everyone's ability to testify.

If you are on Zoom, please keep yourself muted and your video off while waiting to testify. And after your testimony is complete. If you are disconnected unexpectedly, which probably doesn't apply today, you may attempt to rejoin. If disconnected while presenting testimony, you may be allowed to continue if time permits.

The House is not responsible for your spotty Internet connection. Also, I don't think it's on here, but please do not testify if you are on the road and driving. Again, probably not for you folks, but for the future. So we can say we warned everyone we don't want to be the cause of an accident.

In the event of a network failure, it may be necessary to reschedule a hearing or schedule a meeting for decision making. In that case, an appropriate notice will be posted. Please avoid using any trademarked or copyrighted images. If you are using a Zoom background at the testimony table as much as.

But even for Members of the Committee, if you have like a Coca-Cola or you know, something like that, it could be anything. Beverage. As much as possible, keep branded content off of our cameras so we don't get copyright-stricken or anything like that. Please refrain from profanity or uncivil behavior.

Such behavior may be grounds for removal from the hearing. Probably not today, but you know, maybe, in addition, we have a new microphone system. Most of you folks are already familiar with it, but please, as much as possible, green light means on, red light means off. Try to keep side conversations to a minimum.

They are directional, so if you shield your mouth, you should be all right. But please be wary and careful on that. And I think that's about it. Without further ado, we're going to open up with HB2240.

First we have the Legislative Reference Bureau in support.

Good afternoon, Chair Todd, Members of the Committee. I'm Charlotte Carter-Yamauchi, the Director of the Legislative Reference Bureau. We stand in on our testimony in strong support of this Bill which includes the Legislative References budget. So we hope you pass it. Be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Office of the Ombudsman. Ombudsman in support.

Vice Chair Members Robin Matsunaga, State Ombudsman. With me today is my first assistant, Yvonne Jinbo. She's the Deputy Ombudsman. We stand on our written testimony in support of this Bill and available for any questions you might have. Thank you.

Thank you. Hawaii State Ethics Commission and support.

Good afternoon, Chair Todd, Vice Chair Takenouchi and Community Members of the Hawaii Ethics Commission. I'm on here on behalf of Executive Director Harris who apologizes for current hearings today. But the commission strongly supports this measure and we stand on our written test loan and be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Next we have the Office of the Auditor in support.

Good afternoon. I'm Les Kondo. I'm the auditor. With me is the Deputy Auditor Daria Loy Coto. We, we support the portions of the Bill that relate to the Office of the Auditor. So we appreciate the Legislature, the committee's support of my office. I haven't met many of you, so I wanted to spend two minutes.

Do your thing. Just letting you know that my office is a very valuable resource for the Legislature. We provide analysis of how programs are performing, whether they're performing the way that you intend. These are programs that you set up and you fund. So my office is a very valuable resource for you.

We are on the verge of issuing a report today about the Division of Ocean and Boating Recreation of dlnr. We will be issuing a really interesting report no later than the second week of March about the Department of Education's efforts to meet its food percentage goals.

We have, we have a report for you folks relating to proposed funds that will come to you before crossover. It assesses whether or not the funds that are being proposed, special and revolving funds, they meet statutory criteria. So we will submit that very soon. We have two audits that are ongoing.

Really interesting one about Department of Agriculture and biosecurity. And we're looking specifically at their post border activities.

Once a pest, invasive pest or noxious weed has made its presence felt in the islands, how they deal with that Identification, surveying, identification, eradication, control, and at some point giving up on control and deciding what, what places they want to preserve versus other places that may not be where their resources may not be able to preserve.

We also have an audit that's ongoing about the Kahali initiative. The timing homes that we see, that is the governor's, that the Governor started this initiative. So that will be upcoming. Probably not before session ends, unfortunately, but we are in the process of working on that report.

I just want to let you know that we are very excited because we have, we are going to use AI. I'm not sure what that means yet, but we are going to make our work much more effective and efficient at some point where we can push out more audits.

So I'm really excited about the opportunities that AI may open up for us and I'm hopeful next year we can come, we can talk about the audits where we actually use AI to become more effective and efficient.

Right now we're in the, the process of just establishing guidelines so that we in my office, that we know how we're going to use it and it's really important for our work because we do all of our work pursuant to government auditing standards. So we need to document how we do that.

Anyway, I'm sorry, I went over to two minutes, I believe, but thank you very much. Special exception today. Happy to answer any questions that you may have about my office or about our request. So thank you very much.

That's all the testimony that we received previously. Is there anyone else in the room wishing to testify? Anybody on zoom?

Members, do you have any questions on this measure? Seeing none. We're going to move on to HB2272HD1.

First up, we have Department of Budget and Finance in support.

The Department of Budget and Finance supports this Bill. We stand on written testimony and are available for any questions.

Thank you. And we have the Hawaii Firefighters association in support on zoom. Not present.

Hi, good afternoon. Chair Todd. My name is Celeste Nip and I am here with the HFFA board in strong support of this Bill. Our Bill, our arbitration award is currently under review with the arbitration panel and we are asking for your support. And these are the people they have done.

Thank you very much, you guys for indulging me. Take care. Any questions? Happy to answer them.

Thank you. That's all the written testimony we received for this measure. Anybody else in the room wishing to Testify? Anybody on Zoom?

All right, Members, any questions on this measure? HB2272 seeing none. We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda. HB2273HD1.

First, we have the Department of Budget and Finance in support.

Hello. The department supports this bill, and we stand on our written testimony. And we're available for questions.

Thank you. And we have the Hawaii Government Employees Association, HGEA, in support.

HGEA will stand on its testimony in support. Thank you.

Thank you. That's all the written testimony we've received. Anybody else in the room wishing to testify? Anybody on Zoom?

Members, any questions on this measure? Nope.

All right. Next we have... Next on our agenda, we have HB 2274.

First, we have Department of Budget and Finance in support.

Yes. D&F stands in support of this bill. We stand on our written testimony and available for any questions.

Thank you. Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in support.

Tessie Fernandez, BMO, DCR. We stand in our written testimony and it's available for any questions.

Thank you. That's all the written testimony we've received. Anybody else in the room wishing to testify? Anybody on Zoom?

Thank you. Members, any questions? Okay.

Seeing none. Moving on to HB 2275.

First, we have Department of Budget and Finance in support.

B&F supports this bill and stands on its written testimony, is available for questions.

Thank you. Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in support.

Tessie Fernandez, BMO, DCR. We are in support of this bill and we are ready for any questions.

Thank you. And the Department of Human Services in support.

Joseph Campos, Deputy Director, Department of Human Services, here on behalf of Director Yamane. DHS stands on its written testimony in support, deferring to Budget and Finance and providing comments. Thank you.

Thank you. That's all the written testimony we received on this measure. Anybody else in the room wishing to testify? Anybody on Zoom?

Okay. Members, any questions on this final measure on the agenda? Perfect score today. Okay, we're going to recess briefly just in case Members want to join us for the vote. I know we have Members tied up in meetings. So recess and then we'll reconvene for decision making. Recess.

Aloha. We are reconvening the House Committee on Finance for the purposes of decision making on our 2pm agenda. First up, we have HB 2240. Our plan is to move this forward amended as an HD 1. There is a very small but important technical cleanup. We will be adding $1 to the appropriation in Section 1, subsection 1, or subpart 1. Any questions about this critical change of $1? No, we're okay. Vice Chair for the vote.

Members voting on HB2240. Recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and vice chair, vote. Aye. [Roll Call] Recommendations adopted.

Thank you. Time for our second measure. We have HB 2272, HD 1. Our plan is to move this forward as is. It already has a defective date and blank amounts. And as we're waiting on more information, plan is just move it forward, and that'll get inserted at a later date. Any questions on this measure? Seeing none. Vice Chair.

Voting on HB 2272, HD 1. Recommendation is to pass as is. Noting the presence of all Members, who will be noted as present for the rest of this agenda unless otherwise announced. Are there any reservations? Any noes? Recommendation is adopted.

Thank you. Moving on to HB 2273 HD 1, same recommendation for this item. It already has a defective state and some blank amounts. We'll be sending this along as is. Any questions on this measure? If not, Vice Chair for the vote.

Voting on HB 2273 HD 1, recommendation's to pass unamended. Any reservations? Any noes? Recommendation's adopted.

Thanks. We have some small things on the next couple measures. So HB2274 plan would be to move this forward as an HD1. We will be leaving the amounts blank but just defecting the date to send it forward. Any questions on this measure? Seeing none. Vice chair

Voting on HB2274 recommendations do pass with amendments. Any reservations? Any noes? Recommendation is adopted.

Okay. And lastly, we have HB 2275. Recommendation is to move this forward as an HD 1. There is a proposed HD 1 in the testimony from Budget and Finance. We would be inserting that draft, basically just putting the actual amounts and program IDs into the measure. I think other than that, it's pretty much ready to go. Any necessary technical tweaks to that also, but should be all right. Members, any questions on this last measure? Seeing none. Vice Chair.

Voting on HB 2275. Recommendation's to pass with amendments. Any reservations? Any noes? Recommendation's adopted.

All right. Thank you, and we are going to be adjourned. We will be convening Monday at 2:00 p.m. on a future <inaudible>. Adjourned.