Senate Standing Committee on Education

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Committee on Education. Hope you're all dried up from this past weekend. I understand we might be in for more rain, so hopefully we don't have another rain day—two rain days in a month, is that, must be historical.

Right? So, anyway, with that being said, you are here at the Committee on Education. Today is March 16th, 1:00 PM in Room 229, and this meeting is being live streamed. And if there's any difficulties, we will reconvene on Wednesday, 1:00 PM in this room, 229. And so, I will want to let member testifiers know you have a minute to give your testimony, and we will ask questions if we need more information.

So, welcome my committee members to my right, Senator Hashimoto from Maui and to my left, Senator DeCorte from Waianae. Senator Kidani is out ill today, so we wish her well and, Senator Fukunaga may be in a little later. With that, we're gonna start with our first item on the agenda. Senate- Senate bill. House bill 1605, House Draft one, relating to human and community resilience.

Appropriate funds to the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Tropical Ag and Human Resilience for the development of its Human and Community Resilience Institute. First is Brian Miyamoto from the Hawaii Farm Bureau. Right? Now I have you down as first. Who am I to argue? You're in strong opposition. Right?

Strong opposition. Thank you, Chair, Members of the committee, Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. Sorry, Chair, I expected to go after the University of Hawaii that would explain everything about this bill and then the- the institute and how important it is talking about food insecurity and all those numbers, what- what level of food insecurity we have here in Hawaii, what level of nutrition security we have in Hawaii, which this bill is is addressing, trying to combine all the different programs, and, again, talk about food security.

Nutrition security, and I was going to say I am the- the role model for nutrition security and probably the- the- the one that can best talk about nutrition, obviously. But this is extremely important issue. We talk about Farm to Families, Farm to Food Bank, but I think the university and CTAR specifically can go a long way in helping us become more food secure and more nutritionally secure, doing the outreach and combining these programs that maybe is a little bit more spread out than it should be. So again, we are in strong support of this- this- this measure, and it is one of the Farm Bureau's priorities. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Okay. Good job. We're gonna have questions for you after. Kay'. Now we have the University of Hawaii, Parwinder from the university.

Aloha, Chair and Vice Chair and the Members of the committee. Thank you for allowing us to have this testimony. And my name is Parwinder Grewal. I'm the Dean of the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience. I just want to make a few points about the food and nutritional security in Hawaii.

We are- We have over 30% of our households still food insecure. Look. Pandemic has been long gone, and it's actually increasing since then. What we are trying to do after the loss of SNAP-Ed, we lost 13 positions in that. What we are trying to do here is to combine our different program that kind of either directly or peripherally focus on this particular issue so that we can have a more data driven and community based approach to this problem so that we can uproot the food food and nutritional insecurity from our communities.

Thank you so much.

Kay'. Thank you. On Zoom, we have Hunter Heave- Heavilin?

Not present on Zoom, Chair.

Thank you. Don't know that I said that correctly. And we have a number of others, that sent in testimony in support. I'm not gonna read all their names. Anyone here in this room that would like to testify on this measure? Okay. Hearing none, Brian, why don't you come back up? I have a question. Members, we are open for questions. Maybe you can explain greater about the nutrition- nutrition security.

You know, for all the time that I've been aware, I'm not sure what exactly that we're doing when it comes to nutrition. I see so many people that and and even our kids in school, not really eating the types of foods, nutritional food, myself included. So can you explain to- to me and everybody else about where our money's going and how is this nutrition getting to- to the public, actually?

I- I thank you, senator, Brian Miyamoto. I'm on the Hawaii Farm Bureau. I think that's what this maybe can help address because we do want healthier eating. Healthy eating should lead to better outcomes, less pressure on our health care system, creating better habits in children. So again, this being a community based data driven program can address that. We all want- We want healthier eating. We want and healthier eating from the AGCO standpoint, we believe translates into more local foods, local foods in our schools.

But how does the data then translate? I mean, it's one thing we collect the data. We all know we should be eating better. We all go to the doctor, and my cholesterol level is very high. Part of it is- is, for everybody's knowledge, is hereditary. But, yeah, but, you know, my eating habits, especially during session time, on the run, we don't get to eat normal meals. But I don't know how much data you're gonna get that is gonna change my- my way of- of eating.

Thank you senator, I don't think it's just a data collection, it's a community based component of this. And part of what the university does, or CTAHR, is their extension program. And so the outreach, and extension isn't just for farmers and ranchers, they do have other activities that they can reach out. Example is our 4-H program also that we have at the University of Hawaii, which works with not just our livestock students, people think 4-H is just things they see at the county fairs or the farm fair, but there's also this nutrition or, more, I wouldn't say home ec component to 4-H. So it's a broader program.

Sorry. Sorry, senator. And so, again, it is getting the data, working with community, and trying to, implement possibly some of these programs so that we can have better outcomes from- from especially from- from- from our youth. Where we started, I just saw something recently about you know food, school lunch or our food programs at in Japan and what they do. And the culture is created when the students are extremely young and they develop these better eating habits so that they have them as adults also.

And ideally that's something that hopefully Hawaii could do and be. So again, that's the nutrition side and then also has a food security side. But nutrition and- and I think we all would wanna eat healthier.

I'm gonna ask part one if you can come upstate. And how much money are we talking about? I know 13 we lost 13 food educators, and you want to get back these individuals. So how how many what are we talking about?

Only 0.9 million dollars.

I'm sorry. $9,000,000?

0.9.

0.9.

Yes. And it is if I can address this particular issue, there is education component included in this, which is to build capacity in K-12 schools about nutritional education. That would be directly having you know, working with our department of education to include a required module or a course in nutrition and healthy eating and also developing a master education nutrition education volunteer program so that we can have sustainability of this program. Because those people will be trained to go out into the communities where they live so that they can influence this aspect.

So it is children's or, you know, K-12 kids is the highest priority, but also parents. So 4-H program is also included in this because they are doing lots of work now more and more towards teaching children how to develop a recipe, how to cook, and so that early on, they it gets ingrained that healthy eating is important for their performance in the school and their development.

Okay. So .9,000,000, does that include the fringe and everything else that go with it?

Yes.

.9,000,000. And that's sustaining every year required. Correct. Okay. So going to school, we had nutritional classes. We had nutrition. I don't know that that made an impact, and- and more so today.

Back then, we had home economics, and so we learned to cook or or the boys learned to cook in in those classes. But, again, I just have a hard time for that kind of money that when you say that, you know, we've had 4-H programs too when we went to school,

and they still have 4-H programs. But when we say that the more data, the community base, I still don't understand, trained people going into the community, how that really translates other than education because you've got all of the advertising going on on TV, all of the sweets and candies and sodas and everything else that is out there. No matter how much the school puts out nutritional lunches, they get thrown away. And you still see the kids who cannot afford school lunches go to McDonald's or- or fast foods. So how does this actually translates into better nutrition?

I mean, it sounds good. It's so hard to vote against something like this, but, you know, when you come down to it, is the money actually the value of changing people's way of nutrition and eating that that this is going all of these positions are going to change that?

So this approach is, as Brian said, this community based. We are bringing to bear our care centers across the state, 22 of them, so that we can engage with the local community in a way that it is a partnership. It is beneficial to both sides and provide not only the education. Food as medicine is one of the new programs that we are now working with the medical school. And this kind of approach, if the issues that are identified, we will pivot to address those as and assess our impact simultaneously.

That's the difference moving forward. We believe we lost the SNAP-Ed program because the impact assessment may have not been as optimal as we would have wanted. And this is an important issue as you- as you know. It is something that we must try, and we are trying to take a different approach to address this particular issue. We provide from our stations, last year, we provided over 20,000 pounds of fresh produce to different communities, food banks on all our islands, and on Oahu, over 16,000 pounds of food.

So we are saying is if community identifies a community garden is needed in a community, we would enable our own place, create a community garden because it's one person at a time, changing lives one person at a time. It is not easy as you know, yes, people will ignore. The 4-H youth development program is also changing. It's evolving nationally. It was outside the, school curriculum program.

Now it's entering into the school. The new movement, it will be adopted into the school curriculum, the 4-H youth development program. That builds leadership, that builds, ability to take control of their lives early. We have to, address this issue.

Let me open it up to questions.

So when you're referring to the schools, are you referring to Department of Education?

Correct. Any- Any local schools that we--

So this program is going to the- the success of this program is gonna be based on the implementation through the Department of Education.

That is one component. So I just wanted to highlight that component of this because it is also partnering with government institutions, government organizations to work collaboratively, take community by community, GIS based, data driven approach to address the hurdles that may be. Sometimes it may not be just food, but the people do not have a transportation to get there or the access to food is not there. Or the access is such that it is not healthy food.

Sure. So I think the concern I have is right now, Department of Education is not meeting their own goals, of having local- locally produced foods 30% by 30 or something, 2030. And then also, I think we have a supply shortage here with the amount of healthy selection of foods, to be able to supply families that would choose to have a better, nutritional meal. So I think that if right now, the bill is calling for 12 positions. And if I recall, there's no real data to see where local communities are at currently so that we can have a project- a projected goal of this is where the community is at.

Five percent in this particular region is not eating healthy, and that's reflected through diabetes rates or heart, you know, conditions and and those kinds of things to be able to justify the bill that says by the end of five years, we're hoping to increase the nutritional rate. Do you folks have any of those numbers?

So we can put together because there are different agencies focused on their own piece of work. For example, on Big Island, food insecurity is even higher than Oahu. So information is available. We can bring it together. And that's where we want to start with this. Take that kind of approach. Build community leadership to address this issue. Otherwise, we just, you know, 30% already, we might be even higher moving forward.

Yeah.

Okay. Because prices are also going up. It's gonna be up.

Yeah. But you're talking about also, like, teaching new habits and--

Correct.

-day to day lifestyle. So--

-that's an even longer--

Exactly.

Yes.

Goal that you're trying to accomplish, not just putting the foods in front of them and saying, hey. You know, we're gonna give you a--

A box of vegetables, you know, once a week.

Right.

Right.

You know, that comes with the education of maybe cooking the right meals and so on and so forth. So.

It it is actually developing the taste for that. It is our own kids. It it took time. But now they are there. It- It's- It's hard. No question. But if it is parents, if it is community leaders, if it is few student champions, right, and governmental agencies, legislature, everybody working together to be able to address this issue, only then we will make a difference. I give you that- that everyone wouldn't ever comply or- or eat. You know, we all have our issues.

I will let you know, though, if your, program is kind of trying to be funneled through the Department of Education, I would have concerns about that. But thank you, chair. Thank you.

And we are working very closely with the department on the regional kitchen, the new recipes that we have created now. I hope that it will make a difference.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Real quick. So I'm reading your testimony. So you said 13 positions are gone from FoodSnap or the Ed- EDSNAP? Is that what it is? SNAP-Ed?

SNAP-Ed. So based on that, I- I would assume you're that's- that's how the genesis of the 12, right, that you're asking for?

SNAP-Ed.

It is actually quite a bit repackaged. It includes our 4-h youth development program because now we want to take that program to inside the school.

Okay.

So yeah.

But- But what if you get some of the SNAP-Ed monies back? We put the third- 12 in- into the general fund and then the money starts flowing again. Is there any overlap?

So only overlap would be our four community nutrition associate, jobs. Only four of those. The approach that we are taking here, SNAP at at the federal level is no more. Yes.

For now?

Yeah. You can maybe put some money, now in- in- in this this year. But that is then every year, you have to find and scramble to find the money. And our goal is to actually train the trainer so that we can make a more sustainable approach. Not just the same person impacting 20 people a day or 100 people a month. That kind of thing.

So- So what if we don't start with 12? What would- What would be the number other than 12?

I am pulling together different programs from within the college to be able to bring everybody together.

Right. So I- So I think what would be prudent before we go to conference or if it gets that far is we we need to understand what the options are, right, in terms of, you know, if in the first year, second year, third year of the rollout, you know, in theory, the federal funds are gonna be revisited. You know, we could have a new Congress, new Senate, you know, next year. Maybe some of these things might come back, but, you know, it'd be good just to to understand, you know, what- what- what are the options we might have. But I- I think 12 seems a lot.

I understand you lost 13, but I think we gotta- we gotta think through what what- what- what can we give you in this- in this tight budget year. Right?

Yeah. In the tight budget year, if you can give me those remaining ones later, I could live with eight for now.

Eight? No. That's still a lot. But okay. Well, hopefully, we can continue looking at that. Alright. Thank you, chair.

Really appreciate it. This is, you know, for- for our people.

How long have you been- you've had SNAP-Ed from the feds. How long?

Over twenty years or so.

Okay. So over twenty years. So where's the data? Or how has that changed in people's- people's eating habits?

There are data available. We can make sure we can provide that.

Okay. Yeah. Because I really wanna see the money that we're spending or going to spend, and what are we- what- what is actually taking place? Because, you know, again, it- it sounds good. You train these people. They go into the community. You talk about community based, but you're talking about four people going into the community. Okay? So they go into Kalihi. They talk with, you know, the schools.

The schools should be the one implementing nutrition in the school program. I don't know why we need this- these individuals to- to include it because I know when we went to school, we had the nutrition. We had, you know, all the families, all the different- different ways to eat and so forth. But at the end of the

day, it didn't didn't change the fact that my parents couldn't afford fresh produce. We ate canned goods. You know, we- we- we ate what we could afford, and even when we could afford it- it's- it's hard to prepare. It doesn't people don't have the time to prepare. People are working.

Parents are working. They go fast foods. They buy, you know, chicken, fried chicken, they go to Costco, they buy, you know, they buy ready made stuff. I mean, that's a lifestyle, and I don't know that having all of these funds and these individuals are going to change it until you change the world, and- and, you know, people's- people's way of living, which people have to work two jobs and their families, and so they end up not having the time to cook nutrition- nutritious meals. So I just don't know how this translates.

And my concern is getting the funding to the people who really need it at this point in time. So You know, because people are living from pay-paycheck to paycheck. People are not getting the types of support that they can, and the budget is so tight. And so, you know, what what are our priorities at this point? I know this takes a long time, but over twenty years, we've had SNAP-Ed, and I don't necessarily see the impact that it has.

Brian, can you relate to that?

Thank you, senator. Yes. We we get it. And- And, yes. But but we believe that this is an approach, as the dean said, to start early because we need to- we need to start somewhere. We gotta address this.

Started 20 this program.

And and we're twenty years of SNAP-Ed.

And we never--

And what are the outcomes?

Yeah.

We understand it.

Did we start? Did we start twenty years ago on this? I mean, we've been talking about nutrition forever. Right?

Absolutely. And- And I think with- without criticizing anyone else, our dean is fairly new. And so the dean has an approach that he believes can help Hawaii, can help our keiki, can help our future by addressing nutrition. Nutrition, I agree. I- We grow up eating canned goods, spam and eggs for dinner.

But we've got to address this, and we think this may be the approach. Understand that budgets are tight, and it is something we appreciate you hearing it, Senator, because this is a conversation that I think we're having now. We're having a lot of food security conversations, right? But to add in the nutrition component, which is critically important, and- and how the agriculture can play a role in that also. I think that's at least a conversation that we're happy to have at this point.

The outcomes of of this program, it will be long term.

And that's why I bring this up because this always sounds good. Nutrition, we're we're gonna go into the community, community based, nutrition security. I mean, all of these are good buzzwords, but at the end of the day, you know, how- how much is this really impacting? Are we getting results from it? And if we're not, then we need to really look at how can we best spend some of these fundings because this is once you do it, then, you know, everybody protect their jobs, and you- you can't change the program.

Those are absolutely very important questions.

So now- now we have a federal program, and it goes away, and we've been lying to the federal for too long for these nice to have programs, and now you want the state to take it over, and it's very difficult because, you know, the pie is only so big. And now you're adding on more, who are we gonna cut? Am I gonna cut from our seniors? Am I gonna cut from our- our non profits?

Am I gonna cut from our- our education? Where do I cut? The pie is only so big. Right? So where am I gonna come up with the funding for these additional positions? And not for one time, but for two in perpetuity, it seems. Right?

And it's not because we're- we're not sensitive to nutrition and people eating balanced meals. I mean, you know, we're we're all guilty of it. Walk in any of our offices, you're gonna see a whole pile of- of junk food that sustain us during the session. But, again and and we're smart people. We're not, you know I like to think we're smart.

Yes.

Senator, if I may, we do want to change the world. We really do want to change the world, and we have to change the world. We can start right here in Hawaii. Community.

If I got people starving or I got people that really need the funding, I don't know if that priority would be right now to change the world with $900,000 at this point. So again--

It's- It's a different it's a different approach that we are proposing, and it is through a partnership, not so much one side education.

Understand.

Maybe you can talk with our athletics because they want 5,000,000 for sports. So do we play sports before we do nutrition? How do- How do we do that? Again, where are our priorities?

One side.

Yeah.

Where should our priorities be?

Our- Our generation actually is healthier than our younger generation because we had nutrition education. We were doing labor.

Yeah. But look how many people have cancer now. I mean, look how many people. We don't even know if that's related to nutrition or not. Yeah. But Okay. Let's not belabor this. Thank you. No. We appreciate the good work you're doing, Dean. Again, you know, we make the hard decisions on on what are we gonna prioritize and what are we gonna fund. Thank you.

And we really appreciate, what you do too. K. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Senate bill 2,171, house draft one, relating to the University of Hawaii authorizes university to engage in enterprise related activities for educational purposes under certain circumstances. Testifying, Denise Yoshimori Yamamoto. Denise, you're online. Hi.

Hi, Chair, Vice Chair, members members of the committee. This is my name is Denise Yoshimori Yamamoto. I'm the associate vice president for the community colleges, and we support this bill. We're and I'm here for any questions you may have. Thank you.

Okay. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? Because Denise is the only one that signed up, nobody else, nobody's questions. I do. Who it is? You wanna explain it? Denise, again, what are the circumstances in which you would do you would this bill would help? So, basically,

you know, it would allow us to really bring hands on experience on into our onto our campuses. We we do things we do this already to some degree with culinary arts. We want to do this and expand it with hospitality. It's really creating these lab environments, and our students would have almost like the next step before they get out into the workforce. Our hospitality academy at Maui is a really good example in that with CIP, we did renovate the building.

You know, we did the shell. And then what happened was we got our industry partners, the hotels, to come in and sponsor the rooms, and they outfitted the rooms at their cost. And so that was really good in that it saved us some money with the CIP, but it also provides our students with, you know, just an actual real world sample room that they need to work in, kinda get trained in before they can start doing their actual internships at the hotels. But what we wanted to do was be able to bring in now guests, you know, actual people from the community into that facility. But again, it's it's in no way will it ever mean to compete with private sector, but it is it allows us at least to generate some revenue, but, again, more so is for the hands on training.

So why do you need this bill, though? Can't you do that now?

Well, what's happening is that we have to go through actual hurdles just like any other commercial entity. We have to get the proper permits in place and things like that, which kinda drags it out. So it doesn't help us really to be to react as fast as we would like to. And so this this bill would definitely help us to be able to pivot faster to react to workforce and be able to support it. Because every time, yeah, there's always the lag with CIP because construction takes so long.

But just even aligning programmatically being able to start would be great.

Okay. Well, sometimes we pass these measures. It seems like it's innocent enough, and then there's unintended consequences that happens. I'm looking right now where you say activities authorized under this section shall be exempt from County zoning and ordinances, land use restrictions and requirements for special permits, conditional use permits, or similar county level land abuse, approvals. I mean this is broad, broad kinds of exemptions, which I'm not sure, how that would what it would entail as far as some kind of activities down the line that all of a sudden we say, well, that bill was never meant for that to happen.

I mean, I think that the the one will bring a little bit of comfort is just the fact that this would never, on a campus, just be able to scale up, you know, to be anything that is competing with commercial industry. You know, but again and but keep in mind too, this would not we did not intend for this to exempt us from any type of building permit. Yeah? So definitely, if it's a kitchen or anything like that, it would be permitted as such, and we would get the proper approvals for that type of operation. So never to jeopardize health and safety.

It's more so to allow us through educational use to to start our training start our training much faster.

Yeah. Again, I just don't see how you you folks are doing it now. So I'm not exactly sure, perhaps as we move forward before it if it gets that far to conference that you guys can give us more specifics. Because to me, this is about broad language and that much of this you can already do. I know. Yeah. Maybe it's not as simple as it wants to be.

It takes longer. That's all it is.

Okay. But

definitely we can come see you.

I mean, I mean, we can we

can give you more specifics. Definitely. We work we'll work on that.

I think this bill really needs that.

Okay. Thank you.

Go ahead. No? Okay. No other questions. Let's move on.

Senate Bill 1873, House Draft 2, relating to the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii. Exempts one strategic planning retreat of the Board of Regents per year from open meeting requirements if certain conditions are met. Requires a member of the Board of Regents to complete a governance training and attend training at least once every two years thereafter. It requires a candidate advisory council to ensure that all candidates presented to the governor for nomination have certain subject matter experience and are not registered lobbies, who have lobbied on matters pertaining to the University of Hawaii, exempts the financial disclosures on the Board of Regents, as mandated by the state ethics code from being made public. Requires the Board of Regents, in collaboration with the Candidate Advisory Committee Council, to submit annual reports to the legislature. And we have a number of people signed up. Okay.

Robert Harris for the State Ethics Commission. Mr. Harris, thank you.

Thank you, Chair, members of the committee. My name is Robert Harris. On behalf of Hawaii State Ethics Commission, we are opposed to specifically section six of this bill, which would prevent the legislature, fellow regents, UH staff, or stakeholders from knowing of financial conflicts of interest on matters before the University of Hawaii Board of Regents. Removing this information means that conflicts of interest will not be identified in real time. It allows, essentially, for the Ethics Commission to try to identify conflicts of interest after the fact.

By that point, decisions may have already been made, and the harm to the public may have already been occurred. Eliminating transparency here solves a problem that does not appear to exist. There has not been a lack of qualified applicants for the, the Board of Regents specifically. However, the harm caused, specifically with an institution that controls billions of dollars and is a central part of Hawaii's economy, eliminating the transparency, it runs counter both to national standards and other similar institutions, such as the University of California, which does also have public disclosure requirements. Thank you.

Happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. Ben Kreps in opposition from Public First Law Center. Let's see. Testifying for the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, Gabe Lee, Chair of the Regents.

Thank you, Chair, committee members. Gabe Lee, Chair of the Board of Regents, testifying in favor of this bill. In particular, the exemption from the Sunshine Law would facilitate a more meaningful discussion among the regents, as well as management outside of the rules of the Sunshine Law, mostly one on one conversations. And the exemption from the public disclosure of the financial statements will widen the pool of qualified applicants, especially in the expertise of large- scale organizational management, finance, accounting, and budget. Thank you.

Thank you. We have, let's see. Carlota Amerino with comments from Office of Informational Practice, Douglas Miller in opposition, League of Women Voters, and Sterling Morita for the Professional Chapter of Society of Professional Journalists, in opposition. Anyone here else wishing to testify on this measure? Hearing none, members are open to questions. Okay. So, Gabe, if you can come forward. So, we're talking about a one-time exemption, right, for this retreat from the Sunshine Law? How long would this retreat take?

I would say it would be a couple hours. Yes.

Okay. So, if we're not talking about one day or one week, we're talking about hours.

Yes.

So, like an eight hour period or six hour period?

Less.

Even less. Okay. So, when you talk about the disclosure, I know people complain about it. So, you're saying that if we didn't have disclosure, the more people would then apply to sit on the Regents?

Yes. When the requirement went in, I think it was around twelve years ago during Governor Abercrombie's term, we, the regents, lost two regents before it went into effect. And, when I approach people, especially, on the large-scale organizational management, those type of expertise, the first thing they talk to me about is the public disclosure of the financial statements. Now, for me, I had, I was on the board of accountancy for eight years before that. So, I knew I was filing the public's disclosures, and I knew what was disclosed.

And when I try to explain to other people, well, your retirement accounts aren't in there and your deferred comp is not in there, and all this is not in there, and the only thing that you're doing is your your taxable accounts and those type of things. They just say, forget it. I'm not gonna do it. It's just, too much on the table for people to see.

Okay. But you feel that it's been around for so long that it seems like we we are getting qualified candidates, but I don't know.

You think people are now I mean, most of them are required now, right, across the board.

I think we could get our, wider pool of candidates.

Is that gonna change how the board of regents approach things?

I can't guarantee that.

the other questions. Yes.

I know some of

Yes. Okay. Member's questions? Senator DeCorte. Thank you. So, chair, when

you had mentioned earlier in your oral testimony that, these retreats would require the board to have meaningful discussions. Also, you had shared that you can have more one on one conversations. What is preventing you from having those meaningful discussions and one on one conversations now publicly being documented. I'm concerned what those conversations would entail.

Right now, we we really it's hard for us to get a feel of the entire board. So right now, based on Sunshine Law, we have to talk to have one on one conversations. But to understand where the body of 11 regents really feel about a certain topic, I think something like that is harder in a public session, and especially open discussion with senior management. A lot of this is strategic. You know, it's just like larger publicly traded companies.

Their strategic planning sessions are not open to the public.

So you know how the Sunshine Law is really to gain public trust with the public. That's the point of Sunshine Law is to have those discussions. So when the comments are being made so we can see where everybody is at, that's what open discussion is supposed to be for, is so that not only can you guys see where everybody is at, so the public can see where everybody is at. And so I think that this poses a big threat to public trust. Also, the board of regents, you folks oversee billions of dollars.

And so to exempt you from sunshine law to have those meaningful discussions and one on one conversations really does not signal to the public that transparency is important. Not to mention the financial disclosures not only identifies the financial part of it, but then the conflict of interests part. And so I think that that also is not sending a message to the public that we are concerned about transparency and we are an open book. Now if that means that in your view or the member's view that we don't get qualified Board Members, qualified according to what standard though. Because to me, qualified means that you're willing to be transparent and accountable to the public.

That's what qualified means to me. Now when these terms are being used loosely, the public might get an impression that we're more concerned about ensuring that we have maybe special interests on this board or maybe members that have political ties. So there's already so many negative impressions from the public when we don't have this kind of transparency. So again, sorry, back to my question. Can you identify a meaningful discussion that you wouldn't be able to have documented?

The or or if, say, in the strategic planning session where the management comes through with their swats, and they come up with the top priorities. And they want feedback from the regents on, you know, what what the priority should be. A lot of that is is should be, I would say, if it was in the open session, it could be taken the wrong way. The a lot of times, it's just discussion, but it's not the whole group, wanting to go that way. And then, for, and then, you know, on on the Sunshine Law, I really don't know if it really has helped or hurt the transparency and the efficiency of those boards.

Do you think it's fair that if taxpayers are paying for the salaries of these positions or funding these programs, that it would be fair to them that all of those discussions be public documented and for everybody to take away, I guess, their own perception of it?

Well, we put items for approval and reporting. Those are all agendized and that's open to the public. But, you know, there are certain things or really when it's strategic and we're not getting anything approved. We just wanna know how people feel. That's that's a that's a little different.

Yeah. I'm I'm concerned with that use of term on how people feel. They're supposed to make their best judgment and decision based on the better interest of the public, not necessarily how they feel. So I think it's just semantics that we're kind of going back and forth on, but I did want to mention that I think passing this bill would really lose a lot of public trust. So it might have a huge negative impact on the board of regents where there might already be a negative impression on your folks' board, and I would hate to have you folks be faced with any more contentious perceptions.

So I'll just say that, chair. Thank you. Thank you.

Ethics, please. Ethics.

Why don't

you just stay there, Dave?

Because we may

have more questions for you.

Thanks, executive director, for being here. When I take a look at your testimony so so just so we're clear, don't other boards and commissions do confidential filings other than, you know, I know there's a tier that a a lot of public, more, you know, more public facing boards and commissions that do public filings, but there's a whole bunch that don't. Right?

Absolutely. In 2013, this legislature made the decision to take, I think, what we'd call the high profile, the, entities that have more power and decided to make those disclosures public, so includes ones that you'd reasonably expect, Land Use Commission, Board of Land Natural Resources, and the Board of Regents. There's, approximately 10 others. Other entities which may be, not controlling significant procurement, not managing people as actively, the idea is that they sort of have less direct, oversight of something that might be as of critical importance. Those are confidential filers.

Correct?

Okay. So when you mean confidential, what does that mean? Does the public get not to get to see them?

Does not see them. Correct. So they are filed only with the ethics commission. Ethics commission would use that, if there is a complaint or if there is an allegation, if there's a suspicion that there was a conflict of interest, we could then look at it and try to address it. Typically, that's a after the fact review.

Certainly don't have the resources to attend 200 boards and commission meetings and be there in real time to try to address things. So, at that point, things are already have happened, and so we have cases where, you know, millions of dollars of decision making has occurred, and we are, after the fact, going after the employee for conflict of interest.

So are you complaint driven, or are you actively looking?

We do audits, but those tend to be difficult, again, with we have well over a 100 boards and commissions. Some of them, like the Board of Regents, has a lot of substantial information. So, for example, one property transaction might involve dozens of parties, multiple parent companies. To be able to try to do that kind of review to try to identify specifically all potential conflicts of interest in real time is very difficult.

So since the 2013 legislation passed, has the Ethics Commission done a review of if if it's if that legislation has done what it was intended to do?

Yeah. So, for example, last year, we received six inquiries from Board of Regents asking about potential conflicts of interest, and, essentially, I don't know if we would have seen those inquiries in the past. Again, it's speculation. Just be very clear. But I think because there is transparency around both the financial interests and the matters before them, I think the interest in trying to identify the conflict of interest and do so cleanly, I think, is a lot greater as a result.

And, again, that's speculative. It's not a it's a not a qualitative response. But, again, I think, anecdotally, we do see positive changes as a result.

So have you kinda drilled down what the concern is? Because maybe there's a hybrid model that we can find. It's still public, but there are certain things that are confidentially given to the ethics commission and stuff that is still made public, right, versus, you know, everything is public versus everything is private. I I think there's merit because I think one of the people that resigned back in 2013 was from Maui, and I understand why Mhmm. Because I had a conversation with them, but I think I don't if there's been no review, maybe it's time for us to to take a look.

Right?

I think it's a really great question, and I think it's also an opportunity for education too, and particularly to potential applicants who might be turned off, and I really do want to hopefully seize the opportunity after this meeting to talk about that. We don't identify someone's personal residence, for example. We don't identify specific income amounts. We just identify ranges. The idea is, you know, and, again, I think you're probably familiar with it as a legislator.

The idea is we're just trying to show that there's a financial connection, and, at that point, we don't necessarily need to have any more specifics. We exempt a lot of information, like as disclosed, because, again, it's unlikely to come up as a conflict of interest, like retirement amounts, amounts in a bank. Those kind of things are all secret and are not revealed. Really looking for interests in a specific company or interests in property that might come before that border commission. And, again, that's described generally.

Right? So we're doing our best to try and make sure we're protecting privacy, but trying to make sure the information's available, and in many cases, it typically is the staff of that board or agency that needs to know it so they know if something's on the agenda that it's potentially a conflict of interest. Stakeholders are involved in it. It's not public at large, but specific people. We've thought about ways to just try to get it to the staff or the board, but once you've done that at that point, it's really hard to try to then keep that information locked just in that that group.

Okay. Well, I I think it's it's a good dis discussion point, and hopefully this piece of legislation gives us the impetus to to take a look at what compromise that we can figure out. If you're totally opposed to to this piece right now, then maybe we gotta figure out, okay, what what why does the board think they need this, and what what is some middle ground that we can potentially introduce in future pieces of legislation?

But I

think we are certainly open and open to input. I will note that, you know, approximately 40 to 45 states have similar public disclosure requirements, and we're right now doing a review of other universities that have identified the University of Washington, the University of California all have very similar standards. So I think this is sort of a national standard, to be clear, and the only thing maybe why it's in such high context here, specifically for the Board of Regents, is that twelve years ago, 2013, we had that switch. And so there's people who really remember sort of the distinction. Again, going back to a point where things aren't revealed is is really definitely sort of moving the

I don't think anybody's saying that, but I think Well,

I don't

this legislation is.

Well, but if if if you're gonna if we're not gonna find a compromise, and that's what it's gonna be, right, potentially if we keep moving this bill.

So, of course

Hopefully, we we can be more more proactive and take a look at what else can we do. Right? Because if the solution is take it or leave it, at some point, you know, but the legislature's about figuring out, okay, what's the middle ground. Right? Yeah.

Again, if there's a way to identify something where we're all ears and I would not be opposed to it, I would, again, emphasize that, it does go to somewhat public transparency and accountability and confidence, as was indicated earlier. And so, you know, there is that feature of it. And so I think it is identifying, are we concretely losing people such that we can't find qualified applicants to be part of this process, and still trying to keep that level of confidence in the decision making that's going on. And that is a balance. Right?

Well, it's it's always a balance. And I think when you take a look at if if you saw what how long it's taking them to fill some of these regents seats, they've just extended the Hawaii region, like34 times. Right? I think we're gonna end up with that in the Maui Regions position. And so I think I don't know.

At some point, we gotta take a look at what are the levers that people are are concerned about, and because this is this is a salient topic right now that the board is trying to push. Right? So I I think we we gotta look into it. So thank you for being here.

for the question.

Thank you

Okay. Well, I'm gonna follow-up if I can. And then So, Robert, right now, you folks get the disclosures. Right? So do you actually review the disclosure? You said you get it at we do this with you. See it at the tail end when there's a complaint. But what do you do on the front end right now?

So about two years ago, the legislature actually gave us funding to hire an analyst who is doing, reviews of, spot audits, essentially, of different agencies and decisions made and then comparing it to the the disclosures that are made to try to identify things.

But can't they still do that if it wasn't public, the disclosures weren't public?

They could. I mean, so, for example, we are pursuing an enforcement case right now, and I can't give a lot of detail about it, of somebody who's made dozens of decisions with conflicts of interest and probably involved millions of dollars of decision making. So we will catch it.

Right.

But it'll be two to three years after the decisions have been made.

But that one individual, is their disclosure, public or not public?

In that particular case, the disclosure was not public, and the staff did not know. And there was really no way to screen for these conflicts of interest in real time.

But even if it was it was public, they might not have gotten.

Anyway, I don't have to stop. Particular case, and, again, I apologize because we're talking about something specific that I can't get into detail about. I think they would have known, and it would have been prevented earlier in the process. And so, you know, when this case comes public, it will be something where people are going to ask legitimate questions about why wasn't this addressed sooner.

Okay. Senator Atifo?

Is it fair to say that, not allowing the financial disclosures, as example, to be public, that it it would be difficult for us to identify whether that Board of Regents member is voting in the best better interest of them personally or business wise. That's another advantage that making it public is that conflict of interest and seeing on whether that member actually is voting in support, of their personal or business interests.

I think you nail nailed it on the head that that goes to the core of public confidence and decision making.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, chair.

So, chair, as far as the the conversations, transparent conversations, of course, you know, we I certainly want the regions to have these kinds of discussions, and where we get to know their feelings, and yet we don't see that in a lot of your meetings and your hearings. Members don't bring up the issues, or it's not even put on the agenda for discussion. So I think it goes beyond exempting a retreat from the sunshine law, because in your normal meetings, you don't get that kind of discussion anyway. Right? So you're you're saying that by exempting you from the sunshine law, we're gonna see more candid kinds of discussions, but is that gonna then translate to more candid discussions in your regular hearing so the public gets to know why you folks voted a certain way?

A lot of the discussion happens at the committee level and when it goes on the agenda, there are committee members that will call the chair of the committee to just find out a little bit more information about the topics. But and then, or do you just have more knowledge to ask questions during the committee meetings. But it's not, by the time it gets to the Board Meetings, it's pretty well vented at the committee level.

I've watched the committee meetings too. It's not always that kind of robust discussions that is going on, which is especially in the budget. When you focus on the budget, there's not does not seem like you folks are really getting down into the actual issues as to just to vote on the whole budget. Right? One vote. I mean, that's kind of the process that has been at the board.

Yeah. Especially on the budget, at that time, vice president Calvert Young would have one on one meetings with the regents to take on any questions that they may have before the committee even start or if they need it.

Yeah, but then the public doesn't get to hear all of that concerns and issues that gets raised. Right? Okay. Last question, Robert. Yeah.

So, you know, we have a bill going through that says that the shouldn't be an active employee of the University of Hawaii to sit on the Board of Regents. We have that with the Board of Education. Do you have any opinion on that as far as conflicts that arise on the daily decisions they have to make as an employee? I know you're not prepared for this, but

We've encountered it sometimes. There has sometimes been a constitutional prohibition on somebody holding a public office and holding a second public office, and so there is potentially a question of what position in place. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm thinking out loud.

Obviously, we have allowed people to make decisions when it applies to a general class, but if it's something that would specifically impact them, like, a discrete class within, then we usually would insist that they would recuse themselves. So when we've seen this kind of circumstance in other certain, situations. So, it does raise more challenges. Conversely, I can also see the argument sometimes those individuals may have more insight as to what's going on at the body. So I mean, that's not a terribly helpful comment just to say, you know, it's a policy decision, I think, for the legislature.

In certain situations, if the the their job is dependent upon the university and if they don't necessarily go along with the general recommendations of the administration that, and it might not be a direct conflict, but the fact that there's this need to be agreeable with all of the all of the proposals that are coming forth. Do you see that as as possible? I mean, that's the probably the reason why, you know, the the I I think the commission to to select these nominees, have looked I I don't think they've been as favorable to putting active employees because we've not seen a lot of them. But when we have seen it, it seems like that seems to be the situation, and we often hear the word rubber stamp a number of the of the decisions on that. So

again, it's a nuanced issue. I think plainly if the administration were to directly or indirectly try to put pressure on somebody, that would be a fair treatment by the police. Right? I I understand that. I mean, so they should be prohibited. I understand there may be implicit, pressure that, you know, the public could potentially concede.

But those kinds this kind of legislation is helpful into assuring to be proactive that we're not in that kind of situation, right, and everybody's treated equally. Because we are allowed retirees Mhmm. To or people that have formally been with the university or with DOE, to then sit on these boards and commissions. Mhmm. Right?

Certainly understood. I understand the complexity of it. It may be a slightly different situation where you have someone who has got tenure, for example, or some type of protection that some professors do. Again, I understand the point and why you would try to push a war.

Okay. Thank you. Members, any other questions? If not, thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Steve. Aloha. Okay. We are on. Senate Bill 1952 House Draft One, relating to agriculture, authorizes the issuance of GO bonds and appropriate funds for capital improvements to the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture, Human Resilience, Agricultural Research and Extension's Station on Kauai. And then we also we have Harwinder Dean. You could come forward and support or comments.

Aloha Chair and the Members of the Committee. From CTAHR. This particular request that we have is for our Kauai agriculture experiment station. I just want to highlight that this is our only functional station on that entire island for our research, and the number of buildings are very old and do not comply with ADA. And also, we have successful issues that need to be addressed as well.

And we do significant amount of work there, and, I'm here to answer any questions just in case you have. Thank you, Jane. Thank you.

Brian Yamamoto.

Good afternoon, Chairman Kim, Senator DeCorte. Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. You have a written testimony in support, and I think the dean explained some of the needs of this station. This is in line with the legislature's previous support in the past several years for our extension stations. And two years ago, the legislature appropriated $2,000,000 for PoMojo.

Last year, dollars 4,000,000 for the Waimanalo. And this year, we're asking for $6,000,000 for Kauai. These extension stations and cooperative extension play a critical role for farmers and ranchers. And they're all kind of built around the same time. And they all need some some type of upgrades.

Important although not exactly tied into, we talked about the previous bill, but the important role that extension program plays, especially times like now, when we are having these the Kono vote. We're we're thinking millions of dollars in in some damage from wind, floods, loss of power, and our extension service works directly with farmers and ranchers and can help identify what those needs are. Anyway, again, very important program. We're in strong support. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Okay. Thank you. Hunter on Zoom. Are you here? Hunter, are you here?

Not present on Zoom, chair.

Okay. Let's see. We had 19 in support. No opposition. Any members here anybody here wishing to testify on on 1952 house draft one? Hearing none, questions? No. There's a question. Senator Duport, for whom? Brian.

Really quick question because I don't think that this is in the bill, but you did mention it in your oral testimony. Are you folks asking for 5,000,000? Is that the did I hear you say 5,000,000?

I believe that is the request.

Okay.

Okay. If there are no other questions, thank you. Let's move on. Senator—Senators? House Bill 2005, House Draft 2. This is Language Accent, Amy's favorite bill. Establishes a statewide Language Access Education Workforce Development Program, University of Hawaii appropriate fund, and Amy, you are our first testifier in support. Did the house still not pass over?

Yeah.

They did pass over. Right?

They're, they both crossed over.

They both crossed over.

So, the Senate bill crossed over as well. And this is the House bill, and yeah. I believe there are no...either of them.

Okay.

At this time.

So, you'd rather have the Senate bill. Right?

Yeah. I have no questions now.

Thank you for hearing this bill. It it's an important bill. It increases language access, mandates, and other things. But I wanted to just highlight that our, as you all know, our community is diverse. 20%—early 20% of who are born.

And, of the state population, about one in four speak a language other than English at home, and about one in nine of our population speak English less than well and are called "limited English proficient speakers," and I, I list here all the languages, I can't list them all, that are spoken in our multilingual community. The good thing is that we also have students now being certified in the Department of Education as being bilateral, and they get a very special certificate if they speak two languages, Hawaiian and English. They could just do Swedish and German even, but...in English and Spanish in English. And they, they, have a credential on their high school diploma, and they, many of them are now going to the campus enrolling campuses.

We also have wonderful classes in many of these languages and competent speakers. And so, we have competent people, but they also need training if they have to translate and interpret. Just because you speak that language doesn't provide you with enough skills, actually, to be efficient and and, and, and clear and accurate. So, what this does is actually does good things. It brings people who have some language skills already to be trained, and we have our community that really needs translation.

For example, the floods or hurricanes. Hardly anything is translated. And so, you can imagine how difficult it is in English. You still get wet. But, anyhow, we believe that a program like this meets our community's needs. And also, we have expertise at the university, and so, we support it.

And we supported it going over, so.

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Deborah Halbert from the University of Hawaii.

Hello, Chair and Senator. Luis Oliveria, on behalf of the University of Hawaii, Vice President Halbert doesn't have to walk out, but we will stand on our testimony.

Okay. Got it. Jade Butai. Aloha.

Aloha, Madam Chair Kim, Senator DeCorte. I'm Jade Butai, Director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. We stand on our testimony in support. You know, this initiative builds a pipeline of bilingual professionals ready to serve our diverse population. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you. I wish I was bilingual, but I'm, I'm not. Lasbin Shane, in support for the Hawaii State Commission Status of Woman. Not here. Let's see. Christine Andrews in support by Zoom.

Not on Zoom, Chair.

Not on Zoom. Okay. Michael Golojuch, also in support on Zoom.

Not on Zoom, chair.

Mike Nguyen, Zoom.

Also not on Zoom.

Marcela Aholani-Boito. Not on Zoom. Okay. Then we have one.

Sorry, Chair. We do have, Ms. Marcela on Zoom at the moment.

Oh, Marcela. Welcome, Marcela. Go ahead.

Thank you. I want you to know that I submitted my testimony to a person—I was just sharing it with a member of the advocacy committee of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators, and they asked me for permission to post it on their advocacy page as an example of good advocacy. What this signifies is that my opposition to thinking that a generic training is going to produce competent interpreters and translators is, in fact, the national point of view of the national profession of interpreters and translators.

We base ourselves on passing tests of ability as interpreters and translators. Generic trainings are useful in teaching ethics and procedure, but they don't produce people who are actually competent to do this kind of very important work. So, I want you to know that I didn't actually intend to have my testimony go national, but that's what's going to happen. Both my previous testimony and the testimony that I have submitted today to this committee. So, the reason I chose to comment rather than to oppose is because I do sit in with the Hawaii Coalition on Immigrant Rights, and I have great respect and aloha for the work that they do.

I've known Amy Agbiani probably longer than she or I would care to admit, but let's just say that it's in decades. And I have great respect and aloha for her, too. But I think it's really important for us to understand what's real and what's not. And generic trainings do not produce people who are competent to interpret and translate. You generally need language-specific trainings.

And the University of Hawaii system does not have the people on board to do this right now. Plain and simple. So, I also would like to point out that I think the Seal of Biliteracy Program is a wonderful thing and it has my wholehearted support, But it is a far, far away from being the only way in which people become a bilingual. I, for example, grew up speaking both Spanish and English. I passed out of my high school requirement on foreign languages by taking a test.

I did the same thing again at university. And that freed me to take upper level division courses in Spanish, which I enjoyed very much. And, like most interpreters, I fell into interpreting. It wasn't something I had planned on. So, I would also like to point out to you that these people who are coming up through this system, who are bilingual, have the same right to dream of other careers. Careers where they could actually make a living, which is.

I'm gonna have to ask you to summarize. Thank you.

So, my, my, my comments on this bill are targeted at the issue of generic trainings. We need this language-specific training if you're going to produce competent interpreters and translators.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Alright. Let's see. We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6—8 others that have sent in testimonies of support and one did comments. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? Hearing none. Questions, members? Any questions? Hearing no questions. I assume Senator Hashimoto has no questions on this bill. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

We are moving on to Senate bill 2139, house draft one. Invasive species, appropriate funds to the University of Hawaii to conduct a study on effective treatment methods to reduce population of the Queensland longhorned beetle. First up is Patrick Chi from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Aloha chair, vice chair, Senator Decor. My name is Patrick Chi. I'm from the Department of Land and Natural Resources in

the Hawaiian Bases Species Council. We are in strong support of this bill. The Queensland longhorned beetle is a significant threat. It is known to bore into and at sometimes possibly kill a number of species, many of them important to agriculture, our culture, and it has been found in our native plant, the Alahe'e. So we really do feel that it's important for there to be further research into the life cycle of this this beetle and to find out that if there are any other techniques and control efforts that we can do in order to make sure that the queens and long horned beetle is controlled and contained.

Is it related to the rhinoceros beetle?

It is not related, closely related, but unfortunately, it may have just as much impact or more because of the breadth and the width of the numbers of species that it is currently being found to impact. So if we can get a handle of it, this would be something that we should try and do as soon as we can.

Okay. Thank you. For Hawaii Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity, did not get a name.

Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. Han Lau Pan Pest Control Branch Manager. The department stands on our written testimony, in support of the bill.

Okay. Thank you. And Brian Miyamoto for the Hawaii Farm Bureau in opposition. See, that's gonna stay with you now.

Thank you, chair, members of the committee. Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. You have our written testimony in support. This is a bad one. LFA.

All bad.

CRB, CBB, CLF, MFC, RRP. We're getting too used to these abbreviations for pests. This one is bad. You heard mister Chi talk about the breadth that can impact. 'Ulu, Cacao, avocado, citrus, hibiscus, kukui, just to name some.

Agriculturally and culturally important crops in Hawaii. It was found in Puna, there's presence in Honokaa. We've seen it with other pests where it starts somewhere, we don't put enough attention and resources to it, and then it spreads island wide, and then it spreads state wide. We cannot afford to keep combating pests. We don't wanna come back to you folks in five years saying, hey, can we get some funding to try to mitigate or control some of this?

Let's control it now as soon as we can. Let's put some resources there and see if we can eradicate this thing. This is a bad one. And this is just another one. And just for the information, LFA, little fire ant, CRB, coconut rhinoceros beetle, CBB, Coffee Berry Borer, CLF, coffee leaf rust, MFC Macadamia felted coccyx, and RRP rose ring parakeet. This is another one. This is a nasty one. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Okay. Thank you. Stephanie Easley. Stephanie, go ahead.

Aloha Chair Kim, members of the committee. My name is Stephanie Easley with the coordinating group on alien pest species. You have our written testimony. We want to thank you for hearing HB 2139 today, echoing the comments made by previous testifiers. This is a bad pest.

There's over 20 identified host species of agricultural and cultural importance. We hope you'll move this one forward, try to get some techniques to control this pest and hopefully, eradicate it from Hawaii Island, but certainly prevent it from spreading statewide. I'm here if you have any questions. Mahalo.

Thank you, Stephanie. Becky Ostertag.

Yes. Aloha. My name is Rebecca Ostertag. I'm from University of Hawaii Department of Biology. And we have, we stand by our written testimony.

We've done some preliminary work, testing a biocontrol, the nematode biocontrol, and we've had success with it on a relatively small sample size, and this funding would help scale up the research. We've worked on kukui and 'ulu. For kukui, using the nematode biocontrol, 76% of the trees improved with the biocontrol, and 15 stayed the same, which is also good because they're not getting worse. In terms of killing the trees, we've seen death of many of our trees with this. And for Ulu, 80% of the trees improved with the bio control.

So we have some promising results, and this funding would pay for a full time, worker and a part time worker to support the research to scale up the methods to low tech, low cost solution, but it needs more research to be wrapped up to scale to be able to be available to farmers. And I'm happy to answer questions if if they come up.

Thank you. Emma, Stierhoff? I must not have said that correctly.

Emma Aloha, chair, vice chair, members of the committee. My name is Emma Stierhoff. I'm a lead ecological technician at the University of Hawaii Hilo. I'm here to express my strong support of HB 2139 which will allocate funding to essential research that is needed to address the growing threat posed by queensland longhorned beetle or QLB. I stand on my written testimony in support, but I also want to highlight the urgent community need for this research.

As QLB spreads across East Hawaii, it has been devastating to farmers who are losing Cacao, citrus, avocado, and several other crop plants to these larva. It has over 20 known hosts in Hawaii. The nematode biocontrol developed by USDA is effective against QLB, as Becky mentioned, but the existing method of injecting the trees is very time intensive. Community members want to implement this, but don't have the capacity to do so at the necessary scale when dozens of their trees are infected. We're confident that this research will result in well informed, more time, and cost efficient methods of treatment.

This combined with substantial community buy in to the bio control will lead to far more effective control of QLB in East Hawaii, reducing damages and helping prevent its spread to other islands. The cost of this research pales in comparison to the losses producers will face to QLB if it's left unaddressed. This research will also reduce the cost of future QLB control given that it will require less manpower. This is a small investment that will greatly benefit the future of Hawaii, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Mahalo for your time.

Thank you. Hunter Hevlin?

[unintelligible], chair.

Okay. Lila Shapiro?

Aloha, Lila.

Aloha. My name is Lila Shapiro, and I work under Doctor Ostertag along with Emma, where my focus is on QOB and the use of nematodes as a bio control. I strongly support HB 2,139 and stand on my testimony. QLB, as people have said, is a generalist pest known to target and often kill nearly 20 host species. And when injected into trees, the nematodes that we use are able to kill these larva.

This method has been extremely effective as Becky pointed out. However, this treatment is very time intensive, which is why it is essential that we invest in research on different treatment methods so it can be scaled up for farmers with hundreds, if not thousands of trees. This bio control offers an opportunity to be proactive about managing QOB populations before it spreads to other islands and causes widespread devastation like we have seen with the coconut rhinoceros beetle. It is already rapidly spreading across the East Side Of Hawaii, and we need to stop the spread immediately. So often with these invasive species, it is too little too late, but now we have a chance to actually combat this growing issue.

Along with funding research, HB 2139 would allow us to continue our outreach and community involvement in this project. We have led treatment workshops at Okay Farms and Hawaii Academy of Arts and Sciences to teach community members how to apply this treatment because there is no way we can fight this beetle without the community being able to treat their own trees. We have also worked with middle school and high school students. Working with them hands on to treat trees themselves and collect long term data monitoring their infection and health has shown them how everyone has a clue on it and protecting our ecosystems, and we can all be a part of the science behind it. I've heard the excitement in their voices when they report back to me that the trees on their campus are doing better.

This is getting them direct experience in science and aloha in a work and is also helping to save these trees. Taking action against snow be is essential to our environmental health, food security and cultural heritage. HB 2139.

Can you stop the noise, please?

Yes. Please stop the noise. Okay. I follow. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Eric Tanoi. Here we have six others sending in testimonies in support. Anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure? Hearing none, members, any questions? Yes. Go ahead. Send that, please.

Thank you. This bill is to get a study started. Yeah. But do you folks have any solutions right now? Do you have any path forward? Because I'm afraid that this study is gonna take so long that it's gonna jump over to other islands. So

Currently, no. And in fact, right now, I'm working with actually Becky on to fund a project similar to this actually to help them start on this. So hopefully, whatever the results they get from this particular project with her is gonna help to complement the work that they're gonna be doing if this bill gets funded.

Oh, so this is is going to partner with another project. Is that what you're saying?

No. Because my understanding is the right this this film currently, I'm working with Becky on a prod on a on a contract for them to start this project. Right.

But this yeah. But this is just to study it. I think the question is Yeah. What what is the department doing physically?

Nothing. So you can yeah.

There is nothing you can do?

I mean I mean, in terms of treatment, no. We have not we have no treatment available right now.

Where did this video come from?

Queensland, Australia.

I know. I had it do you know how I got here?

So I I don't know. This happened okay. My understanding is it was detected back in 22,009 and then it was by Bishop Museum. And then

We did nothing since 2009.

I I can't speak for what happened back then. I joined the I I I I joined this this position last year May, so I'm inheriting this. So I'm trying to do now is to at least help spearhead this. So yeah. So it was detected back in 22,009 and then for brief period of time was it was it was an detect detection until back in 2013 and 2014.

Because you guys are asking for a position. Yeah? Or no? Not a position?

No. This is to

Or she knows. Yeah.

To Yeah. So my my concern is that well, how long will the study take? Do you guys have a deadline on that?

Actually, this is quite promising because they they they're working with a local strain of nematodes. So I believe they do have preliminary study results already, and so it's quite promising. And that's why I'm working with Becky.

So no idea how it's getting transferred within the state I mean, sorry, within the island of

No. It's I I don't have the information. And and and the and the truth of the matter is also I'm trying to establish to serve in the largest positions to help to get information like that. So

Yeah. So let me continue on the questioning. How does how do they handle this in Australia?

Well, because Hawaii is unique because unlike Australia, they do have then natural predators. So but we don't have it down here. Same thing with cookie frogs in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, you have, natural predators over there, but when you come over here, there's no natural predators, and so we stuck with yeah.

What are the natural predators for this beetle?

This one. I go to check and get back to you.

Okay. Well, it's very troubling to know that this beetle has been here since 2009. And then, you know, all these years have gone by, and only now we're studying. Only now we're getting to it. Why why is that? Who who who drops the ball on this?

Well, hello, Chair. We don't know. I mean, I I I'm just new in this position myself. But the thing is that the invasion of various things, it takes a long time for it to get to a point where it is an inflection point where more people notice it.

So the fact that no one is too late by then. Right?

So when we Well, I mean We

know that the we know that the tree snake we get one tree snake found, then we better get going. Right? Not we till more people recognize it. So when the first beetle and I can see, okay, 2009. But by 2013, you would think that, you know, more more is going on and that we I

mean, the good thing is that the the research I mean, there there's significant research in this, you know, nematode is identified as a a means to potentially

Control the beetle. But, I mean, ideally, that we we would, you know, have, you know, some, you know, exploratory, you know, bio biological control folks going out to Australia and seeing what is, you know, is keeping it in check, you know, in Australia. So Yeah.

Yeah.

if that's something that we should, you know, work with Department of Agriculture in order to do.

I don't know

Am I allowed to comment on Zoom?

No.

No. So

when we you know, just because you folks are new, and I understand that, but The Beatles' not new, and there are many people that have been in the department for for a number of years. Right? We have people that's there for 2030 years. So I'm just concerned that these kinds of things get caught when it's kind of made already. So if we we knew this was we knew the beetle was so devastating when it first noticed it, then we should have started doing stuff.

Right? We should have started making sure we have things in abeyance, have studies done so we could react Mhmm. Quicker. But we wait. We always do that. We wait. Rhinoceros beetles, we wait till the coconut trees are all dead. Right?

Yeah. And and we're waiting because we're doing studies to keep studying, to bring the solution, and then to respond. So when we found out about the CRB, we're monitoring, we're putting up those lanterns, we're doing all of this data. But then the conditions are so bad at this point, no none of the coconut trees can be salvaged. So hopefully, we can replant.

But, I think my concern is just that how long is this study gonna take? Do you have any solutions? I mean, how hard would it be to start to collaborate with the other side? I understand they have those species that are taking care of it naturally. But because we don't have that, there must be some kind of other natural way that we can take care of that. So, yeah.

And any idea to comment on Zoom?

I will we will get to you if we just Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So Senator Haschwader.

You have a question.

Okay. We'll take a short comment. Who is this? This is Rebecca.

This is Rebecca Ostertag, University of Hawaii at Hilo. The issues are that until we have the the research this research is on finding solutions to for the management and control of the pest, and right now, we don't have that. So

So the question is, why did it take us too long to want to find a solutions? Yeah.

Well, this is a common problem across, all of the work in invasive species. Many times, invasive species get to a place, they're undetected or at low levels, and they explode at a later point. And then when that's when we realize it's a problem. So we need constant monitoring, research, and funding to be dealing with Hawaii's invasive species.

Right? Well, what we need

thing is that the, you know, Hawaii invasive species council and that it won't put our various island invasive species. We have early detection and rapid response. And a number of these species don't get to this point. You know, the fact that you don't hear about, you know, more QLBs that are happening is

Yeah. But not today, but you will hear it about maybe tomorrow. No. No.

Sort of what I'm saying is that there there are, you know, a number of weeds and insects and whatnot that have that are being addressed, you know, soon after they come or even before they come. And so it's just that this one, unfortunately, is is, you know, beyond that that of being early detected and eliminated before it becomes a significant problem.

Well and that's the point. The point is when we when we first see it and then we monitor it, And then we need to then be proactive instead of reactive, which is what happens. We wait till it reaches to this point, and then it costs so much more to eradicate.

But and the the other thing is that, you know, in its home range, you know, QOB is not an issue, which is, you know, which is, you know, part partly because it's, you know, got natural enemies there. And so the fact that it is an issue here is, you know, it it is unique, you know, in in the world because

Well, did it come in on some plants?

We don't know.

Well, it had to come in somewhere. Right. So what would be your best guess?

Oh, it probably came in on, you know, logs or something like that. Yeah.

So we're not doing good enough job in in preventing these kinds of things from coming into the state. Our agriculture forms, our agricultural detection is not working.

Right. And, you know, the biosecurity, you know, should there be, you know, organic materials coming into the state, There should be certain, you know, things that we do, you know, to say, you know, maybe they need to be sterilized before they get here.

Well, but then that's why we look to you guys for these recommendations or these measures to come before us so we can be proactive because none of us are experts in this field. None of us knew about this beetle in 2009 or 2013 or even in 2019. So those are the kinds of things that, you know, that's why we have the departments and we have the heads of the department so that you folks can be the ones to be proactive and tell us, hey, we need this to happen and not wait till the last minute. I mean, I shouldn't say last minute, but wait to the point where it's gonna be devastating or could be devastating.

Well, that and we also need cooperation from our federal partners who are to have various levels of

But then you guys gotta let the legislative body know so we can go ahead and make sure we have the cooperation. So do you understand that that's what we're looking for? We're looking for you folks. Now if you're ringing the bell and we're ignoring it, then it's on us. Right? So if but if you're not ringing the bell, then we have no way of knowing this needs done. And you folks ring the bell, but you guys ring it too late.

I shouldn't say too late, but you you you ring the bell, but it's, like, it's getting out of hand already. Right?

I don't know exactly what happened back then. Maybe they did. I mean, I'm just trying to be fair to everyone, but

Yeah. Okay. But then why don't you research it when you come to us and say, you know, back in 2019, we got a bill to the legislature and you guys didn't do anything. You know? Because so if you can do your homework and, you know, help us so we know what where the problems are.

And then also there have been several committees that have been formed due to invasive species, like the Oahu invasive species committee. I mean, there's multiple upon multiple. So has anybody even at least started the work out of good faith to get ahead of it, or do you need to I mean, yes. I mean.

I'm sorry. To pass a bill to get funding? Excuse me. Hold on one second. Please let me get my thought out. Is because when I first asked you folks if there were any solutions, you said no. That you're just learning about it.

I didn't.

Oh, okay. You did not. Correct. Deb, you did. Okay.

So so we already have committees that should be in front of all of these invasive species. So again, I feel we're delaying the solution by creating a study to therefore create a bill appropriations. Then do we have to create another department? I mean, somebody should be getting in front of all this. So can Oahu invasive species committee and other affiliated organizations like them, can they just do the work without the appropriations, without having it be specifically targeted to that, but just encompassing?

Well, definitely, the Big Island Invasive Species Committee has been paying attention to this, and, you know, we at the Hawaii Invasive Species Council have, you know, funded them to do, you know, some of that work. And that's been ongoing, and they've, of course, been working with the University of Hawaii Hilo in order to address the issue. But, you know, having

So do they have solutions?

Right. This is the this is that's the nematodes that they

have right now.

That's the the closest that we have at this point. But if we can have, you know, further funding and research to figure out, you know, more about what, you know, could potentially control them, so that would get us beyond the point that they have right now, which is, you know, a very time and labor intensive way of trying to address the issue. So if we can figure out something else easier, that would be great.

We're asking for how much money now for this study?

I think it's a 130 something. I I would explain it. No.

They added back in in the the the late last s h d something something. Well, what I saw

When when would the study start, and when would it end? I am.

May I speak up?

Can I answer that question? When will the study start?

I can answer that question.

Okay.

My name is Emma Steerhoff. I work under Rebecca Ostertag. With all due respect, I think we're getting away from the topic of the bill a bit, so I'm happy to reorient us. This is fun.

Can you just ask the question? Can you just answer the question, please?

The research would start as soon as we get the funding.

Okay. How long would it take before we get any results or

Within a year.

So one year from now, should the money get, created in this budget cycle, a year from now, you would have results from the study?

Yes. So as, the Department of Fire Control mentioned, we are working with them to do a study on more efficient treatment methods. There is a distinct treatment for this with the nematode, but it's very time intensive. And so we are trying to improve these methods in order to scale it up, and that will allow us to implement this at the necessary scale to really control QLB.

K. And we anticipate that we will get enough out of this study that we wouldn't have to do another study after another study?

Yes. And it will reduce costs as well for future QLB bio control.

Okay. Thank you. Yep. K. Thank you. Any other questions? Alright. K. Thank you very much. Okay. Moving on. We are on house bill 2158. Requires the University of Hawaii system to collect, maintain, and publish standardized gram level data for each academic program offered, requires maintenance of an online dashboard with program level data, that requires an annual report. Deborah Haller Halbert to testify.

Good afternoon, chairs, vice chairs, members of the committee. Debbie Halbert, vice president for academic strategy. We'll stand on our written testimony. And if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. And I'm not sure if there's testimony.

Hold on one second. I kinda lost my place here. Okay, anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure? Hearing no others, so Deborah, you wanna come back up? So can you you're obviously not in support of this measure, correct?

Well, we have a lot of comments, in part because of the way our data infrastructure is is set up and the fact that we are undergoing a variety of different data transitions internally right now, and in in that in part is implementing some internal dashboards. But, of course, we agree with the intent to make sure that we are presenting publicly as much data as possible about the successes of our students as well as our programs.

So that's not something that you already have?

We do have a variety of these pieces. So on our website now, you can find out all sorts of information about retention, graduation. We also have a really, I think, exciting dashboards which is mentioned in the testimony, the secondary employment outcomes, post secondary employment outcomes, the PSEO database, which is in it's in, collaboration with the US Census and you can look there for how the different graduate different majors lead to different kinds of professional programs across the system. So, we have a variety of different tools. I think the intent of this bill is to somehow centralize things even more into a single space.

So this would be a lot of data to have in a single space, but we already have consolidated quite a bit of it. A lot of the rest lives in different databases. And so as we come to, refine our data infrastructure internally, we may be able to tap into that more. But right now, our institutional research and program our policy office would have to be reaching into different kinds of data streams to build the kind of dashboard that is envisioned in this particular bill.

So is there something more simple that you can provide in the, meantime? I know a lot of times, you know, we ask for so much data, and I'm not necessarily know that we actually utilize a lot of that data. A few people do, but the general public wants basic information. Like, okay. What what are the outcomes and what are the possibilities of each program Mhmm.

Academic program? Yeah. So if I go into this program, you know, what can I expect? Something basic and simple across the board for each one, to see how successful these programs are or if the programs are are in in for me, what I look at whether or not it's current and in line with projections into the future as to what programs we're going to need. And, you know, so those are the things that I think the university should also be looking at as to seeing that are we are we prepping our students for programs or areas of, academics that isn't going to be outdated in the next ten to twenty years?

And I think we have all of those pieces. I think that some of it is potentially, for us, promoting where you access that data already. And again, the I don't know how to

pronounce it. The PSEO database will show you 15 and ten years out for people who are getting sociology degrees or political science degrees or whatever kinds of degrees. So we do have access to some of that data. Last legislative session, we also were able to get, through the process access to additional state level data that will allow us to refine some of that post graduate outcome data. And I think that gets to your point.

Once we have access to that kind of data, then we can back cast and look at how academic programs prepare folks for whatever jobs they're getting into.

She said there's just too many different places to look, too many different things. Right questions you gotta ask. And, you know, sometimes, like, once you can I get a chart of this? And then I get pages and pages of stuff. I'm like, okay.

I wanted just a simple excel sheet that showed me how much we spent, how much we paid, how much money is left over, how much money we owe. No. I get a whole bunch of stuff. So how do how do we get academics to give us basic stuff that the general public wants to see without all the other data that only the experts or people of that area in that kind of realm would really want?

Well, we did just implement for our institutional research office at the system level a new data platform where hopefully, you can see in a little bit more easy to access format a lot of the data around, especially student success. We're slowly transitioning our old more complicated tables into the new environment, but it has infographics. It has charts. It tries to translate the data into something that's readable as opposed to simply trying to kill you with data. Yes.

And so the new refresh site does that for our basic student support, but we're trying to move move all of it over. I mean, it's it's an ongoing process. And then that site can house as we envision it, it would house the kind of work that this bill would potentially

So what are what is your hopes that we do with this bill?

If this bill were to pass, it would be useful for our institutional research office to have additional staffing support. They increasing federal compliance has meant that much of their time has been spent in the last few years submitting reports on financial value, transparency, and gainful employment, as well as the recent ACTS legislation, which may or may not an injection may be put on, which requires them to put together seven years of data across the system of four year institutions and compare that to admissions criteria at a granular level. So, there's a lot of huge heavy lifts that the team has been working on. But aside from that, I think we can work towards this internally. And we already have a lot of the pieces in place.

But there's, as I said, some internal data transitions happening. We're moving, as you know, to EAB and that has a whole data warehouse infrastructure that we have it we're in the process of implementing. So, to be determined how all of that will come together. So, it may be a little premature to see if this bill is necessary.

That's my biggest concern. We keep asking for data, and it keeps asking for more and more additional, warm bodies to get that data. And then what do we do with that data? Just I think a small percentage of that data is actually utilized, on a day to day basis. So, again, you know, what are the what are the pros and cons and the and the amount of money that we're spending to enable this kind of data and how many people are really utilizing the data, and does the data really translate into results for like, the one we talked about nutrition, you know.

Is the is the data gonna gonna then result in everybody eating, You know, what percentage of the population is going to change their habits with that money over what period of time? Mhmm. Yeah. It's like all of this this climate change. You know, we're spending so much money on climate change, and all the data that I've seen is that it's such a small percentage.

All of this that we're spending, such a small percentage in our role in saving the planet compared to what is going on to the rest of the world while people are going without electricity, water, and food in many places and and can't afford some of these things because the cost is going so high because of all the resources that we're putting into some of these data. And, yes, it needs to be done, but still people need to be able to survive, right, day to day. So, yeah. I mean, we can do anything with with more with more staffing, and therein lies the whole issue with the bureaucrat bureaucracy that is there and the number of vice presidents and associate vice presidents and, you know, and superintendents and assistant superintendents, deputy assistants, and area super you know, we we keep adding on layers and layers of of people, and then I'm not sure that we're really in the very bottom at the level of the general public and the students are actually benefiting by all

All of this that we're spending, such a small percentage in our role in saving the planet compared to what is going on to the rest of the world while people are going without electricity, water, and food in many places and and can't afford some of these things because the cost is going so high because of all the resources that we're putting into some of these data. And, yes, it needs to be done, but still people need to be able to survive, right, day to day. So, yeah. I mean, we can do anything with with more with more staffing, and therein lies the whole issue with the bureaucrat bureaucracy that is there and the number of vice presidents and associate vice presidents and, you know, and superintendents and assistant superintendents, deputy assistants, and area super you know, we we keep adding on layers and layers of of people, and then I'm not sure that we're really in the very bottom at the level of the general public and the students are actually benefiting by all

Of this. Well, we would hope to use this data to help support a student success agenda. And so that's certainly what a lot of the internal data dashboards that we'll be setting up in the next year will do so that we were just talking about this this morning in our officers group so that we'll be able to say, here are the kinds of gateway courses that don't contribute to student success so that we can intervene and and figure out how to make changes. So that's the ideal aspirational hope behind how we could use this data.

Some of those stuff you can tell without all of the data. Right? I mean, come on. You know, we we we know.

And we do have access to DFW data now. I mean, and we have implemented different kinds of professional development strategies based on that. So we are working with it already.

For some reason, legislators just feel like if we ask for the data, if we get the data, that the good things are gonna change. Unfortunately, that's not happening. But, okay. Yeah. Members, any questions?

So, Deborah, do you think that we can get the data without giving you this position?

We have already. I mean, aside from our testimony talks to some of the data that isn't currently centralized, and that would be more difficult. The rest of it, we already have. We're just needing to figure out how to consolidate, that data. So if the thrust is towards student success especially, then we do have access to most of that data already. So how much of

the data do you not have In in a and

so there's two levels to it. Things that we'd have to figure out how to collect. So the data exists, but it's out there in different databases or at different campuses. So a lot of that data is in it's 12 third paragraph of our testimony. So, for example, we don't have across all campuses the instructional cost per student credit hour and per degree awarded as system wide.

So campuses can have that. So some of it is collaborating and making it at a system level, and other parts of it is the different databases we have, making sure that we can tap into those and consolidate, if that makes sense, is two different kinds of challenges to where the data is right now.

So so I'm gonna rephrase my question. If your guys back was against the wall. Mhmm. And this data was prevalent. Mhmm.

And you just didn't have a position Mhmm. To compile and put it all together, do you think you guys would be able to get all of the data together?

If we had all the data in one place? Yes. Okay. So it.

It's really a matter of the the the sort of reconfiguration of the system architecture and pulling in data from all of these different kinds of sources that and I'm not I am not a data person. I rely on my data people to talk through kind of the intricacies of it. But a lot of that is, making our systems talk to each other and building up that infrastructure.

So since this does gear towards the student success Mhmm. I would believe it would be a priority of the university to ensure that we have accurate data, that we have full data. And so I think it's a little unfair to come to the ledge and ask us to give you guys a position based on what should already be a priority for the university and maybe having to, maybe shift some funds around to ensure this position. So I'm almost kind of like I get super nervous asking you folks for another thing because then you ask us for 10 times more. So I just wanted to see if your back was against the wall, if you would be able to compile all this data considering that it does prioritize student success, which already should be a vision and a mission for the university.

So that's all I wanted to mention. Thank you, Chair.

Any other questions? No. Deborah, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay, moving on to House Bill 2,338, House Draft One. This is, Mensah Hawaii Community College Promise Program to exclude grants, scholarships, and other funding sources from the calculation of the Hawaii Promise Awards, allowing students to apply such funds towards indirect costs, including housing, food, and other living expenses to reduce financial barriers and support student success. We have Kahele Duclos on Zoom.

Yes. Aloha, Chair and Senators. I'm Kahele Duclos, the interim AVP for academic affairs for the community colleges, and, we stand on our testimony, and we are available to answer questions.

Great. Thank you. Keith Hayashi for Department of Education. Nobody from DOE. Okay. David Miyashiro testifying for Hawaii Kids Can. Aloha.

Aloha. Aloha, Chair Kim, Senator Decorte, Senator Hashimoto. I just wanna speak a little bit, as the leader of a nonprofit, Hawaii Kids Can. So we've gone around the state, talked to many families, talked to a lot of students, and a couple of things that we've learned, One is that folks are looking at community colleges very differently than I think traditionally has been done. There's been a lot more work to align community college with workforce needs, including construction, nursing, etcetera.

And so the other thing that's come up very clearly is affordability. So families wanna know that if they're making that investment in, higher education, that they're gonna get that return on investment. And I think, fortunately, UHERO's data has shown, especially when students are getting associates of science degrees from CUNY colleges, the return on investment is very strong and just about as strong as it is from a general bachelor's degree from U H. Let that sink in. Associates of science, ROI is just about the same as a general bachelor's degree from U H.

So all that to say, I think, improving the Promise program is a really important step forward. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you very much. Let's see. Carlin McFadden? Not here. Steven Schatz, Randy Wong, Chau Soo Pang, and Crystal Thompson, all in support. Anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure? If not, members, any questions? Questions? Senator Hashimoto for EVP.

Lukla, are you still there?

Yep. Aloha.

So so with this amendment to the bill, what what do you think is the is it's gonna cost the state when we are, you know, allowing more you know, we we're not gonna count others' aid. What what more is this gonna cost us to to subsidize?

Well, at this point, we're not asking for any additional funding. I think we're we're trying to figure out exactly, you know, what the effects may be. At this point, we know that through Hawaii Promise, we can we can meet the direct cost needs of students who show financial aid, through the FAFSA process. And we think that allowing students to use other kinds of aid like scholarships and institutional grants for other costs. We think that it would improve, the success of our students so that they would not have to work as much.

And at this again, we're not asking for any additional funding at this point in time.

Okay. So so basic because when when I read the bill, it's you're allowing more things to not count towards their Yeah.

Yes.

Right?

Yes.

So so that they shouldn't it shouldn't impact though what what are what we're gonna be giving these students or or does it?

No. No. So we you know, we're asking that it's the last state and federal dollar so that we go off of what a Pell grant would be issued. And then the Hawaii Promise funding would be used if there are any remaining need up until their direct cost is met. Right? So we have a bunch of different kinds of funding that can be used to close those gaps, Hawaii Promise being one of them.

Okay. Okay. So so so this would in theory, though, what would your cost savings be then? An administrative burden?

Let's see. Right now, what happens is that if a student is awarded, again, the base is gonna be their federal Pell grant, and a student is awarded Hawaii Promise. If a student goes out and gets any other kind of aid, right, through any kind of philanthropic, institutional, Hawaii Community Foundation, any kind of aid, we have to repackage their aid to exclude Hawaii Promise. What we're trying to say is that to let that federal state aid stand with Hawaii Promise so that students aren't penalized for going out and getting additional scholarships.

But it seems like so so nationally though, isn't that aren't aren't they doing that for most institutions? They're penalizing if you get more scholarship? Because I've been talking to a lot

of students and they're like, oh, no. Since I get scholarship because they redo my financial aid package.

So is this is this like a pull? Yeah. And, many of the Hawaii Promise I mean, of the Promise programs across the nation are also trying to implement this in their state. And I think we had one of our consultants, testify at the last time that this is the practice. I think, I think it was an unintended consequence of saying last dollar.

I don't think that was the intention of Hawaii Promise, but I think that that has been, you know, they have seen across the nation that that has been the outcome. And they're trying to remedy that through, you know, clarifying that they're talking about last federal and state dollar and not all dollars.

Okay. All right. Thank you, chair.

I'm a little confused here. So if the Pell grants, the federal program, say do they they don't normally cover a 100%. Right? Or do they cover No.

And it depends on the student need, how much money they would get for that. Yes.

So say they can they say they don't cover $500 or

whatever it is.

Yes. Or

Mhmm.

Only a person. So the promise program comes in, and can they then do that last $500? No.

Yes. That's that's exactly how we do to what you promised.

How were we doing it before? That's always been my thought that that's what we were doing.

Well, what was happening is that if a student went out and got other scholarships, it would displace Hawaii Promise instead of stack on top of instead of stack on top to meet their indirect needs. So, if a student, you know, got 5 you know, their student need was $5,000 and they got $4,000 from a federal Pell Grant and they got $1,000 from Hawaii Promise, if a student went out and got a scholarship of $500 that would we would repackage and the 500 would be taken out of Hawaii Promise.

But isn't that what you know, the Hawaii Promise was to put in whatever additional that needed. And so if they do get other scholarships, then they would reduce the state funding and allow for other students to get it. Right? So what are we saying here? We're saying you're gonna get it no matter what and and

No. We're saying that if you have any direct need, that we can fill that with the federal financial aid and Hawaii Promise. And if you access grants or other private scholarships, that you use that to meet your indirect costs. Because the direct cost is just tuition in books. Right? You still have housing, transportation, and all.

Say that you should use it for tuition. A lot of scholarships, right, have requirements that, should be used for tuition or that the check has to be paid directly to the school for tuition. So how do how does that fill in?

I mean, there are some but many scholarships, many, private philanthropic dollars don't make those designations.

What about those that do? Then what happens?

Then you would have to displace.

Okay. So then what the the direct or indirect, needs, the Promise Program pays it 100%?

No, no, no. It's built on first the federal aid. So, the student has to show financial aid need through the FAFSA process, and typically, they would get a Pell grant award depending on their need is the amount that they would get. And then whatever is left to meet their direct cost, that's when the promise comes in.

Okay. But then we all you also say indirect, which we which is transportation, food

Housing. And

Yeah. Housing. Right? So those are you call it indirect or direct? Indirect. Indirect. Indirect. So the promise program can pay for all of that?

Direct. Only direct.

Oh, not indirect?

No. So the promise and federal aid only so each student has a direct cost of need and federal, FAFSA, Pell Grants can pay for direct costs. And the promise is for direct costs only.

Okay. I was under the impression that the promise was for indirect costs. No. No? Alright.

So so I guess in the analysis then, we're we're we're still sure then that there's no cost impact. I don't know how there is not one.

I mean Right.

Because if you're if you're gonna allow them to use outside scholarships for the indirect, you're in theory, we're now subsidizing your direct cost more through Hawaii Promise. Right?

Yeah.

But we don't know what that cost could be.

We are anticipating that we if if there are no changes to federal financial aid, and, again, this is not all students. Right? These are students that show financial aid need according to the federal guidelines.

Right. Right. Yeah. But we don't know what that number is. Because because I'm I'm assuming we we have a current set of students that, you know, would have to be recalculated, right, based on this new law. So I'm assuming that it's so small that it's you're thinking it's insignificant or are we talking this impact?

I mean, so Hawaii Promise is one kind of funding. Right? We also like, you know, we have stuff like native Hawaiian tuition waivers that also come out. So it's not the only thing that we use to No.

I I exactly. Yeah. But we're just making sure. Right? If but you guys we got we got we wanna pass something and then you're gonna be like, oh, we gotta go tip into the tuition, you know, surplus because we we forgot that you know, forgot to do the calculation correctly. Right?

Yes.