16 Budget and Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

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Thank you. .

Welcome everybody to the Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee. It is now 9 o'clock a.m. Thank you, everybody, for being here. I know all of us have experienced Hurricane Tropical Storm Lala in different ways. As my upcountry community in different areas, we just got electricity last night from Saturday. So grateful forever. You never realize how much you need it, but it certainly cuts you off from the world in many different ways. And thank you to everybody who's helping each other which brings us to why the first item on our agenda is important. So this meeting is being conducted in accordance with the Sunshine Law. As a reminder, when your name is called, if you're not in with us, please identify who is with you in your room, vehicle, or workspace with you today. Minors do not need to be identified. Member Patongan will be joining us shortly. Good morning, Member Cook.

Good morning, Chair.

Good morning. And I heard that I got note that you have to leave at 10.5.

Correct.

Thank you. Member Johnson, good morning on Lanai.

Good morning, Chair, Councilmembers, community members. There's no testifiers here at the Lanai District Office. I'm alone on my side of the office and just here with a snoring doggy and here and ready to work.

Thank you. Chair Lee will be joining us. Member Paltek.

I'm here.

Oh, you're here. Good morning, Chair.

Yeah, and if you're in Jamaica, you would say hello. I am here. Hello. Hello. Hello. So forget the H. I'm here alone in my workspace with my little trusty kitty cat who is in a very good mood today.

Very good. Member Paltek.

Aloha kakahiaka kakou and elo. Streaming live and direct from my kitchen table in Napili. I have with me two minor canines who shall remain unnamed.

Member Rollins-Fernandez.

Aloha kakahiaka chair. Aloha kakahiaka kakou. I'm a private resident alone. No testifiers at the .

Okay, thank you. Did you all hear her? Yes. Yeah, okay. Senator Brown is here. Member Seneci is excused. And Member Ulpacic.

Good morning, Chair. Good morning, everyone. I'm at my parents' private residence because I still have no electricity. I don't think I'll have electricity for a while. As you know, Makwa suffered some kind of crazy damages. Slightly displaced for a couple of days, but all good. I do also have to leave at 11, if that's okay, Chair. Today is my son's 19th birthday. So I've got a super full-grown adult. I know, it's crazy. But anyways, good morning, everyone. Thank you.

Yep. Thank you very much for being here. So assisting us with today's meeting is the BFED committee staff. Thank you very much. and we have invited resources persons from the administration. Thank you very much, John Smith, who's sitting with us and who's with us, always appreciate you. We have also invited the managing director and chief of staff, director of finance, I'm not sure, budget director and grants coordinator for the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Environmental Management, the deputy director of DEM, deputy director of housing, Director of Human Concerns, and the Deputy Corporation Counsel Wigglesworth. Thank you, thank you for being with us. To assist us today, we also have invited representatives from BDO Government Services, which we remember the name HOME. This is the new company that I guess must have bought HOME, and so their BDO Government Services as a resource of members if you allow to designate them under Rule 18A of the Rules of the Council based on their experience and expertise with CDBG-DR grants.

No objections.

Thanks. Please note the last page of the agenda for information on meeting connectivity. Do we have any testifiers?

Chair, there's no individual signed up at the beginning of the meeting. Would you like me to do a last call?

Okay, wait now.

I'm going to

I'm gonna read off the agenda items, and then you can do the last call. So we have BFED 2017 Community Block Grant Disaster Recovery Funding and Program Status, BFED 2012 Administration and Management of Grants. So we wanna call out again, Jarrett.

Yes, Chair. So we do have two individuals who have raised their hand. Both of them are on Teams. So we have one individual calling in with the last four digits, 4945, to be followed by James Leifert. Chair, would you mind reading the testimony?

Yes, I will. So testifiers wanting to provide testimony should sign up with the or join the online meeting via Teams link or call in to the phone number noted on today's agenda. Written testimony is encouraged and can be submitted via the e-comment link at MauiCounty.us agendas as well. Under the Sunshine Law, the chair will receive oral testimony for agenda items at the beginning of the meeting and as long as the item is called up. For individuals wishing to testify on teams, please raise your hand by clicking on the raise your hand button. If calling in, please follow the prompts and add a G on the phone using star five to raise and lower your hand and star six to unmute. Staff will add names to the testifier list and the order testifiers sign up or raise their hands. For those in teams, staff will lower your hand, use your name, and once your name is added, staff will then call the name you've logged in under or the last four digits of your phone number when it is your time to testify. At this time, staff will also enable your microphone and video. Please ensure your name appears on Microsoft Teams as the name you prefer to be referred to or as anonymous if you wish to testify anonymously. If you're in person, please notify staff that you would like to testify anonymously. Otherwise, please state your name for the record at the beginning of your testimony. Final testimony is limited to three minutes per item, and if you're still testifying beyond that time, I'll kindly ask you to complete your testimony. Once you have done testifying, if you do not wish to testify, you also view the meeting on a pocket 53, Facebook Live, or MauiCounty.us agendas. We'll also do our best to take each person up in an ordinary fashion, and I'll call up our first testifier. I just want to remind testifiers that we have two items on the agenda. One is on the Office of Recovery. There are reports on the $1.6 billion, as well as grants. That's agenda items. I give you the case. You did not hear it. So first testifier, please.

Thank you, Chair. The first testifier is calling in with the last four digits, 4945, if they could just speak, which items they'll be testifying on, to be followed by James Langford.

Aloha kaʻahaʻoke kalana. Can you read me?

We can hear you.

This is Jesse Law calling in from an undisclosed location. Undisclosed because I don't want any cops coming and trying to stop me from testifying again. Testifying on the first item, I think, is the disaster recovery funding. I got to say hello to Director Ratz for letting me know what the meeting code and stuff is because I have no access to any information about what the government's been doing with the money. I'm assuming the money's coming from the United States of America. It wasn't clear. You said something about some billion dollars in funding or something like that. So I'm going to read this article about old-time money in Hawaii. Commerce between Hawaii and the United States, the Hawaiian kingdom had consulates in the port towns of Boston, San Francisco, Portland, and near Seattle, increased the influence of U.S. currency in Hawaii. As these connections developed, some began calling for the annexation of the islands. This sparked a respondent nationalistic fervor in Hawaii, which grew during Kalakaua's reign In 1879, the sixth year in office, Kalākaua issued paper currency fully backed by deposits of gold and silver, making Hawaii one of the few nations in the world to do so.

The nominations of- So, can you testify on the item, please?

Do you want to get reported again to the Office of Information Practices, Chair? Please don't cut me off.

I'm trying to- Please testify on the agenda item.

Well, we can sit here and argue for another 10 minutes before you push the buttons and cut me off here. If you want to do that, or you could just do it now and then get, I'll just get my protesting later. Continually violate the sunshine law. It's not cool. Meetings are not really fun. Meetings are supposed to be fun and include all of the public. And you discriminate against people just because you don't like them because they're homeless is not Pono.

That's not relevant.

Well, you're the one who brought it up.

Are you done testifying, sir?

No, I'm not. You took about a minute of my time. Can I have my minute back? Because I'll just call in on the next item. Yeah, Mr. Roth, can you make note of the chairs continually violating my sunshine rights? and I don't have a stamp and an envelope handy to send it to the Office of Information Practices like the law says. So there's my three minutes. You wasted the county's time and the people's time. I was trying to educate people, but apparently you don't want to be educated. Do not vote for Yuki Leisu anymore.

Chair, I have a clarifying question.

Okay, here's a clarifying question for you.

Testifier. Are you aware that you can go to the public libraries and use the free public computers for Wi-Fi access to see the agendas and also participate in the meetings?

I'll plead the fifth.

No more questions.

Okay, thanks. Okay, thank you very much. Next testifier, please.

Chair, the next testifier is James Lang.

Aloha Chair, Aloha Council, respected folks there. Testifying on, is it both items or one at a time? On the recovery and whatnot. Could you speak up? Yes, is that better? They're testifying both items at the beginning of the meeting. We can hear you. Okay, cool. I'm just testifying that it's been difficult getting clarity on the process of the grants and the accounting around this.

Can you speak a little louder?

Let me try that. Is that better?

Better, better.

All right, yeah, okay. Part of my manners and connectivity. So I submitted about $2.4 billion in grants, and I haven't heard back or anything like that. So I just was hoping today you guys could clarify on if we're working with um just outside off island people um as you know like software that i wrote pays about 23 to 25 million a year in taxes from the timeshare industry so i'm really good at it um so i was just hoping i i could hear in today's meeting how um how we're working with local folks like myself who are, you know, who the experts call when they need help. So that's something that I'm excited to hear about. And, you know, factually, I did submit about 2.4 billion in grants working with Office of Information Services. Dr. Josh was on the call even. So I did help with acquiring grants you know this these billions so i just would like to be in the loop a little more uh and uh as you know men feel love when they when they're useful so i'd like to feel a little more useful to our community and i love you all so have a blessed day and thank you for this good work any questions for the testifier i see no hands thank you very much mr nyford next testifier

Chair, that's all the individual signers can testify. If anyone in the audience or on teams would like to testify, please come up and light the beginning testimony or use the raise your hand function on teams and staff who are with you. Here's the bridge countdown. Three, two, one. Seeing none, Chair Noonan has indicated that we wish to testify.

Thank you. Members, at this time, I'm going to close public testimony and we'll take written testimony only, so.

No objection.

Thank you. So we're taking up the first item, which is BFED 2017 Community Block Grants Disaster Recovery Funding and Program Status. This item is a 7b discussion on CDBG disaster recovery funding and program status. In addition to any significant operational updates, we will focus on spending, drawdowns, reimbursements, cash flow, and related reporting. The most recent report received by the council covers the quarter ending March 31st, 2021, and that the report for the quarter ending December 31st, 2025 are in Granicus number 11. And if possible, I guess I'm gonna ask the department if you have updated or have a updated report for us because the information all we have available seems to be, I think, late. not all of it or is not complete on this. If possible, I'd also appreciate a preview of the quarter ending June 30th, including where we can expect, when we can expect the next report. Next, no legislative action will be taken on this item and assisting us with today's discussions, our managing director, I don't know who's all on, but we have John Smith here. You want to introduce him?

I also have staff from our CDBGDR team and our contractor. I think they are in a conference room together. I'd ask them to, I don't know who's, I haven't seen everyone that's in the room, but I'd ask them to introduce themselves. That might be helpful.

Okay, they're coming on now.

Okay, BDO conference room is what we're seeing.

Yes, and maybe I could start with Jeannie and then do the patient. Jeannie and her team and patients and her team members in the room. We can only see like three of you guys.

Sorry about that. All right. Good morning.

Jeannie Sutton, Program Manager with BDO, and I have here with me Clay Malloy, Deputy Program Manager of BDO.

Ishan Skobula, CDBG-DR program officer, and we got two program managers here.

Brian O'Shea, CDBG-DR program manager.

Alicia Magugai, CDBG-DR program manager.

Is that everybody?

Yeah, that's it.

So if I can't answer something, I'll be able to.

Okay. Do you have your admin person for Office of Recovery? And then how are you doing?

Oh, Helene is watching, but she's, I don't think she's on as a resource today. Okay. If you need to add her, we can.

Okay. So opening comments, you want to start? Whatever you want to tell us.

Oh, thank you, Chair. I do have a- Before you start.

Okay. Did you submit the June 30th report?

I don't actually know. I'll ask the room sitting there.

It's on its way. Sorry, did you folks hear? It's on its way. Well, so you didn't submit it to us. You gave it. On its way means what?

I'm working on it. I'll get it this week.

Oh, it's not done. No, it ain't.

We'll go ahead with this one.

So I'm gonna ask you other questions and then maybe I'm gonna call you back to talk about current information regarding the report that's due to the federal government, which this is August. So are you then saying that probably, oh, thank you, that reports are due June 30th and when is it supposed to be sent to the federal government?

Yeah, so those reports are quarterly reports. They tend to happen in the rears. So this next report will bring you up to speed. And this presentation that we have today is current information that all of you will be happy to, and a lot of what's in this presentation today will be in that quarterly report that you get later this week. So, There is a lot going on right now with storms. And I think I was talking to Josiah, managing director, yesterday about Office of Recovery as a whole. And we're suggesting to other state partners that this model may be effective for other counties to consider, because it's like having search staff available for when we continue to do, unfortunately, disasters. So we're jumping right into the middle of what MEMA is doing and what the departments are doing with all of this last year. So we have things going on from the fires, from Kono Low, and now this new storm. Today we'll focus primarily on just an update, an overall update on the whole GUMFO CDBGDR progress. So I have a presentation that I'm going to do parts of it, and I'll ask the room to do parts of it as well. I don't know who's sharing the screen though.

Is it? Point of information.

Yes. Sorry, I didn't see your hand up.

Oh, no worries. I just was wondering if the present, if there is a presentation, if it is or was uploaded, if it's going to be uploaded.

Sure. We just received it. It'll be uploaded shortly.

Yeah.

We just received it. It'll be uploaded shortly. Do you want? There you go. Okay, awesome.

Okay, can I run through this? It's your show. Okay, so just as a quick reminder, this is an update on the CDBGDR allotment that was given from HUD, the disaster recovery group in HUD. And it's the 1.6 billion that we're all familiar with. Do you wanna go to the next slide? And really the purpose of this briefing is just to give everyone a high-level update of the county's views of this fund. So we have four different topics we would like to go through. It's our current spending, how the reimbursement works, the status of that. I've talked about it before. We can talk you through where we are exactly with how the reimbursements are working. the status of compliance with HUD, and how we track funds over time. So hopefully, and once I get through this, I'll be happy to jump into all the questions that you folks will have. So it's really going through how we're acclimating to work with HUD as a recipient. Next slide, please. This is the pie chart that we've all seen. It's the most updated version of it. A little bit more colorful than last time, but it really allocates. It's the same slide, it's just a little bit more detail within the pie itself. Working our way around the wheel from all of our single family construction, reconstruction, first time home buyer, multifamily rentals, public services mitigation, administrative costs, and our infrastructure investment from the fund. All of it geared towards primarily helping housing. Next slide, please. To date, 1.39 billion of the 1.6 has been obligated, meaning that doesn't mean encumbered, that just means that Out of all those programs in the pie chart, the 1.39 of it has been set aside to fulfill those obligations. There's about 239 million remaining to be obligated, which will be taken up relatively quickly this year. Next slide, please. This isn't meant to be a detailed slide that's tracking both how we're obligating and how we're reconciling with the county's finance system. We can get into details on that just a little bit. Slide speaks. Okay. Let's talk through the reimbursement process, and then I may ask some staff if you have additional input. or budgets they want to add in. But the real simple version is that the funds are expended through the program and administered by the county. So this is a direct interaction between the county and the federal government. There's a lot of our programs, like our FEMA programs or our highways programs, they have a middleman, so to speak. They have the state in the middle. In this program, there's no state in the middle. This is just FUD directly to the county. So far, as we've drawn down our average time to reimburse the county for those drawdowns is really clear. It's taken about 72 hours. So in FEMA land, when you have all the additional bureaucracy in the middle, it's like a year-long process. But in FUD DR land, it's essentially right away. So that's really, really good for the county because we don't have to outlay that cost for a long time. It's just we spend the money, we submit for reimbursement, we get it directly back into our accounts. So that part is working well. The team, our internal team and our finance teams, they've worked well to make sure that that process has gone, I think, as well as it could go. for like the first time home buyer programs that we hear about. So if someone buys a house through this program, then we get right in the middle of the entire process. And then as they're doing the closing documents, we've got it all set up so we can reimburse the banks for that outlay, just like you buy a house right in the middle of all of it. So this whole process needs to work fast so that those kinds of transactions can happen. It does stress out a lot of people to do it, but we're doing it. So those happen as we buy a home and help people get into the home. The rest of the reimbursements happen on a monthly site. And if staff in the room, if you want to add anything here, feel free to. So next slide. Then this slide is really just meant to show how do we get from funding a project. So we've drafted all of our policies and procedures. Number one's done. Program documents and system development, that's done. We've identified the projects to be funded. That part's done. We're in the middle of environmental reviews for a lot of the projects. So we can't pass go until we get through the environmental reviews. That's a federal requirement. And most of the projects are in five or six right now. So when you look at that big wheel, a lot of the work is in that stage. Once that's done, it'll go into, some of them actually are moving into procurement already. So we're in five, six, or seven for all the projects. And I think the next slide will give a little bit more detail. There we go. The fund, I've talked about this before, has a time component to it. It's a six-year grant to the county, and we've projected out by program how that spin will go, assuming that we stay on track with all these projects. So if you look at where we are right now, all the way through 2031, this is the expected outlay of the fund. throughout the life cycle of the program. And that QR code will give you a more detailed look into where each one of these are. And also would like to just say that our whole website that is linked, it's linked on Niagara Covers, it's linked on the county's homepage, but the whole website is all of the detail that I've talked about today. It's just already up there. on that study. Okay, next slide, please. So, you know, HUD invested a lot in the county, and they are looking over our shoulder all the way. We regularly meet with staff, national staff from HUD all the time. We're on a first-name basis, and we recently had them come visit us just to make sure that we're on track to watch all the things that we're doing. So it was a really good visit. And they came really early. I think we were one of the first in the country that they came to because of the size of our investment, their investment with us. When the 1.6 billion was given to the county, there was a $12 billion package that went out that same time to several other communities around the country. Happy to report that in terms of how we're spending the fund, we're actually leading that entire group, which is good news for the county. And that includes existing grantees that have been doing this for a while. They're really proud of our team. from that respect. So we're managing it well, but there is a ton of work to do ahead of us. So you can see it in that chart. And so really still just at the beginning. Our key risks that we're tracking are infrastructure costs. So we all know that costs are escalating in the infrastructure world. They have since the disaster. So our infrastructure departments are reporting back that their cost estimates for projects continue to go up. So that in itself is something that we're watching closely. So it's really over us in those contracts. And then we're also cognizant of contractor capacity, both on the A&E side and on the contractor side. So most of the time that we're working on right now is how do we surge capacity to meet this need over the next three or four years. I'm so well aware of it. We do identify that as a risk, and that's why we're focusing our attention on those two things. I'm not going to read those, but it's just a matter of how we're looking at the risk of this. I'm happy to answer more questions on that one.

Next slide.

Broadways and abuse is a pretty big term right now. We recently sent several of our staff to California to attend a HUD training on fraud, waste, and abuse. So they are all up to speed on that. And that same, we've also conducted our own fraud, waste, and abuse training countywide in coordination with our council, finance, budget, et cetera, over the past couple months. few months, actually. So we are continuing to train our staff on how to identify fraud, how to identify leaks, to make sure that it is not abuse. It's exactly like it sounds. So that, I'm just reporting out that we just did a sound group in July. Those trainings are mandatory for the county. They don't really have the option to not attend, so we will be continuing to send staff to those trainings as they're offered by HUD. I don't think this is on the slide too, but they are hosting in September. And when I say hosting HUD, the other grantees in this region that also have CDBGDR funds are coming to Maui in September. We're going to be the host group. for everyone to exchange ideas on how their funds are moving along and how we can continue to grow our best practices together. We're really excited about that. And we're going to use the conference rooms in Paliola EA because we have access to it, which is another kind of bonus. It'll be a key day. Next slide, please. So as I noted in the beginning, most of the portfolio has been obligated. It's obligated to all the projects that you folks are well aware of, the infrastructure and housing projects. And we'll continue to bring those to you as time goes on so that you can track with us. So we've begun drawing down the funds. That drawdown is going well. And the projection is that we are on pace to spend the funds. got to stick with it with the departments to make sure that we continue to spend well over the life of this grant. So just go through a quick recovery summary. I've recently given some of these slides to the DRIP committee, but it's just a couple and on the DR world. But so far, you can go to my covers and see how homes have been completed, how many are under construction, how many are being processed. I think that's pretty well known now. Next slide. This is the latest permitting map. the 50.5 percent of all clear parcels so not all clear parcels for housing parcels but if you take just the housing out of it and you do the same math you actually get to more than 80 percent with a path to permanency um in the entire disaster zone in lahaina and yeah i think i think that's good that and that number doesn't does not include some of our new construction homes that we're talking about that are reconstructed on people slots.

So that number will continue to go up over the next few months as those become reality. They just haven't made it to the permits.

Next slide. And then this slide is a representation of All of the multifamily housing projects that are underway within the disaster zone, the blue ones are complete, the green ones have been issued a permit, the yellow are really close to being issued a permit, and then all of the, I think that's pink, all those pink ones are dependent on CDBGDR funding. Next slide. We also talked a little bit about this in DRIP, and I think we'll be back there tomorrow, Council Member Bolton, to maybe talk some more about this. An interim housing plan has been established. We're working directly with the state and FEMA on this plan, so we understand right now we have about 1,100 households that are distributed across those units on the left side. then we're going to utilize an interim housing program the dcmp program and work with the state on decompression as people find decompression simply means people found their permanent solution so i don't know why i use that term but um when i saw it i thought it was an engineering term but so really just how can we get folks from a temp solution to a permanent solution that's that's decompression and How do we communicate this clearly? Because there's so many different heart affairs. So the Office of Recovery is actively working to take over the DCMP program. So FEMA was working through the state on that. Now that's going to be a recovery function. We're going to continue to work that problem over the next four years while we continue to get folks from their temporary situation into recovery. either a permanent home or one of those permanent builds that we're hoping to find that's always on the right side. Next slide. I think that's the end of this presentation. Happy to take your questions.

All right. Very good. Does anybody in your staff want to add more?

Did I leave anything out, guys, ladies?

Okay, very good. So at this time, I'm gonna open public testimony again. Is there anybody signed up to testify on this item?

Chair, if there's any individual signed up to testify, would you like me to do the last call? Yes, please. This is the last call for the testimony. Please come up to the mic or raise your hand on teams if you would like to testify. The count down is three, two, one. Seeing none, Chair, no one has indicated that they wish to testify.

Okay, thank you very much. I'm gonna close public testimony on this item, receive written testimony, and open up for questions from the members. And we'll do, Member Cook, who's here, three minutes.

Some of the challenges for extending the money is like environmental reviews and contractor, just the volume how much it can be absorbed, how much it can be managed. How is it going as far as like the review process and how much of that is federal, state or county, all part of your state?

Well, that's a good question. I guess I would start by saying that we have expedited the permitting process from right after the fire in terms of hiring additional staff support so we've hired a permitting group that is embedded with the development services administration and the planning department um so where they have needs where this the volume becomes overwhelming for the county staff we have search capacity embedded right now that's been ongoing for a while that's how we got the permit time on the county site around about 44 days so that's mostly for the residential responsibility

where it's basically the rectifying process, some of the federal environmental laws, the state issues that we have. And I don't know how much of it is like fire mitigation, is there also flood mitigation as part of that overall thing? There's a fire and a flood, so.

Yeah, so there's no getting around any of the permanent Permitting is what it is. And there's only a matter of how we can expedite our way through it. So we're asking our review agencies at the state level, the county level, to put their finger on the review of all of these projects. So if it's a critical recovery project, we really are asking for special attention for those projects so that we can speed the timeline up. And then when things get stuck, We are up in the recovery office trying to step on and stop them in terms of, okay, what is the issue that we're dealing with? So I spent a lot of time flying to Oahu to meet with the Department of Health, for example. There were some issues there with wastewater from an example we did work through. So Shane and I went over and we sat down with the directors and said, They've done a great part. Same thing's happening with DLNR. We're going over and meeting with them to see what we need to not at all get around the rules, just to see if we can get enough staff time to process so that we can get folks home. That's our strategy. And then we're doing the same thing on the federal level. So if it's a U.S. Army Corps military issue, or if it's an EPA issue, EPA has been here several times. It just came two weeks ago.

and then specifically- John, point of order, point of order. Sure. Yes, Jeremy. John, when you talk, you start off talking clearly and then you drop your voice and we're straining to hear you.

I'm so sorry. My apologies. This is a very different setting, sitting right next to Tom. My apologies. I'll be louder. How much do you want me to go back through? where did you lose me that's okay that's okay if you just could continue on thank you okay um so at the county level we're offering staff search capacity at the state level we are embedding ourselves into the state directors groups and working with the governor's office or whichever director that is so it's either dlr department of health or any other department that may have jurisdiction over that review. And once it gets through those groups, if there's a federal nexus in terms of permitting, then we are engaging directly with, for example, the EPA.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for that answer. It's encouraging that the collaboration is going on and that should benefit in the future in general.

I think we all recognize that. It's a good question because we all recognize that the permitting process is kind of a long pole. We do also have a contractor need here in a couple of years once all this hits. But if we can't get through the permitting process quickly enough, then that part becomes a new point. So that's our focus right now.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Chair Lee, followed by Member Fulton, then Member Johnson.

Okay, John, you gave us a lot of numbers and you said that some of them were reported previously, but because of this multiplicity of numbers, it's hard to retain everything. But you did mention 55% of the 1.6 billion is uh earmarked for housing right 55 of that so that's what 800 million dollars or so um how many new units did you have a graph that shows how many new units would be paid by that amount and how many reimbursement of pre-existing homes would be paid from that

um that's that's another great question we do have some graphics they're not part of this presentation i will um ask if they could just email it to us yes i'd be happy to follow up with with those those numbers um Jeannie from BBO has a graphic that would show that and we'd be happy to provide that as a supplemental.

So we get all kinds of different reports throughout the year and from the administration and from the media. Does anyone co-mingle the numbers? Because CDBG is supposed to be separate, right? So any private developers shouldn't be counted. in units completed, right? So you don't add those private units, do you?

No, but if you go, if you want to look at the overall map that I brought up, we're trying to give an overall recovery picture. So the one picture that shows all of the units related to recovery that are multi-family, it's only the ones that are pink. on that map that has CDBGDR funding applied to them.

Okay. All right. So, yeah, it gets confusing when numbers are reported. The other thing is administrative costs. What percentage do you earmark for administrative costs?

That's something that HUD outlines when you get the program. I think it's 15%, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not wrong, is that correct?

15, did you say 15?

Yes. Oh, I'm sorry, 5%. I'm sorry. I got the number wrong. Team in there on the room, can you answer that one, please?

Yes, absolutely. So the maximum that HUD allows for CDBGDR funds is 5% of your overall allocation for administration.

So you're predicting that this will last for six years. What happens to the Office of Recovery after six years?

That's a great question. So we have the general fund side and the DR side. There are some income-generating components of the work that we're doing, and maybe we can come back and talk about that at a later time.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Next, we have Member Fulton, followed by Member Johnson, then Member Rollins-Fernandez.

Chair, before my time starts, I just want to say that I got a lot of questions. And if I cut you off because I got the information I need, I'm not trying to be rude. And my questions might need to be sent if they don't have the information right away. So if staff could take that down. Okay, I'm ready. You can start my time. Anecdotally, I've been hearing that a lot of property owners who apply for the reconstruction path are disqualified. Do you have lists of reasons why people are not following or not qualifying for the reconstruction reimbursement? And if it's something unavoidable or something that can be fixed or picked up by another agency or organization. And if there's any additional obstacles that could be or constraints that HUD put onto the Hoʻokumuho housing programs that are making it difficult to execute on the mission based on the housing building reality in Maui County. I know one was older housing and the lead-based paint. Has that been resolved? Sorry, that's a bit of a big one, but if you don't have the answer, I'll move on to the next one and we can send it in writing.

So I can get an update from the room. We have asked HUD to, I don't know if it's been formally approved yet, but we have asked them to waive that, not waive, but change our policy so that we can bring older homes into the program, which I believe we will get soon if we haven't already. Patience, do you know the status of that?

Yes, actually, we did get approval, and we are going to allow for the homes built prior to 1978, but there are conditions. There are conditions, so I want to create an expectation that it's an automatic approval because those properties will come with some... You've got to certify that there's no lead-based paint and things like that. Yeah, mediation...

I did want to know about the obstacles for the reconstruction money, why people are getting turned down for that.

Yeah, we'd be happy to run a detailed report for you. We do analyze that quite regularly to figure out if there are program adjustments that are needed. What we've been seeing to date is a lot of folks are midway through construction and just haven't finished yet. So they need to wait until they have finished in order to apply for the reimbursement portion. And then there are varying other reasons for reconstruction. I'm more than happy to run a detailed report and send it to you.

That'd be great. Thanks. I'd also like to know how many shopping letters total versus how many purchased homes in West Maui versus how many purchased homes outside of West Maui, if you can run a report on that as well.

Absolutely.

Thanks. And then we're still waiting on a determination from Ms. Toshikio about purchasing first-time homebuyer letter through a land trust home. Somebody's ready to purchase and we're just waiting on you folks and the lawyers. Any update on that? We thought we would get information last week but have not yet received it.

I can take that one. I spoke to Ms. Toshikiyo yesterday. She's on a plane right now. She wanted to be here today. But we are working very hard to make sure that our policies and our land trust policies are aligned enough to make sure that that can happen. So there are a lot of details that go along with that between both sets of policies. We do think we found a path forward. It's taking a little bit longer than we would like, but we do think that there's a path to use CDBG-DR funds to buy land trust funds for disaster survivors. It's not that simple, but we do think there's a path.

Thank you. And then another question I had was the CDBG multifamily rebuilds like Kahale Akeola. What is the timeline for that to be done? I recently did take folks from home aid to the site about potentially putting up a version of Kīpūʻōla Kauhāle adjacent and tapping into their electrical water and sewer until Kahale Akeola can be rebuilt. Is that a possibility because of the attempt to permanent housing um i don't know how many people are in direct leases with fema but what happens to those folks when fema pulls out like i know there's the kilohana and the mobile sites but what about the people that are um in other housing arrangements with like rental assistance or whatever when fema pulls out um

I think we can maybe dive a little bit deeper into this tomorrow at DRIP, but just a quick answer for you. We know that between now and by the time these units are built, which is really till 2031, we have about a four, four and a half year issue to help with this population. And all things are on the table. So we have rental assistance programs that are coming online. Department of Housing has rental assistance programs coming online. The state has continued programs that will keep going. And then we have this inventory that we're all going to work together with KLO, Calatiola, Caliola EA, and all the rest of the smaller groups so that we can keep the population at least in a temporary stable solution until the longer term solution is done. That's the real broad answer. If there's additional needs beyond that with like additional temporary, we can discuss that. I think I would really like to bring in the housing department to be a part of that discussion.

Okay, and just so you're aware, the storm did do a lot of damage on Kayaulu o Kukuya, on the shingles and the cars in the parking lot, and then leaking within the unit because the shingles flew off. And so, you know, when you're counting those as new builds or reconstructions, we're running into problems with that. And it's not something that survivors can afford to replace because, you know, like we talked about last time, there's a $200 rent increase, the electrical increase, and now they're having to replace more of their stuff because of leaking and shingles flying into their cars and stuff. So, I mean... It's just people getting hit back to back to back to back with more expenses than they have resources for and all the funding sources running out. So even the people that are housed are not in good situations. Just wanted to keep you aware of that. I don't know if somebody from the county is working on their... working with on their insurance to help the residents on not only their cars, but their internal possessions because any renters insurance should be subordinate to the commercial insurance that that type of entity has. I mean, if I were moving into a brand new structure, I don't know if I would sign up for rental insurance when my income is already low income and I just survived the fire and paying enormous rents for up until they rebuilt that. So just seeing that there's a lot of financial need. So the bell went off. Oh, I didn't hear it. I'm sorry. Do you want to try and test it? Yeah. Can you test the bell?

Can you hear it? Okay, good.

Thank you, sorry, that'll end my turn.

Are you done? Okay, so the question that you had, staff said they got it and we'll send it to Office of Recovery. So we got that covered. Next we have Member Johnson, followed by Member Rollins-Hernandez. Well, Member Johnson's not there. Member Rollins-Hernandez, we'll get back to him.

Mahalo, Chair. Okay, I think, oh, there's Member Johnson. Okay, we're having technical problems. Go ahead, Member Johnson.

Okay, sorry, my computer's updated right in the middle of this meeting, so if you guys can hear me, I have questions, okay. Sorry, that threw me off because I missed the second half of your presentation. So thank you, John Smith. Thank you, Chair, for bringing this. And thank you all the folks who are helping with this. 2,900 applicants and 21 got letters for the first-time homebuyer program, if that's correct, if I'm reading those stats correct. Mr. Smith, my big question is, we have such a high demand for units. What's the department doing to buy up those condos on the Minnetonka lists?

Well, we would, I wish we would have the housing department here to help answer that question, but I can follow back up with you on that. The DR fund is not slated to buy additional properties. It's slated to help the ones that we lost come back. And there are some additional new housing. But I can't answer that question.

Well, okay. That's a really important point to clarify that you can't buy existing homes is what I'm understanding. You can only buy to fix up with this particular pot of money.

Perfect. Sorry, our first homebuyer program is meant to help individuals supplement their ability to buy existing stock in the county. So there are some of those folks that are buying condos that I do believe is on that list, but it's just a few. So there are, inadvertently, there are some DR dollars that will get into that housing stock. But that's not the intent of that program. It's really just to supplement them to be able to buy a home.

So, and again, I'm sorry if you mentioned it in your report, but the first-time homebuyers program, didn't we increase the funds for that? If so, how much is that?

That's at $92.5 million. That's one of the pie charts.

Sorry, I missed that. $92.5 million? Yes. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about the report now, the HUD report. It says you have to do quarterly reports. And I look at the numbers. Those are big numbers. How are you doing on staffing? And I apologize if this question got asked already. If it did, you can skip it. But how are you guys doing on funding and capacity? Are you able to keep up with that quarterly reporting?

Yeah, we'll have the next quarterly report out to you folks this week. We talked about that at the beginning. And then what you'll see in the next report is I think 83 shopping letters have actually been issued from that first-time homebuyer program, and that's $92.5 million. Staffing-wise, we've hired help from the consulting world. You've seen they're actually in the you know, right now, but we've also hired quite a few internal staff that are under patients who are sitting in the room. And then we've filled, on the non-DR side, we've filled most of our positions so far. So we're okay. We do have, we're looking for engineers. To be honest, they're hard to find. And we're looking for, you know, professionals that want to jump into this game, but almost all of them are already hired by outside firms.

Yeah, thanks. I heard my time, Chair. I'm really curious to see if we can use J-1 visas for some of those engineering positions, but that's a conversation that is just beginning. I'll end it on here. You know, my opening remarks for this week was about hope for our community. And what John Smith and his department is doing is bringing hope back to our community. I really appreciate the work that you guys are doing. I know we all could be, you know, working at max capacity at 110%. And I know you guys are working as hard as you can. And just please continue. And probably second round, I might or might not have questions. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Member Johnson. Next, we have Member Rollins-Fernandez followed by Member Hulupajans.

Mahalo, Chair. Aloha, Director Smith and team. Mahalo for your hard work and for your presentation. Okay. I guess I just wanted to follow up on the second to last slide regarding the housing transition strategy. um you identified one of the challenges being communication um i don't i don't know if i it says clear clear message and landlord outreach um could you explain that a little more and then uh share what you folks like what strategies you folks are planning to employ okay so i i mean communication on this

This issue in particular has been challenging, I think, really since right after the fire. We had a lot of people displaced and people are all over the world now. And for the first time, the county is now going to be, I think, the lead agency in it rather than the following agency. So we're very, very thankful for what FEMA did. We're very thankful for what DHS at the state has done and continues to do, HI-EMA, HI-OR, all those folks, they've all been working this problem for us on behalf of us. But at this point in time, especially with the exit of FEMA come February next year, it's time for us to step into this realm You folks supported us with that in our budget for this year. And we are actively coming into that world. And by the time February gets here, so the communication piece of it is just explaining what I just explained in terms of like how it's been. And then we'll have to do, I think, a better job basically on an internal and an external way of explaining to all the folks that are in this world how things will be for the next few years. There's a lot of uncertainty, and that stresses people out. We understand that. It's really hard to talk about it if we don't have control of it. We are gaining control of it. We don't have it completely yet. But what I mean by that is once we have complete control of that piece of it, we'll have our own internal communications and external communication strategy that should help paint the picture for the whole community a little bit more clearly.

Mahalo for that response. Mahalo Chair.

Thank you. Member Uhl Hodgins.

Thank you, Chair. I only have really two quick questions and then Member Paulton can have the rest of my time as she had more specific questions. So one, I know majority of the funds have been obligated, but how much are we taking into consideration for the continual rising cost of construction? And do you folks plan for a cushion?

There is cushion built into the projects when the projects are submitted to CDBG-DR team, the infrastructure projects and the housing projects, they generally have a contingency built in. But what I'm concerned about is that contingency is not enough. I don't want to project that because the world's listening and we have money to spend, but The reality of it is these construction costs are, what we're seeing is the trend is an escalation. So we do have internal strategies on how to deal with that problem should it arise. So we're not over obligating.

Okay, sounds good. Yeah, let's not put it out there and manifest that in any way. I appreciate that. My second question, and maybe you can just answer this in writing, is obviously this last weekend was kind of nuts. we're going to probably consider or continue to see this kind of weather pattern. So how are you guys maybe going to adjust to last weekend? You can put that in writing because I know that this is not necessarily about tropical storm slash Hurricane Lala. So happy to, if you don't have an answer now, happy to wait on that. And then that's kind of all I had. Chair Member Poulton can use the rest of my time. Thank you.

Chair, if I may, I can start to answer your question and we can follow up further in writing, but the short version is when a big disaster happens, we've talked about this already, we have a few staff at Office of Recovery, they're not the CDBGDR staff per se that are in the room there, but there's a few other staff that will surge with Maui Emergency Management to get an understanding of how big this problem is. So as I'm sitting here, I saw some of our staff out the window with MEMA, and they're actually going out doing some damage assessments today. And so that's all happening concurrently. And then once we have a better feel for the entire impact of LALA, then we'll be able to decide whether that's something that MEMA can handle or we need to help them engage in additional help, you know, them and the departments. It will also depend heavily on if there's another federal disaster declaration. So we'll, right now we're just acting as staff search, but ultimately we may have a more prominent role depending on the support we get from the federal or state government.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

So, I just have... Thank you, Member Uhu Hodgins. I'll take the rest of your time.

Oh, you're going to do it now? Okay. Sure. Sure. How much time do we have, staff? We actually have 35 seconds. You have 35 seconds.

Thank you. My last question is regarding the CDBGDR multifamily rebuilds. Is there going to be any kind of timeline? Like, do we have to wait till 2031 for all of those rebuilds? Are some faster than others? We know that Ikaiko Ohana rebuilt their 89 units in two years from the disaster. Is there any kind of sense of urgency similar to that because insurance deadlines were in effect?

Yeah, there are project schedules for each of those. Some of them will start construction next year and then finish before 2031. Some of them won't start construction until projected until 2028. And just the real quick thing about the CDBGDR fund is, they know that they have to meet our timeline to be able to be eligible for fund and that means not just like under construction they need to be finished with construction by that point in time or they make themselves ineligible for the fund so that in itself drives them i know that's not the timeline we all want to happen but that's a good um help to push things along and then um Each one is also subject to, like you say, their own insurance, their own other supplemental funding. So we're just one of the funders for those projects. Some of them, they have to wait until next year until funds are available. Some of them have it now. But we could provide a list of projected schedules for each one that we're involved with.

Thank you. I'd appreciate that list of projected schedules in addition to my previous written questions. Thank you so much.

We got that. So I also heard that Deputy Director Watahaba walked into the meeting or is in the meeting. Is that still accurate?

Yeah, he's watching this.

Okay. Do you wanna answer Member Poulton's questions? Or does he have any comments regarding all this policy discussion? Is he on?

Sure, he might have stepped away.

Oh, he might have stepped away, okay. So for my question, you talked about, and we've been hearing this, that February FEMA will be exiting, right? And then through the years, we have heard the concern from residents who've had FEMA rental housing assistance. So how is all of this going to fit together and what's going to happen to the people who we have in temporary housing? We haven't finished our permanent housing. FEMA's going to walk away and what's going to happen to these people?

So we're actively, the Kewahana site, the one that's on the right side, the state site's on the left. The state's going to continue to operate and maintain that site over time for as long as they can. The government's already made that clear. But the Keelahana site on the right side, the county is going to take over that site. And we will go through a process with the folks that are in there in terms of eligibility. Right now, it's stressful because there's a policy where FEMA can't transfer the unit over to that policy so that we can keep people in if possible rather than moving them back in. So that's not something that's completely set yet but that is actually what we're working on in our tentative parent meetings with kingdom right now. So when the county takes over we can't take It's a pretty significant gift because it's called temporary infrastructure, but essentially it's permanent infrastructure that was installed there. And the hope there is to turn those units into a more permanent solution for folks for retirement. But for now, there's 167 units that the county will inherit. They can be used for fire survivors, and we intend to use it for that purpose.

And so the concern about the rent, right? I think the And people would reach out to us or send us emails that we're going to be losing rent. What's going to happen? So what's going to happen with that?

We can currently have a rental assistance. We can certainly have a rental assistance program that's going to be kicking off. It won't be as substantial as FEMA's, but it will be a big help. on asking for additional help from FEMA. So we've actually put it in writing already for them to consider some additional help beyond even February 9th here. Now, that's not been decided, but it doesn't hurt to ask and you have asked.

So even if FEMA is staying in Vaughn, they may help us still, is what you're asking for.

Well, you guys all know the FEMA folks too, so.

Yeah.

But I can't speak for FEMA, but I can just let you know that there are some things that we're asking them to continue to support us on.

Next, I'm gonna go to round two. Or would you like to take a break members, it's 1020. Wanna do round two, take a break after? Okay, let's finish round two then. Member Cook, followed by Chair Lee, then Member Paulson.

So my question, Mr. Smith, obligated, 1.3 billion is obligated, but it's not encumbered. What is the mechanics and timeframe briefly between it's obligated to get it encumbered? And then the timeframe, does it have to be completely spent and somebody living in it and the functionality of it completely?

it has to be completely that we have to um there's a term that hud uses but i'm splitting my mind right now the team knows it but it potentially has to meet the objective of the bond i mean we can't halfway build something and it's not ready we actually need to put people in those units so once once they get essentially a certificate of occupancy and then we start moving people in, that's complete. It's not just a matter of starting construction. So that really pushes, they call it a national objective, but the objective is to get people in housing.

So unlike other types of... what encumbered means. This means if it's obligated, that means a project is selected, funded, and going to be constructed. And then when it's encumbered, it means it's moved in and done.

We're kind of mixing financial terms too, and I don't want to make it too messy, but obligated is the projects that we're going to fund, they're pretty much set. unless like one can't meet the deadline. Like if we're going along the next year and we really are seeing that they're not gonna meet that deadline, then we might bring that to everybody's attention and say, hey, this is not gonna, and move it over to a different project that can meet that deadline. That's a possibility. But encumbered really gets into when we're spending the money. So it's obligated. Then that long list of steps that I got through, once we get into the contractual piece of it, that's usually when we start encumbered money and you start to see the drawdowns.

Thank you. My next and last question. The spending and obligations, the reimbursement, 72 hours, that's like literally wired. they really are the finest. They do. I don't know. I'm just, without getting in the weeds, I'm just curious. That's remarkable.

Yeah, I know that finance is on the line. I know that budget's on the line, and I know our team. I don't really get too involved in how that works exactly, but in general, we've obligated, we pre-review all of these costs so that by the time it actually hits the system that we use with HUD, it's already pre-approved. So it's really just a matter of click, click, click, click, and then the money gets back to us.

Good job. That's all my questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Chair Lee, followed by Member Fulton.

Okay. John, there were, what is your actual, do you have an actual number to help replace or find housing for the 80% of the 2,000 people that lost their rental units.

With this fund or just in, or all recovery?

Oh, no, no, just with this fund.

We do have those numbers. I'd be happy to either respond in writing or just maybe ask the room to rattle some of them off. But the obligated funds have housing units associated with those funds in terms of projected housing.

It would be great to see what you're planning, what your target number is. Yeah. and then what other people are building so that we have the full picture of what's coming up in West Maui and how many people will be helped and can return home. Okay, that would be very helpful to us and that's all the questions I have, thank you.

Yeah, that map and the one right next behind it. Next.

Okay, so Charlie, there's this presentation. So some of the information you want.

A version of what you're asking for is in the presentation, but we can get more detail into that later. But we'll send it to you. Okay.

Yeah, maybe, John, it gets very confusing on who's doing what and who's counting. You know, are you counting some of the private properties that are being built or units that are being built because you help reimburse, you help to reimburse something in it? You know, it's like, it seems like the numbers are double counted sometimes. I mean, because the obviously the people have not all returned. And if you were to guess how many people were able to return to their homes, what percentage would you say, as of right now, have been able to return?

You want to go back to this to the Well, actually, you can go on my recovery website if you want. Oh, I've got to say this. So, I'm so sorry.

What page are you on?

Well, sorry, this was not my, but it is on, oh, the housing progress page. So 577 units are complete right now. So that means people are in their homes and 400 are under construction, right?

And then there was another number for in the process.

There's 597 that are actually in progress. That equals, so in the home is 577, just straight, you could be in the unit. the overall like what does that math equal out to if you add the 577 plus the 400 plus the 597 i'm sorry i'm not going to do math live on this thing but that equals 81 and a half percent of all units that were lost okay but that that doesn't mean 81 are home today that just means that that we see in our permit system The actual data says that 81, and those, and because they're single family, both of those will be done within the next couple years. The multifamily stuff that we're talking about is coming, is gonna come a little bit later.

Okay, because, you know, people, because we're responsible for money as well, we need to know how much of the 55% of, the $1.6 billion, what is the net amount of housing we can expect with that amount of money?

We'll follow up with you with a slide that shows that. And it breaks it down between the CDBGDR investment versus the private investment. So you'll see that 800 or 900 million that you talked about earlier, you'll see where that's going and then you'll see how much of that private investment is going and then what that equals in terms of housing units. We can share that.

Okay, and so as far as you know, you're not spending anything on the miniaturized units that become available.

Well, we're just not tracking that on Office of Recovery that way, but we can run a report on all the homes that have been bought and cross-check it with the mental illness to see if some of them are on there.

And that would be very helpful. Could you do that? Thank you.

Yeah, we can do that.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. That's it for me.

We got that question and we'll forward it. Excuse me. Member Paulson is followed by Member Johnson. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Going back to the CDBGDR multifamily rebuilds, is there any requirement that they rehouse the survivors that were there during the fire if they meet all the income requirements? Like the people that got burned out of the CDBGDR multifamily rebuilds? Will they have a space to come back to or is it first come first serve?

The funding that we're giving to the multifamily units forces them to prioritize fire survivors to get back in those units.

And will they still have to meet the same income restrictions or?

That's a complicated question. I might ask Jeannie to answer that one.

So it might not be exactly the same as when they were there before, just because I'm not totally sure what it was. But when they rebuild, they all have to meet the LMI percentiles and they have to do a minimum of the income levels that were there before. So they can't raise the rents with their reconstruction to the existing units that they have.

Okay, and of the 83 shopping letters that were issued, that's 83 out of a total of how many do you plan to issue?

I think 120 was the target. That also is contingent upon how much funds each individual receives, because it's up to 600,000, but not everyone in the program needs the, I mean, most are maxing out if they can, but not everyone does, so that there is a remainder. So we're going to issue as far as we can reasonably, have a little bit left, and then there'll be another final round at the end to expend the rest of that fund.

OK, and on the older home restriction that we talked about earlier, has that communication been sent to the family that was looking at an older home that they can with the constraints? Has that been, like, officialized with writing to the people that were asking it?

I don't know if it's been directly back to them. I'll ask the room, but if not, we will. HM, do you know?

Yeah, I think at this time we asked the HOP applicant to provide the property information so we could do the internal checks, and I believe that's where it is right now.

My last email that I had from them to all of you, I think it gave the property information, so I can try to look back through my emails and forward that on if you don't already have it. But that was from over a month ago, so I'll try to find it. but it did give the address of the property they were looking at. So if that's all you need, I can provide it. Can you go over the other constraints you mentioned? Like they would have to do the lead-based paint assessment. What else was there on the older home purchase?

So it's going to be in... Can I respond or no? Yeah, please. Okay. It's gonna be a collaboration. The inspections and the remediation would need to be done and completed by a HUD-approved bed-based paint contractor. And then the seller and buyer would need to communicate to some degree as to how the remediation should be completed.

Okay, and the home purchaser is responsible for the cost of that assessment?

Yes. And all of the remediation would need to be completed prior to the acquisition being completed and occupancy.

Okay. That's 100%. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Member Fulton, followed by Member Johnson, Member Valdez-Hernandez, and Wu Cochran.

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to follow up with my question on about the 21 folks who got the letters out of 2,900 applicants. How do we, how much was it? 83. 83 got letters. Oh, I'm sorry. I had it 21.

That was in the last quarterly report. The new quarterly report will show that new number.

Okay. Here's my question, interest of time. How do we make that number higher? How do we get more folks to get those letters?

Well, we can reassess this program once we've gotten through that 120 number that I talked about. and then look at that compared to the rest of the fund that may be remaining. And at that point we could decide whether or not we would have money to put into a first time home buyer program to make it go even further. That's one possibility. I just wanna caution on that one though. We are learning a lot about the housing market right now on Maui. And a lot of people are being, and this gets to one of the questions earlier, are being, they want to live in Lahaina, but the stock's not there yet. So there's a timing component to this. And then the other thing is, there's nothing to say that we couldn't work with our own housing department and model a kind of a similar program after it, or a nonprofit, that we wouldn't have, because the administrative burden on the CDBGDR side is very heavy. So there's a couple different ways to think about this moving forward. My preference would be to get through the 120, do a serious assessment of how it went and where people are getting homes. and then come back and reengage with you folks to see if either it makes sense to be a VR thing, or maybe it's a different kind of program in the future, right? I mean, we are taxing the market right now more than you would think in terms of the homes that are going to be eligible for the folks that are going for them, because they generally aren't going to be able to afford a really nice home. It's generally going to be like a big surropper or a condo or just like, two or three bedroom, and oftentimes it's in central to be completely transparent.

Okay. You know, if you reflect on the problem, like you said, after 120 is done, you might come back and I guess there's a crossroads to look at whether we go with the Department of Housing or whether we go with a private contractor. I'm up for either. I'd be willing to learn what is the best route for that. So maybe when you get to that point, we do have some solid answers. I would be, you know, I want to learn more because that really shows the need. And there's my time. But, you know, we want to obviously there we have there's a lot of folks who need housing. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chad.

Chair, if I may, I mean, we're trying something brand new with this program, and there's a lot of things we're learning along the way. So I really feel like we will have developed a decent model by the end of it. And it's great that we've gotten a lot of people out there shopping, but there's a lot of people who are actually in their homes. I'd love to invite all you folks to one of the next housewarming events.

My time's up. You said after we'll come back. Do you think it would be before budget of next season?

Possibly. That's possible.

Okay. For us, in a charge of budget, we want to look at how we can help. I'd hate to skip a budget season. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah. I think we will definitely be back talking to you about this just because of the whole temp to perm cost. And so there's quite a bit, quite a bit of work to do there as well. So we'll definitely have a lot of opportunity to talk about that and this over the next several months.

Thank you, Director Smith. Thank you, Chair.

Very good. Thank you. Next, Member Rollins-Fernandez, followed by Member Upachins.

Mahalo, Chair. No additional questions. Mahalo for all the information and the good work.

Member Huchins.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, everyone. I also have no additional questions. Thank you so much.

I have one. Thank you. I have one quick question about action plans. I know that you have revised it. Can you revise it all the way to close to 2031, or what are your objectives?

Sure. Action plan amendments are... They're not done often. I think they're done more at the front of the program to just react to how you're going. But throughout the life of this program, we have the opportunity to make adjustments as we go. So if one of those obligated programs really needs a change, we can go back to HUD and ask them for that change. And that is a public process, so it's not like we just change it. we go back out to the public and then ask what they think. One of the things that we did recently on the Action Plan Amendment was the buyout program for Front Street in Lahaina. That went through a lot of public comment and we did set aside 50 million for that particular program through that Action Plan Amendment. That's something that was requested by the public through a whole bunch of engagement in Lahaina. and so we are also we're trying that so that's an example of what can happen i don't expect um any i think we have was it one maybe one more with some minor tweaks and then i don't expect any for several months after that unless something another disaster something happens that we can't predict

Is the $50 million, since you brought it up, is that sufficient?

How far are you going to get with... Well, we won't know until that program actually is fully subscribed or not. So that's an application process. The owner on the ocean side will submit an application. It'll be evaluated based on risk and based on the criteria that's in the plan. And then if... If they're successful, we have enough application. We could spend the entire $50 million. We may not. Some of them may not want to sell. It's a voluntary program.

Thank you. $100 million for the bypass.

Is that it? That's already done. $100 million is already one of those obligated funds.

And would that come at all through MPL?

Or are you guys doing it separately? The bypass project It will be there. The 100 million is almost, kind of think about it almost like one of these multi-family projects that somebody else is running. We're just supplementing what the DOT is doing to make the project whole enough to actually move forward.

Chair? If you don't mind, I have one last question. Sure. John, of the 1,574 units you referenced, whether they're completed under construction or in process, do you know how many are owner occupants and are all of them affordable?

I would have to get back to you on the details of that, but we can add that to our response.

Okay. Thank you.

Chair, and Member Cook, you have to leave now. Thank you for being here. Anybody else have a last question for Office of Recovery before we thank them? Member Palten.

Just checking with Ms. Kahula if she got the address.

I did, Member Palten. I just responded to your email as well. I'll look into that today.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We need another member to turn on their camera. Otherwise, we just lost one. Pete Johnson. Member Johnson, I think he's having technical problems. Can we just move forward? Okay, so let's take a quick recess, two-minute recess.

Longer than that.

Welcome back, members, to the BFED meeting. We have the last item on the agenda. Did you wanna take like a 10-minute break before we go into the last item? You do, okay, I see. Member Johnson still has his constituent in the office. So I'm gonna take a 10-minute break. Chair, Chair, member, do you have any other comments? I know we gotta defer this item, but okay. I'm gonna just defer this Office of Recovery item. Thank you very much for being here. We always like in-person way better for resources. I do too. Yeah, so thank you. And we'll send the questions that the members had to you. Appreciate it. So at this time, then I'm gonna take a 10-minute break and we'll come back at 10.58. We might as well come back at 11, see you at 11.

Thank you, members.

Welcome back members, it's 11.07, and I'd like to start off the second item on our agenda. First, I welcome member Matonga, good morning.

Hey, good morning, Chair. Thank you.

So this item, yes, oh, member Fulton.

Wanting to make a disclosure that an adult male has entered the room named George Vieira, thank you. Okay, thank you.

All right, so we will proceed. So the next item is Rule 7b discussion on administrative and management of county grants. We will focus on the proposed countywide admin rules. We received the proposed rules yesterday and uploaded item in Granicus for today's meeting. They can be found in Granicus number 29. Because we just received them, today's discussion will provide an initial overview and address questions about their scope and implementation. No legislative action will be taken under this item. And assisting us with our discussion today, we have Chief of Staff Lalo, Director Martin, pending and Budget Director Milner. And we also have to ask the following people to join us in case the members have questions on the rules and how they would administer them and how they affect their operations and staff. And we have a list, including managing director, grant coordinator for agriculture, Mahia Vasconcelos, Department of Director of Environmental Management, Peterson, Environmental Protection Sustainability Manager, Cecile Powell, Deputy Director of Housing, Director Mata'apa, County of Housing Programs Division Administrator, Cassie Yamashita, Director Willis, Director of Human Concerns, and the Grant Coordinator for Human Concerns, Curtis Jamison. So I ask for opening comments from Chief of Staff Lalo and then Director Milner, then Director Martin, and then Lalo can direct the other people who are standing by for finance. Thank you very much. Chief of Staff Lalo.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair and members. Nice to see everybody here. It's pretty tight down there in finance, so I think all of us are remote. Thanks for scheduling this. It's a long time coming. But before we begin today's discussion, I just want to take a moment to recognize the tremendous amount of work and collaboration that's brought us here. A big mahalo to our grant-making departments, finance, corporation council, the many staff members who have spent countless hours reviewing the process, identifying challenges and helping us make and develop the administrative rules. I also want to thank each individual council member and the many grantees and community partners who have shared their experiences, concerns and recommendations throughout this process. Their input has been invaluable. Modernizing and standardizing an antiquated government process is never easy. We are bringing greater consistency, accountability, and transparency to a grant system that has developed across departments over many years. That requires us to examine not just the administrative rules before you today, but the entire grant-making process, from applications, evaluations, to vetting, contracting, disbursement, monitoring, reporting, and closeout. I hope today's conversation builds upon the countless hours of work that have already gone into this effort. These rules are a milestone but are not the end of the work that we have in front of us. Our efforts towards standardization will continue. We're already working to create more consistent applications, evaluations, scoring process, vetting, grant agreements, all of the pieces of that through our grant networking group. Our goal is not to create additional bureaucracy, it's to make the process more clear, more predictable at our departments, and importantly, the community organizations that partner with us to deliver critical services to our residents. This has truly been a collaborative effort and we appreciate the committee's partnership as we continue building a county grant system that is more user-friendly. Deputy, I'm sorry, Budget Director Milner will cover status and focus on the administrative rules sections that I think you're most interested in. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Milner.

Thank you chair. Thank you members. Yes, as chief of staff said, this has been a long process. This is my first time participating in admin rules from the ground up. It's definitely been a learning experience on my side, but really appreciate the collaboration we've gotten from everyone. As you said, the draft rules were transmitted to the committee yesterday. They cover the general provisions for grants. They cover procedures, including fiscal sponsor, We are looking at implementing a process where the county would do a competitive solicitation and post a list of fiscal sponsors that the county has vetted already so that our community partners would be able to choose from that list rather than trying to have to determine how to do this on their own. We're looking at insurance and indemnification requirements, reports and record keeping. the disbursement of the funds, installment versus reimbursement versus advance or upfront disbursement. Disposition of equipment purchased with a grant, reversion of assets, monitoring and evaluation, and non-compliance procedures. So those are all covered in the administrative rules. And I know you just received them yesterday. So I would really like to invite the council members to take some time with these. And if you have any questions, concerns, or comments, if you could provide them to Chief of Staff, myself, and First Deputy Desjardins by next Tuesday. We'd be happy to take those into consideration before they are published for public comment. As for the timeline, what we're looking at right now, as you know, I was hoping to have that done earlier, the posting for public comment, but what we've done to date Chief of Staff and I did an initial draft. We then sent that over to Corporation Council. They did some tireless work on getting that done, their version done. We did a lot of back and forth with us and a couple of the departments. And once we felt we got it to a very good place, we sent it out to our grant-making departments and received comments from the Department of Water Supply, the Department of OUV Resources, the Department of Finance, the Department of Human Concerns, Department of Housing, Department of Agriculture, Department of Parks, and the department of environmental management and then chief of staff lalo myself and first deputy desjardins sat down went through all those comments and incorporated any necessary revisions into the document that was transmitted to you all our current intent is to have the public meeting on october 7th prior to velma mcquain being shut down for election activities which means it will be published for posted comment in early september Under HRS 91, we do have to publish in a newspaper. So we are navigating that process and also maybe reaching out to the state in the future to see what we can do about maybe getting a new Attorney General opinion. But that's probably a conversation for another day. So that's where we're at right now. And we are looking forward to this discussion today and here for any questions. Mahalo, Chair.

Any other or Director Martin, do you want to add to this?

I would like to thank everyone for their support and for including finance in the process. And I look forward to approving these rules. Thank you.

Thank you. Member Paulson, I see you have your hand up.

Thank you, Chair. I just have like a point of information, clarification. I am looking at the correspondence on Granicus and I'm not sure if they have it. It may be helpful for us if they have like a Ramseyer version, like what it was to what it is, like the changes being made.

Just if that's available. I think this is brand new. Director Milner.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Palten. While Office of Economic Development and Department of Human Concerns do have rules, these are brand new countywide rules. So no Ramseyer document is available because this is a whole new document.

Good question. All right. Do you have, Ms. Milner, or... Chief of Staff, do you have any of the other resources that need to be exempt at this time?

Thank you, Chair. I think they're probably just going to be available if you have any questions from them. I will say part of the reason we asked for their input is we really, as we said repeatedly, we don't want to break what's already working. And so we want to make sure that whatever we're putting into these rules doesn't make things harder for the departments or for our grantees. So that's what we're hoping to achieve. Thank you, Chair. Thank you.

And I would just add one additional thing is that it's super interesting as we bring housing in and we bring water in and we're talking about grants, not just grants, but grants of real property and things like that. So when you take a look at those administrative rules, what we're really looking for is unintended consequences. And that is what the departments painstakingly went through those rules and provided comment on. So council members, if you see anything in relationship to unintended consequences, please let us know. I am not an expert on acquisition of real property and leases and things like that, right? So I would just draw attention to that.

Thank you very much. So no other presentations from their resources. I'm gonna then open for public testimony. Any testifiers?

Chair, I do see one individual with his hand raised. Thank you. Calling in with the last four digits, 4945. Thank you, 4945, please testify.

That's me, Jesse Law. I sit and listen to all the whole last meeting. And yeah, thank you, Mr. Smith. At least there's a man in the room. And thank you, Mr. Cook, for your guidance there on the library stuff. But these meetings last longer than the library computer only allows you one hour. So it's on a

to suggest that.

So this meeting, I heard it's management of grants. I heard all women's voices talking. I don't work for the county, so you guys can't get me on the discrimination for sexual remarks like that. But that's one of my things is like, hoping there's more men involved. With all due respect for Lily Ocalani, her brother was pretty cool too. I think that's what happened was once the man left the kingdom, then once the king left, then the other white guys decided they're going to overpower the queen. So getting to the... I won't get too much into that. I was trying to educate some of the people there on out in the, they're listening out in the county of the last meeting about King Kalakaua and the money that was, he was trying to, he saw the future of America taken over. So I was trying to educate on that on the last meeting, but I guess pretty much whatever I say, Chair Sugimura is probably going to try to block me because she's been doing that pretty much, has been a pattern of that for going on years. Now, ever since she started, as a matter of fact, So I'll just go over, I don't know if I'm allowed to clarify the rules. Hawaii revised statutes, public agency meetings and records under 92-1, declaration of policy intent and a democracy, the people are vested with the ultimate decision-making power. The people, I said. Governmental agencies exist to aid the people, not to run the people, but to aid the people in the formation and conduct of public policy. Opening up the governmental process to public scrutiny and participation is the only viable and reasonable method of protecting the public's interests. Therefore, the legislator declares it is the policy of the state that the formation and conduct of public policy The discussions, deliberations, decisions, and action of government governmental agencies shall be conducted as openly as possible. And we'll jump to 92-3. Open meetings. Every meeting of all boards shall be open to the public and all persons shall be permitted. Is that the three-minute bell? That was kind of fast. I don't think that's three minutes yet.

Are you done?

No. Are you?

30 seconds.

One of the most important trusts we have as citizens is the trust we place in our government. When we elect public officials, we entrust them with great power. We trust them to work to our best interest. When that trust is betrayed, it threatens the very core of our society. Do not vote for Yuki Leisa anymore.

Are you done?

I'll be back.

Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? All right, none. Next testifier.

Chair, that's all the individuals wishing to testify. If anyone in the audience or on Teams would like to testify, please come up to the mic and begin your testimony or use the raise your hand function on Teams and staff when we can. Here's a brief countdown. Three, two, one. Seeing none, Chair Nguyen has indicated that they wish to testify.

Okay, thank you. Member Paulton? I saw a hand up. I don't know if it's a repeat testifier or somebody new in the room.

That was the testifier. We just lowered his hand.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Any other testifiers? I see none then, right? No other testifiers. At this time, then I'm going to close public testimony and receive any written testimony. with your permission, members. Somebody say yes? Thanks, thanks. Okay, so this time we'll do three minutes. You can ask the administration. So before we start the questions, just for clarification that any revisions to this based upon what was shared earlier is due next week, Tuesday, and the administration can say who the revisions go to. Is it Lalo? Director Martin is a budget director. And then announcement of the new admin rules will be posted in early September and October 7th. There will be a meeting at the Wellington Community Center about the admin rules. So administration, is that correct?

Thank you, Chair. Yes, that's correct. And you can send any comments you have to myself Chief of Staff Lalo and First Deputy Desjardins, please.

Okay, we want it all.

Yes, please. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much. Okay, so at this time then, Gabe Johnson, this has been kind of your baby. Do you want to go ahead and give your first three minutes? Okay, sure.

sure uh thank you and of course thank you you know i appreciate the opening remarks thanking everybody uh you know because it's a long it's a lot of work and a lot of a lot of people involved but i was looking for more for kind of a summer uh summarization in the opening remarks maybe and it wasn't ramsey just like councilmember paul brought up um i guess basically my clarifying or my question for the all the departments involved you know What is the biggest change or what are you most proud of in all the changes that you did? Again, we just got it today, so it's kind of hard to look at something that's not Ramsey. So we'll start with that. What's the biggest change? What are you most proud of?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Johnson. I will go ahead and start and then I will hand it off to Chief of Staff Lalo. But I would say my biggest change Point of pride or my biggest hope for this is that it provides clear guidance, particularly on payment options for our grantees. Exactly what is needed, and for our departments, what's needed. When you submit an invoice, you have to send, you know, also you have to send your cash check and your bank statement and things like that. And really just putting it in writing so there's a place for people to go to find that guidance. And it's not, oh, I talked to this person and they said one thing, but then I called somebody else and they told me something else. So really just trying... to provide that guidance in one place so that everybody is clear on how we proceed.

Thanks, Budget Director. And I'll jump in here and just for your ease of read, Section 02-201-011, Fiscal Sponsors. I would say that you will find some interesting information in there, as well as to Budget Director's point, 027-201-18, Disbursement of Grant Funds. I think the disbursement of grant funds is going to, I think it's the right tool for the job. It's what we needed before. We were just making exceptions. And that's not what we want to do as government, right? So I think the standardization that is in there is going to be beneficial for our grantees when we talk about upfront disbursements and upfront installments and things like that. So I think you'll like that section.

Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. You know, the presentation really helped. Oh, that's my time. Is that a test or is that?

I finished your question.

Oh, that's the end of my time?

It was, but please finish your question.

Okay. So basically, there's contracts that are multiple years, like in the Department of Human Concerns. The admin rules now affect contracts that are long or older, like specifically for the Lanai affordable housing project. I'm sure you guys heard there was money, but they had an old contract. I see Director Miller pull on. That's what let's start with that now. Wait for second round.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Johnson. Yes. And I apologize. I should have said this in my opening remarks, but these rules are from the date they become effective forward. They will not be replied retroactively. So. They're adopted forward. If you have an agreement, go with the language in your agreement. This will not be retroactive to anything that's already in existence.

So when is the date? Today?

The public meeting will be October 7th.

Okay.

And then I think 10 days, as long as there aren't any major revisions, 10 days after that.

Thank you so much, Director. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the time.

Thank you. Chair Dee, followed by Member Fulton.

Okay, I guess, can you direct us to the provision in, or the section in the new rules, proposed rules that prevents the, Well, what we've been getting all the complaints about is the period of time it takes to go through the application process. Okay, so you receive the application and then it takes a long time before they get an answer. And then after the contract is executed, it can take months, literally months before people can receive money. Now, how do the new rules prevent this from happening?

Thank you for your question, Chair. So within the administrative rules, in relationship to the timeline that you're referring to, it's not addressed in these administrative rules. I can only speak from the departments that I practically know and work with in relationship to timing. But as soon as the application comes in, like we have human concerns that knows what they're going to be allocating in the next fiscal year before the fiscal year starts, right? So pending approval of the budget, of course, right? But, you know, for instance, for OED, right, it takes us about a month and a half, no more than 60 days to vet and get those agreements going. So I'm not sure, Chair, exactly what the issues is, but that would happen. those timelines would be addressed in the ongoing standardization of application and vetting components okay you haven't established a minimum a minimum time 30 days for this 60 days for that or is everything open-ended um well That's a good question. And I am, like I said, I'm not sure across the board, right? But the standardization will allow for particular windows, right? The windows will all be open at the same time, closing at the same time, and then the vetting and the scoring will be the same.

Okay. Sorry to cut you off, but let's see. My last question would be, Do you treat the district funds differently from the regular grants or the regular allocations in the budget, in your OED budget? Are district grants treated differently? Because it comes from the council member and the council member has already designated a person or an entity to receive the money. Can you answer that?

Sure. I would be happy to. So district funds can be applied, right, not just to OED, right? They're applied to other folks, other departments as well. But I can tell you that this go-around, as you all know, Maria Ornelas is the primary point of contact for all residency area funds. Folks that have been named in the budget or line itemed in the budget still have to go through the application process, and they still have to receive a minimum score in order to be granted. We want to make sure that those organizations have the knowledge, capacity, and bandwidth to be able to manage the funding.

Okay. What if they don't? they've been doing this, let's say, managing a grant for years, and now all of a sudden, they're not qualified. Does the council member have continued to be able to designate a person or entity to be the grantee? That's all my questions.

Yeah, they're not competitive funds, right? They just have to meet a minimum threshold, like minimum qualifications, right? They just have to meet that threshold, but they're not competitive. In competitive buckets, right, typical grantees that come in can be outscored, right, by other applicants. But that's not the case for residency area funds.

Okay, thank you. Sorry, if I could just add, Chair. Yes. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair Lee. I would just add the line items under the residency area funds are treated the same as all other line items in the budget. If we do have an application that comes in that doesn't reach that minimum score, we try and work with the grantee to get them up to that minimum score, often involving the council member's office to assist with that. As we know, they have those relationships with the grantees. If they cannot meet that, we keep the council member apprised of that. throughout the process, and then it's up to the council member if they want to continue to designate that organization, knowing there have been issues in the past. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Member Paulton.

Thank you, Chair. I understand that this isn't a bill, but has court counsel signed off on these administrative rules?

If you have a better idea.

That's a great question, Mimi.

If I may, Chair, thank you for the question, Member Palten. So I've been working alongside all of the departments and the chief of staff and the budget director to compile these rules. So these rules will not go out for public hearing until Corporation Council approves them as to form and legality.

Is that why it's not until October 7th? Is that how long it takes?

No, actually, it's not until October 7th because the administration wanted, and this is unusual, I've done, this is my sixth set of administrative rules, and we have not brought them before council for comment before. So the administration was very interested in making sure you folks had a chance to to comment on these since they touch so many of your constituents that just with the deadlines of when we get stuff to Maui News and when my paralegal can go through and do a final sweep to make sure that everything is perfect, that is the deadline that we feel comfortable with in order to have everything done by that date.

Okay, thank you. And I see that they also need to be publicly posted for 30 days. So does this count as the public posting that we're starting? Okay.

No. So what's going to happen is we'll do a notice of public hearing. We'll have a summary of the rules in that notice. There'll be direction on where folks can get hard copies. There'll be direction on where the link is so they can get online copies. So yeah, they will be very available to the public pursuant to law prior to that public hearing. And then folks can show up and testify. And then at that point, if there are substantive comments made during that testimony that we should take into consideration, then we will take those and amend the rules to conform to that testimony if necessary before the final certification of the rules by the county clerk's office.

Thank you. And then I'd like to backtrack a little bit to Chair Lee's question about the line items or the area residency funds about the minimum qualifications. Can that be pulled out? Like what section is that under? Like the minimum qualifications a grantee would need to meet Because if that's just standard, then going into the budget, we can verify it with the agencies that they meet those minimum qualifications before line iteming or residency area funding them.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Paul. I'm trying to pull up the specific section right now. but I know we do have in here, here we go, 201-10 procedures and timetable for the submission of grant requests. Lists out copy of bylaws and things like that. But if you have any questions on that, let me know. Thanks.

The next question I have is for Mr. Jamieson. I recall when Member Rollins-Fernandez was the BFED chair, we went over your grant criteria. Is this significantly different for back when you were Housing and Human Concerns? I don't know if you remember the grant selection and grading criteria. Is this kind of in alignment with what you did back then? Or is it if you could point out any differences?

Hi, good morning. This is Curtis Jamison. I'm the Department of Human Concerns Grants Management Program Manager. Thank you for the question. There'll be a couple of changes based off of these administrative rules, but nothing substantial in terms of changing our direction or where we go regarding the evaluation of grants and criteria we have for grants. There's a few things in there regarding like minimum number of people on the review, on a review committee and things like that. But for the most part, our department will be able to move forward as is. And I think we've gone through that process to ensure that by putting the administrative rules in place, things that are working well are not going to have to change substantially.

So you're supportive of this based on the process that you all have been working on?

Yeah, our department's provided the feedback, and for the most part, I think they've been incorporated in as well, so yeah.

Okay, and then that's my time. Yeah, okay.

We can go for another round if we need. Member Patonkin.

Thank you, Chair. Administration, have you solicited comments from every department that does grantmaking? I heard the list in the beginning and didn't write it down, but I just want to confirm that everybody who does grantmaking in the county has been working with you on this.

Thank you for the question. Yes, they have.

okay um and with the so like transportation for example didn't have any um issues with the um disposal of goods purchased through county property or with county grants

Thank you for the question. I am not aware that they did count. Leslie, do you remember anything specifically on that from transportation?

We didn't get any comments from transportation, but I'm happy to reach out to them directly to ensure they don't have any concerns with that section before we proceed.

Okay, thank you. And then I see that there is a reference to the administration of grants is being done by through the administration grants oversight and leadership division i'm guessing that's within the department of management so administration of grants are no longer being done by each individual department it's all coordinated centrally through management and there's only going to be a specific individual within each department am i reading that correctly

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Patonga. No, we will still have grant managers and grant coordinators within the departments. The Gold Division will solely be responsible for ensuring the countywide rules are adhered to and things like that. But you'll see later in that section, there is a sentence that was added that the gold division does not have oversight over any of the department awards. The departments retain that responsibility. So gold will just be a centralized knowledge repository who will also have their own portfolio, but the departments will still manage their own grants.

Okay. And then I noticed that the rulemaking doesn't include reference to application materials or evaluation criteria. Is that on purpose? And does that need to be included?

Thank you for that question. That standardization is actually forthcoming and not part of the administrative rules.

Should they be? And I will direct this one to first deputy. Because my reading of HRS was that this is an outward facing function that probably should be encompassed in the rulemaking process, no?

Not necessarily so. However, once that standardization is complete, the rules can be amended to include that. Oftentimes when we have new administrative rules like this, what ends up... Oh, I'm sorry. Can I finish my sentence? Thank you. What often happens, Member, is that we end up going back and having to make additional amendments and changes, which would require us then to have another public hearing. But if necessary, we'll be doing that.

Okay. Thank you, Chair. I heard the time.

Okay, thank you. So... I wonder if the administration can submit to us your summary of the rules, which was mentioned, I think Director Milner was saying that that was gonna be presented to the community. So can you have that for the council to look at? Can you send a letter to them? Okay, thank you. I will, so if Ms. Milner, we could have that also. And through this process, we have received concerns from nonprofits who have not received their grant award. In some cases, which I mentioned at another meeting, it was like two years and they still haven't gotten all their money. And I recently heard of another one. So do you have in your rules a process for getting a guideline for time schedule or whatever so that we don't end up a year later and people saying they still haven't gotten their money. Is there something in the rules that can address this?

Thank you, Chair. I think it would depend on what the specific circumstances are, but I have to say that even if there is an area in the rules where it says the county will submit reimbursement within 30 days of receipt of an invoice, it would say 30 days within receipt of an invoice as approved by the Department and the Department of Finance. And I know that that's been the holdup for a lot of these reimbursements is the documentation received hasn't been approved. And so there's been a lot of back and forth before they can get reimbursed. If you're aware of other situations, I'm happy to talk to you about a case by case to follow up and see what we can do to get those closed out. Thank you, Chair.

So it's kind of concerning. I think all members must have received over time, you know, some of the concern that we hear from the nonprofits. And we've heard Member Johnson advocate for, you know, all the nonprofits that are helping us. So yeah, I mean, we just got these admin rules, but I'm going to look to see how you're going to protect the the county as well as the nonprofit, so this does not happen. And is there a section that you talk about it?

Or clarify it? Thank you, Chair. I know there are some sections in here that do address turnaround time on certain items. I don't have the exact section in front of me at this moment, so I'm happy to call that out in writing if needed. Thank you, Chair.

The organization that recently came to me is Kalima O Maui, and we rely on them quite a bit to help us in parks and all these different areas. So We support the organization, its people, and whatever. But when I heard that, I thought, well, that has a lot of impacts, I think. Members, do you have any more questions?

Sorry, Chair. I believe Colima O Maui is a contract. So if you could reach out and let us know what the issue is, we can follow up with the appropriate departments to see what the holdup is. Thank you, Chair.

They haven't gotten paid for a long time. Member Johnson.

Thank you, Chair. And, you know, I know we're getting towards the end of the meeting, so I just wanted to read out a little bit, a paragraph from the state law, and I want to ask the departments how they're handling this. So this is 02-201-06, Administration of Grants and Programs, Applicability of Rules. So this is a quick paragraph I'll read. The county will be responsible for the administration of the Maui County grants programs through the Grants Oversight and Leadership Division, the GOLD Division, which shall provide technical assistance, standardized compliance, monitoring for county grant programs, will have no authority to direct, restrict, or modify the specific department's funds. And I know Director Milner brought that up, which is important. for other those directly assigned to the division. Each county department may assign grants coordinators to oversee grants management by a specific department. This is where I wanted to kind of focus on. Each department may issue its own grants management handbook, which must be approved by the director and must be consistent with these rules. So Gold's division or whatever, how does that work? Because if we're standardizing our our process, does each division have to come up with its own handbook and have to amend it? Or how do you uniform it when every department does it a little bit different? Is your handbook going to have to all need updating or is it going to be one overall handbook? That's what I want to ask right now.

thank you chair thank you councilmember johnson yeah the intent right now is we're once we have the standardization in place we would develop a county-wide handbook uh that the departments then would be able to slightly amend as needed for example department of agriculture is the only department that allows for sole proprietors uh due to the language in 3.36 things like that but we really want to be able to just provide that overall county-wide guidance and have small tweaks department to department that we can just highlight Thank you, Chair.

So it's not a one-size-fits-all, of course, because there's going to be some departments are different. And that's what I wanted to bring up. So it sounds like you can amend it. And it doesn't start the process all over if you do these little tweaks, do you? We have to do these public hearings like what Mimi was bringing up?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Johnson. Yes, if there is a change to the admin rules, we would need to start... Sorry. We would need to start the public process. We would need to do the 388 posting and anything like that. So if there are any changes to admin rules, hopefully we can kind of figure out what they all are at once and do them so we don't need to do this process, you know, every three to six months.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for the response. And I'm sorry, some of these questions, it would have been nice to have a presentation on this. I want to end it here. I appreciate you giving me a second round, Chair, but a presentation on these changes would have really helped. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Agreed. Anybody else have a second round question? Member Busselman.

Thank you, Chair. I just want the administration to be aware that the Council is working on legislation related to nepotism and conflicts of interest with the Board of Ethics. um and so i looked at your definitions for nepotism and conflicts of interest because they are taken up in this rulemaking process conflicts of interest does reference um the ethics code so if we do anything to that it should be captured uh nepotism does not um And that is something that the Board of Ethics is taking particular interest in. So I just wanted to flag that for you because there's no way for the rules as written to reflect any changes that the legislative branch may make in coordination with the Board of Ethics. And I think that should be captured. And then under conflict of interest definition, there's kind of a subjective line in there. I'm trying to scroll through the code. to get back to it. But it had to do with like, okay, means real or seeming incompatibility between one's private interests and one's public or fiduciary duties, the seeming incompatibility, how do you define that? And who enforces it? Or I guess, who would make that determination?

Chair, I can answer that question. It's a great question, members. So if you notice, we tagged in the Maui County Code of Ethics there at the end of that definition. But of course, the Code of Ethics will supersede these rules. So in other words, if we were asked to opine on a conflict of interest that the department wasn't comfortable making on their own, we would look at the situation, but we would probably defer to the Code of Ethics and even confer with the Board of Ethics if necessary. But remember, too, that every time there's a change in the legislation, and I'm not telling you don't change the legislation because the changes are good we will probably have to tweak these rules but that's okay we do this all the time so the fact that we have to publish a notice of hearing and have a public hearing um is what we do whenever we change rules It's not that big of a lift, so I wouldn't be that concerned about it. And again, if inconsistencies arise, for example, in the definition of conflict of interest in these rules and what the Board of Ethics does, we will most likely tweak our conflict of interest definition here. What we like to try to do is ask the departments all at once, if you have things to change, please let us know at one time so we're not going in and having a public hearing every single time somebody brings something up that needs to be changed. So we'd help coordinate that.

Okay. So for seeming incompatibility, if somebody from the public took issue with, I don't know, something, and I bring this up because we just had a meeting with the Board of Ethics related to some legislative changes, and it came up that there were people who were abusing that system, filing complaints, over and over and over despite repeated rulings against them that kind of jammed up the board of ethics processes. I don't want that same issue to become a log jam for us distributing grants just because somebody says that there is a seeming incompatibility here. So I guess that's where my concern with the subjective language on their conflict of interest is. And then back to nepotism. Again, we haven't finalized any language with Board of Ethics, but if you could put a catch-all under that definition so that it references the code of ethics so that whatever we adopt will become applicable to your rules, I'd appreciate that.

Yeah, I noted that. Can I just comment on seeming, sorry to interrupt you. In commenting on the seeming incompatibility, if you look at the difference between a real or a seeming incompatibility, sometimes that seeming incompatibility references appearances of impropriety or appearance of conflict. And those types of scenarios, our department, we confer a lot with departments about what is an appearance of incompatibility. We don't want to stifle grantees. We don't want to assume that they have a conflict. So we look deeper into all of these issues. We don't want a rule that's so stringent that it hooks in people that really don't have a conflict. We live in a small community, you know what I mean? So we're trying to balance that. And of course, we likely would be conferred with on that subject before a decision was made. I would hope so.

Thank you. Chair, I did have one more question, but I heard the buzzer. And if it's your pleasure, I can just follow up with the administration.

Member Batangue proceeds with this last question.

Okay, thank you members. So I guess to the administration, I want to thank you for building in these fraud, risk and abuse protections. I see them in the grants review panel, but I don't see them, those restrictions don't apply to anybody writing RFPs or managing the grants themselves. Is there any, was that intentional? I know that the ethics code might catch some of those behaviors, but I just want to make sure that you aren't overlooking anything here.

Thank you for that comment. We will absolutely have that awareness as we're looking at this in the next 30 days.

Thank you, Chair. That's all I have.

Thank you. So I have a quick question. When I brought up Halima O'Malley, it was said that they have a contract, so therefore these rules would not apply to them. Is that what you mean? Is that what the administration inferred?

Thank you, Chair. Yes, the administrative rules under Section 3.36 of the Maui County Code are only for grants of county funds. They do not apply to contracts.

Is there another section that the contracts then would have to follow?

Thank you, Chair. Contracts, I believe, fall under the procurement rules that are released by the Department of Finance. I can defer to Director Martin on that. And I will let you know I've already reached out to the two departments who contract with Kalimo Maui. And I'll provide you an update as soon as I hear from them.

Thank you. Director Martin? Oh, can't hear you. Director, you're muted.

Oh, sorry. I'm not directly aware of the situation with Kalima, but again, you know, when Leslie Miller reaches out, if finance can be of any assistance, we'd be happy to help. Thank you.

Okay. Members, anybody else have any questions?

No?

Oh, Member Palten.

This Just clarifying that we were going over this because this administration, unlike any previous administration, wanted the council's input before they finalized for the 30 day notice for the October 7th. What was the deadline you wanted us to, provide input by? Was it end of day on Friday or Friday is a state holiday, fake state holiday, whatever you want to call it. So when can you tell us when the deadline for our input is? Is it the 21st?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Pardue. Thank you. End of day on August 25th. So one week from today. Oh, 25th. Thank you. Thank you.

Enjoy your day off. Is considered at 4.30 or 4.45? Let's say 5 p.m. 5 p.m. Thank you. Live large. I'm going to go wild this weekend.

It's sent to any of the directors online. or it would be either Milner or Martin or Lavo, right? Those are the three names that they gave us. All right, any other questions, members? Seeing none, okay, I'm gonna defer this item and we can bring it up again if we need to. Thank you very much, appreciate all the work that has gone into this and I'd like to thank Member Johnson who has given this his special attention. Oh, I lost the forum. Oh, there you're back. Okay, thank you, Member Johnson. I was just thanking you as you were ready to, yeah, thanks for all the work you've done in France. So anybody else have anything? If not, this item is now deferred and this meeting is adjourned.