16 Water Resources Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the subcommittee meeting of Monday, 03/09/2026. It is now 10:04, and for the late start. We kind of clearing all the cobwebs literally, figuratively. I'm Shane Senensi, your committee chair. Hello, members, taking the time to attend this meeting.

As a quick reminder for members of the public to please silence your cell phones or any noise making devices. Members in accordance with the Sunshine Law, if you're not in the council chamber, please identify by name who, if anyone, is in the room, vehicle, or workspace with you today, and minors do not need to be identified. Please see the last page of the agenda for information on meeting connectivity. Joining us this morning, we have committee vice chair Gabe Johnson. Aloha and good morning.

Aloha and good morning chair, council members, community members. There's no testifiers here at the Lanai District Office. I'm alone on my side of the office with my snoring dog and my chirping birds outside. So I'm here and ready to work. Mahalo, chair.

Alright. Great. Welcome, Hoku. Also joining us in the chamber is council member Kawanoi Batangen.

Hey. Good morning, chair.

Morning. Thanks for being here. Also in the chambers, we have council member Tom Cook. Aloha and good morning.

Aloha. Good morning, chair. There's currently no testifiers in the Kihei office, but we

have staff on standby and looking forward to your meeting. Welcome, Kihei office. I don't see chair Lee. Is she on? Oh, she's logging on. Okay. We'll come back to her. Joining us in the chambers, council member Tamara Poulton. Aloha and good morning.

Aloha. Streaming live and direct from the council chambers.

Aloha for being here. I presume member Rollins Fernandez is in Molokai or somewhere in the world. She'll let us know.

Aloha. Aloha. With a background from Lanai. Oh. I'm at my private residence. I have my daughter with me. She's under the weather. So if you see me speaking with anyone, that's who it is. And there are currently no testifiers at the Molokai District Office. Mahalo chair.

Hi. From the Cedar Room at Lanai Hotel. Welcome. Yeah.

That's it. I

do see chair Li now. Aloha and welcome.

Aloha, chair. I'm here alone in my workspace. I'll be here today because my kitty is undergoing surgery today, so I have to be on call for her. But I am on call for you as well. Thank you.

Okay. Mahalo for being here, and prayers for your little kitty. Also joining us in the in the chambers is member Sugimura. Aloha, and good morning.

Good morning. Aloha. Nice to see you, and I hope all of you had a great weekend.

Thanks for being here. I do not see, member, U'u Hajans, but I'm sure she'll join us in a little bit. For the administration, today, we have acting director of human concerns online for our first item. And then, for our second item, we have the director of the East Maui Water Authority. From corporation counsel, we have miss Yukari Murakami.

Aloha, good morning. We also have subcommittee staff with us this morning. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Okay. Members, on today's agenda, we have two items, the continuum of care for substance abuse, Watsup, one seventeen, and the operational budgetary review of the East Maui Water Authority, WSOP one eighteen.

Without objection, members for WSOP one seventeen, I'll be designated chief executive officer of Maui Behavioral Health Resources as a resource under rule 18 a of the rules of the council because of her expertise on Aloha House, medically monitored with withdrawal management program. Any objections?

No objections.

Miss Nicole Hokuana, call them ai. Staff, do we have any testimony this morning?

Chair, no one has signed up, to testify at the beginning of the meeting. Would you like us to do a last call?

Sure.

If anyone would like to testify, please come up to the podium or raise your hand on Teams. The countdown is three, two, one. Seeing none, Chair.

Okay. Mahalo. I'll now proceed with our first agenda item. Members, today's first agenda item is continuum of care for substance abuse. Aloha House is part of, Maui Behavioral Health Resources, and we have miss Hokoana here today.

And I believe many of you had attended the groundbreaking or the opening of the new dormitories. Aloha House was established in 1977 to provide sober living accommodation for adults in recovery. Their continuum of care to treat substance and alcohol use disorders has grown to include a medically monitored withdrawal management program. Established in 2000, Aloha House Inc. Medically monitored withdrawal management program aims to safely manage subacute withdrawal symptoms symptoms when an individual stops using substances or alcohol.

It also introduces and connects participants to treatment options, supporting their continued recovery journey beyond the initial medical stabilization. And so to learn more about this program and other care options, we have Ms. Nicole Hokoana from Maui Behavioral Health Resources with us this morning. Again, mahalo for joining us, and, you now have the floor.

Good morning. I was was actually trying to move this farther away from farther away from me. Aloha, kakai kakahiyaka kako. Good morning, chair, vice chair, council members, and council member for inviting me to speak. My name is Nicole Hokuana, and I am the CEO for Maui Behavioral Health Resources, which includes three agencies.

We'll be talking about Aloha House today, but our sister agencies also include Malama Family Recovery Centre as well as Maui Youth and Family Services. So today, I wanted to share with you guys a little bit I mean, I I took this as an opportunity to share and educate you guys a little bit about what we do. In my role as CEO for the last two years, I've really begun to realize that we're kind of tucked away and not many people know much about treatment services and some of the unique services that we provide here on Maui that is really unprovided throughout the state. So Aloha House has been in community since 1977. We serve primarily our local community here.

We've been a safety net providing the only residential treatment program here in Maui County that is accredited both nationally as well as within the state. We maintain licenses, and this is for many, many years. And I think it's an important part of being a provider, being accredited and having and maintaining licensure. So we also provide a medically monitored withdrawal management program, and it's also unique in this state. So what happens I'm gonna describe a little bit of our work flow, but we've been working very closely since the year 2000 with the emergency department.

So when people go to the emergency department and they're detoxing from substances, the emergency department will not want to admit them unless there is a medical condition, an acute medical condition that requires admission. So our partnership with the with Maui Memorial or Maui Health started in in the year 2000, and what happens is the ED will conduct a physical, do a toxicology screen, order medications that might be needed in order for the for the patient to be able to detox a little more comfortably, and then they call us. They let us know that they're gonna be transferring a patient to us as long as that patient consents. So with that consent, we'll we'll drive to the emergency room, we'll pick up that consumer, we'll go to the pharmacy, pick up their prescription, and we'll bring them onto our campus. And what one of the reasons this is such a unique partnership, but also we have registered nurses 20 fourseven.

So we're really able to care for a subacute population that most I don't know that there's any other organization in the state that does something similar. And we've been doing it for so long that this is kind of the only way we know how to operate. But one of the many one of several benefits is that it we reduced the the people in the ED, right? Reserving care, ED care for those that are in most need of it. So we we we're bringing them onto our campus.

We're exposing them to our campus where we have people there that can engage them in treatment because detox isn't treatment. Detox is just the first step. We're able to offer medications that are prescribed by the physician to stabilize them medically and then be talking to them, counseling them, hey. Are you ready for treatment? And then, of course, our hope our goal is that they'll say yes. You know? Maybe now is the time. And our campus is there. Right? So it's just a couple feet away, we can transfer them to our residential program.

And we just have the best it's just the best likelihood that someone will give treatment a try. And the first two weeks of being on our campus, they're most vulnerable of leaving what we call against medical advice or against staff advice, but it is a voluntary program. So, at any rate, that's some of the benefits of having a medical detox with this nursing capability. Also, offer on our campus, we have a mental health stabilization program. So after or while they're detoxing, if they need sort of psychiatric medications, we can connect them with APRN Rx.

We can get them those medications because often it's co occurring. So we know people are struggling with maybe some mental illness. They have anxiety. They may have depression. They also have a substance use disorder or alcohol use disorder.

So we're able to, like, treat any and all of it. And if they're not ready, quite ready for residential because they have a mental health concern that's sort of a barrier, like we need to take care of their anxiety a little bit before they can really engage in treatment, then we can put them into the mental health stabilization program for ten days, stabilize, and then try and get them into residential. So our campus is super unique. Having the medical staff, having psychiatric services, it's just it really is. It's a really great program, and we're very committed to, you know, trying to keep these programs open and available here on Maui.

Programs like this may have existed in the past on other islands, but it is cost prohibitive because of the nursing. And we all know that what nursing costs nursing costs have risen over the last five years. So I wanted to provide this chart just short of inform the members and also mostly I mean, also the broader public about what happens over time when reimbursements remain flat while costs go up. So you might be able to tell a couple of things from this chart is, you know, we were about breaking even around COVID 2019, 2020. And maybe like a lot of organizations, we were we expected the cost to go down.

We expected housing cost that rose to be temporary. We definitely didn't plan for wildfires. We didn't anticipate that the exorbitant rise in costs over time. And so what the situation Aloha House is finding itself in, which is part of what I wanted to share with you guys about is that we have flat contracts with the comp you know, flat meaning, like, our revenue doesn't change over time. We do have we have contracts with the Department of Health, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division.

We've received the same amount of funding for ten years, more than ten years. And I'm very grateful to the county. We've received support for our residential program, for our medical detox from before I was ever at Aloha House, so I'm very grateful to the county. But and there's a lot of really valuable nonprofits out there, so I never want to, I don't know, not be grateful or not appear grateful. But we we do typically receive the same amount over time, and so it doesn't help us to meet the meet the rise in inflation.

Also, a big struggle for us is insurance companies. Aloha House is about 85% Medicaid funded, and so that was the other concern that I wanted to, you know, just bring awareness to. Because the big beautiful bill, we're starting to see impacts. You know, we know that it entails major Medicaid funding cuts. What that looks like us today for us, what it looks like is we're providing you know, people with behavioral health issues, you need to help them now.

Like, you know, the window of opportunity to really you know, that window of readiness, that motivation to change, it opens and closes. Right? And so you have to catch it when it's open, which means we can't wait two months for your PCP appointment to get a referral to Aloha House. And that's why we work so much with the emergency department because people are going in there, they're not feeling well, they're going in there, and we can try and get them in, get them that physical, get them the prescriptions they need, like, right away. But having said that, what we're seeing with Medicaid now is, you know, the work requirements.

So questions about previous work history being a barrier. We're seeing requirements for citizenship, proof of citizenship, so that's your birth certificate, your passport. We're seeing Hawaii residency requirements, so your license. A lot of our a lot of these folks don't have documentation. If they're not from and, like, if they're from the continent, then they don't.

Then it can take months for us to be able to retrieve those documents. Our staff are very adept with Medicaid and the MedQuest office. We can get people that were formerly on MedQuest reenrolled if some of the if those documents are already at MedQuest. But if they're not, then it can take three to four months to get people enrolled. So so that as a that's just we're just seeing a a slowdown.

Right? We can't admit people right away if we can't get them enrolled in MedQuest. So Medicaid issues, I don't know if you guys remember. I think around January, there was, like, this sudden I believe it was an executive order, but it it was there was a block on on sud, substance use disorder and mental health block grants. It happened in the morning, and then by the end of day, it was rescinded.

And we're like, phew. Because the block grants fund the state department of health. And then the state department of health collects you know, receives these big block grants and they distribute it to the different counties. So, I mean, we don't know what's gonna happen, but, you know, that's that's that's a portion of our funding, you know, that maybe at a whim, maybe may disappear. So we also know there's there will be a future reduction in the ACA marketplace subsidies, and there are limits on state provider tax use, which I don't know a lot about the fourth bullet, but so I'm gonna move forward.

So for us, what this means is fewer patients will be able to get on MedQuest, get enrolled, re enrolled, reduce Medicaid coverage. For our residential program that relies on from ADAD getting block grants, maybe there will be funding constraints. And then in our outpatient programs, there may be fewer people that are covered due to ACA subsidy cuts. So fewer people that have insurance. Right?

So so we're looking at I mean, with if Medicaid is, like, 85% of our funding source with government contracts, including the county being about 15%, you know, these are substantial concerns for us. And I would imagine all health care providers, especially those that serve the MedQuest population that serve as sort of as the safety net. Safety net programs like ours are gonna be impacted by the big beautiful bill. So declines in Medicaid enrollment, shrinking block grant allocations, reduced ACA subsidies, and what we feel right now is increased financial pressure. And this is kind of national, but, you know, here in Hawaii and definitely here on Maui, I think we all know, like, it's we're living in a very high high stress time where whether it's the grocery store or our cost of rent, our cost of housing, all of it is really expensive.

And if you think your grocery bill went up, imagine like my I I mean, our campus, we're feeding, you know, 50 people every day, three times a day. So our costs have also gone up. And so we I mean, as an organization, we have our homework to do also. Insurance companies, I have a teacher background, and I have a social worker background, and I had no idea what it would what it what it would be like working with insurance companies whose, you know, some of their staff members, you know, provider con, you know, provider contacts, for example. Like, their main job is to evade us, is to not write us back, is to not answer our phone calls, not return phone calls.

We get so busy as nonprofits that we fail to keep tracking it, you know, or have a dedicated position, but that's that's kinda what you gotta do. Right? So those that's been some of the learning curve for me is understanding that this is this is what it is. This is the game. Right?

And if you want them to pay, you have to really dedicate time, effort, and energy towards communication with insurance companies. And so we're really trying to do that to get an increase on our rates of reimbursement that are old. You know, we have old contracts with insurance companies, so we need to get them get those revised, and we need to be better advocates for ourselves in that arena. Having said that, it's you know, we still have the big beautiful bill and and all of the challenges that that that that is implied with that. So, anyway, this is about the conclusion of my my PowerPoint.

These are our challenges. Unstable, less stable year to year funding. There can be reduced access to care because we're we're unable to get people onto MedQuest. Definitely operational strain on detox and inpatient centers, and there may be increased wait times and which can which increases the risk of relapse for people that we're trying to serve. So these are some of the the risks and providers that challenges that we as providers are trying to keep our eyes open for and prepare for.

And I thought today, since I had this opportunity to share with you guys a little bit about what we do, I thought it was a good opportunity for you to understand, like, as a health care provider dependent on MedQuest, we need to diversify. We need to do we need we need to have a lot of strategies. But, also, like, we need our county and state contracts to to increase, right, to help us to meet the the inflation of the last five years that we thought would go away but never never did. Quite stubborn quite stubborn inflation we're seeing on Maui, and it just made the work all the more challenging. I don't know if anybody has questions or how this works next, but thank you all.

Hello, Okwana for that presentation. Thank you. Before we go to, Q and A, we'll take, any testimony. I see JC coming down.

Thank you for being here this morning. And and a new guy down there. When I when I saw this on the, Papa Kumu Manao, the agenda, other than thinking this would be a very relaxing and comfortable class because you're the the kahu, the teacher today, I just wanted I I wanted to I had some things, on my personal life, and I tried to, like, relate it to this the presentation. And I could see why they made, Nicole the the CEO of the company because that was very informative and and, it was a nice presentation. So, what the thing that popped up in my mind with this, she starts saying about Quest, and I think there's some called the coordinated entry system.

So when anybody and and like identification and passports and all this stuff, I was my concern was that if they're I'm probably on the the entry system too from when I was in the the Salvation Army's care over there in Kahului. My concern is that they put you on a computer list, and then who's looking at the list. So, yeah, you guys know where we're going with that with this past week's events. And I'm wondering personally if I could so I'm sorry I missed the the when you guys built the new Mhmm. The new housing up there because I would like to have seen that.

I guess nobody's really allowed to go just walking around in there. So I've considered trying to approach the gate. I'm gonna take a trip up to north side of the Mountain. But, yeah, I was wondering if I number one, if I could use your address to get an ID card. And number two, if I could look on the computer and see what they got about me on in there. Thank you. Thank you, Shane. And I saved the rest of my time for the Hawaiian peoples.

I'll JC for your testimony. Any questions for JC? Seeing none. Thank you. Are there any more testifiers?

Chair, no one else has indicated desire to no one else has signed up, so we'll proceed to last call. 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. I'll provide a brief countdown. Three, two, one. Seeing none, Chair. No one has indicated they wish to testify on this item.

Thank you. And your objections to closing public testimony at this time for this item? Okay. Thank you, Okay. Members, I would like to open the floor for questions and comments. Each member will have three minutes for the first additional rounds as needed. And we can go ahead and start with committee vice chair Johnson for your three minutes.

Okay. Thank you, chair. Thank you, miss Hokwana, for joining us today, and I just wanna first say thank you for the work that you do. This kind of work is is really important to our community, and I just can't thank you enough, which is why we try to fund you as much as we can. So I'm you you your presentation, it was really wide wide opening for me to see that all the struggles you're dealing with the with the recent cuts to your funding.

We do have some interesting grants out there. I'm I'm curious if you've applied for the farm to family. It is the local nutritional security initiative where you can apply and to get funds from the county to pay for locally grown food to feed your your guests. How does that have you guys applied for that grant?

No. I actually, I I did not hear of it, and something food related likely wouldn't be on our radar. So thank you for sharing about that funding opportunity.

Yeah. It was one of my priorities last year to help folks who are feeding people such as yourself, preschools, etcetera. And we hope, you know, this year, the department puts it in again for this upcoming budget. So there is funds out there, miss Hokwana, which I just wanted to bring that to your attention. Thank you. You can email me, and we can try to give you some details later off off the floor. But, really, I wanna move forward to that SUD block grants and that there was a chance they were getting cut, and you get that fund from the state. Yeah. Can you explain how is there a number attached to that? How much are you getting from the state state department of health for that sub block?

We've we've Aloha House so so we have three agencies. Right? But Aloha House has received about 500,000 a year for at least the last ten years. Mhmm. That that's yeah.

That's that's what we received for our continuum of care. So our continuum of care at Aloha House, it starts. So withdrawal management is often the entry point, and then we have residential, high intensity clinically managed residential program, which is about a forty five day program, which is what we hope people after being in our detox will transition to. From the residential program, we have an option for an extended care, also known as, like, day treatment. It's it's a little more supervised than completely stepping down to in intensive outpatient.

And then from intensive outpatient, we have outpatient services. So these are levels of care. And from Aloha House residential, the step down into outpatient levels of care, we also have clean and sober housing. So we try to get get people get people to stay within our clean and sober housing. So that 500,000, it goes to pay for prime primarily, it pays for the housing on the back end.

But we can use it we can use it in I mean, I don't know if I should finish explaining, but really quickly, we can use it anywhere in our continuum. But because we can charge insurance for the detox, for the residential, for the intensive outpatient, we try to charge use insurance MedQuest charge insurance for those types of activities, and then we save our state funds, our state block grants for what insurance won't pay for. So Insurance won't pay for transportation, care coordination, housing, and outpatient, which is like continuing care after you've kind of graduated from most programs, and maybe you see a counselor once a month, and you go to class like, three you know, two hours a week or something. So insurance won't cover that. So we try to use our state funds for what insurance won't pay for and insurance for what insurance does pay for.

Hopefully, that makes sense.

But response, and I'll I'll wait for second round chair. Thank you so much.

Okay. Mahalo vice chair. Sorry. I I forgot to introduce member Ouu Hodgins. She means sitting patiently. Welcome.

No. Sorry. I came late and in between miss Hokkawana's presentation. Hold on. I'm just trying to write down what she said last so I don't forget it. But hello. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Next, we'll go to a member of Batanggan, and and then we'll just go down the the line, member Sugimura.

Thank you, chair. Thank you for being

here. Thank you.

Does Aloha House have any service contracts with the county, or do we only give grants?

I believe grants.

Okay. So it's not multiyear. It's single year.

Single year. And

Well, I mean, with the Department of Human Services, it's usually two years. Right?

Oh, you do have multiyear grants through the department. Okay.

Yeah. Human concerns.

K. And with those, is there no, I don't know, service increase over time? Like, how come your revenue has remained flat?

I mean, not typically. Typically, county grants, state grants. I mean, there's a lot of really valuable and good nonprofits out there, and there's only, you know, so much money to give away. So I totally get that. You know?

And so mostly, our grant funds kinda stay flat because that's how I'm guessing the, you know, the department's able to meet the needs of various organizations, so it's hard to give increases. Sometimes we get a little, you know, a little bit of an increase. I don't know if there was extra monies or you know? So sometimes we do, but mostly grant funding, continuous kind of grant funding like we get from the state or the county, mostly it stays about the same. And same can be said for the state for ADAD. Right? There's they're funding treatment programs in the state, so it's hard to, I guess, justify or have the additional funds. Right?

Yeah. If your operating costs are increasing, but the grants from the county and the state are staying flat, then every year, there's a bigger delta.

Yes. Yes.

I guess that to me would be the justification for an increase if

Absolutely.

We have

to have

I would love an increase.

Thank you.

Yes. Okay.

That's all, chair.

Mahalo, member of Batanggan. And members, we also have acting director Jessica Krausz. Should you have any questions for her, I believe she's online. Member Sugimura?

Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. All the information. So Tracy Fujita is still with you? Yes. Lucky you.

She's

very good. Absolutely.

Yeah. And you said that wildfire impacted you. So what happened there? Did you get more clients, or what what was it?

Well, the wildfire contributed to because so much money came into community. People like counselors, licensed counselors, nursing you know, registered nurses were being called out to to serve in Lahaina, and they were paying above and beyond what we pay. So in order for us to kind of compete and keep and retain our staff, our licensed counseling staff and our nurses, we had to increase their salaries. And not not what everybody else was paying, but it's it's just it it just costs went up. So our you know, we had to become more competitive or else people were gonna go work out in Lahaina.

Okay. I understand. Yeah. So that contributed to our rising costs, but also the food and then just utilities and things like that, of course Everything.

Goes up. So you also said 85%, you are Medicaid funded.

Mhmm.

And so with everything that we're seeing with the federal government now, is that already impacting you? Or

Well, it's impacting us because MedQuest is getting more strict with requiring the proof of citizenship and proof of Hawaii residency. So the MedQuest office is starting to implement the changes Within the those requirements. Beautiful bill or whatever Yeah. Kind of requirements. And I think there's a work requirement as well.

There there's a work component of the big beautiful bill. And I know that when we're because we also bring we bring patients in from MCCC. And sometimes when we're trying to admit those members that are coming out of jail into our facility. Some of the MedQuest is, you know, putting up barriers and needing work kind of like their work histories. And we're like, okay, but they were in prison.

So they don't have a work history right now. So we're just seeing some different kinds of barriers that are related to that that just delay people being able to get enrolled in Med Quest. And in turn, that results in us not being able to serve them in a timely manner. Did you apply for

a GIA grant with the state?

We did. You did? Yes. So we did. For our detox specifically, we applied for a grant in AIDS. And it's because the nursing cost, 20 fourseven nursing is expensive. So we're hopeful that we can, you know, advocate for increases to our contracts, also apply for some one time funding like grant and aid, and then finally, you know, do more with insurance companies to get them to pay more and pay pay their fair share.

So that must be a universal problem.

Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Okay. Grants and

aid will not be awarded till the end of the legislative session, so you're gonna have to hang on for that. Yeah. But, yeah, we'd like love to advocate for you if you need. Thank you. Sorry. I went over.

No. Mahalo, member Sugimura. And I just wanted to add that at NACO, our friend Irene from Minnesota, she kinda mediated a a discussion about Medicaid and SNAP benefits. So we did get the information. We'll post it on to, today's meeting. Thank you. Granny kiss. Thank you. Member Palton.

Thank you, chair. Thank you, miss Kowana. I was wondering when you were talking about people coming out of jail, they're coming out of jail addicted to substances?

Yeah.

Okay.

So, yeah, if they I mean, we we have the the Maui drug court contract. Oh, okay. But then also there's pre pre don't know. Although yeah. Like, there's pre release if what the reason you've been in jail is because, you know, substance use related.

Are you seeing mainly that you're needing to detox from?

Well, we see all of we see all of it, but, I mean, we meth you know, meth is still the primary drug of choice, I would I would say, but meth is now often lined with fentanyl, and so that's where meth can be so people don't realize that they're they they may be ingesting fentanyl. They think they just took a hit of meth, but fentanyl is being added. So there's a lot of polysubstance use, and that's why we need the emergency department to do the tox screen so we can make sure that we have the appropriate medications to detox them safely because they may say and they're also poor reporters often of, you know, what they've taken or what they've done, but the talks the talk screen enables us to do it safely. And

then what is your success rate? Are you tracking that?

Yeah. I mean, our success rate is kinda typical. I would say that of the people that come in to detox, which is not treatment, it's an effort to safely detox and convince them to stay, We have about, I would say, low 70, high sixties percent of chance that they're going to come to residential. So a little bit more than half will say, okay. I'll come to residential. I'll give it a try.

And then in terms of how many people that you could, in theory, treat in a year and the budget for that, do you have those numbers? Like, if you were pumping out max capacity for the year and the budget that would take and then the shortfall in in that or the delta? Well, it's hard to that's a really great question. It's hard to answer that because so much I mean, our work is so complex.

People need to standard formula. Yeah. And people change their mind. We can do all the work to bring them in. We can detox them safely. They can agree, and then they leave. The average of

the last three years, what was your capacity or so? Like

So our residential facility, typically, between detox and residential, we serve about 400 individuals. And then but but, again, like, that's just the beginning. Right? Because residential, you know, you might detox three to five days, then you go into residential. Right?

If if all is going well, you go into residential. Depending on your insurance, you're in residential thirty days to maybe forty five. If we can justify an extended stay, then we try to get you up to sixty days. And then after that, you step down to outpatient, more outpatient services. But, you know, like, forty five to sixty days of sobriety is not that long.

And then once you go to outpatient and you don't have the same twenty four seven supervision, you know, we want you to enter clean and sober housing, but, you know, you're not supervised after classes. So, you know, it is a relapsing it's a relapsing disease. So our participants require a lot of support over time.

I'll come around next time. Okay. But my question would be, like, do you have a dollar number that you're gonna testify during the budget hearings?

Oh. Okay. Yeah. Well, I know my gap is about 500,000 right now. That's our gap.

Okay. Next, we have member Rollins Fernandez followed by member Cook.

Aloha, miss Hakwana. Aloha for your presentation and for answering our questions this morning. I I guess I can follow-up on that question with the 500,000 gap. Is that, like, all in programming, or are you able to provide us a little more detail on what consists of the 500,000?

Yeah. I would say it's payroll. It's the payroll. It's the cost of $24.07, a variety of different positions twenty four seven. Most importantly, our nursing staff that after the wildfires, we did increase their pay to try and retain nurses because it's it's just so hard to find it's hard to professionals we need to deliver this work. So so yeah. So payroll.

Did that I'm sorry.

Yes. Oh, okay. And then my other question I had was so in following up with member Poulton's question about, you know, success, would you share with us, like, some of your criteria or measurements, matrix of how you determine, you know, your success rate?

Yeah. Success is hard to measure because every day that someone stays in recovery is a little mini success. Right? And so for us, success is when someone decides to go from detox into treatment. Yay.

That's the first step. Continued success means they'll transition from our residential program into an outpatient setting, stay in clean and sober housing, reintegrate into work, move out into community. We do have clean and sober housing available that in community, we have apartments where our classes are, but then we also have in community homes where they're really out of sight, you know, they can really get out of sight out of mind. We can house them for up to a year. Many people stay with us more than a year because it's just so it's hard to find housing in community, you know, just there's lack of housing.

Right? So people end up staying with us longer than we can really afford to keep them, and then we need to also provide for the ones that are more acute and early in their recovery that may be transitioning from residential. So, I mean, success is every day, and also successes at the end when someone is actually really graduating truly, like leaving Aloha House altogether, leaving our a clean and sober housing for reintegration with family or, you know, maybe a a affordable, you know, rent somewhere or, you know, independent of Aloha House.

For mapping out, like, what individual success would look like for a participant. And then maybe in the next round, like, how you measure organizational success.

Chair. Mahalo, member Rollins. For '96, we have member Cook followed by member O'Hoo Hutchins.

Thank you for your presentation and for your, yeah, your passion your passion and care. How big is the need? It's a broad strokes of my questions. It's like how much how much of the need do you feel that Allah House currently is satisfying or meeting? And how much of the, how many people are not receiving service? I know this is real estimating estimating. I'm just trying to get a feel for that. And then how many people repeat. And that's kind of the put I just wanna try to put the it in perspective. I really respect what you're doing and

I'm supportive. It's really hard to tease out the answers to those questions. I mean, nationally and even on Maui, I think there is, like, a set percentage of treatment beds that are needed and not nationally, not on Maui, not in the state, are those treatment beds available. But part of the problem is not is not just having adequate beds. It's I mean, this is this is the nature of our work. We're working with people with behavioral health conditions who change their minds, who have mental illness, who want to get sober then say, no. I don't wanna get sober anymore. It's a relapsing disease. So I feel like we have like, the bed spaces are adequate. Right?

Like, because it's a relapsing disease, and people change their mind. And we may work really hard to get someone into treatment just to have them two days later say, oh, no. Never mind. You know, I'm good. I don't need treatment.

Thank you.

So it's really hard to tease out, like, how much is needed because we know more is needed. It would be great, but we need to match the I mean, it's the readiness of the consumer. Right? How many people are ready? We I have almost I almost have like, I always have ohana at Aloha House. Almost always. I know people that are in treatment, and it takes a long time for them to be ready to get there.

So thanks. So you answered, so as far as beds go

I I feel like the beds are adequate. It's, you know, the readiness of the community, which is always a struggle, and and the fact that you need to have these services available when they are ready. So that makes fee for service, you know, when you can only get paid when you have a consumer in front of you or sleeping in your bed, right, like, there's costs of care that are unreimbursed, you know, because sometimes there aren't any, there isn't someone sleeping in that bed or they change their mind. And so it makes it makes for difficulty with the fee for service contracts that we have.

Okay. How many what percentage or is it often that you have members from the unhoused community?

Yes. I mean, we're serving about 50% of people that come into Idaho House are unhoused. And so one of the benefits of a contract that council member Gabe Johnson really helped us with, we call it enhanced care. What we've really been trying to do is get people document ready when they are when they are at our residential program, get them document ready because it helps them down the line even when we they get to clean and sober living, they're able to get get a job. Right? If you don't have your license, you can't get a job. So it kind of, you know, it all scaffolds.

Yeah. Thanks. My time's open. Sorry. I'm I think I'm super supportive of that also. That is a key. If they don't if they can't get their identity back and they can't get back on track

Yes. Then

it's hard. Thank you, chair.

Alder member Cook. Yep. Next we have member Ouwa Hutchins followed by Charlie.

Thank you. I was gonna ask about the gap in funding, so I'm glad, you already answered that. But if I can ask, not necessarily just about Aloha House, but, you know, some of the issues we have just in the community, how do you think we can better prepare people to be able to receive treatment and their families? That's a

really hard question. There are

a lot of things I think as a community, as government, we can throw money at that solves problems, but I don't know if this is one of them all the time. Yeah. Granted, the money is gonna for sure help, but you don't have to answer that now if it's too much. And then my other question was, you know, of course, we're happy to support Aloha House. What else do you think we could support before people go to Aloha House that can help aid in their sobriety? If you have any thoughts about that.

Okay. So the first question is really hard question to answer because I think it doesn't have anything to do with treatment. I think it has to do with prevention.

Okay.

And and our keiki and our families that are stressed and can't afford this and that and wanna give the best lives to their kids but can't don't have the means to do so. Mhmm. I feel like that's it's really important to get on the prevention side.

Mhmm.

The the answer is never never needing treatment, honestly. Yeah. For sure. Right? Healthy families. That's the answer. If we can strengthen families and make lives easier for them here on Maui, then we're not gonna see we're not gonna see young adults and adults in treatment. Right? So the people we see in treatment are often often have lived lives of trauma. Mhmm.

They've They've experienced trauma. They've experienced they've been in foster care. They've had parents that have used and and I'm very fortunate because I also oversee Maui Youth and Family Services, and we've done almost 50 years old as well. We've done foster care. We've worked in Keiki Mental Health for many, many years.

And I have the great privilege of overseeing a safe house for girls ages 12 to 17 off Baldwin Avenue. And programs like that, I mean, it changes lives. It changes trajectory because kids are removed from a Unsafe. Unsafe environment, and they can stabilize and start to think about a future. And but, again, like, these are kids in foster care, but not all not all it's a small portion of kids, right, that are in foster care, but, I mean, I think helping everyday families it's the everyday families which are the bulk of the families.

Right? The everyday families that are struggling. I would love to throw money at that. Exactly. Child care. Mhmm. Yeah. Housing. Thank you.

I appreciate that. Thank you for that answer.

Honor member Uhu Hodgins. Next, chair Lee for your opportunity.

Thank you, chair. Good morning, miss Hokkawana. Good morning. Thank you for your work. I know exactly what you go through. I was wondering how many if you break down the men men and women, how many men do you help, and how many women do you help?

Well, because Malama Family Recovery Center is for women, we Aloha House has has a greater ratio of male to female because we have malama for women, and we believe that gender specific treatment is what's most appropriate and best for women. So at our Aloha House campus, I would say it's a fourth is women and three fourths are men. And then we try and get them into Malama.

Okay. How many of your clients actually work, have income from a a job?

That's a good question that I am not prepared to answer. They definite I mean, coming into Aloha House, I would say zero. No one has employment. Right? They're K. They're getting enrolled or reenrolled on MedQuest. We're trying to get them through treatment. Once they get Okay. Thank you. Outpatient, we try to get them into work.

Okay. My time is very limited, so I have to move on to the next budget. As you know, we're pretty much in this in closely related fields. Ours nonprofit our is more a housing and not wraparound services. But we find that there's a high rate of recidivism for couple of reasons.

One, a severe lack of self esteem is a huge issue, more more than the addiction itself. And the other thing is a lack of ability to compete in the marketplace. So do do you have an outlet where whether it's with the school DOE or the college where there you can direct people to be trained for an occupation?

I would say yes. Once consumers are in our clean and sober, we're trying to find out whether they need some upskilling, whether school is an option for them. Some of them go back to school. Some of them prefer to get back into work. To speak to your comment on self esteem, I would say absolutely, like, the broken spirit is the reason people turn to addiction.

Exactly. That's what we experience as well. So we're gonna be focusing more on that end. But I I do sympathize with you trying to because you're dealing with every day it's called.

Mhmm.

And as you can see, our our counsel is very supportive of your program. So the more specific you get you can be, the better in terms of how much and for what you needed. Thank you. Thank you.

Mahalo, Charlie. I just had a couple follow-up. At the beginning, you mentioned that before they can receive treatment, they have to go to the detox program. And in that detox program, you have nurses and physicians that can prescribe medications. But we understand that there's more advanced, medications now that can help some of the the the that they've been on whatever drugs.

They but are those drugs more expensive? Like, I I think is it Saloxone? Suboxone. So some of these other ones that can can really help cure or help them get them stable enough so that they can go through treatment?

Right. So I think you mean Suboxone.

Suboxone.

And methadone you know, can be prescribed, and what it does is it provides a small amount of a stim a stimulant that's similar to the opioid so that it reduces cravings and urges and allows them to settle into day to day life. And so some folks actually remain on Suboxone or these kinds of prescriptions for many years because without it, they get these urges that are really, really difficult to have self control against. So, yeah, at Aloha House, we're able to connect them with a psychiatrist or APRN, prescribing APRN that can if they have a opioid addiction, they can get started on Suboxone while they're at Aloha House. And

And only the psychiatrists prescribe these Yeah. Certain amount of these prescriptions?

Yes. You need a prescriber, someone that's comfortable with psychiatric medications.

Do we have enough on island?

I wouldn't say we have enough. No. No.

But we have

We don't have enough medical providers.

We have

access to those.

But we do have access to prescribing physicians or the APRN Rx that can prescribe Suboxone, which can make all the it makes all the difference in whether someone with an opiate addiction stays in treatment or leaves because the urges are just so strong.

But are these medications covered?

They're covered by insurance, but if the individual does not have insurance, I would say for a month of I mean, it might depend on the insurance coverage, but I wanna say it could be up to, like, $800 for a month of Suboxone. So it's not affordable, And so we need that MedQuest coverage for prescriptions, detox prescriptions. Detox and then, yeah, the medication assisted treatment.

Okay. Thank you for that. Members, any need for a second round by a show of hands? I know some of you had member member Sugimura and then vice chair Johnson and member Rollins Fernandez.

Okay. Thank you. So just one quick question. Veterans. So is there a special coverage for veterans? Veterans TRICARE is TRICARE is the coverage for veterans. Yeah. So it's a little bit different, and we are we do we are working with veterans through TRICARE, but we're also trying to see if we can I don't know, get a, you know, a special contract in place or something rather than fee for service? But, yeah, TRICARE is the the insurance coverage for veterans. From the federal government? From the federal government. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Vice chair Johnson followed by member Rollins Fernandez and a member Palton.

Thank you, chair. That that 500,000 ask was important. Thank you for bringing that to the floor. Have you spoken with the Department of Human Concerns on the increased costs that you guys are dealing with? And if so, have they mentioned what did they say?

In fairness, I have not. No. Okay.

Alright. Yeah. You know, I know that you do other things besides Aloha House. You mentioned the foster family. You know, you're involved in a lot. Let's just say that. So that 500,000 is only going to Aloha House. How about the other programs that you're working on? Do they need more funding as well?

I would say I mean, other programs have different sources of funding, and I would say aloha house, the the the delta that council member Baton Gan mentioned is widening. Right? And because there's medical services and the the RN costs, it it's substantially more than, you know, the delta and other programs, which, you know, we do pull in unrestricted funding. We do fundraising. We do you know, to get those smaller costs when there is a delta to get those costs covered.

But, you know, with our detox, our residential program, it's just so costly, and it's a little bit different. So there's there's more of a sense of urgency there for me than our other programs.

Okay. You. You know, the last thing I'll ask real quick. You mentioned in the beginning how when someone goes to the emergency room, then you grab them. But it was you said addiction or they have to have an acute medical condition to stay there kind of explanation to me. Just trying to understand that. They does the hospital not think addiction is an acute medical condition? I mean, you can die from detoxing. Right? I mean, I don't understand why they say, oh, well, we we can't this you're not in our purview of ER. I don't that doesn't make any sense.

Yeah. So if you have an existing medical condition that so for example, a level of liver damage or you have diabetes and it's out of control and you need to be stabilized, you know, those are the kinds of or hypertension or, you know, heart disease that, you know, in addition to that, you're you have an alcohol use disorder or you have a substance use disorder. The hospital if you're in a the hospital has to treat if if those are a severe medical condition, then they cannot turn you away. Right? They're gonna treat those medical conditions.

Just alcohol. But if it's just alcohol, if you're coming into the ED and you have alcohol in your system, what we use is what what's called a CWAS score. And depending on that CWAS score, if it's if you need to be what do you call when they give you the liquids? IV. If you need IV, if you need your stomach pumped or something, they're gonna have to do that for you.

But once you're medically stable that you don't need IV, maybe you still don't feel well, maybe you're vomiting, but that's not life or death. So we at Aloha House will take a CWAS score of 19 and below. 20 and above, you need to stay in the hospital. But for example, in Hilo at the Hilo Medical, they they will inpatient a score of 12 and above. So we are we feel I think because we've been doing this work for so long, we're very confident in in what we're able to do, but other other detox providers, I think, like I said, the level of medical detox that we provide is really unusual in this state.

Okay.

Thanks for that clarification. Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Okay. Mahalo, vice chair. Next, have member Rollins Fernandez followed by member Bolton.

Mahalo, chair. Okay. Just a follow-up on the, I don't know. How you measure success, for the organization?

Yeah. For our organization? Okay. If I have my my, I mean, honestly, like, in this day and age, like, success means, like, you're able to pay your bills, and that's probably, like, what's heaviest on my mind these days, especially in working with my board. Success is being able to pay our bills and keep these services in community.

When you're working in behavioral health, it's it's hard to measure success, I think, by people that complete treatment partially because, like, they're stepping down, like, every like I said, every every step they take in the right direction is a step to celebrate, but they may complete, like, let's say that I wanna say seventy five percent of our consumers complete residential treatment. Right? But residential treatment has twenty four seven monitoring, and we're really isolated, and you're not getting out into community. You're not around your friends and your family. You don't have the same temptations as you do once you get out into the outpatient.

So then they go to outpatient. Right? And all if we can keep them in clean and sober, then we do, but still. Right? You have all that you have more free time.

I and we know what happens with idleness. So, you know, it's I I don't know the, you know, how at I mean, our clean and sober, I don't have the data offhand of how many people are able to, you know, actually stay within our program for a year, really complete Aloha House and move on to reintegrating in community. I don't have that offhand, but that for Aloha House, that would be the, you know, that would be the the symbol of success. Right?

Mahalo for that response. Mahalo, chair. Hippopotin.

Thank you, chair. I know you said, like, you know, meth and fentanyl is definitely frequent flyers. Have you folks been able to get any of the money from the opioid settlement because not allowed?

No. It is allowed. We're a treatment center, so it's allowed. And I definitely have asked for money. I asked them for 500,000.

I haven't heard back. The money the money is sheltered with a dad, you know, the alcohol and drug abuse division. So it's funded a couple of their positions, and they have, you know, an opioid department or I don't know what it's called. And so, they are funding at least a pilot that is starting here in Maui County that is also involved with the ED in trying to get people with opioid use disorder to who are not interested in coming to Aloha House, they don't want to get into care, to try and connect them with telehealth to get them on some kind of medication assisted treatment.

So Last time we, accepted opioid settlement money, it was under the prosecuting attorney's department, like, 800 or something thousand. A lot of it, they said, were were going into the NARCAN. Yeah. Do you feel that it should be more split to a treatment center, or is the NARCAN a good use of opioid settlement money? And do you think the police are doing enough to stop the flow of meth and fentanyl?

Well, I can't speak to what police do. That's for sure. I think it's important to have Narcan. We when people are leaving us, we give them NARCAN because it's lifesaving. Having said that, it would be really great.

And I have spoken to Andy Martin about wanting opioid settlement funding. So I think I think absolutely treatment centers should be included in the the recipients of settlement funds, especially I mean, I think now is just I mean, my presentation was stark, but that's because I feel that that's where we're at, right, where there's a lot happening federally. That can I mean, there's changes every single day? Right?

And How come they're giving it to alcohol if opioid is different than alcohol and the money for

Oh, what do you mean alcohol?

I thought she said, some alcohol treatment positions were funded with

the Oh, that's the alcohol and drug abuse division. So the settlement fund is is with ADAD. So ADAD is a section of the Department of Health. And then ADAD holds the funding and is able to decide how to spend it. So they funded some positions.

They're doing research. There's a pilot where they're trying to do some telehealth with offer telehealth to the emergency departments to get, you know, users of, you know, addiction, opioid people addicted to opioids to agree to telehealth, medication so that they don't over overdose. And it's something that has been done nationally that I think that has, you know, some you know, maybe they're piloting it because they think it can be helpful here. But I don't think it's gone to any treatment centers. And I do think it would be great if they did give us some of that opioid settlement fund. So I have asked for it.

Did, prosecutor Martin say why not?

He said he would talk to ADAD and and put in a good word for us.

But But that's money that the state holds. I think he accepted, like, 800,000 on behalf of the county to him. He Yeah. I don't

know the timing. So probably I made an appeal for opioid settlement funds directly to the state and then followed up with with Martin Andy Martin this year. So in 2026. So I'm not sure, like, when the timing on receiving funding and all of that. And

Chair, is it okay to ask corp counsel, like, when we accept or authorize the acceptance of the 800,000 of opioid settlement money, is it possible to condition it to a treatment center portions of it, or we just have to accept the money?

We can send correspondence from committee.

Because, I mean, if we're accepting 800 something thousand, maybe 400 something can go to treatment centers and the other 400 can go to Narcan's or something.

Or if ND is having some kind of grant program for the money, I'm I'm not sure. We can find out.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, member Poulton. I see any I just had one question for acting director Krausz. If she's online. Director Krause. Oh, thanks for joining us this morning. I was just wondering, you know, as far as payroll when it comes to the county or the departments giving out funding for payroll, is that something that the department does or we would have to follow certain guidelines?

Thank you, chair Sanansi, for that question. The department does fund salary items for a majority of nonprofits that we issue grants to, so it is something we're used to seeing and can accommodate.

Okay. Thank you for that answer. Thank you for joining us. Members, any other questions for acting director while she's up? Thank you.

Okay, members. We have a second item, but we did want to mahalo miss Hokwana for being here and answering very diligent all of our questions. Mahalo for that. And with that, members, if there are no objections, I'll defer this item. Thank you. Oh, we have one more.

No. Just was never mind. I I see that it was uploaded to Ganicus. Never mind.

Okay.

Thank you, and thank you for joining us. Okay, members. Our second item is the operational and budgetary review of the East Maui Water Authority. Today, we have director Young with us to provide a presentation on the authority's operational and budgetary review of the fiscal year twenty twenty six budget. And at last week's BFED meeting, we talked about some of the smaller departments not having to come to the chambers.

So this would be, your opportunity, if you had any questions for, director Young. Do we have her presentation? Morning. Welcome. Welcome, director Young.

You have the floor, and you can introduce your staff.

Oh, got it. Okay. Great. Oh, there we go. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. I really appreciate it. Staff is handing out our most recent oh, I see you got it. Our most recent newsletter. We're gonna be doing that quarterly.

Today, I'm going to give you a presentation just on our budget, and then we can go into questions afterwards. Owen, I want to introduce, I brought with me our grant coordinator, Leslie Tamara Buchi, so she can answer questions about that. She's also been very useful with our strategic, planning, and I'm gonna talk a little bit about our activity mapping that we've done. If you can go to the next slide. So fiscal year twenty twenty six is our first year of full operations, so we're still creating the department.

We're building capacity, and we really wanted to make sure that we had a strong foundation as we, move forward. We're creating positions and hiring employees, and I'm I can't, emphasize enough how much work that is. And I know that you talked to Department of Personnel Services. They're extremely helpful, but it's a long process. One of my most recent, positions was 48 41 steps in Workday, and the other one was 68 steps.

They're helpful. It's a process that's already in place, and they provide a lot of guidance. It just takes a lot of time and effort to do that. We've been very intentional about going out to the community and learning from them, not just giving them information, but they're the ones that live in the area. We had 12 meetings. Nine of them were part of our community conversation series. We had two field trips as a part of that. We're all of that leads into our strategic and operational planning. And then we've been Leslie has been developing our incoming and our outgoing grant program. So now I'll kinda dive into more of the numbers with the next slide.

We're still the smallest and the newest department. 1,200,000. Not a whole lot of money, but, once you have staff, there's a lot of work that can be done with staff. I'll go through our a, b, and our c accounts in more detail too. So you can go to the next slide. Our salaries and wages, we have nine employees. You can kinda see with the other newer departments, where we're at. We're we're expanding just the way that they expanded to you. You to build capacity, you gotta go at a rate that you can handle to make sure that you're really mentoring and training and bringing up your your new employees. To the next slide.

We have eight staff positions, but nine employees because two are half time. Here's just a list of everybody that we have. Everybody's on board up, and we are in recruitment for our water resource specialist. If you look at the back of the newsletter, we've been doing a lot of recruitment to make sure that we we get somebody for that. And then last year during council deliberations, we have field supervisor positions that were given for a couple months funding.

So we're working with Department of Personnel Services on developing those positions. And the next slide. I wanted to show you just the timeline of our staffing, how we're growing. Last summer, it was really between June and September that we were able to bring on three people and train them as well. I just, brought on a planner too who actually was out of college a year or two ago and wrote her senior honors thesis on East Maui Water, so I felt very lucky to be able to bring her on board.

Next, we hope in the next month or two to bring on the the water resource program specialist. And then this is the organizational chart. Probably the most interesting thing about it is it shows nine direct reports. I spend a lot of time with each of my employees. I meet with Leslie twice a week. I meet with everybody else at least once a week. It does take a lot of time organizationally with with running the department, the administrative work on it. I'm hoping as time goes on that I can normally, you have five to seven direct reports. I wanna make sure I'm the one that's really training everybody. You can go on to the next.

And then I wanna talk about we've been doing what's called, activity mapping, and it's identifying all the things we're doing and all the things we're supposed to be doing. What you don't see you're not really meant to read all the details, but it shows you what what they are, who's responsible, who's accountable, and what the timeline is. But for budget purposes, the most important thing is identifies your gaps and your budget inefficiencies. And we did this work as we were planning for, you know, our for growing. And where these budget inefficiencies show up in terms of my budget is they show up I don't have a lot of overtime, so they show up in CTO.

They show up in staff just dedicating themselves. I wanna make sure they don't get burned out. And it does show up in professional services where I can do that. I think that's a very inefficient way to to provide services to a department where employees when you're doing it because of lack of employee capacity. The communications and community engagement work also includes the the policy work, the administrative work, which is the board management duties and administrative duties, a lot of those are done by the private secretary because we don't have a deputy director, we don't have an administrative officer, and that really does lead to kind of overload in those areas.

Next slide. I'm going to go over operations in the B account, but I think you're probably most only interested in the professional services and the grant program. I mean, I'm happy to talk about our small equipment. It's getting our conference room up to speed, things like that. We can go on to the next slide from there and I'll dive into professional services.

My biggest part of my budget really outside of employees is my money for strategic planning. And right now in contracting, I do have a needs assessment and operational plan that's going forward. We've done a lot of the base work with the community engagement. I did that through some pro bono assistance. I got very lucky that a nonprofit came to us and offered us help and was able to do that.

And I used some professional services to do to come do the reporting. I didn't even have employees when I did my first communication series with the community. Some of them had actually just come on that week. And we're also hoping to continue with the strategic planning, but I really wanted it to be a practical application of how does that go down into your actual operational funding based on an assessment of of, what are your duties and what should you be doing. Okay.

Next slide. I also have watershed planning money, which is a very broad activity. Right now, we're in the beginning of setting up our watershed programs. So I have been doing the stakeholder engagement. The second series was really based on what do you wanna see in the area, what is already being done, where do we have a monthly stakeholder meeting that we facilitate that's along with the DLNR and a bunch of other state agencies.

We're researching what are the different types of watershed planning. I've learned they can be everywhere from just program related all the way up to getting how do you get millions of dollars of EPA money and what needs to go into those plans. And then we had done a Kumu Pono report, which is a historical documentation of activities in the area, place names, things like that. A lot of it was done through interviews. And if I have any money left over, I would like to update some of that, for more recent work in the area. Next slide. Equipment, really boring. I know we've had, councilmember Batonga has come to the office, but we're almost up and running. We have most of our workstations. My office, I'm borrowing a desk that should be coming at some point.

I have a fold up table that's working, so I can take a picture of that. But but we are continuing to get the office, comfortable for employees. Thank you. And then we're working on our grants program. It's incoming and outgoing. And the incoming grants program is really exciting because it's a newer, thing that the county has been doing. So we were very lucky. Leslie was able to secure funding through Hawaii Community Foundation to begin our work on watershed planning. And then, the work I did with I'm still doing with the public finance initiative with a lot of pro bono technical. But then they awarded us a position in their rural, small cities and rural program.

And what that is all about is working with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and I don't know if you folks are familiar with them. They're traditionally a health foundation. I worked with them twenty years ago, but they're $1,600,000,000 of endowment. And they are trying out a new program. They've to realize health is also related to water and it's related to equity, and rural communities often don't have it's not a level playing field.

They are they have a what's called a credit enhancement program where they will help you go out for funding and, provide kind of a loan guarantee. I've been working with our bond adviser to see if this is something that would work, but I'm really interested in their impact investing program, which is direct grants. And at our last meeting two weeks ago, when I pitched kind of who we are to them, they were very interested in in having us work with them on more of the impact investing program, which I was very excited about. Next slide. Going next to our outgoing program, Leslie did a great job of setting up this program.

We were able to award our $75,000 to five grantees. These are all people that are in our license area. We allowed applications from everybody, but we gave preference to these areas. It's really about what's happening already with stewardship in the community. And then next. These were the program grant areas that we set up ahead of time for, community members to look at. I won't read them all. You can see them right there. It's kind of a wide variety of work that's currently being done. And there's a lot when we went out for community engagement, there was a lot of talk about passing the knowledge down, transferring it to newer generations too.

So we wanted to make sure we were very fortunate to have somebody that was able to do that. If you wanna do the next slide. This is who the grantees are. You can also see it in the newsletter. We do a write up on them. And we were very lucky that we were able to cover almost each area that we were looking for in there. And then we can go into the next. Well, and that's questions. And Leslie's here if you have any questions about the grant program. She can answer in more detail. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, director Young. Members, any objections to designated Leslie as a resource under 18 a of the rules of the council because of her grant expertise? Thank you, members. Thank you. Staff, do we have anyone want providing testimony? Okay. Wait real quick. I forgot to read the I'll do it really quick. Public testimony in accordance with the Sunshine Law.

Testimony can occur at the beginning of the meeting but cannot be limited at the start of the meeting. Chair will receive oral testimony for agenda items at the beginning of the meeting and as the item is called up on the agenda. As far as wanting to provide video or audio, just wish you sign up, the chamber joined the online meeting via the Teams link or call in to phone number noted on today's agenda. For individuals wishing to testify via Teams, please raise your hand by clicking on the raise your hand button. Those calling in, please follow the prompts via phone.

Star five to raise and lower your hand and star six to mute and unmute. Staff will add names to the testifier list in order to testify or sign up or raise their hands in. For those on team, staff will lower your hand once your hand name is added. Staff will then enable your microphone and video and call the name you're logged in under or the last four digits of your phone number when it's time to testify. Written testimony is always encouraged.

Oral testimony is limited to three minutes per item. Please ensure your name appears in Microsoft Teams. Once you're done testifying or if you do not wish to testify, you can view the meeting on Akaku, channel fifty three, Facebook Live, or mauicounty.us/agendas. Again, ma'alo for your corporation, and please call the net first testifier.

Chair, no one has signed up to testify, but it looks like we may have someone in the chamber that would like to testify.

Mister Law?

Aloha. Aloha. I'm hoping we'll get some more testifiers, because the vibe is very important, especially in East Maui over there on the interior side of Al Aqala. They call it upcountry kula. As as council member Sugi Mora knows, it's we don't really we sometimes we have a problem with water, but people don't realize how serious the problem is until something happens to the very few water lines that we have up in there.

And I appreciate your your Lee Mahana, your staff putting all that stuff in there about all the rules and regulations because that give me time to reset on what Akua was telling me as part of my testimony for to share with you guys was, even yesterday, whenever I see the the water buffalo tanks out there, when it brings our community kinda together, unless you could pay someone to go get your water for you, you actually meet the neighbors there. So that reminds me of the the scripture yesterday at church was the the when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the at the well, and he told her, hey. Can you give me he said, get me some water. He didn't act like he'd say, can you give me some water? He just said, get me some water.

And then I think everybody knows that story about you know that story, mister chair? Yeah. Okay. Thanks. And I just wanted to say thank you for director Young and all her staff members because I I feel like it's that I can trust her to not take any brown bags full of money for watching over our bye bye over there in East Maui.

Mahalo, mister Law. Any questions seeing none? Okay. Do we have one more testifier?

We do have one more testifier on Teams, the Royal House of

Hawaii. Aloha. Good morning.

Aloha. I'm the Royal House of Hawaii and, a descendant of East Maui. And, I'm testifying to

K. Kalamai, you're coming in a little bit soft. If you can move closer to the mic.

Okay. Can you hear now?

And and maybe project a little bit. Okay. Okay. Model.

Okay. Sorry. This is the Royal House of Hawaii, and I'm a decent a I'm a landlordial land tenant and a landlordial landholder and a descendant of East Maui to an what is that called? Is I'm just wondering if there will be someone that's gonna be researching, like, all the lands that they're gonna be working on. For example, like, even with the other water systems, like, those are all frauded.

And if the person will be looking into all the set all the lands of East Maui because it's all all of Hawaii is a loyal title, royal patented by the kingdom and royal government of Hawaii. And it's a loyal title, so it belongs the original title holders, but there are I don't know. Or I mean, we do know, but they possibly could be frauded documents out there and with the wrong information. And if the person will be, like, looking into all of this, the original royal patents, land commission awards of those areas because only Kanaka could actually have royal patent. There's no like, there's like, the it it's nothing wrong.

Like, please I don't know. I hope people do not take offense to this. I don't know why people do. That's weird. But, by law, it it states in law that only the Kanaka could be using these lands and have the rights to these lands. And and yeah. It's literally in the law. And a lot of people don't understand our law, I guess, because our judicial judicial language is in. So, yeah. So we gotta look into that, look at the laws, gotta look at the royal passage, That's what we call it, and return it back to the correct landholders descendants.

Mister Royal House, for your testimony this morning. And I think I know that, director Young has been well, each one of the board members are lineal descendants of the East Maui, leasehold areas. So, I I believe the department is working toward those ideals. Maalo for your testimony. Any other testable?

Sure. No one else has signed up to testify. Proceeding with last call. 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. I'll provide a brief countdown. Three, two, one. Seeing no I'm not chair. No one has indicated they wish to testify.

Members, any objections to closing testimony at this time? Thank you. Okay. We'll go ahead. We have a few minutes. We'll begin with Vice Chair Johnson, and then we'll start from this side and then go down. Vice Chair Johnson.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, director Young for all the work you're doing. Good to see you that you're you guys are growing and building and having money go out the door, which brings me to my question about your grants. 75,000 for five grants. I guess in in reflecting on that, I'd ask you in this upcoming budget, is that was that enough? Do you need more? Did it go? Any reflections? Any wise words?

There's definitely lots of room for growth. I'm gonna let Leslie talk about how we've been tracking that and, how we see the need in the future and hope to be able to meet it a little more vigorously than we are right now.

Thank you. Nice to see you again, Leslie.

Nice to see you. Thank you for the question. We received applications totaling, requests for over 200,000 So we weren't able to fully fund all of the qualified applications that we received. We also are just getting started in terms of awareness of our department and the grants program. So we we have had we had in the fall around our our grant announcement time, a total of of over 50 sort of inquiries in one form or another responding to surveys, participating in our grants information workshops.

And and we have another round of survey grant program survey open now. And the one that's open now is really indicating people are learning about the grants for the first time really upon understanding or getting the announcement about the awards that we're making. So we're really anticipating a higher volume of requests. And we're also doing what we can to build out our capacity to follow-up and, help build readiness and skills of those folks who are already doing the work and interested in participating in the grants program. So our hope is that, and we feel we Wonderful.

Fairly certain we're gonna have more requests and more qualified requests going forward.

So in this upcoming budget, do you plan to increase ask for your, grant budget?

Yes. We do.

Okay. Alright. Great. You know, this it's interesting when folks come to you for a new you know, everything's new, so they I'm sure they have a million questions. So if, like, let's say, if the grant applicant coming to you doesn't really fit you guys, do you have the the institution knowledge to kind of pivot and say, don't you try a micro grant from Department of Ag? Or maybe this over here is a little bit more of your your pace. Is are you guys able to not work in silos is really the basics of the question?

The short answer is yes. And a lot of the learning of these last months has been really educating ourselves about the other sort of complementary funds available across the county. We we have actually recommended some of

our

grand applicants to the ag ag micro grant program, and I I hope that

they applied.

Yeah. Okay. That was my time, and thanks for doing what you do. Really appreciate all the work you guys. Thank you, chair.

Hello, vice chair Johnson. I don't see chair Lee, but she might be tending to her. So we'll go to, member Uwa Hutchins.

Thank you, chair. Thank you, director Young. I had the privilege to meet with her the other day. So in the interest of time, I really don't have any questions. Thank you so much for all you do. Very nice to meet you. Thanks, Cher.

Thank you. Member Kook? Thank you. What's the how do you oversee the the grants that are awarded? The staffing and the oversight for meeting the goals and objectives?

Thank you for the question. We are, as you can see, we're we're a small grant they're small grants, and right now, there are five grantees. We're just getting started. We're still in contracting process for those grants. We've been fortunate I've been fortunate to participate in the the county wide conversation amongst grants managers, finance, department finance, and legal counsel as we're going through this sort of administrative review of the grants process county wide.

So we've really benefited by starting up our program at the same time as those conversations are happening. So we're really making sure to set up our reporting systems, which are in process right now in alignment with countywide standards. And and we are we have a small enough group that we have, I think, proportionally, more capacity to support these small grantees to be in compliance and in good communication

going forward. Thank you for that update. I'm I'm it's good to hear that the that the county wide, the departments and the grant processes. So hopefully and granted your, granted your fortunate relatively small to be able to manage it, but it'd be great for the county to be able to have a comprehensive, collaborative, functioning, awarding, mapping, tracking, mostly paying the grantees. Thank you. That's my only question.

Mahalo. If I could just there's something I did want to follow-up a little bit on that. Because we're so small, we're able to work actively with our grantees, and Leslie is focusing on getting a I don't even know what we wanna call a meeting of them together so we can build a relationship between them as well and help to expand their capacity through understanding what everybody else is doing. But it also allows us to kinda monitor them more. And because we are set in a limited geographic area, we interact with them probably on a a fairly more regular basis probably than than other departments.

Hello, member Cook. Do I is member Rollins Fernandez for her opportunity? We can come back to her.

I don't have any, questions. Hello.

Ever Poulton for your opportunity.

Thank you, chair. I did hear director Young mention about the EPA. I just was wondering, you know, when we set up this water authority, we were thinking we're gonna bring down federal dollars, but the, situation shift at the federal level has changed with the EPA. And so I was wondering, is that still your STEAM strategy that we could be able to get federal monies coming in? Interestingly,

East Maui is very popular with the some of the agencies in the federal government. Yeah. Yeah. I don't wanna.

It must be because of members in NC.

It it was the number one program for the state looking for the forestry legacy program in the country. They were ranked number one. So we're definitely already on their radar, and I'm not sure. I mean, it's a special area, so maybe for that reason or maybe they've come to Maui or not.

Are you guys involved with the repie, as well?

What's the repie?

It's better if I'm not the one that explains it because it wouldn't come off as too favorable, but, it's kind of where they give money because the Department of War messed up your

I I am familiar with that. That's something we're not involved in.

Okay. Alright. That that concludes my questions.

Member Paltin, member Sugimura?

Oh. Oh.

Was just gonna say that REPE stands for Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration.

Hello, member Rollins Fernandez.

Thank you. I was just wondering if, and I see your grants and it doesn't, if your grants are also similar to what the Department of Water Supply gives out grants to watersheds and whatever. I'm wondering how if there's integration or

There we worked with them as we set up the program, Leslie did with with Robert. We capture a very different market. They are very large grants with East Maui Watershed Partnership and other partnerships that mostly focus on the top of the mountain. We are focused more on what they call Zone B, which is the middle section of the mountain where there's really a lack of funding for that. And it's also where the community members do the work so we can support what's going on in those areas too. So we didn't want to compete. We would love to have their resources. But for now, we were very strategic about where we placed. And then we're really small grants too that we're giving. So we're doing something different than what they are.

Thank you.

And then is that b zone? Is that where a lot of the invasives are as well?

It yes. It is. And it's a lot of when we talk to some of the state people that are involved in that where they've identified areas that if you could do some, stream cleaning, you could have better recharge. You could have better, Mauka to Mackay flow, and it's not where a lot of the current resources have been able. There's not been enough funding to really get into those areas.

Okay. Member Batang. Oh, thank you, chair. And thank you guys for being here. Director, are you hired, fired, and managed by your board, or are you a mayor appointee? Are you a civil servant? What is your status?

Sure. We're we're a unique blend where the board nominates and the council approves. And I, I'm under I'm a county department, so I, Josiah, is above me who I who I work with.

And then so everybody under you in the org chart, are they civil servants, or are they direct appointees to you?

No. They're we went through with the civil service process, which is, I think, part of why the 68 steps comes into play. So One

of the things that this body has been learning recently is how the Department of Water Supply is going through its acquisition Mhmm. Of water infrastructure out in West Maui. Can you describe what your process is for negotiating for infrastructure in East Maui, and, describe what kind of coordination you have with the Department of Water Supply?

Sure. There's a lot of coordination. The mayor is leading discussions right now with the Department of Water Supply, Department of Management, Corp Council, and Mahi Pono. And their regular and ongoing consistent discussions, over acquisition, over other areas too. We also are working with, the DLNR as well too as a group, but we're we're making sure that we're coordinated and integrated with that.

And then when you guys discuss maintenance of any systems that, the county may acquire, is that gonna fall under your department, is that gonna fall under Department of Water Supply?

We're still working it out. Right now, Department of Water Supply has the the capacity capacity to do the work. They operate other surface water systems. We would do some type of intragovernmental agreement with them, to fulfill the charter. And we bring certain resources, especially with the watershed programs to it too. So it would be in coordination. Okay.

Sorry. I was jotting down notes during your presentation, and I can't read my handwriting. Can you remind me on the status of the strategic plan?

Oh, sure. We're in contracting right now for it.

Okay. So for the grant programs that or the grant program that you administer, there are some program areas that I had questions on.

Sure.

Because I understand the and restoration, that you're working on, but some of the other focus areas seem to be outside of the duties, powers, and functions for regional community boards, aligned in the charter and then the direction the regional directors powers, duties, and functions. So absence charter, directive and absent a strategic plan, how did you decide on, the grant program area focuses? And I can save this for a second round. I heard the buzzer.

Oh, okay. This is where the community engagement came into play. We drilled down during, June meetings on broad vision, mission, vision, values. And then on the second round of meetings, we went into operational. What kind of programs do you wanna see? What are the needs? And these all came directly out of there. So these will all go into our strategic plan. Thank you, chair.

Okay. Mahalo. I I just had one question. Was there a need for the department to be present in East Mali?

There is a strong desire for the watershed work to be centered there, including having a base yard. We are out there, quite a bit already. We're very lucky that we have, Keanaiuka, when we need, but we've heard strong and clear and we also understand operationally you want to be close to where you're doing your work. So we're working on that right now.

Okay, great. You. Members, any other questions for Director Young or Leslie? We have one more from Member Rollins Fernandez.

Well, hello, Chair. I guess to follow-up on Member Batanggan's question. So I know that the water leases and land leases, for the entirety of EMI, there's, like, you know, some state, some private. I don't know if you're able to provide us any updates on that. I know that this, BLNR, disapproved or rejected, the EIS and that was kind of that was submitted by AMD. So where where are we at on that?

Okay. We are talking with DLNR. They have proposed a contested case hearing process in the absence of the county making a direct request. So they have recently asked us for an update that we're working on to give them, which would include our capacity for managing the system. So that will that will come out in the next couple weeks. We're putting that together too. So they are wanting us, to come up with a plan and give them our plan for it. So we've been working long hours to put that together and make sure that that's coordinated across everybody involved.

All of Member Rollins Fernandez. Okay, members. If there are no other questions, we are nearing the end of our, what's up, committee meeting. We wanted to thank Director Young for joining us. You don't have to come back again.

And Leslie, thank you for joining us this morning. Members, any objections to deferring this item? Okay. Again, members, thank you for all of your great questions and comments today. And this concludes today's Water Authority Social Services and Parks Committee meeting. Staff, is there anything that I forgot?

No. There is nothing outstanding, chair.

Okay. And just as a reminder, we have a wide committee under council member Cook this afternoon at 01:30 here in the chambers. And with that, the subcommittee meeting of Monday, 03/09/2026 is now adjourned. It's 11:58.