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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05/23/2012 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Special Committee MeetingTim Bynum Dickie Chang KipuKai Kuali`i Nadine K. Nakamura Mel Rapozo JoAnn A. Yukimura Jay Furfaro, Chair Honorable Honorable Honorable Honorable Honorable Honorable Honorable MINUTES COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE May 23, 2012 A special meeting of the Committee of the Whole of the Council of the County of Kaua`i, State of Hawai`i, was called to order by Councilmember Jay Furfaro, Chair, at the Historic County Building, Room 201, Lihu`e, Kaua`i, on Wednesday, May 23, 2012, at 9:04 a.m., after which the following members answered the call of the roll: Chair Furfaro: Before we get into the communication that transmits the proposed plusses and minuses to the whole Council and the CIP budget, I would like the Members to know that I have had a meeting with the Mayor in advance of what some of his concerns are, and I would like the after - the - meeting summary of my email to be read to the body, and if I could ask Ashley to come up, please. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. ASHLEY BUNDA, Legislative Assistant: Hello, Ashley Bunda for the record. Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Ashley. I do not plan to distribute my email, but I do want it to be read of what some of the concerns are from the Administration at this point, and then move on to the process. I do want to say before that one of the concerns that came up I met with Councilmember Kuali`i and one of the items that came up I met with Councilmember Yukimura on, just to have some dialogue. Mr. Kuali`i had referenced HRS on some of the particulars and the outcome will be revealed in this narrative. Go right ahead. Ms. Bunda: This email is dated Tuesday, May 22, 2012. Dear Mayor Carvalho, I met with members of our staff to discuss the issues raised during our meeting we had today which involved the proposed budget provisos, as well as the two proposed line item appropriations. As a result, in consultation with my staff, I decided to proceed as follows: Budget Provisos — introduced by Councilmember Kuali`i, proposed Section 31. I met with Councilmember Kuali`i and discussed the concerns that were raised by the Office of the County Attorney and the Finance Department. As a result, Councilmember Kuali`i will be introducing an amendment to delete proposed Section 31 from the Fiscal Year 2012 — 2013 Operating Budget. He will be introducing the amendment once the budget has taken effect during the first Council meeting in July, currently July 11, 2012. Regarding the other budget provisos that were discussed dealing with vacant positions and dollar- funded positions, it was the Council's intent to be notified prior to hiring any of these positions. Given the fact that we had asked the County Attorney to review these proposed budget provisos, I will await their response before providing and /or deciding on a course of action. Further, in response to the legality of the two proposed line item appropriations, which are Affordable Housing Advisory Committee $12,000.00 and the Real Property Tax Software Assistance $30,000.00, I will continue to research the matter to see whether the proposed appropriations and /or the intent of the use of the funding would, at a minimum, run afoul of the State Supreme Court's ruling in the Akahane vs. Fasi case. Mayor Carvalho, please note that I do not intend to deviate from the amendments that the Council agreed to in our Decision Making sessions, which we had posted in accordance with a previous Office of Information Practices (OIP) opinion. See the posted Special Committee of the Whole Meeting agenda item COW 2012 -05, proposed amendments to the Mayor's Fiscal Year 2012 — 2013 Operating and CIP Budgets. Any additional amendments to the proposed budget such as the deletion of the proposed budget proviso Section 31 or any other amendments deemed necessary will occur after the budget has taken effect and in all probability during the first Council Meeting of July, currently scheduled for July 11, 2012. I am sure you can understand the need to manage the meeting as such as it will not be productive to have to open up the budget, Operating and CIP, for further debate once the Council has agreed and made its decisions as reflected in the posting of our amendments. I look forward to continued dialogue between the two of us as well as between our respective staff members. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I appreciate your cooperation as we work toward providing what is best for the residents of the County of Kaua`i. Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much, Ashley. back to your seat. Thank you very much. There being no objections, the meeting was called back to order, follows: 2 I will let you go and proceeded as Chair Furfaro: Just for Members, I want you to know at the first blush look that the Administration has concerns on three of our resolutions proposed. One of them of course was the accounting of purchases under $1500.00. Mr. Kuali`i and I looked at that particular area. We read it and obviously many of those items, because we are in a cash accounting system, are expensed at time of purchase, and Mr. Kuali`i indicated that that is something that he would reconsider going forward because I do not want to open up the budget again. The other two items are discussions that we have had in the past dealing with dollar- funded positions and vacant positions. I just think we both need more time to dialogue on that and if we come to different positions on that, we can again look at July for a reconsideration on those items. On the line items, there are two that exist. One is the Affordable Housing Committee. My position, again, is one that I said that if a committee is set up, like we have set up many committees in the past and it is done by the full Council for the selection of those committees, I do not see that as being an issue for us and that is what I have conveyed. And then the other item, of course, is on the Real Property Tax Software line item. They have some concerns that the software that is acquired is compatible to the existing systems, as well as the computers that we have and so forth. So it is my choice to just share what some of those discrepancies are with you in advance. Obviously, when we send the budget over, the Mayor would have the opportunity to sign the budget. He could send the budget back unsigned. He could veto the budget within a ten -day period or he can veto line items. But this is just an informational piece and I appreciate Councilmember Kuali`i's willingness to work on that in July and it gives the whole body some time to look at the Housing Committee. On that note, I just do not want to have a lot of dialogue about that. This is a heads -up for you as a road sign, and I do not plan to open up any item today. Vice Chair Yukimura. Ms. Yukimura: Yes, thank you, Chair. I think this whole thing shows the problem of having a supplemental budget that scrunches the time for our work. It is actually quite ironic that even though we are scheduling a public hearing for next week, we cannot change the budget, and that is all part of the scrunching. So I think the Proposed Charter Amendment which would remove the ability of the Mayor to give a supplemental budget would be helpful. But I also want to say on the line item concern regarding the Housing Advisory Committee, this committee is being set up to advise the Council in its legislative function of updating our Affordable Housing Law and that is purely in the realm of our kuleana, and so I do not see any problem at all. And we made that distinction by putting the planning moneys in the Housing Agency because planning is their function administratively, so we really made that distinction. I am going to be requesting a County Attorney's opinion on this. And again, it is unfortunate that we do not have the time to get proper attorney review of some of our actions and feedback before the budget has to be passed. Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Mr. Bynum. Mr. Bynum: Yes, just a brief comment. One, I appreciate the approach that you are taking, Chair, to address these concerns, and I would encourage the Mayor, before he line items anything, to engage in a dialogue about what the Council's intent is for some of those because I do not believe it comes anywhere close to being an Akahane vs. Fasi issue. But I appreciate the approach you are taking. Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Again, this was to make you folks aware. Now on the County Attorney opinions, if you recall when we went into the last week and because we were time crunched I asked Amy to be available to us and the questions were posed to her accordingly and I will be distributing out to you the confidential commentary on those questions that she was served with later today. So they again were based on me posing those questions in advance and you will have that information copied and given to you later today. Mr. Kuali`i. Mr. Kuali`i: Just really briefly, Mr. Chair, thank you for handling this. I like the process better than going through. I appreciate the Mayor's response and in fact, like I told you in our meeting, when I was on our trip and I was reviewing the provisos, we did go through a lot of provisos that I proposed and we went through it pretty rapidly, but I saw this small item of the small equipment and the small furniture of less than $1500.00 as something that was not necessary, and of course I will support the Mayor having brought that up, and I was going to bring it up myself once I caught it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair Furfaro: You are quite welcome. So that is the current status of where, I believe, the interaction has happened between the Chair and the Mayor. I will have the County Attorney in the building today, this morning if you find you need to have discussion after I pass out those opinions, and I would like to 3 leave it at that at this particular time. There are three proviso items and two line items that the Mayor has his concerns with at this point, but I would like to move this out of the committee and get it to the full Council. The Committee proceeded on its agenda items as shown in the Committee Reports which are incorporated herein by reference: CR -COW 2012 -13 on COW 2012 -05 Communication (05/17/2012) from Committee of the Whole Chair Furfaro, transmitting the proposed increases to, deductions from, and other proposed amendments (plus /minus sheet) to the Mayor's Fiscal Year 2012 -2013 Annual Operating and Capital Improvements Budgets (Received for the record) CR -COW 2012 -14 on Resolution No. 2012 -30 A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE REAL PROPERTY TAX RATES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2012 TO JUNE 30, 2013 FOR THE COUNTY OF KAUAI (Approved as amended) CR -COW 2012 -15 on Bill No. 2431 A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO THE OPERATING BUDGET AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2012 TO JUNE 30, 2013 (Approved as amended) CR -COW 2012 -16 on Bill No. 2432 A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS AND FINANCING THEREOF FOR THE FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2012 TO JUNE 30, 2013 (Approved as amended) There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9:27 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Wilma Akiona Council Services Assistant APPROVED at the Co ittee Meeting held on June 6, 2012: JAY'_:u::'�-'!" 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