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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCounty Clerk's Office, FY 2014-15 DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET REVIEWS 4/15/2014 DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET REVIEWS 2014-15 COUNTY CLERK'S OFFICE April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 1 There being no objections, the Committee was called back to order at 3:19 p.m., and proceeded as follows: Office of the County Clerk Honorable Tim Bynum Honorable Mason K. Chock, Sr. Honorable Gary L. Hooser Honorable Jay Furfaro, Council Chair Excused: Honorable Ross Kagawa Honorable Mel Rapozo Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Thank you. I think we are looking for the County Clerk. Good afternoon Ricky and everyone from Council Services. We have both Council Services and the Elections Division and this is an election-year for Q&A, along those areas. You have some detail for us covering some Election-related bills and proposals that are going on at the State level. RICKY WATANABE, County Clerk: Yes. Chair Furfaro: You three all introduce yourself, one at a time and you take it from where you want to take it. Mr. Watanabe: Ricky Watanabe, County Clerk. JADE K. FOUNTAIN-TANIGAWA, Deputy County Clerk: Jade Fountain-Tanigawa, Deputy County Clerk. LYNDON YOSHIOKA, Elections Administrator: Lyndon Yoshioka, Elections Administrator. Chair Furfaro: Thank you Lyndon. Where do you want to go first Rick? Mr. Watanabe: Our plan Chair is that I will give a brief overview of the responsibilities of the Office of the County Clerk and turn it over to Lyndon for the Elections Division, and then Jade, our Deputy will do Council Services. Good afternoon, Council Chair and Members of the Council. It is our pleasure to be here today to address our budget and answer questions that you may have. I would be remiss if I did not thank our staff, the entire staff and all the hard work that they do and all the improvements that they made over the past couple of years, or three years, Chair. Especially thank the Council for your support of the Office also. The Office of the County Clerk is responsible for the following: First of all we take charge of and file all records, legal documents, minutes, communications, ordinances, and resolutions that are enacted or adopted by the Council. We execute and certify all official documents that are approved. We conduct all Elections held within the County pursuant to the Charter, State Law, and Federal Law. We serve as the Clerk of the Council responsible for recording and transcribing minutes of meetings held by the County Council and its Committees. We do research and provide services to the Council and the public. I serve as the Department April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 2 Head who appoints the Deputy County Clerk and hires the Staff of Council Services and Elections. To accomplish these responsibilities we have two Divisions within the Clerk's Office. The Division of Council Services, and the Elections Division. We will have Lyndon cover the Elections Division first, so he can tend to election responsibilities prior to the end of the day. So we will take Lyndon first. Lyndon, do you want to come here? Mr. Yoshioka: Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, and Councilmembers. Chair Furfaro: Good afternoon, Lyndon. Mr. Yoshioka: I will be do an overview of the presentation and I will be passing over some of the nitty gritty details and if you have any questions at any point, please stop me and I would be more than happy to respond. Our mission is to provide open, accessible, fair, and secure election services for the residents of Kauai County and also to provide quality document reproduction services in an expeditious manner. Our goals and objectives are to conduct elections in accordance with Federal, State, and County laws and establishing sound policies and procedures which ensure the integrity of the electoral process. Offer services that are convenient and accessible to all stakeholders, provide quality reproduction services to County Agencies in a timely and expeditious manner. We are currently working with a vendor, Profitability of Hawai`i to upgrade our Signature Management System. We awarded them the contract March 4th and issued a notice to proceed on April 8th. The upgrades that we are seeking will provide our Office with in-house scanning and indexing capability and allow for multi-users to access the system and contract with them to host, as well as support the system. The project is on- schedule and we expect the whole thing to be completed by late to mid-May. We are also in the process of evaluating proposals and response to an RFP for a new Statewide voter registration system. This system will also provide online voter registration capability, as well as an election management component, because we are currently in the procurement process, I cannot get into any more details than that. But we do anticipate selecting a vendor by May 2nd. This system will be requiring each of the Counties, as well as the State to provide an annual maintenance expense. We will be coming forward in budgets to come with that amount once we have established a contract. We have over the years have tried to improve our capabilities with absentee mail is concerned because of the growing number of people who like to vote that way. In May of 2013 a representative from each County in the State observed a very, very well run all mail election in Multnomah County which is in Portland. Despite the huge difference in voter counts, they have approximately 440,000 registered voters, we have 40,000. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that our operations were very similar. That was quite well received by us because that shows we are in the right direction and can eventually make that move to all-mail elections if the need arises. Concerning legislation in the 2013 Session two bills approved Senate Bill 3 established non-partisan primary and general elections for OHA candidates. Senate Bill 827 established additional restrictions for absentee ballots that essentially prohibits employers, unions, candidates, and other agencies from assisting voters with completing absentee ballots. Bills...several bills... Chair Furfaro: Go ahead and continue. Mr. Bynum: Would you run that by me again. I have some particular interest in what you just said. Mr. Yoshioka: The second bill? April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 3 Mr. Bynum: Yes. Mr. Yoshioka: That was Senate Bill 827. It was signed into law last year. It prohibits employers, unions, candidates, or their agents from assisting voters in completing a ballot, an absentee ballot. Mr. Bynum: So would that mean at the Farm Fair a candidate could not pass out absentee ballots to people? Mr. Yoshioka: Well, they do not pass out ballots. They may pass out applications. Mr. Bynum: Oh, you said assisting ballots. I was talking about registration. I was thinking they cannot assist people to register to vote. I am sorry, I was totally off-base. Never mind. Mr. Watanabe: At the polls. Mr. Yoshioka: No problem. We provided a handout with bills carried over from the last session or may have been introduced this current session. That handout is entitled "election-related bills at the 27th Legislature." This is something prepared and maintained by the State Office of Elections. We provided in the budget document information about the upcoming election contest dates, deadlines. I will not go into detail about that, however, we want to note that there will be Constitutional questions, as well as Charter Amendment questions on the General Election ballot and my apologies, I neglected to include that in the initial write up. So I wanted to provide that to you at this time. For the 2014 Election preparations we are in the midst of candidate filing and to-date we have issued 22 papers and filed nine of them. The deadline to file is 4:30 p.m. on June 3. So if you not already visited us ,please come on by. Election facilities all of them that are used either for training or Election Day use have all been confirmed. We use 8 State facilities and 7 County facilities that is either training or polling places and we use one facility at Kaua`i Community College to count ballots and generate election results. We are doing additional work to maintain the voter file and we do mailing. Most commonly known and is the yellow card that you get when you are a registered voter. That is also in additional information about dates and so forth. It is a way that we clean up the file to determine which individuals may not be at the address that they are registered at. We contracted with Oahu Publications to assist with the voter mailing. The initial mailings of these yellow cards is tentatively scheduled for April 24th and we will be doing supplemental mailings following the registration deadlines for the primary and general elections which fall on July 10th and October 6th, respectively. We will do public service announcements to announce those dates once they have been established. We are also required by Federal Law specifically the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to do final confirmation mailings for individuals that have not kept updated information in their files. We have contracted with Hagadone Printing to assist us with this mailing. The white cards...any voter who is mailed a white card, if they do not respond within two Federal election cycles or four years will be purged from the system and that is the only way we can remove so- called "deadwood" from the files. There are stringent requirements that we need to meet. Concerning voter registration as I mentioned earlier, on July 10th is the registration deadline for the primary election. October 6th is the registration deadline for the general election. Every properly executed registration affidavit that we get we process within two days and staff really tries to get that done within a day or so. If the form is incomplete or in April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 4 need of follow-up for whatever reason they will get on that and if it is eventually determined that the individual is not eligible to register, we simply file those affidavits to keep on record in case we need to refer back to them at some point. In the budget presentation document we also provided some general statistics. I will not go into that in detail, but we did update those with numbers that are current as of yesterday. At some point, please take a look at them and if you have questions contact me and I will be more than happy to respond to any inquiries. We are also getting absentee mail voting operations up and running. We contracted with Hagadone Printing to provide us with all of the different envelopes that are necessary for ballots to be mailed, and Hagadone Printing has been contracted to assist with the mass-mailing of ballots that occur prior to each election. We have yet to determine the exact mailing dates, but public service announcements will again be sent out to announce those dates so voters have an idea whether to expect their ballots. We are also in the process of recruiting and training Election Day officials. Deadline for parties to submit names was April 4th and we are now in open recruitment and hopefully to fill all vacancies, as well as establish a pool of alternates. We have 12 trainings scheduled and we will schedule supplemental trainings if needed. Early voting occurs during the Primary Election from July 28 to August 7th. The General Election early voting period is October 21st to November 1st. So we are open Monday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. — 4:00 p.m. The only change we anticipate is the addition of four direct electronic recording machines and we have asked for that in the current budget to address the increased demand for voting electronically in early voting. For this upcoming Fiscal Year 2014 elections are at the top of the list of things to do well. Our primary goal is always to provide the best possible service given the available resources. We learned a lot from last year, especially the impacts of an early election and I feel we are in a much better place at this point than we were in 2012. I think we will be much better off in the General. As part of an effort to increase awareness of the General Election in particular, we are proposing a General Election notification pilot project. This will consist of two direct-mailings. The first of which is tentatively planned for September sometime. We would like to provide detailed information about vote-by-mail and early voting in this first mailing. The second mailing we have tentatively planned for October and that will focus more on Election Day and what to expect. What to bring? Just general information. We will be working on those projects coming soon. We will need to issue an invitation for bid to solicit a vendor to assist us with this mailing and we plan to do that as soon as the new fiscal year begins and have a vendor selected by sometime in August. We also would like to micro film all of our documents. I know in the last budget we had mentioned wanting to do that in 2012, but after we looked at the numbers we did not have enough documents to make it worthwhile we believe. Having it done after 2014 will allow a fairly decent volume when we go out to bid. For our succession planning we do not anticipate any departures, but to build a more robust operation we continue to cross train staff and encourage them to seek training outside on their own. You know, in our office we approach training cautiously to ensure that staff is not overly burdened by responsibilities or perhaps expectations that exceed their position classification. Concerning vacant positions we do not have any and do not anticipate any in the immediate future. Overall, we understand and realize there is a bit of an increase with this year's budget, but that is primarily due to the increased demands on our Office based on the upcoming elections. That is all I have to offer. I would be happy to respond to any questions. Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Very nice report. I want to thank you very much for this presentation. I have two questions for you. In this election-year, we are looking at increases in expenses related primarily, I guess, to the election of about $185,000 over a non-election-year. Sounds about right? April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 5 Mr. Yoshioka: Right about there, yes. Chair Furfaro: Okay. I see that we are moving the regular overtime in the election-year, we are moving that by almost another $25,000. Is there any history of that that makes you want to move it that much? Mr. Yoshioka: During an election-year, you know, we have tried and it is primarily related to trainings that we have done. We tried to do that after work, but it is difficult for people and we moved that to Saturdays that extends the amount of time that we need to work outside of the normal 40-hour workweek. Chair Furfaro: This includes the volunteer training as well that you have to do? Mr. Yoshioka: For primarily poll workers, counting center officials, delivery collection and all of that and also for additional workload in order for us to get work done. We have some very hard and fast deadlines that we cannot make and as, as much as we do not want staff to burn the midnight oil, we just need to hit those deadlines. Chair Furfaro: Do we have fewer precincts? Mr. Yoshioka: No the same. Chair Furfaro: Did one precinct merge? Mr. Yoshioka: We converted Ni`ihau to all mail. That was the only one. Chair Furfaro: I was under the impression that we merged one precinct somewhere here. Mr. Yoshioka: The previous year. Chair Furfaro: It was the previous, okay. Mr. Bynum, questions for Elections? Mr. Bynum: I think I got from your presentation that the State is moving to all mail-in voting eventually...did I hear that? Mr. Yoshioka: Well, again, this does not reflect the views of my bosses or counterparts, but we see this increase in absentee mail and honestly, I think sometime within the next five, seven years we will be there. So what we did not want to do is be caught off-guard and so we have started to look at what we would need to do to make that transition. Our Signature Management System is one facet of that. It allows us to basically have one staff do the work that perhaps maybe three or four used to do. Mr. Bynum: Right. Mr. Yoshioka: So it just expedites the whole process, you know? Mr. Bynum: I appreciate that forethought. I spent time in Josephine County, Oregon, where the entire State is mail-in voting. They do not have April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 6 precincts or any of that. So thanks for the forethought. I think it is heading that direction. I was interested in the bill of absentee polling. You have a status here... Mr. Yoshioka: What bill is that? Mr. Bynum: HB 2590, HD 1 allows voter registration for absentee places beginning in 2016 and late voter registration on Election Day at polling places. Did you offer testimony on this bill? Mr. Yoshioka: We provided technical comments. Intent, it is good. Where we are concerned primarily with having sustained funding because there are additional expenses that are incurred by having something like that, early voting and at the polls. It does...at the polls especially, add a significant degree of complexity to responsibilities that poll workers will have to shoulder. Mr. Bynum: Imagine Election Day in five years that you have offices open to register and let people vote on Election Day and everybody else is by mail. Anyway, thank you for all your good work. I have learned a lot from you and your Department about how elections are run and you are providing really good service. I appreciate it. Mr. Yoshioka: Thank you. Mr. Bynum: One final comment. As other states are making it harder to vote, Hawai`i is moving in the direction of making it easier to vote and that is a good thing. That is a personal comment. Chair Furfaro: Mr. Hooser and then Vice Chair. Mr. Hooser: Thank you for your presentation and good luck to all of us and to your Office for the coming election. I know it can be a stressful time and lots of things can happen, but you have done a great job over the years and I appreciate that. I had some general questions that because we do not see you here that often, that may or may not...I can ask you at the end how it relates to the budget, but on the sheet that you gave us regarding registered voters and what not. The voter declinations filed 5,677, those are people when you get your Driver's License, decline to register to vote? Mr. Yoshioka: Yes. I am somewhat glad that you picked that up, because we have been approached in various matters to ask us what is happening with registration and why people do not want to register but that number really does say a lot. Because these are individuals who are conveniently offered the opportunity to register but they do not want to do so for whatever reason. You know, I cannot explain why this is happening, but it is something that we are concerned about. But something that we also believe much broader than just the efforts of our Office. I do not know if that answers your question. Mr. Hooser: It does. I will ask you some follow-up, since the millions of people who are watching, I think there are some concern that people will say they do not want to be called to jury duty. You know, is there any relation between registering to vote and jury duty? April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 7 Mr. Yoshioka: Well, the courts do use the voter registration file, but I would also like to add that they use the tax database, as well as Driver's License. So it is not solely just voter registration that is used. Mr. Hooser: The process is it an affirmative process or is it...for example a lot of forms you go online and the box is checked ahead of time and you have to uncheck the box. Is the Driver's License voting box already checked and you have to actively uncheck it? Mr. Yoshioka: No. When you go to Driver's License, you actually fill out that form. It is a manual paper form. I believe you can also download one and fill it out at home, but you actually need to fill out the top portion with required information. Then in order to meet Statute, there is an affirmation section that requires you to respond as to whether you are of age. That you are a citizen. That you are a resident. You need to affirmatively respond and sign a portion of the form in order for it to be accepted. Mr. Hooser: It is not something that people can just not see...it is pretty clear this is to register to vote. Mr. Yoshioka: Yes what Ricky was mentioning there is a section, a statement that says if you want to register to vote, continue and if you do not, just stop here and not fill out that bottom portion. So there are notices built into the form, which would indicate at what point you need to complete in order to fulfill that registration process. Mr. Hooser: Okay. You mentioned and I understand you cannot talk about details of the procurement, but you mentioned May 2nd voter registration electronic? Mr. Yoshioka: The system? Mr. Hooser: The system. My question would be, I think you mentioned the system would allow online registration. So assuming this moves forward is this for the 2016 elections? Mr. Yoshioka: Yes. Mr. Hooser: Okay, great and the vacancies. So I understand every election-year, the Office hires people to work the polls. You have mentioned that you still have openings, if you would and again for the people watching and if people want to work in the polls they actually get paid? Mr. Yoshioka: They get paid a stipend, depending upon the position that they are hired for. They are required to attend one training...we encourage them to attend the regular training, as well as what we refer to as the hands-on training that provides them some experience with dealing with the voting machines. It allows them to basically pick up and ask questions about areas that they may be uncertain. Mr. Hooser: That is working on Election Day? Mr. Yoshioka: Yes. April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 8 Mr. Hooser: If they are interested to call the Office? Mr. Yoshioka: Yes. Mr. Hooser: My last question for now. Chair Furfaro: Why do we not ask him the number of his Office? Mr. Hooser: What is the number so the millions of people can call you? Mr. Yoshioka: 241-4800. Mr. Hooser: It is an opportunity to be part of the process on Election Day and get paid for it. The other common question I get in the community is the felony...if you are a convicted felon and incarcerated you are not eligible for voting? Mr. Yoshioka: Correct. Mr. Hooser: But if you served your time and you are out, you can register to vote? Mr. Yoshioka: Correct. Mr. Hooser: People think maybe they got in trouble one time and cannot vote, that is not true. Mr. Yoshioka: That is not the case. Mr. Hooser: It is only people that are incarcerated. Mr. Yoshioka: Correct. Mr. Hooser: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Chair Furfaro: Thank you. I will go to Mr. Chock for final • comments on Elections and the budget that is in front of us. Go right ahead. Mr. Chock: Thank you, Chair. Lyndon, thank you for your presentation, and I just wanted to thank you for the great work you folks do. I was able to volunteer with Elections last year and see the exemplary work you folks do in terms of efficiency and security of the process. I am thankful for that. You know my question kind of is a follow-up on Councilmember Bynum's question. I guess the first question would be out of the 39,000 voters that we have, how many of those are walk-in? Is there a percentage that you might be able to share in terms of how many are walk-in? Mr. Yoshioka: I cannot calculate a percentage, but as far as the raw number, I believe we are looking at maybe 3,000. You are talking about early voting that comes down to our basement? April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 9 Mr. Chock: Yes I am sorry, no. I am confused. There is the walk-in that happens, but also on the day of Election Day, there is a certain amount that comes in to vote as well. Mr. Yoshioka: I do not have that figure offhand, but I can provide that to you very easily. Mr. Chock: That does create a distinction because there are about 3,000 that come in before Election Day and the rest is mail-in. What would trigger us in the County or State to move to what you are talking about is coming in 5-7 years? The last question, if there is an actual cost analysis, comparative kind of cost analysis. I am assuming it is a huge savings that we would look at if we move to the mail-in process. Mr. Yoshioka: Well as far as transitioning, that would be essentially a Legislative decision. They need to change the laws to allow us to conduct Elections by mail. Regarding the cost-savings. It depends on what study you look at and what State you look at. There may not be a significant amount of cost-savings because any moneys that you would spend perhaps to deal with the logistics of having physical polling places you would need to take those funds and invest in mail processing machines to deal with the volume of mail pieces. As an example, when we went to Oregon, they have a mail sorting machine about the size of this room in order to deal with the tens of thousands of mail pieces that they have, but along with that is costs to maintain and people to support. So there is a trade-off and a lot depends on how we want to structure our mail operations. So it would be a bit difficult for me to provide a definitive response at this time. If I may, when we met with our counterparts in Oregon, and they asked us how do you guys do elections and we explained that we have early voting and we vote at the polls on Election Day and we have mail and they looked at us and told us straight up we are crazy and yes, we are. It is tough to juggle three elections. Mr. Chock: I guess the message is that we give people every opportunity to participate and we still need more people to come out. Thank you. Mr. Yoshioka: You are welcome. Chair Furfaro: Go ahead, Tim. Mr. Bynum: The walk-in voting...I know I have asked this question before and do not remember the answer, but the walk-in voting happens here? Mr. Yoshioka: In our basement next door. Mr. Bynum: How could we expand that and make a west side and north shore location in the future? Mr. Yoshioka: Well, the first step would be for us to receive adequate funding. Mr. Bynum: That decision we could make as a County? Mr. Yoshioka: Yes, if you want it, we could. April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 10 Mr. Bynum: Is it too late for this year? Rick, I am just kidding. Mr. Yoshioka: He was about to have a heart attack. Yes, we can do that as long as we are properly supported. We would need ample amount of time upfront though, because one of the issues...we kind of looked at this, but one issue is that we have to find a proper facility. Mr. Bynum: We have neighborhood centers. We have County facilities. Mr. Yoshioka: Yes. We kind of talked about that. We would have to basically sequester a neighborhood center for a couple of weeks. Mr. Bynum: It could be done. I will tell you if I am still around here, I will pursue this. I am dead serious about it and if you have any ballpark figures about what the costs would be, you know, I would be interested. Obviously it is not for this election, but for a future budget. There are no legal constraints for us to expand this service to our constituents. Mr. Yoshioka: Not that I am aware of, no. Mr. Bynum: Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Okay. Mr. Hooser? Mr. Hooser: Just a brief follow-up. I think Councilmember Bynum's train of thought is a good one. Again, if I am around, and I think I would support that also. So what I would ask is that you give some thought to 2016, and given whatever legal authority that we have, how we could at least plan for...depending on budgeting and everything, a more aggressive, if you would, effort, to both register voters, get the vote out by doing some of these things. So maybe some more satellite and maybe advertising. I know some of this is that we do not have the money and that kind of thing, but I think it is a good opportunity, good useful exercise to think about, that what could we do? The County could sponsor whatever, rock the vote or whatever is within our legal authority to be more aggressive or engage the public more. I do not know what that answer is, but it would be a good thing to thing about within the legal confines that we operate. Chair Furfaro: Thank you for an excellent report and Lyndon thank you for all you do. We will move on to Jade and Council Services now. Lyndon, did you hear that? Thank you for all you do. Good job. Mr. Yoshioka: Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Jade, you have the floor. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Good afternoon, Council Chair, Councilmembers. It is a pleasure and very odd to be on this side of the rail. Before you is our budget, and there are a couple of highlights that I wanted to touch upon. One was our mission statement and I did hear Vice Chair Chock talk about it a little bit. I am sure there are some improvements that can be made, but it really is the core of what we do. We all...well, if I could just read it to serve the Kaua`i County Council in its legislative function and April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 11 provide service to the public efficiently, accurately, and with respect. That was a big change from what we have had before. I think this is the about the second or third year we have been kind of focusing on truly on public service. It is what we feel is important and necessary and really what the public deserves. As I am sure you folks are aware we do have four separate sections within Council Services. Records Management, Support Services, Research, the Clerical Assistance and the Secretarial Assistants and they all play a vital role in providing the service that we do to the seven of you...four right now, but the seven of you. I am not sure if there are any specific questions that you have, but we currently have one vacancy, which is a Secretarial Assistant. There was one part that I wanted to focus on and it is page 8. This may be for the new members will shock them, but the amount of work that the Office produces and what we put out, if you look at page 8, "new project assignments." It really provides a good indication. The members through various requests generate 4,856 project assignments. So amongst the seven of you, I could not tell you at least right now how many each of you put forward, but it surprises people it is such a large number. It is small things, as well as complex research, bills and ordinances and we have outlined that in the report as far as how many we do. This legislative session, as an example, we have issued about 100 pieces of testimony, tracked 163 bills, so it is a very busy environment and we are very thankful for the support that you have all really provided. The figures provided are really for eight months and probably by the end of the year the number will increase to over 5,000. Mr. Bynum: This is for eight months? Chair Furfaro: Two-thirds of the year. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: I know we are on a kind of tight line, but some of our successes and achievements, there was a part that we touched upon last year that I wanted to kind of repeat again. On page 6, our successes and achievements. I am proud to say that we have received an A+ rating again by Ballotpedia formerly known as the Sunshine Review for government transparency for the second consecutive year and we have reorganized the Council's website to make it user-friendly using OCR software. We have posted all Council and Committee agendas and attachments to make sure that they are available via the County's website and I know members of the public call and still have a little problem navigating the site and that is something that we plan to work on. We have established a social media policy and that led to the launch of the County's Facebook page. This initiative is initiative is an effort to be more accessible to the public and really a certain demographic that is tuned into social media. We have received 285 likes, 28,000 organic reaches and the largest demographic of people that utilize the page are about 45 to 54 years old, on average. Chair Furfaro: Jade, that would be appropriate, I think at this point, it is a great accomplishment to let the people know also on-camera, this is a grade A+ rating is the second year in a row amongst 1,036 counties. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Yes. Chair Furfaro: And municipalities that were rated and we also were rated far higher than our sister-counties in State of Hawai`i. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Yes. That is correct. That really...that effort was initiated by staff member Scott who has really done some wonderful things. As far as our social media policy, Yvette just provided me with the updated figures and we have 293 April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 12 likes which is even better. We have done things that I know members have been waiting for such as the codification of the Kaua`i County Code, which is being used and we have received calls and online inquiries. We have also successfully hosted the 2013 HSAC Annual Conference attended by 120 conferees and we are gearing under Ashley Bunda's leadership for the 2013 National, Western Interstate Region Conference. That is going to be a very large project for us, that we are preparing for already with various promotional pieces. So it will be a busy year or busier year than normal. Mr. Watanabe: Just to add to what Jade said, Yvette is our social media person on our staff. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: She issues all public releases. She is in charge of the Facebook page and has really done a very good job. It is kind of her part-time thing, because she is an analyst and she does the research and staffs the budget. So we have asked our staff to do a lot more with less. Chair Furfaro: We expect a lot more, because we have a fine staff, who is more than capable of doing that. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: We have an absolutely wonderful staff and I am very proud to be part of them and very proud of them. Very, very proud of them. Chair Furfaro: Please also mention that Yvette is our media conduit to the Administration. So we initiate our own pieces. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: She is very busy and I have just a lot of statistics and I know we are running short on time, but if there are any specific questions I would be glad to take them now. Chair Furfaro: I will give the floor to Mr. Bynum. Mr. Bynum: I am going to ask the same questions I ask every year, so it will not be a surprise. I would very much like to have seen additional analysts and other positions in this budget for Council Services. I believe our staff puts out an extraordinary amount of work. I just did the math and that is 3.5 requests per hour per working hour that come from Councilmembers. They do a remarkable job above and beyond and in spite of that, there are still needs to have a more effective legislative body and it is not a criticism and I continue to be dismayed at the amount of work. I think you would get a favorable reception from the Council body and this year may be the first year in ten years that I do not put up a proposal for independent staff, because I will not have time to do it and it truly would be a burden to try to incorporate that, perhaps at this time with space and all of that. But we just need more of these folks. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: We recognize the financial constraints, and I am very grateful for your offer, but we recognize the financial constraints that the County is in, and I think it would behoove us to not follow...I am trying to choose my words very carefully. Mr. Bynum: That is enough said. I just wanted to state on the record that I support expanding our staff; that I have always supported that. When there has been additions, it has resulted in additional productivity, and it has resulted in more cost efficiencies. Sometimes hiring more staff is very wise. April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 13 Mr. Watanabe: Just to add to what you said, much kudos to the Chair, because when he took over as Chair, as a directive, he pursued us filling the positions that we had vacant. Otherwise we would be more short-staffed now. Mr. Bynum: I wanted to ask a couple of questions and make some comments and I will be done. I think that is pretty much it. So I want to make some comments. Ever since I have been on the Council, it is almost a mantra we talk about the quality of our staff. It is almost like you have to do it and I am sure that the people and members of the public say oh, they have to do that, but it is really true and it has been true ever since I was here. What has changed dramatically in the time I have been here is the quality of the upper management. That has to do with our Council Chair and Ricky Watanabe and Jade Tanigawa and I want to say this on the record and I hope somebody is watching from the public, these are appointed positions and we have these two outstanding Civil Servants that have given 20, 30 years of service to our community, and this body is a controversial and uncomfortable place to work at times, I think. These two individuals stepped up and took what I think is a courageous move for a career civil service person to move into an appointed position, where you are at the whims of these folks here and we have collectively pretty weird sometimes...I know I am. So I will own that, but I think collectively true. I just want to thank you, Ricky, for taking that move at the end of your career, and you know with the Council Chair and his management experience, I think at times I thought maybe he was too intrusive, but I saw you guys assert yourselves and put this place together, along with the experienced manager and make incredible improvements over the last few years. I will forever be deeply grateful to the two of you personally for your integrity and being supportive of me when it was really difficult at times when I did not make it easy on you. I want the people of Kauai to know that this operation here has integrity and credibility despite all of our "hoo hoo" and it is because of the quality of the upper management and these two individuals. So thank you for that. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Thank you very much. Mr. Watanabe: Thank you very much. Chair Furfaro: Thank you for your comments. Mr. Bynum: Thank you for your contributions to the improvements to the structure of our Council Services. Thank you. Chair Furfaro: We are getting there, Mr. Hooser, did you want the floor? Mr. Hooser: Yes, please. Thank you, Chair. These are going to be my concluding remarks. I just wanted to echo what Councilmember Bynum said. I was here this morning at 5:30 a.m. and Scott and Ricky both were here at the same time and they do not have to be here at 5:30 in the morning and then work a full day and that is just a small example. My hat is off to the entire staff. It really is. I spent eight years in the Hawaii State Senate and I would put our staff head and shoulders above those people...it is just really great and trusting...trustworthy, because we count on the confidence...it is a small community and we are working on issues sometimes that are sensitive. I never, ever worry about that, because I know that there is nothing to worry about. I would be remiss if I did not basically say that the entire staff deserves a medal for what Councilmember Bynum and I put all of you through with Bill No. 2491. That was an April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 14 incredible experience for all of us and a test, if you would, and nothing bad happened. With the amount of emotion and the amount of people and the different venues and all that went on, something could have happened and I give credit to Ricky and Jade. You, for being able to see forward on that and managing it well. As far as I know, no one at least openly lost their temper. There might have been people stressed and frustrated, but nobody I know took that out and it was just a testament to the entire staff and I appreciate that tremendously. Chair Furfaro: Mr. Chock. Mr. Chock: Serves the legislative process, efficiently, accurately, and with respect. I think within the short time I have been here, awesomely done and any words that would describe the work that you folk have done, this is it and I want to congratulate you for obviously you folks have put a time and effort and there is a huge commitment as everyone has said towards the work here and I am overwhelmed and impressed at the same time. Not to disagree with Councilmember Bynum, but to make some clarification, I had the opportunity to talk about staff about the open position and ask them from their standpoint if the load was too much because the desk empty across from my office is the one that is vacant. From their perspective, they had shared that they are more than capable at least with the current workload that they are being given in servicing us. Maybe something to reflect on as we make further decisions with our Council Services. Other than that, thank you, Chair. Chair Furfaro: Yes, I think we have come a long way, especially in the last three and a half years. We have made staff evaluations and we do have one vacant position in our Office, and I would like us to really think through it by the 8th of May. Because I do not want us to be in a position that we cannot walk the talk as well. You know, if we are asking the Administration to sacrifice a position or two, I would like to make sure that we hold until we get through May 8th. Because I do not think this body and we function as 23 individuals that service the County with over 12.5 assignments...new assignments every day of the week. We have people that have new responsibilities and Scott, I want to personally thank you for taking over as the lead analyst. He has done a wonderful job and he has identified as a green color on our continuity report...that means that he can continue to move up. We have to do that because Ricky is red. Another 30 months he is going to be retiring possibly. So we have got to color-code some of these people and invest as we go along. Jade, thank you for everything that you do. You certainly, certainly are also a green light. I want to thank you Yvette, who has really worked on our Facebook page on the web and also has worked very, very closely with the Public Information Office across the street and Ashley, who is monitoring for us everything that is going on at the State. The three of you, my hat is off to you. We have made these changes in personnel and filled some vacancies that were unfilled for a while. We have a lead analyst in Scott and we added a second legal assistant with Christiane, three and a half years ago. We have a third person in clerical support in the Records Department. I think that person will be on board next week Monday. Mr. Watanabe: She will be here tomorrow. Chair Furfaro: Tomorrow? Mr. Watanabe: Yes. Tomorrow, right Scott? April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 15 Chair Furfaro: Because we have a backlog in Records. We took almost a year to get settled into the building after it was through the $4.2 million renovation and we have Eddie, who is do our facilities building and Eddie, I did not see him at the table today, is he here? Thank you, Eddie, we have a couple of very classy buildings to take care of now and constantly getting him exposed with projects in Honolulu and the Elections. We do upward appraisals for the staff once a year and so we have feedback that you actually come back with 23 pieces of paper that basically says constructively where can we make constant improvements? We just went through our last one in November. We have a mission, a vision, and a value statement posted in our work areas that the staff has agreed upon. And I look forward to constantly making more improvements as we go along. We have a tight budget. We have a lot to accomplish and I have to just say it is because everybody does their part. The two of you are leading a fine team and I am very honored to be part of this County Council, working with you and the Councilmembers here to get these things accomplished. But we need to watch our expenses going forward, and perhaps in two years we can revisit staffing again, but for right now, I want to make sure that you know, we have a chip to put in the savings pile if we are going to ask the other Departments to do the same. Mr. Watanabe: Thank you, Council Chair. Chair Furfaro: I have no more comments for you other than to say Jade, your recognition over in Honolulu is coming up this week. We are very, very happy for you with the Women in Business recognition, well-deserved, well-deserved. Also I have to say to everybody, if I can, take some time this weekend during Easter to just relax with the family and reflect on all of the good things that we have in the County of Kaua`i. Even in our worst day, it is better than anywhere else. Mr. Watanabe: Council Chair, if I can just add one more thing. Chair Furfaro: Go ahead, Rick. Mr. Watanabe: I know we have discussed in the past for the last year and a half or so about looking at where our employees should be...their rate of pay, because most of our employees are appointees. We are in the process of...I did the initial draft and it is currently being reviewed by Jade. So hopefully we will conclude that soon within the next two months. Chair Furfaro: I have two other pieces we should mention also. We do have a Rules Committee as I told Mr. Bynum if he wants to activate again those three members and also an HR Committee made up of three and I would like to make sure that they are both able to participate in whatever you come up with there. Mr. Hooser, you have the floor. Mr. Hooser: Just really quickly. I was bragging a little earlier about coming in at 5:30 in the morning and Scott and Ricky were here also at 5:30 a.m., but I would be remiss if I did not point out Councilmember Chock, who is a late-riser came in at 5:45 a.m. this morning. So there is an early crew here in the Council building getting the work of the people done. Chair Furfaro: Well, you have got to make up that extra 15 minutes. Everybody, I want to tell you this kind of summarizing our first go around. We have two call-back days coming up. I want to make note that April 21st we have from 9:00— April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 16 11:00 a.m. . and these are specific times for specific items. We have Public Works and Solid Waste back. We also have an hour with Life's Choices. This was at JoAnn's request from 11:00 a.m. — 12:00 p.m. and we have the Department of Finance coming back for an hour on the Humane Society specifically. We have the Kaua`i Police Department coming back on their subsidized vehicles on the 21st. Then we have 3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. the Office of the County Attorney. Then on the 22nd, is our second call-back day. We are going to get a tax presentation from 9:00 — 11:00 a.m. on rates and categories by Mr. Bynum. Then we have Parks and Recreation from 11:00 a.m. — 2:30 p.m. and we are going to squeeze a lunch in there somewhere. Our last call-back is with Mr. Costa for Economic Development. He is coming back specifically with some marketing ideas about agricultural products. So May 7th we have public hearings. May 8th we will have the Mayor's resubmittal. You folks will be given time starting from the 21st, no the 24th to have individual times with the Analysts. I do want you to know that I am taking all of my comments, I have already set my time up, and I am going to send all my comments back to you folks, my comments, so you have it in advance, because all of these things we have talked about in public, so you have something to look at in my direction, before we get back to the table. So on that note, Jade, go ahead. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: I am sorry, there was one more thing that I wanted to mention about our operations and I know people have been wondering, but we under the direction of the Chair we have taken some steps to reduce our overtime. I know people look around and see one or two analysts, but we have made that decision to really limit after 4:30 p.m., just the staff that we truly need for the pending projects. For the past eight months, and I asked Lisa Ishibashi to do a quick run, but we have accumulated 738.37 hours and we are very cognizant of and we are taking the steps to limit our overtime as other Departments have as well. Chair Furfaro: Considering the types of bills that we have dealt with, the budget time and elections coming up I think you should be complimented. Thank you for taking my suggestion and thin out the group when we come to 4:30 p.m., only those we absolutely need should be present and Jade and Ricky, thank you again for your fine leadership. Ms. Fountain-Tanigawa: Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Have a Happy Easter. The budget reviews are adjourned. There being no further business, the departmental budget reviews were adjourned at 4:23 p.m. Respectfully submitted, .4 Ott Sal •uncil rvices Review Officwr 1 arrellyne Caldeira Council Services Assistant II Coun • rvices Assistant Allison Arakaki Council Services Assistant April 15, 2014 Office of the County Clerk (ss) Page 17 Lori L. Marugame Co it Services Assistant Atewatir for ■lerk Typist Mich. . ,akashima _- or Clerk Typist APPROVED at the Committee Meeting held on May 21, 2014: %�'le' JAY r .�J,. �� Ctr ,_r....w E ...--opp,