it is our hope we have the bid opening for a few of our projects on April 19th we will keep the board and everyone a prize of how those bid openings went we have gym Lobby renovation we are replacing our steel Tower doors and three school for school and six school we'll be doing some brick and masonry work at six school and we'll be replacing our rooftop units at number six School we're going to be doing over three million dollars worth of projects hopefully based on the bid outcome in the summer of 2023. some of the expenses and appropriation Trend analyzes year over year one of the key items that went up probably a million and a half to two million dollars is what we call construction and instruction encompasses our regular and special education salaries and our tuition paid to other schools for special needs that is the line item that continues to challenge us as we incrementally send more students out of District the tuition paid to those schools is significant so that continues to challenge the budget one of the other items that really challenged the budget this year is that our medical and prescription went up anywhere between 12 and 15 percent year over year and that was near nearly a million dollars in Gross dollars that went up year over year so very impactful on the budget instructional support things like otpt purchase Professional Services for our child study and our special needs group also significantly went up year over year again special needs as a whole continues to challenge the budget and our our grant funding is pretty flat because we've had our in our Esther II funds are still going through the the process in regard to we have I believe in Esser 2 who's throwing machine I'm wrong I believe it's September 2023 and the American Rescue plan which is called Arc we have until September 2024.
uh so the way it works at the middle school and the math program is that we have a heterogeneous math class in seventh grade meaning all students are in the same math class together we do that very purposefully uh and uh and then from those classes students go on to an eighth grade class that is either a math a class or an algebra a class um and and students are the criteria for those which include uh extra assignments and and uh and uh there's a certain percentage uh score that students are to maintain throughout the year in order to be to be uh to qualify for algebra 8. and those criteria are established and communicated to students and family at the beginning of the year uh and uh and for students who are who indicate an interest in in being in the algebraic uh they're certainly supported in doing that and that's and that's something that that um is is not usually a a challenge in any real way hopefully that answered your question I think uh if you do have uh more specific questions related to some of these things I think it might be worthwhile to reach out for further discussion uh but I'm happy to answer general questions like that if if there are others that people would like to share um uh so again um great well I have really enjoyed the opportunity to share some of this information with you uh I'm gonna repost the link once again so that uh anyone can access it and again those three pieces of information there uh are the program of studies uh the rising seventh grade orientation presentation which includes links to specific information about different courses and uh and departments in in our Pro in our school and then of course finally the link to the registration form uh that is available or I'm sorry that will be due uh turned in through the Google form uh on March 31st which is one week from tomorrow great okay well it's been a real pleasure I hope you have a fantastic rest of the evening and I wish you well thanks
Love it. Yeah. Thank you. So, I'm sorry. Support or comments? Uh, we're supporting the different Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next to testify, Osatouille Jr., President HSTA. Hello, chair, members of the committee, Leverne Moore. Speaking on behalf of OSAU, present the Hawaii State Teachers Association. We support House Bill 54. We know that as special ed teachers, they are critical to supporting us in working with the emotional and behavioral problems of our students. Please support this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Leurn Brena Hashimoto, chief negotiator for office of collective bargaining, offering comments. Lesie Banak, legislative co-chair, Hawaii Association of School Psychologists. Um, hi, my name is Lesley Bonik. I'm with the Hawaii Association of School Psychologists. Uh, thank you senators for allowing us to speak today on this uh, measure. Um, I think I wrote this bill back in like 2016, so this is how long we've been working on that.
yes I'll put our chairs Vice chairs and the Committees Angela Melody young testifying and strong support so the purpose of this um this act is to um healthy friends of restorative justice to implement educational programs and the educational program will help about 20 people to get their GED um and so you know there are several theories of Public Safety this can be um accessed from the Minnesota to house research by a legislative analyst so you can read this document um and it says several theories of Public Safety support these policy methods of enforcing laws and punishing offenders the theory of incapacitation suggests that holding certain individuals in jail or prison will prevent those individuals from committing new crimes Rehabilitation theories suggests that directing offenders to certain treatment or training programs will change that individual or keep him or her from upending again so when we look at these interior theories yeah so in closing it's good to support the rehabilization theory for women thank you um is there anyone else wishing to testify on HP 1129 if not members any questions I'm going to move on to the next measure that is house for 1131 related to gender parity programs for incarcerated women on our testifiers list we have Tommy Johnson Candice spark from the Attorney General's office Michael golachu might be joining us via Zoom not president on Zoom chair thank you uh Linda rich those indicating they'd like to testifies or anyone else wishing to make commentary on Hospital 1131.
spend all those funds we're going through them at a pretty good clip so that's kind of the overall the expense component again year over year it's gone up about four four and a half million dollars again big chunk of it comes from Special Needs in regards to tuition paid to other schools support services and employee benefits prescription and medical have gone up significantly that's the major Deltas that have driven the expense component when you're comparing last year to this year in regard to revenues I mentioned that the tax levy is approximately 30 38 million five hundred thousand dollars in regard to an impact on the taxpayer that's right on the two percent cap which we are allowed by reg in regard to increased year over year so our tax levy has increased two percent year over year on a home value of approximately three hundred seventy five thousand dollars that will increase taxpayer per annum cost of about ninety five dollars per annum obviously if your home is worth less or more it's linear if your home is worth double that it could be approximately 190 dollars impact based on the tax levy increase of two percent year over year the absolute increase was approximately 750 000 year over year um another key income Revenue component was our transportation and miscellaneous Revenue are actually our transportation revenue is down year over year about 200 000 that's because we essentially lost to Fort Lee business uh we are in the process of trying to get some or all of that business back working with Glenn and um and Fort Lee in regard to hopefully getting some or all of that business back one key line item that went up to the good approximately 650 or seven hundred thousand dollars year over year is it the tuition we receive we receive from Fairview there's a couple of dynamics that are driving that based on we do an analysis with our HR Group and our own analytics internally in the business office of how many students in Fairview are going to be graduating and how many are coming in as Freshmen so we did this analysis and it looks like approximately we'll have incrementally 15 more students coming in September than we had last September so given that we have we charge Fairview tuition for our students so we could have incrementally 15 more and we've got a slightly higher rate that we charge year over year due to inflationary Dynamics so net net with that has really driven our tuition Revenue up uh year over year one other item that was really a key driver this year and we're trying to figure out kind of the trend analysis we haven't quite figured out the Dynamics of why our state aid goes up and down like an EKG an example of last year we had what we call Equalization Aid was down almost half a million dollars year over year we never really figured out the why behind it there's a formulaic math that happens year over year that create state aid but our Dynamics haven't changed in regard to the type of special needs students ell students really the whole kind of demographic and dynamic of our business hasn't really changed much but last year we lost about half a million dollars in Equalization Aid this year we got approximately two million dollars incrementally higher year over year but again we're essentially the same business so we're trying to work with with the state and our own tax assessor to kind of figure out the whys but right now as we'll take the incremental dollars uh really helped us cover some of our incremental courts that I mentioned the million dollar increase in prescription and medical and the increase in out of District tuition for child study teams so that really helped us close our Gap so net net like I said we balance with about 66.6 million in total in regard to our budget dollars so we believe it's a budget that can hold incrementally if we get additional added District students that we otherwise would not have budgeted that's always a wild card simply for the reason we don't know who's going to come through our door in regard to added District students that we can't handle and we'll have to either combination of transport them or pay out of District tuition so we believe we have enough hopefully incremental dollars in those line items that would support that so that's kind of the overall dynamics of the budget like I said appreciation everyone's support that I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation and I'd be happy to take any type of q a whether it's be from the board or the public Mr savastano anyone from the public any questions from the board I know I sent out the package you have in front of you in regard to the three-year key metric Trend analysis along with the budget resolution the only concern is the busting I I know it's uh in past years it was a revenue producing uh you're forecasting that is still going to continue to be a cash flow yeah it's net net we've been announced about three years ago Joe if we were going to format all our transportation what would the incremental impact be versus the current steady state we have now you know transporting other students and other districts such as Fairview Tower Park and Richfield because we go to those destinations so incremental even though we lost a couple hundred thousand dollars due to Fort Lee it's still when you look at the analysis of farming it out all of the transportation versus keeping keeping an in-house it's still a clear winner that you'd want to keep it keep it in-house pretty sure the yeah we've always had a positive cash flow when we were doing the other districts Etc yeah yeah how does that look well positive cash flow is is a tricky number Mr capano is the reality of it is we have some costs in regard to the our aides one to one AIDS are our regular bus AIDS our bus aides for special needs our drivers now to keep our drivers from Trading from leaving us is obviously most of them now are full time which I think kind of makes sense because we were losing them at a rate that unfortunately if we kept going with that business plan so to speak we would have not been able to cover our routes so as our special needs population continues to grow it's just not about kind of the revenue component which is great that we piggyback other schools onto the rest that we go out of District it's the in District that has grown significantly also that you know we have enough buses and AIDS and drivers because if we that business has grown almost exponentially since I've been here it's probably three times bigger to farm that out even though it's in town would be very cost prohibitive so there's there's this in there's this in-district Dynamic that really wasn't there years ago that really has kind of grown uh exponentially over time so you're welcome you're welcome thank you for the question I appreciate it does anyone else have any any questions from the board Frank anyone uh from the public Lou just to mention uh tomorrow we'll post the user-friendly budget to the website yeah Mr savastana will do that for me thank you and uh for the last number of years I've posted a budget newsletter that just kind of summarizes uh what we were able to do last year uh as a result of a past budget and I'll do the same thing uh this year look at projections if the budget budget passes in terms of what we could do as far as Staffing is concerned projects in the districts and so on and so forth so that's a one-page budget newsletter and I'll post that to the website and do an email blast to parents probably when we get back from the spring break about two weeks before the budget uh vote just just to keep everybody up to date any anyone have any questions on the budget okay just a couple of um actually one or two items in the in the agenda itself page two uh we are pointing Mark Hayes as interim superintendent um effective July 1st had a pre per diem rate to be negotiated second resolution is we are appointing Margaret Brown as an occupational therapist she will be assigned to school number five effective April 17th uh you know in the past in most cases we contract out for OT and PT services and we found that um by hiring Margaret which we plan to do it'll be a cost saving to the district we'll have our more hours it'll be less costly than a um to contract it outside the district third one is we're pointing Steve janno as assistant baseball coach for the spring season foreign this is again a formality I have to upload to the Department of Ed our budget are for next year for our pre-k program we only received our final funding numbers back in a couple of weeks ago so we had to put a budget together and now the budget was approved now we're just uploading a resolution that the board has approved that also I think our state aid went up 20 000.
We've attempted to collectively bargain with the Department of Education along with HGA support and have not been successful at that. So, it's a little interesting the DOE's comments. Um, school psychologists are significantly underfunded in Hawaii. In addition to that, our ratios are about 1 to 3,000 when the nationally recommended ratio is 1 to 500. Um, in addition, there's no credential for school psychologists. So, this is one way to successfully recruit and retain highly qualified individuals. um it's not necessarily going to make up for the wage gaps that exist uh in pay between uh the mainland and Hawaii. However, it is a step in the right direction. So, if you appreciate uh the Senate support in this measure, thank you very much. And I'm available for questions. Thank you, Leslie. Next, we have Alec Morantic. Aloha, chair and members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify.
anyone else cheers Vice chairs and the Committees Angela Melody young testifying um on behalf of cares um so we are in support of the study and um for the uh Manoa Thompson School of Social Work and public health um so and we just wanted to comment that by providing resources and investing in like the rehabilitation Theory um you're providing opportunities um for people to reintegrate into society um so thank you for the opportunity to testify thank you Angela is there anyone else wishing to testify on house for [Music] um being that I am do you want to step forward okay that I had talked in early mass that I am coming in okay here we go okay here we go so my name is Alicia Kuhio Kalani I am a support of actually any bill that will um help our women without be incarcerated um I have been one and I have been in the system for over 20 years I just got an early Max and I am getting my Bachelor's in Social Work degree um in May so I believe that EK knowledge any kind of education is important for us to thrive in community and um I'm happy to that you guys know if you have any questions congratulations thank you for joining us this afternoon [Applause] is there anyone else wanting to share their stories on 1131 the benefits of this program members questions join us if not I'm going to hand it over to my co-chair to take on the last bill on this agenda okay we're on House Bill six seven HD one making Appropriations for the Note 4 program appropriate funds for three full-time important positions for the windward community colleges who law program um Tommy Johnson Thank You artist echenberg real cute Kate Brady and support and Lauren Walker yes we support it thank you anyone else wishing to testifying this measure yes okay in support instead I'm a student I remember Community College I was also a student and armed walkers 1139 program um I work for pool room now and it's helped me stay out of trouble um it helps me be a role model to some of the other girls who come out and I meet with them on a regular basis to kind of keep us on the right path and I feel like if they lose that then and as we go through it together just shows others you know we go from just three of us to nine of us will be a whole bunch of us thank you we'll get your name started in kitchen okay no one else wishing for some members any questions hearing no questions okay we have what seven minutes all right thank you for your time um thank you for hearing our bill so I just want you to know Courtney I'm a counselor at kuohuno program and the women's prison is my area whether this is with me or someone else it needs to continue we have out of 189 prisoners 91 are students from our College um they are so encouraged by school we have lower write-ups we have less you know disturbances they want to be in education it is nice to see firsthand I'm either 20 hours a week to see these women have faith in themselves and try and turn their lives around and if this program doesn't go forward then that will end and I hate to see that happen so please please please support HBO 67.
compared to last year yep okay um do you have anything financed for the budget for the agenda no that's it any questions on the agenda I have a motion to accept it thank you I'll take a vote now if I may uh Mr Brew yes Mr capano yes Mrs Fredo yes Mr Garcia Mr nadru yes Dr pantaliana yeah Mr Russo uh Mr Fano yeah um some people have to abstain on the appointment of Mark Hayes because they're conflicted so um you want to give me those names Mr Romans who did you who took the vote uh Mrs Abreu that's how I uh she ripped stain on that resolution so I'm staying on interim yes okay uh Mr capana he's okay he's okay on the interim right yeah uh Mrs Freda okay okay on the interim okay Mr Garcia okay okay okay on the interim okay Mr nidrue I'm staying on that on that resolution I'm staying on the interim Dr pantaliano okay okay Mr Russo okay okay on the intern Mr terabakia yes you have to abstain okay sorry no no don't worry it's on me no problem and Mr yanozzi yes okay Mr Roman Gina okay before we close just a reminder that March 29th next uh Wednesday we have another regular meeting okay motion to close I'll make a motion okay that was uh Mr Russo may have a second if I may have can okay thank you thank you everyone thank you so much no worries no worries take care right
My name is uh Alec. I'm a school psychologist for the KKK complex area on Hawaii Island. Um I support this bill and I stand on my written testimony. Um this is an important first step in addressing um not only the recruitment and retention issues um that are feeding to the critical shortages of school psychologists in the state. We only have about 60 to 61 um currently working in the state. Um it also is an important first step in addressing um the pay inequities um compared to uh western region um states that have comparable costs of living to us. Um thank you for this opportunity to testify. Thank you, Alec. That concludes uh the testimony. We do have about 20 written um testimonies in support. Members questions. No, it says she was going to be here, but is anybody here from budget and finance? Nobody. because the testimony from office of collective bargaining deferred to budget finance on how significant the cost will be.
it'll help a lot of women not be back in prison and sick goals for themselves in life thank you thank you very much to anyone else listening to testify Angela things I love my chairs voice chairs and the committee's Angela Melody young testifying on behalf of cares and strong support um I like just I would just like to revisit the theories again of the theory of incapacitation um so and also the theories of rehabilization right so Public Safety um policies um supports these theories when enforcing the law right whether to punish or to provide Rehabilitation resources and the measure that we are looking at today is to provide uh Rehabilitation opportunities educational programs resources for those who have offended and so that the you know by providing the resources you're giving opportunities for those who have offended the law to confront their trauma bring healing and restoration to their Injustice and then to help them to become positive contributors to society so therefore we support this measure thank you for the opportunity to testify okay there's another testimonies we're all great for decision making or members questions [Music] thank you for your patience we we're reconvening the joint committees for decision making on this 317 agenda the first measure on this agenda is House Bill 1129 HD one within to incarcerated equipment um we like the efforts by the house but we think the Senate has a much nicer bill so we and much more Fuller Bill and or succincts bill so we'd like to replace the contents of this measure with the language of Senate Bill 710 and all of us saw on the various communities hurt the measure and the testimony very familiar with the content measure so that's the recommendation in this question yes oh I'm sorry that's correct um we improved it twice so we're going to do it on the sd2 version of Senate Bill 710 so sorry just to make it clear uh we're going to replace the contents of this measure House Bill 1129 HD1 with the contents of house excuse me Senate Bill 710 sd2 any discussions [Music] recommendations to pass House Bill 11 29 with amendments uh chair votes I by Sherwood science [Music] Mr chair recommendations adopted same recommendation for the committee on higher education to pass with amendments Chevrolet 's eye senator fukunaga oh hi Senator Keith algaran yes Senator fabella excuse which is adopted manager thank you oh the next measure uh House Bill 1131 HD1 relating to the gender parity in programs for incarcerated women likewise you think that we had a very full and robust discussion on the Senate version of this bill and would like to put that bill in to this one so we're going to replace the contents of HB 1131 HD1 with the contents of Senate Bill 711 sd2 members any discussion recommendations to pass HB 1131 with amendments of the five members present from PSM any no votes any voted reservations and none Mr charity recommendations.com speaking on higher education same recommendation and then each week with the Senate Bill 711 is d2e Chevrolet [Music] thank you and finally for the last item Senate Bill 67 I was just one your recommendation is to pass with amendments with uh Technical and nonsensitive amendments for the purpose of clarity and consistency members any questions hearing are the sharehold sorry the four members present over in the no votes thank you for members of PSM same recommendations to pass this measure with subative and members technical Concepts specific problems not um yes okay with five members president from PSM any no votes or votes of reservations hearing none Mr chair of Innovations thank you
So I'm just going to find out what the number was also set. Yes. Correct. Correct. Those are some of the issues that we have discussed before. Thank you. If there are no other questions, we are moving on to item number two. House Bill 1412 relating to libraries prohibits any contract or license agreement between a publisher and library in the state from precluding, limiting, or otherwise restricting the library from performing customary operational and lending functions. Restricting the library from disclosing any terms of its license agreements to other libraries. and requiring, coercing, or enabling a library to violate rules regarding confidentiality of a patron's library records. Deems contracts that contain prohibited provisions and unfair or deceptive act and practice and void and and uninforcable to testify. We did have a lot of testimony on this. So, uh, Department of Education, please. Good afternoon, Chidani, Vice Chair McCain, and members of the committee.
On behalf of the Department of Education, I'm Ray Fujino. We stand on our written testimony and support. Thank you, Ray. Next to testify, Clem Guthro, University Librarian. Good afternoon, uh, Vice, uh, Chair Kadani and Vice Chair Kim and members of the committee. Uh, I'm Guth, the university librarian at uh, Fenoa. Uh, we offer, uh, comments and, uh, recommendations for changes.
We basically stand on our testimony and available for any questions that you might have. Thank you. Next to testify, David Louie, Association of of American Publishers. Good afternoon, Chair Kadani, Vice Chair Kim, members. Thank you for the opportunity. Um uh we oppose uh this bill. I in all my years looking at bills, I've never seen one quite as flawed as this one. Uh although it it has an intent. Um it is unconstitutional. Uh it violates the federal copyright law. Uh one federal court has already struck down substantially similar litigation in Maryland. They just did it in February 2022. the governor of uh New York um Governor Hokll vetoed a measure that was passed in New York uh that was similar a similar measure was held in committee in Virginia. But the important thing is is is that these are rights of people who have copyrights.
They create books that create movies. They create all kinds of things. And now this bill tries to say that you don't get to control your copyright. The library gets to control your copyright. You could the library could buy one copy and disseminate it a million times under this bill. Uh the the the uh uh that's what libraries are for. Yeah. Well, they could do it a million times and not pay for it. And and so then they would take away they also could have an unlimited duration and they can copy any text and any artwork from the from the whole book or the whole work and publish it completely. Um, so this just eviscerates copyright. It's really flawed. You can't do anything about it. People have said, "Well, we should amend it this way, this, that way." It's it's a terrible bill. Uh, it uh says that we're going to make a violation of of uh a reasonable term of a contract become an unfair and deceptive trade practice, exposing uh creators uh to lawsuits for trouble damages, impunitive damages.
um and giving a private right of action to borrowers as well as libraries. So, uh I urge you uh this is just going to lead to litigation. Uh this is a very flawed bill that attacks federal copyright law and the United States Constitution. Um so we would urge that uh you hold this bill.
Uh I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. Thank you, David Stacy Aldridge. Aloha. Thank you, Chair Kadani, Vice Chair Kim, and members of the committee. Um, the Hawaii State Public Library system stands by its written testimony in support of this um, bill, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Um, and the point of this bill for us is reasonable terms of access to digital books for our public. And I think it relates more to contractual issues versus copyright. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Stacey, why don't you stay? Sure. I was trying to stay within the minute. I apologize. And members, I will say that most of the opposition, the written testimonies that came in emails are not from not from Hawaii. Um so um for us with ebooks I can only tell you from a librarian who procures books um that's what we do.
Um is that this bill is about contractual issues as we think about other contracts. The state has the right to determine how we take in contracts and how we make purchases. Um there's a continual push that this is copyright related but it's not copyright. They still own their copyright and in no means would we ever try to make multiple copies and sell them and send them out to multiple people. The libraries are palaces for authors. We support authors. We want them to receive appropriate um remediation for their or um appropriate funds for the work that they do. This in no way is determined to it's not meant to do that. What we're looking at is for example there are um let me give you a book the first detective ladies first ladies detective agency probably familiar with Alexander Mcllmithnith in 2010 publishers sold that book for $14.95 for for perpetual access to libraries in 2013 they changed the the conditions to $4485 for perpetual action or access to that book in 2018.
18 they charge4 $44.84 uh two years access. So the price continues to be higher but the access continues to be lower. Today this 20-year-old book if we want to purchase in 2023 we have to pay 27.50 if we want 12 months of access or $55 for two years of access. Um the model is not getting better for libraries and they're moving to pay per use and there is no way that we can sustain a pay-per-use model for having access to electronic resources which are important to us in Hawaii because it's an extension of collection to all of our islands. It's very difficult to make sure that everybody has access. So we're not asking to take away people's copyright or to make sure that the authors don't get paid. That's a different conversation between the publishers and the authors about how much they actually do get um in uh royalties, which I don't think is fair.
I've seen 25% for ebooks. It's more about how do we make sure that the cost of these books are available and and and accessible to us because the costs are so high. um just for Obama's book, his most recent book, we have spent $3,000 just in um electronic format to make sure that that's accessible via audio book and also ebook. So, we just want the books to be available and accessible and the idea that we're doing harm, we will buy more books, not less books, if they're affordable. Um, and so we just want to be a fair play for and reasonable cost for libraries instead of this ongoing usage cost that keeps getting higher and higher and a new models that will not be sustainable. We won't be able to offer ebooks in the future. Thank you for that. Is there anything in the measurement of making I don't know that there there is, but we would never do that.
That just wouldn't be ethical. Yeah. The only amendment we would like to see is that existing contracts aren't affected by this this law. Um we'll have to make a transition. We have 93,000 titles and um over 100,000 users right now with 44,000 holds using ebooks. And so we know there would have to be a transition um with the publishers to make sure that we could find um reasonable reasonable fees. Um so um that's in our testimony. the three areas that we'd like to see amended back into the Thank you. Yes. questions. Yeah. Um, so before we had electronic books, when you purchase books for the library system, you paid a fee per book. Is that correct? And then you own it. Yes. And then you own it. Correct. U, in this situation, you are paying for a user fee for a period of time. Is that correct?