Our bus routes have probably been the same for a long time and the question is can we change the way that we do our routes based upon the transportation network that we already have be more efficient. Thank you. I use the word right sizing. >> So we're trying to right size our our roots, right? Just make fit with the the people that are actually riding the bus. >> Right. Okay. No, that makes sense. I I'm supportive of that. I I didn't understand I didn't know that we didn't know who's riding the bus and who's not riding the bus when we do our bus routes. No, we we we is we do our bus routes based upon who goes to the can public schools because we're required to provide transportation. So if there's a kid that a child that lives on 125 Bunker Hill Road, um we're planning our bus routes that we have the kid a student that lives at that house.
Because we cannot be all things. I mean you know we we're doing early childhood preschool because this is the same thing. We want them to start reading early. So hopefully that helps get that. Yeah. But but there's cost and I'm being realistic on this. >> Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. >> No other questions. Hearing no questions I'm going to recess and go into the joint committee with uh CPA right now. We're going to go to our 2:00 agenda item. Chuck Colway is that Okay, yeah because we are we we still have another agenda with um Sure. Waterland that is not here. So we're going to recess and then go into our 2:00 agenda item. Okay, so we are now going to start with our 2:00 agenda item starting with House Bill 2161. This is relating to pharmacy. It establishes the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy Special Fund to support pharmacist workforce assessments and planning efforts.
>> Okay, are we on or Yes, you're on. >> But we have to start No, not according to it. We're we're we're on. >> Okay. So, welcome everyone. We are on the Committee on Education jointly with the Committee on Health and Human Services. Uh we are on the 1:10 agenda. It is 1:24 in room um 225. Uh today is March 25th, Wednesday. First item on the agenda is House Bill 1574 relating to health care education loan repayment program. Formally codifies the health care education loan repayment program. Requires a participant in the health care education loan repayment program who receives a new award on or after July 1, 2027 to remain and work in the state for certain number of years based on the amount of financial assistance received. First item First person of um to testify is uh Lee Weng Concepcion Lum. Aloha. Aloha, chair, vice chair, and committee members.
So, the data helped us to determine focusing on K-12 or or not K-12, kindergarten through second grade is where we're going to see the greatest impact and is part of our priorities. These students are not consistently addressed in a way that's designed to support them effectively. So, part of what the um planning for next year includes is a reset and reintegration classroom. This is an alternative behavior setting for K2 students. And it is a designed to be a medium-term placement where students receive behavioral instruction while also keeping up with their academic instruction receiving that as well. It will be um led by a certified teacher and a registered behavior technician. And we are working with administrators and the guiding coalition to have explicit entry and exit criteria for this program. Um and will ensure fidelity and evaluate its effectiveness as we go through our inaugural year of this program.
is literally like a hundred thousand dollars in Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, makes sense, right? Yeah. Um just No, no, these these are all good. Sorry, just a general question. Uh I'm wondering why the the price or sorry, the expenditure stays uh fairly consistent and even increases uh when we were all in lockdown. Do you know what the Because we have a contract and we have still have to pay for it. We still had to pay. Yeah. And and trust me, we we we wanted to understand that. >> We negotiated actually a little bit. Yeah, we I mean, you see there's a slight dip. Yeah. Um but we negotiated carrying some of the for lack of a better term, credits forward into the next year. Like all districts were doing and having those conversations. That's a good question, though. Yeah, no, and and and we talked about it a lot at the time.
>> Sorry, Stephen. Put you on the spot again. >> So, we're taking money out of revolving accounts to support the money we lost from title one. >> Not yet. >> The >> possibly. >> Well, we haven't even gotten there. >> Yeah. the budget you have in front of you, right, was presented prior to us finding out that title one hit. So, no adjustments have been made. Is that fair statement? >> Yes. And these I think the last >> I just where have a good one put it to the mayor of you know any number it >> give me a number. >> Exactly. So we're we're kind of having this discussion in to some extent I'll say a vacuum and I understand the challenge that she's having and stuff but you know this this exercise that we're doing here is going to be ongoing continuing as we start to >> Well that's where where exactly >> what what is are we going to be able to self-substain our title one teachers we currently have if title one is cut >> I think so I >> think the first place like I said last Monday the first place we would look at the we look at FY25 title one.
vacancies in DPW. You have to get the job. >> Yeah. No, I know. I'm just like I'm just trying to go on this thread with you. >> Something that is not directly education, but at least not in the classroom. So, I mentioned one in it and one in two position systems, not another. >> Right. So Andy, do we have like a breakdown of what that would be? Like do so that we would know like how much of that vacancy exactly would be in classroom support or >> Okay. Yeah, maybe that I'm just I'm chasing down these thoughts with you. That's what I'm doing. Um, and then the other thing that I just that kind of came into my mind is that um, yes, we haven't had an override, but we do have a city councelor who's done a lot of deep dives on what that would be.
>> Okay. So our default right now is that every student rides the bus and that's how our bus routes are made. did actually fill out three. >> Oh, okay. Well, then yeah, I have no I think us being more efficient and more proactive and that makes sense. So, I I was just under the assumption that we already did that. So, okay, I'm supportive of that. >> You do fill out sheets, >> but the sheets say where do you live and different things like that. And we never really asked, are you opting in or are you opting out of transportation? And there's kids that get bus to school every single day and get picked up every single day and we still may have that bus go down that that street. So I I like what John said about right sizing. Um any other questions on transportation?
Establishes the pharmacist workforce assessment fee and testifying on this measure starting with Ray Matsumoto for the University of Hawaii. Good afternoon. Hi we stand on our written testimony and I am available to answer questions. Thank you. Christopher Fernandez for DCCA Board [laughter] of Pharmacy. Good afternoon chair. The board stands on this testimony supporting the event pharmacy. Thank you. Paula Donne for Jack Lewin. Not here. Corey Saunders. Good afternoon chairs Kim Lole Corey Saunders executive director of the Hawaii Pharmacists Association. I want to thank you for hearing this measure. I'm of course going to stand on our written testimony in strong support but I want to use my time briefly to elaborate on the vision for the center and probably get ahead of some questions that you folks have for us. So unlike nursing and medicine pharmacy doesn't have a workforce assessment fee tacked into our licensure fees.
Lee Weng Concepcion Lum, associate dean for academic affairs at JABSOM, here to stand on our support. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? We have Apollo Done for John or Jack Lewin. Hi. You're not Apollo. >> [laughter] >> Good Good afternoon. I'm Terry Vespers on behalf of Dr. Jack Lewin with the Shidler. Uh we'd like to stand on strongly on our testimony with this. Thank you. Thank you. Um McKenna Woodward. Aloha, chair, vice chair, and members of the committees. McKenna Woodward on behalf of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs will stand on our written testimony and support today. Mahalo. Thank you. Jonathan Ching for Kaiser Permanente in support. Not here. Uh let's see, we had plenty people that sent in testimonies, all in support, none opposing. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure whose name I didn't call.
Students will have a reintegration plan to return successfully when they have demonstrated success with their behavioral goals. And this will provide an alternative to repeated removals from the classrooms at the at the site level by addressing some of the root causes. In addition to that reset and reintegration classroom, we also want to strengthen our BCBA support that we're providing to the schools. So by increasing from one to two board-certified behavior analysts, the staff will get more support with case management with these tier three students. And we will also be able to provide more coaching to the RBTs. RBTs are full-time Monday through Friday full full day. They are more able to immediately assist some of these tier three students. Um but we want to continuously provide them with the clinical supervision and the oversight of the certified behavior analyst in order to continue to support them.
Like they have to run a business and the business has to survive as well, and we have to honor our contract, but also work with them. And so, yeah, we we we did have conversations about with them about that. So. Um and I I put in the last bullet there. Um we all know this, but uh maybe people in the community don't. Uh is that we will put these contracts out to bid, and uh we know we will only get one back one back. And that's not to say they're not very fair with us. It's just uh the reality of it uh that there is not really any competition when it comes to uh these contracts. True statement. So, uh the other drive The next uh set of drivers were fixed cost. Uh so, this is going to look strikingly similar. So, this is all fixed cost.
So there's anything that we have left over because it's a 27month grant. >> So anything that we have saved in the FY25 would be the first >> it's not a revolving account but it' be the first place we' go because at the end of September >> we have to have that spent down >> zero. So like sometimes that looks like covering those teacher salaries for August and September >> and that buys us at least a portion of what we lost it. So that would be the first place that we look. But revolving accounts and other places could be I think when we look at it, we're looking more broader scope and saying like, okay, a revolving account could fund an additional X amount. So we'll use that and then where do all the pieces? >> Well, but yeah, >> for title one, that would be our first look.
And maybe I mean, if anybody wants to talk to councelor Brown, she worked out the math for that. And I believe it was something like it adds $4 and some cents to each household. So, it's when people are thinking about that, it's not as frightening as it might sound. and I didn't understand it until like fully until she explained it to me. So that's not that scary of the math, but maybe we could >> reach out to her and get that information, those facts and figures. And then my other question is for you, budget and finance. Did you all have a chance to meet with Ways and Means at all to >> We did not this year. >> Okay. So I'm guessing that's on your list for >> the next round. Hopefully. >> Okay. For those un going >> unforeseen things that are coming up and things that you can plan ahead of time for.
>> Amy's got a question. >> Yeah. >> Hi. Um >> can you hear me? >> Yeah, you're good. >> Okay. Um I just this might be more of a comment. I just from my personal experience, the bus that serves my neighborhood um is consistently late when delivering the children to CIS because of the um the timing of everything. And I think we have one of the lower number of students on our bus. So, I would just um I appreciate the efforts to make the bus routes more efficient, but I would just um I guess plead that the group doing the planning of the routes um take into account how whether the bus can actually get to the schools and get the kids to school on time. >> Thank you. And and part of what and that's a legitimate uh comment maybe that part of what we may have to do is the board of finance asked us to make $200,000 worth of of recommending cuts.
I've included those proposed fees in my testimony. They've stayed stable over the past three years that we've introduced this bill and we've had no pushback from the profession. Even with the modest increases we're still one of the most inexpensive states to either be a pharmacist or do pharmacist business in the state and we don't see this as being a barrier to the profession across Hawaii. Secondly and most importantly being quite transparent with you folks it can be challenging to be an advocate for a profession that I love and believe in so much when we have very little workforce data. We've got no one that's collecting the number of pharmacy closures across the state. We're passing some really great initiatives more unable to report back the impact factor. So we're hopeful that we can get some more data to present to you folks and to have really used the momentum that we've garnered over the past couple years for our profession.
Hearing none, members, we are open to questions. None. Any questions? Hearing no questions, okay, we are moving on to House Bill 1894, House Draft 1. This requires Department of Education to include instruction of Braille and provision of Braille instructional material under certain circumstances, provide Braille literacy support services coop in cooperative with the Department of Human Services when requested to submit information necessary to maintain a register of blind in the state. I believe we've had a Senate bill that that we heard. This is the companion bill. Starting with Keith Hayashi testifying for DOE. Aloha. Aloha, chair, vice chair, and members of the committee. Kenneth Uogarden on behalf of the Department of Education, we stand on our written testimony in support of this measure. Thank you. James Gaskell for National Federation of Blind of Hawaii. Yeah, hi chair, vice chair, and uh members of the committee, I'm just going to stand on my written testimony for National Federation of Blind of Hawaii and uh thanking the Department of Education and other supporters for their help on this bill.
So the BCBAs will focus on tier three case management and um and that is one way that we plan to increase behavior expertise. So there's a few steps that we've taken to make sure that we have system realignment. One is we evaluated job descriptions to make sure that they are specific and consistent in verbage regarding behavior support. We provided some targeted training and are planning for more targeted training to a variety of employee groups. And we also are working with the guided coalition to to distinguish between proactive and reactive supports. In addition, Hanover research probably heard me speak about Hanover research before. They're helping us to do an in-depth analysis of solid tier two and tier three behavior curriculum that we can use not just for the reset and reintegration classroom, but also for the tier three and and and tier two students that are at these school sites.
So, this is town-wide. Um and it again it shows what it what it includes. Uh and then also uh highlight in a bullet that down there that while the fixed costs in the next slide is health and health insurance show up as municipal line items, obviously uh the schools are the biggest participants in those programs, right? We we uh have the overwhelming majority of the employees that participate. So, um want to want to just highlight that that these are essentially school costs as well. And uh the next slide will have a little bit more of a narrative on it. We will have a dip in FY17. Um so, we are trying to be good fiscal stewards, and FY17 is when the town switched its administrator to the the GIC, uh saving uh some money. But as you see, that quickly outpaced the uh the two two and a half line.
To me, the last last person who should get a letter that says we are not going to need you next year is a reading specialist in Greenfield. Let's be real. If you need to cut somewhere else, we cut somewhere else. But those people, I'd like them to multiply because we got problems. And so, I would hate for them to get a letter that says, "We're sorry, but you know, and as somebody who's had to give those letters, those people can find a job in two minutes." Um, >> more questions. >> Go put us back on point order here. >> Yes. >> Well, I'd like to revisit the question that we got off from about um what kind of trouble for FY FY28. Um, so your short answer was not good. So is it correct to then say that >> we can swing status quo for one more year shy of some kind of a sudden infusion of money like Esser but FY28 would need drastic changes.