001good afternoon welcome to the senate committee on education today is Wednesday March 19 2025 this is our 3:00 p.m agenda and we are in hearing room 229 this meeting including the audio and video of remote participants is being streamed live on YouTube YouTube you will find links to viewing options for all Senate meetings on the live and On Demand video page of the legislator's website this Zoom meeting and your and YouTube live stream event will include this 3:00 p.m agenda for the committee on education in the unlikely event that we must abruptly end this hearing due to technical difficulties the committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on Friday March 21st in room 229 and a public not noce will be posted on the legislature's website I'd like to take this time to remind
002our testifiers that due to time restrictions on our me on our hearings we will be limiting testimony to one minute per testifier per bill for people participating remotely please remain muted and video disabled until shortly before it is your turn to testify when I call your name unmute yourself and your time will begin after your minute is completed staff will mute you so that we can move this tearing along in a orderly and efficient manner and on our agenda today is House Bill 329 HD2 relating to the school facilities Authority this clarifies that the school facilities Authority is responsible for projects and facilities for pre kindergarten preschool child care and early learning programs Workforce housing and any public school development planning and construction assigned by the legislature Governor or Board of Education this allows the
003school facilities authority to use the Department of Education for certain Recruitment and hiring responsibilities allows the school facilities authority to partner with public and private development agencies to develop pre kindergarten facilities first to testify on this matter is superintendent Kashi or doe Al Cher kidani Vice chair Marcato Kim members of the committee Shan bacon assistant superintendent for the Department of Education testifying on behalf of the department uh Department stands on its written testimony which provides comments on this measure and we thank you for the opportunity John can you just explain what comments on so uh a couple things on it for the is is where one of the things that it talks about on the school facilities Authority is in the in the in the legislation it it mentions school facilities Authority could use either
004de herd or the Department of Education for the recruitment one of the things is the department is concerned about having two different agencies uh responsible for the recruitment uh and we would be recommending that it be one or the other currently R now de her is doing the recruiting um and uh the department would prefer that it remain at that point I think a lot of the positions that are being recruited for schools fac school facilities Authority um may be better recruited for through de herd than the Department of Education thank you for that clarification thank you memb questions how many employees does um SFA have uh currently right now according to our records um that I just pulled before we came uh there's 11 um positions that currently we have in our system for
005school facilities Authority approv for 12 what was that you're approved for 12 or you approv for 11 I'd have to check on on what school facilities Authority is appr Right 11 fil eight is filled eight is filled yeah there's according to my records there's three vacancies that are in our system right now so four vacancies got to touch bases with him so you know the numbers okay okay thank you thank you thank you any further questions we have Bri fujitani SFA thank you chair and vice chair and committee members Ricky fujitani we have submitted uh testimony rep the intent and seek to get clarification on clear roles and responsibilities and open for any questions if you have any thank you I don't have your testimony yeah I do you can I have a question I
006have question um when you say clear responsibilities can you explain what's not clear right now well the uh what was not clear is the confusion on recruitment it so that's the same thing we talk in the current law it says um May it says we're administratively assigned to the Department of Education so our pero and everything else normally is through there but it says it may use the department of human resources and that's why there's confusion right now um we were able to fill eight exempt positions through the office of talents management but the four more difficult ones are the Civil Service ones and that's what we're working with de her now so the positions you've have now was didn't get recruited through de her it got through the doe right through through through the
007Doe's Department called office of talent management the eight right okay so they're not been helpful in getting this last four positions um they feel because the civil service is more complicated that we've been directed to use de herd so you want to be able to just use de her in the future or still do a combination of both yeah I mean whatever is quickest I mean we've been in existence for Noto over two years and we haven't been able to recruit or any of our civil service positions yet so maybe the position should all be non- civil servant then we would fill it faster unfortunately in our enabling legislation there is 12 four of it civil service eight exemp is there a reason why only why the four was civil service I do not y
008does anybody know what's a rationale the problem obviously okay thank you okay anyone else here wishing to testify this measure good afternoon chair kidani Vice chair Kim Senator kuha and huchi from the Department of the Attorney General um I apologize if you don't have our testimony I'll make sure that it gets submitted to the committee um in our testimony we provided some comments um first with regard to pre kindergarten and preschool facilities um child care and early learning programs are not on public school campuses and the doe doesn't have jurisdiction or administrative authority over those programs so in our testimony we've um suggested uh clarifying amendment to address that issue also from the bill it's unclear if sfa's responsibility for all public school projects related to new or renovated facilities for pre kindergarten and preschool
009programs includes the responsibility for the repair and maintenance of those programs on doe or charter school campuses um if the intent is to make SFA um responsible for repair and maintenance we provided some clarifying amendments if the intent is to not have SFA be responsible for repair and maintenance and we've suggested amendments to address that as well um and finally with regard to Workforce housing um we are suggesting a clarifying amendment to indicate that the workforce housing is for educators and education workers in public schools um also it's again it's not clear if uh whether or not such housing must be on public school property to qualify as public school projects so um we suggest that SFA if SFA um excuse me if the intent is to allow SFA to build Workforce housing outside of
010public school grounds if that be um explicitly set forth in the Bill thank you I'll be available for questions thank you members questions thank you anyone else here wishing please come forward Aloha chair kidani Vice chair Mado Kim and Senator kuha my name is Jordana f with the City and County of Honolulu um I'm here on behalf of director KY with the Department of Community Services I apologize that testimony is late I did hand out some hard copies and have some extra ones if that's helpful um but we support the intent of this bill and we recognize some of the concerns that were brought up from the other departments we defer to them on the implementation but offer a small amendment that we think will help alleviate some of the concerns um and allow us
011to continue our partnership with the state to expand Early Learning opportunities on some city property I'm happy to answer any questions thank you I haven't had a chance to read this information so members questions is that all the people testifying or just oh sorry um no I believe so thank you is there anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure can we get SFA back up uh so Ricky um you heard what the Attorney General said so is it the intent for you folks to do the repair and maintenance of the preschools and kindergarten childhood or whatever well if it if that's the decision you'd have to build an entire maintenance organization in the SFA also because right now on school property right you have on the neighbor Islands repair and maintenance is done
012by dags CIP is done by uh by by the doe on aahu they have an entire division of over 200 50 employees doing repair maintenance it really doesn't make sense to duplicate a third agency right so I guess that's what I'm trying to I don't know whose bill this is yeah but the but the it's it's unclear right now right yeah so it's not this isn't your folks's bill uh no it's it's a it's a house house okay but you didn't int you didn't encourage them to introduce the spill yeah so okay so I agree that we shouldn't be duplicating that and you don't have the manpower to do it um and what about the issue on building outside of public lands Workforce Development yeah Public public lands I think that's clear that's clear because
013it's it's Bond funded money so we it would be like a grant in Aid which is uh that's the legality have very complex but for the sing County county of Hawaii County of Maui we clearly need to work with those organizations for preschool prek opportunity using County Land so we want it broad where we can work with County agencies to provide pre opportunities okay so you do think that that should be part of your responsibility to be able to not only put Workforce Development housing on public lands but also on other lands yes thank you members further questions thank you recess reconvening the committee on education we so the committee is recommending for House Bill 329 HD2 to pass with amendments and the Amendments would be um that SFA not be responsible for any doe
014facilities maintenance and repair that yeah that includes maintenance and repairs that SFA can build Workforce Development on school facilities and other property um they are to retain Staffing recruitment for positions within SFA with de herd we will insert an appropriation amount of $100 million out of the general fund for fiscal year 26 for a new Middle School in Central Maui to be expended by SFA insert an appropriation amount of $30 million out of the general fund for fiscal year 26 for a new Elementary School in Lina to be expended by SFA and inserting an an appropriation amount of $50 million out of the general fund for his fiscal year 26 for Teacher housing in Milani to be expended by SFA members questions okay so House Bill 329 house draft two two recommendation is to pass
015with amendments chair kidani hi Vice chair vot I Senator Hashimoto hi Senator kuha hi senator of the Court hi five eyes your recommendations adopted M chair thank you that concludes your business