The Committee on Finance met on May 19, 2026, at 1:01 PM in the Hawaii County Building in Hilo, with councilmembers present. The meeting covered routine fund transfers, change orders, reallocation reports, property assessment certification, a lease resolution, a biennial budget charter amendment, and appropriations for public access and disaster funds. The meeting adjourned at 2:28 PM.
Aloha, welcome to the 36th session for the committee on finance. Today is May 19th, 2026. It is 101 p.m. Today's meeting is being held at the Hawaii County Building here in Hilo, and we have our facilities open island wide for those who would like to testify. Starting us off today here in Gilo, we have Councilmember Kimball, Galimba, Viegas to my right, Councilmember Kagiwada, Houston, Kirkowitz Onishi, and Councilmember's related birthday was yesterday, and he's not joining us at this moment. He's excused. Do we have any testimony before we begin? Thank you so much, Chair. Just want to confirm that we do not have any testifiers here at the beginning of your meeting. Thank you very much. Give me one second. Please note for the record, Councilmember Nava has joined us. Mr. Clerk, can we go to the top of the agenda? Communication 23.34. Communication 23.34 report of fund transfers authorized March 16 through 31, 2026 from Controller John Arboles dated April 21, 2026. Chair motion on close file on communication 23.34. Second. Any discussion? Yes, Chair. Councilmember Houston, please. Thank you. Uh just a couple questions here on the request for transfer of funds. Uh first to public works on the street sweeper. Good afternoon, Kelsey Kalua Lewis Public Works. Thank you, Ms. Glue Lewis. Uh you noted that the street sweeper, the estimated and budget amount was 300,000. And now you request another 118,000. So why is it so much higher? I think with the inflation, um when we currently budgeted for it, we thought 300,000 would be enough when we put it out for bid. Um it came in higher, a lot higher than anticipated. Um fortunately, because of the um some of the equipment that we have in our lease account not being able to ship or be received this fiscal year. We had additional funds to cover for the street sweeper. So the 300,000 was in last fiscal year's budget or current fiscal year's budget. Current fiscal year budget. And that so the research that was done at that time estimated about 300,000 then in the prior year when we when we were developing the budget for fiscal year 26. And then what was the kind of the time between what will how much time had lapsed until you decided when out to bid for the um I would want to say maybe like about a year a year because this was the original kind of estimates we did, probably in the initial maybe I want to say December, the early stages of the FY26 planning phase. So about a year from the time of research to then putting out to bid. Yeah, I would say about a year. And those that research was pretty substantial and showing that it was about 300,000 then. Yeah, about 300,000. Because it's quite a significant change there in the value of it, then I would say. Yeah, it was it was quite a um a higher than anticipated cost. I think what we're doing this year is as we progress through the budget process. If we have to update anything, because you know the budget starts in September, right? And then it kind of closes. Our last comments can be in March. I think we're trying our best. We did it this year to kind of move the funds around more accordingly.