The Committee on Budget, chaired by Councilmember Okimoto, convened on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, at 9:03 AM. The meeting covered nine agenda items, including audits, fund transfers, fare adjustments, tax exemptions, and fee waivers. Key discussions centered on the Fire Plans Review Revolving Fund audit, transit fare restructuring, and property tax relief for homeowners and veterans.
Aloha and good morning, everyone. It is Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025, and the time is nine. Oh three AM. Will the committee on budget please come to order? We'd like to welcome to the committee. Committee members who are present in the chamber today. Therefore, the meeting will continue notwithstanding loss of audio-visual communication with remote testifiers or loss of the public broadcast of the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items on the agenda in two ways. Video conference from a quiet location if possible. If you are also watching the proceedings on Olelo, please mute your television at the time you're called to testify. When the timer on screen reaches zero, please conclude your remarks remarks promptly. Written testimonies, including the testifier's address, email address, and phone number will be available to the public as described on the posted agenda. As a courtesy, please turn off or silence all cell phones for the duration of this meeting. Remember, moving on to agenda item number one for discussion. We have discussion on the audit of the fire plans review revolving fund. Resolution 25-4. I believe with us in the chamber from the Honolulu Fire Department. Okay, I do see Chief Howe here with us. Good morning, Chief Howell. Good morning. Um morning, Chair Okimoto, Vice Chair, Nishimoto, Council members, Kalani Halfari Chief of the Honolulu Fire Department. Um I appreciate you giving us the opportunity to be here to speak upon or answer any type of questions you have regarding the audit. Um the audit first came out, I think you know we were very open to it because we strongly believe in how we use the funds as intended as the ordinance. You know, I understand that uh the public puts trust in us to use whatever resources we have in the right way. So again, we're open to it. Um it allows us opportunities to seek for improvement, which there's areas that the auditor did find that we could do a better job in maybe the way the fund is structured or how we do reporting or um giving more updates. So that's something that we're willing to um work on and work with. Um, however, there's some areas of the report that you know we didn't agree upon, but you know, that's there's something that we can just leave it at that. But yeah, thank you. Thank you. Members, did we have any questions for Chief Howe? No. Thank you. Thank you for being here and for the work that you and your department put into working with our city auditor. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'd like to also welcome with us, we have our auditor Troy Shimasaki. Good morning, Chair Okimoto and Committee members. Troy Shimasaki, Office of the City Auditor. Um, I'll provide a brief overview of our audit of the fire plans review fund, resolution 25 4. So this audit was conducted pursuant to resolution 25 4, which was adopted by the city council on January 29th, uh, 2025. The council expressed concerns about fund appropriations being made outside of the executive branch, which is annual budget ordinances and sought to promote efficient operations. The audit was issued on August 22nd, uh August 22nd of this year as report number 2504. So the audit had three audit objectives. First was to determine whether the fire plans review fund's receipts and expenditures were consistent with fund requirements and best practices. Number two, determine whether the fund's current administrative structure was appropriate. And three was to make recommendations as appropriate. First, the fire plans review revolving funds administrative structure was not consistent with ordinance requirements and lacks transparency and accountability for the fund and its fire prevention purposes. However, we found that the city has not specifically established that standalone fire plans review revolving fund and instead, as I said, deposits deposits the fees into the special projects fund, which is a fund typically reserved for special contract related revenues and expenditures. Not only is this structure contrary to city law, it also lacks transparency and accountability that would come with revolving fund requirements.