Kaua‘i County Council Finance & Economic Development Committee Budget Reviews – April 7, 2025
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Kaua‘i County Council Finance & Economic Development Committee Budget Reviews – April 7, 2025
The committee concluded its departmental budget reviews for Fiscal Year 2025-2026, hearing from the Transportation Agency, Housing Agency, Agency on Elderly Affairs, Office of the County Auditor, and Office of the County Clerk. The meeting began at 9:00 a.m. in the Council Chambers. No public testimony was offered.
Discussion Items
Transportation Agency – Assistant Executive Leonard Peters reported ongoing challenges in hiring bus drivers and dispatchers, delaying the reinstatement of Sunday service. Of 61 full-time bus driver positions budgeted (including Sunday service), 17 were vacant. A restructured training program has produced three newly licensed drivers in the past month. The agency uses 89-day short-term hires for driver trainees (11 positions) who start as van drivers (BC5) and later transition to bus driver (BC7) upon obtaining a CDL with passenger endorsement. On-call van drivers are paid hourly at 50% funding. The budget for the General Excise Tax (GET) fund increased by $226,000 for the transportation agency, though total GET funding rose from $47M to $48.5M, primarily for roads and bridges. The agency is working with KIUC on electric bus charging capacity and noted a statewide procurement for electric buses, with the first buses expected in July/August 2025. The feasibility of meeting the state's 2035 electric fleet goal was questioned due to infrastructure and procurement delays. Councilmembers expressed concern about retaining GET funding, as the county's GET diversion sunsets next year. Chair Reposal suggested exploring cooperative purchasing agreements like NACO to reduce costs.
Housing Agency – Director Adam Roversi reported progress on several affordable housing projects. The Section 8 voucher program has increased from 600-650 annual clients to a peak of nearly 1,000 during COVID, currently around 850 out of 1,140 allocated vouchers. Challenges include federal inspection standards (e.g., smoke detectors in every room) and a 75% reduction in federal staff overseeing the HCV program statewide, which could delay approvals. The agency awarded $500,000 in homeless grant aid to six nonprofits (Project Vision, Family Life Center, U.S. Vets, etc.). At Līmoʻola, Phase I is nearing completion: 117 multifamily units (senior, workforce, supportive housing) are occupied or moving in; 8 of 38 single-family homes have been sold. Phase II infrastructure will pave the way for ~175 more homes. The agency is also planning Waimea 400 and Kīlauea town expansion projects, with community meetings ongoing. Roversi presented a five-year cost projection showing a surge in infrastructure spending in 2-3 years as projects move from entitlement to construction. He explained that county subsidies (typically $250,000 zero-interest loans) are critical for developers to score state tax credits and other funding, noting that of 13 applicants statewide, only three projects were funded, two on Kaua‘i. A large land acquisition in Līhuʻe is in progress to create another master-planned community. On the Kīlauea condemnation case, the county prevailed at trial; the Intermediate Court of Appeals is expected to rule soon.
Agency on Elderly Affairs – Executive Emily Ishida (first appearance) requested an $837,000 operating increase to eliminate waiting lists for in-home services (assisted transportation, personal care, respite, chore) and home-delivered meals. These services are contracted with local providers (e.g., Garn Island Medical Transport, Sami Mahilona) and Mom's Meals (mainland frozen meals). The increase offsets anticipated loss of federal funds. The agency also operates RSVP, AARP tax aid, and Kupuna Connections digital literacy programs. Councilmember Kualiʻi asked about using part-time positions (per the mayor's proviso) for hard-to-fill roles; the executive preferred full-time but noted flexibility. A reallocation of an aging/disability services technician position from SR13 to SR15 was discussed.
Office of the County Auditor – The budget covers the county financial audits, currently performed by firm NK under a five-year contract (year two). No permanent auditor or audit manager positions are filled. Council Chair Reposal asked about the $30,000 in other services as a cushion for cost overruns; confirmation was given.
Office of the County Clerk / Elections – Clerk Jane (last name not provided) and Elections Administrator Lyndon Mushroca presented. The clerk's budget is 72.8% personnel; staffing challenges include two recent clerical vacancies. A raw sewage backup in the Historic County Building basement from tree root intrusion was highlighted; the administration has not yet acted, but CIP funds of $400,000 are proposed for building assessment. The webcast system remains unreliable; a fix is promised in late April, but the chair warned of seeking a self-contained system if not resolved. For elections, the FY26 budget is $1.94M, a 1.1% increase (off-election year). Key challenges: 33% of ballots returned on the day before or day of election (9,000 envelopes), requiring 40-hour processing. In-person voting saw 56% of voters on the last two days. A digital voter education campaign is credited with boosting turnout by 2-3%. Succession planning is underway as key staff near retirement. Postage costs for mail ballots are funded at $50,000, with carryover from prior elections.
Key Outcomes
- No votes were taken on the budgets; the review was informational.
- The committee chair announced that all budget callbacks scheduled for April 8, 10, 11, 14, and 15 are cancelled.
- The public hearing for the operating budget (Bill 2949), capital improvements budget (Bill 2950), and real property tax resolution (Resolution 2025-21) will be held on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. at the Historic County Building.
- Councilmembers directed follow-up on the building sewage issue and webcast reliability.
- Housing Director Roversi was asked to provide detailed grant award information to the council.
- Transportation will share information on cooperative purchasing programs with the purchasing department.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, good morning. I'd like to call back to order the Finance and Economic Development Committee and Fiscal Year 2025-2026 departmental budget reviews that the record reflect that um council member Bullosan is excused for today, Councilmember Kulei is on his way and Council Cheropoles will just step out for a second. On the schedule today, we'll be hearing from the transportation agency, housing agency, Office of Elderly Affairs, Office of the County Auditor, and Office of the County Clerk. Today's our final day. Is there anyone in the audience wishing to testify? Seeing none. Thank you. We'll now begin our review of the budget details for a transportation agency. Thank you very much. Good morning. Go ahead and introduce you. Can you just speak a little louder? I'm struggling with it. Is your mic on too? Hello, Council members. Uh Leonard Peters, assistant executive on transportation. Thank you. So we want to thank you for this opportunity to be here and um to review our current uh budget request, um, along with just a brief summary of how things have been going over this current fiscal year and more recently. So I think overall, um thankful uh service has been in going well. We've been able to say a good safe operation uh for the community. And um we have um been having um unfortunately throughout this fiscal year still the ongoing challenge of um meeting the manpower needs in order to um reinstate Sunday service. That seems to uh be the biggest challenge we've encountered. However, um our our operations leadership team had um restructured our training process um and implemented that within the past couple of months and um we've been seeing an increase, significant increase in the success uh within our uh drivers who we bring on board to train up to um uh get their CDL with passenger endorsement um licensing requirements. So I believe it's over the past month. Um we've had at least three um who have gotten fully licensed, so we're seeing that pickup. Needless to say, we're not you know nearly at the place where we need to be to reinstate Sunday, but um we're thankful the pieces picked up in that direction. Um the additional challenge we have manpower wise is dispatch. Um they are also a core part of our operation, um, are required to be there for service to be in place, um, and we um have been uh making some success um in the the within the past month we've been able to identify um you know individuals who are interested, um, but we continue to um look into that and um seek um ways to um get additional uh uh applicants to successfully uh get on board for our dispatch team. Um beyond that, um I'd like to just um go into the um any questions that you might have related to any questions on the synopsis by the members? I have member clauding. Um yeah, some overarching questions, and first of all, thank you and thank all our bus drivers, and um it seems like it really makes a difference for a lot of people. Um I was trying to like the the pay is in the highway fund. I was trying to where's the where's the page that has what they get paid? Because I I'm trying to figure out why we can't attract two not 303, 299, like I think it's 300. 999 starts and then 300 204 has all of our office. So they get paid basically 61,000 a year, is that what they get? Drivers do, yes. Drivers do gauge 303 has the yeah, same as finding it where it's got it in the parenthesis because I actually think if I was a good driver, I would think it would be a fun job. I um I wouldn't want that if I was a good driver, I wouldn't have that kind of confidence to um want to do that because I'd have too much responsibility. But why why are we why are we not being able to attract them? Is it mostly the money? Is it mostly the CDL license? What is the limitation? Um, from what we've experienced most you know, over the past um couple of years, there's been a couple of factors. One was just the number of individuals interested in applying had tapered off significantly with the COVID situation and recovering from that. Okay, um, they had yeah, it had tapered off significantly. The number of individuals applying has been um returning, thankfully. Um at the same time, um, we are experiencing just some some growing pains. Um there has been an increase in the um attentiveness uh within licensing to um to um where our drivers are needing to um be a lot more thorough with um the the entire process when getting the license. Okay, I mean there's raising the bar um okay of of excellence within within the operation, um, and in doing so thankfully our our team got together and and have reassessed the training situation to meet those those um upgraded requirements.
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