also request any testimony from our district offices for those who wish to share comment from those areas so stating that let's say good morning to our district moderator for the agriculture working group vice president of the cooler community association and a partner in the patent family farm and testifying today to summarize what the egg working group has been doing since p s seventy was last on the budget and finance agenda there was a lot of good discussion at the meeting in march and the egg working group committed to responding to the committee with four things remarks and comments on the bill analysis of county data regarding the impact of keynsham to market value ways the county could update the egg used values qualifications we recommend for inspectors we've been working for many months we reviewed the bill in detail we have pages of comments we would like to review with those who wrote the bill we were lucky to find dr margaret stump a copy farmer who has a ph d in economics and years of experience in india and now assists who took our county's data and ran some scenarios for us she could not be here today but we did send her report as testimony having spent so much time on this we concluded number one we need to retain eg use value and use value reflects the value of land when used for purposes not as an investment market value will not achieve the results we want in terms of x support and controlling sprawl in fact changed markets you would increase the rate which my county loses land as more land owners are motivated to sell least rates would increase significantly causing more ranchers to cease operations housing that is affordable on ag land would be lost as land owners are forced to raise rents and there are more unintended consequences number two the county could use that used to twenty fifteen numbers now is values are from one thousand nine hundred sixty five there are a number of ways this could be done even if inflation since sixty five the county would realize one point two million in additional revenue at today's rates we tried using the n a s values collapsing their data to more closely fit what molly's categories are and that would give us an additional one point two million number three we need to update the dedication rules so the county can use this tool to encourage ag control sprawl and support farmers this means reasonable dedication reduction timeframes and what counties and number four we need to have qualified egg inspectors to ensure that the egg property tax rates are going to real farms we believe many of the issues faced by our real property assessors would be addressed if he's inspectors had ag training and experience we're working on a draft bill for inspectors which would include those qualifications we're ready to sit down with you and work on making this a better bill or even replacing it was specific it's very informative so thank you members you for the comments of support load and the group she represents that volunteered to assist us in the questions for the levy on her testimony members good morning my name is sidney smith i'm the president of the maori coffee association and i am only goes to a coffee farm in moscow i'm also a member of the ag working group i'm speaking this morning behalf of the  coffee association and as a member of the ag working group i'm only going to address some of the problems with section three point four eight point three five one lands dedicated for agricultural use beside the petition to dedicate there are over a dozen separate requirements for the farmer rancher to comply with for instance number seven evidence that the dedicated area will produce farm income prior to the expiration of the dedicated period which could potentially be twenty years into the future evidence which is defined as incontrovertibly prove is impossible to supply for anything that will absolutely happen in the future and agriculture is one of the most uncertain businesses there is failure to produce this evidence is grounds for cancellation of the dedication and rollback tax and penalties another issue of dedication is that they need to be recorded with the state bureau of conveyances and this requires clear title many ranches and farms are made up of multiple t m case and some go back to the great malay all do not have clear title making dedication impossible for them and after submitting the petition in complying with all the requirements there is the review of the petition by the newly formed ball and terry agriculture advisory commission or committee that's called for seventy by conducting an informal poll of farmers in the maori coffee association and my neighbors currently receiving ag tac rate tax rates without dedication i ask if they would apply for full dedication over eighty percent responded that they would there are currently four thousand six hundred twenty ag zoned parcels many already in dedication but since b of seventy has no provision for parcels already dedicated all parcels would have to go through this process again even if only half of these landowners seek dedication at a minute in the thirty minutes per review the director as well as a purely voluntary review committee would need to spend over two thousand hours reviewing the dedications most voluntary committees like the arborists committee meet once a month for three hours even if the ag education committee met once a week it would take nearly seven years to review every data cation and this is too much to ask of a voluntary committee and too much to ask of a director with no agriculture experience or knowledge after meeting with council member might victory you know this past october we discussed the dedication bill that was submitted before council in two thousand  working group supports amending the dedication provisions in a practical way that supports the farmer or the rancher we're willing to do this with the committee or budget and finance committee with the support of the council thank you recognizes the importance of tax revenue for a colony budget i have received many phone calls by our members expressing concern about what can happen many experts fear about on certain surrounding agriculture they're difficult to see coping with we understand the fear expressed by a farmers and ranchers but also noted on last that we have lands committed to farming and ranching the future of our industries on certain dedication can provide the means to target investments  rates and provide incentives to encourage viable agricultural lands for this reason we strongly supported the important agricultural lands initiative we appreciate the concert deliberative process in addressing this issue it is complex and while it's solutions may seem simple it is not our primary goal is to increase local agricultural production of all sizes we need all kinds and sizes of agriculture to be successful large entities provide economies of scale for importance and services needed by our smaller growers as readdress tax rates we need to make sure we do not inadvertently lose farms and ranches since tirades make it more attractive to seek dedication for me i'm dedicated i'm been dedicated from the sixty's true my parents my point of dedication and is today's day and age is hard it's not like the sixty's and seventy's because there was no people coming in buying our properties and having to let people use it to farm on what the problem is right now what the problem is a big problem is the gentleman farmer you're right gentleman farmer com agriculture not plain to people stay on the property and farm with it they'd be pulling them in but they're also taking them out once they get their taxes and everything in place as a farmer which they ain't no farmer now a rancher for that matter and this is where we are losing our agriculture and i am in support of this dedication but again it's going to be hard for people i've talked to people they cannot you know they have they want to let of their people use of their place but they cannot commit to the dedication so it's a total different you know ballgame in this day and age but i so tank what's going to be is our inspectors being on this where you know they will be checking farms is there anyone else would like to give testimony this morning on any of the four items we have edge and yourself known will go to district offices miss low knowing anyone has come by to give testimony we want to sign up ms for an end is anyone on line i wishing to provide testimony think you anyone else program we were notified the end of august that we are going to be receiving two hundred forty four thousand dollars of additional funds than we were expecting and the agreements have been executed with the additional five hundred thousand dollars to independents a that is allowed for us to go beyond the normal estimated grant revenue but since this large three sure sort of information at the committee thank you when we prepare the budget as the boss had indicated we're doing an estimate of what we anticipate receiving from the homeland security grab program and we general we look at the previous year and project that going forward when we are putting in our grant requests to the department of defense we submit what we call investment justifications our county submitted more than the half million dollars that we put in our budget i think we submitted about one point seven million dollars of grant projects and we were fortunate that above the five hundred thousand that we had estimated getting from them they approved several of the projects that we were  approved for seven hundred forty four thousand which is the extra two hundred forty four that is before you now for consideration the amounts are the projects that we are working on with this include generators at some of our county facilities to help harden those for shelter during an event is to harden some of our network security it is to enhance the nine one one capability at the hate police station as backup to the current the current situation station and also for training and exercise programs so that's the bulk of what we have the monies for resiliency yes and it wasn't that that was necessarily the extra right so we submitted many projects oh ok and those were the ones that came back as approved so we were estimating that we would have half a million as approved projects but they approved all of the ones that are before you so it wasn't one was added or taken out and i know some of this this is could be executive session material but can you talk half million dollars that was originally appropriated in the kind of white cost friend benefits program for workers compensation insurance payments to the insurance health insurance program the audit when they were auditors were looking at our expenditures specifically related to insurance programs they noticed that you know some of our insurance program payments were not in the insurance program they were in fringe benefit and so the impetus of moving this over is specifically to allow for the management of our insurance programs to be solely maintained by  the risk management division of corporation counsel rather than it being split some between department of finance and some between the corporate arm of course counsel i don't see anybody from risk management here but i can try to and something mr wong mr baez and i would love be working on for the upcoming budget one thing that i would ask is how often do we review those excess carrie the things that was done within this past year was our third party administrator for some compensation was not performing to our expectations and so we did change their party ministers we you know found that they weren't acting in our best interest as far as our concerns were and change third party administrator is our new third party administrator is doing a much better job and has cleaned up a you aware always is pretty much what i would call clean fresh money well we're expecting at least one point five million dollars in in workers compensation payments the new third party administrators did review the old cases in closed some of the old cases which could have been closed earlier if they had if the previous third party mistreated done their job better so yeah th less than half of the actual cost correct so is this money for purchasing a policy or are we totally self insured  this money goes directly for workers compensation payments to to the workers the third party mr contract i believe comes out of the insurance programs part of money ok but a third party administrator but insurance mean just before do your early budget session because i'd like us all to be on the same page regarding access carriers self insurance and a few other points that i think  would be good if we were all up to speed on it you know there you know chair there's a there's a part of me that feels like this is one of those costs that should go or should actually be borne by accounting and from corporate counsels labor lead you know standpoint it's way better managed if the funds are consolidated the risk management is been working very hard with the departments to explain to they department you know the corporation council has been working with departments pretty diligently on reducing those we've done a lot of you know bringing back to work for light duty kind of situation in s i agree i think the department has been doing a good job of keeping on top of the issues and you have to get the people that are out due to injury have to know that we care about getting them we're having a change because there were some very big challenges with the party administrator from what i was told and so i'm glad to hear that has been rectified and you did mention that was going to be one of my big questions was was dish dealing so that the public understand this is an anomaly not something that happens each and every year and i think over almost a year i've seen safety and the stress and safety a lot more in the departments all across the board i think they're much more aware of it then and i want to thank  i needed thing i guess the i'm looking out for fringe benefits and then fringe benefits reimbursements are that's a guess fringe fringe includes what exactly just so i compensation payments but that's being moved now and for seventeen it'll be proposed as being moved completely as well as well the good also includes terminal pay you know when people retire  and different things like that the so we have a few old retiree is that we're paying directly that are not in the system minor kind of stuff like that the two biggest you t f and and your s also our employers employers portion of the security and medicare taxes that kind of stuff as well is covered under that fringe benefit costs gets reimbursed from those special funds back to those particular departments those particular departments of those employees are paid out of those special funds their fringe benefit costs are covered by those special funds so it comes back to the general fund ok ok thank you so i guess you just extract dean out the workman's comp will probably part of it has mr white stated it doesn't cover the entire bill but going to go towards workman's compensation yes so what we did there was a one point five million dollars appropriated in the fringe benefit program for workers compensation removing that to the insurance up insurance program so any additional costs will come out of the insurance and self insurance program ok ok and that will be just a set standard way of doing this payment from from here on out from here on out we're going to move it to the insurance health insurance s especially those great employees at the general fund has been paying benefits for we're going to stop that has that because the existing prior have not been following up with work comp cases and it's in limbo are what is the problem there were paying appropriately that the physical therapy or occupational therapy whatever that is needed to get the person back to work is happening appropriately so previous third party administrator just wasn't meeting our management to the various departments do we have an actual safety programs that are presented to the employees and is it something that the supervision of supervisors all management do there might be ours safety programs whether it's you know in the office making sure you close your file chars are our simple things that are they are such programs that risk management does do for prevention purposes thank you mr chair yes i'm aware that they have some pretty significant safety programs but i don't know the exact details of it we could have them up here as to different time to discuss that the you know they do it like they just had a defensive driving class recently that couple of employees that i know we're going to so you know it's  we do it on a regular basis we have you know c p r first day that kind of stuff as well as safety classes there are some departments that have you know dedicated safety officers so that you know is as you mentioned a funding of a what you housing planning study to be conducted by s m s research for the county of maui and the details of the planning study and director roman can can present this from my understanding will allow us to get a better understanding of the need of housing in the county and then how the affordable housing fund can apply  to the use of you know so uses of it can apply to fulfill the needs there required so this roman thank you chair and members of the committee aloha my name is carol raymond and the director of housing and human concerns  out a sheet of paper that details the plan in front of you so basically the hawaii housing planning study is conducted every three to five years and is one of the several critical data sources that's used for both short and long term planning for the housing division the data is used extensively in our five year consolidated plan our annual action plan both of which are required by hood and is used to help justify the county's need for federal funding the information is critical for justifying the use of funds on specific projects and other housing projects supported by federal funding elements from this document are also used in our fair housing office and the study is often used by developers in non profits when they apply for state and federal funds all of which brings to tional phoned in to maui county for housing the hawaii housing plan study will also provide information on the current fair market rents for maui county determined by herd fair market rents are primarily used to determine payment standards amount for the hood housing choice program also known as section eight specifically for housing division and now we were hoping that the information in this in this will provide justification to increase the a section eight program because of our current rental housing shortage finding affordable units has been challenging for participants this study has a potential to help section eight voucher holders and keep units so for this current study the twenty fifteen hawaii housing planning study is the lead agency but there are many other participants in this study they include the homeless programs office of the department of human services benefits employment and support services division the office of hawaiian affairs the city in county appoint the county of hawaii the county of kuai and of course maui county are four major tasks of the study there first is to gather analyze data on the housing market including housing conditions demographic and economic characteristics of hawaii's household the supply have housing in the short run and long run and demand for housing in the short run by specific geographic areas income groups and native hawaiian status project already housing needs by county and state wide by high income groups and elderly households person with special housing needs and native hawaiian status it also provides an inventory of housing stock by county and state including government assisted housing and housing units for  military personnel on or off military bases and last item is the gathers in analyzes historic in current information on for sale and rental housing by county and state the last study was in twenty in my mind not sure whether mr rahman as the answer but what were the main findings of two thousand and eleven study and what what have we done to address them after that thank you for your question we can get that information for you we don't have the matter fingertips right i didn't figure you necessarily have that with you but a great thank you for that request mr white for you thank you  that were submitted a few of them were large affordable rentals specifically the generally apartments projects just curious why you know that of the ni didn't get jobs and didn't get joseph especially since some of them are affordable rentals why some why the four that didn't get so i could didn't get elected works basically the applications are scored by a three team committee that was put together to review and analyze each of the proposals what we did was we averaged out the scoring for all lines of the applications and upon review were comfortable with the scoring and so we recommended the top five be recommended for funding in this fiscal year ok so it was some sort f we can bring this up in the h h t committee as to what those criteria are because things are changing especially with the homeless issue and the lack of affordable rentals severe lack of affordable rentals we may need to shift our focus for a little while towards that or you know that depends on what the committee would come up with but i know from our discussions we've always been talking about more affordable rentals at this point as opposed to affordable homes which become not affordable after as you see some of these after ten years they're not affordable anymore so that's a very good recommendation would be more than willing to send so mr is the coordinator for this study itself and the department of point affairs asked to be included in that in the past they haven't necessarily participated they asked specifically if they could have joined in the study to include a part having to do specifically with native hawaiians so this is that's a new element if and a point homeland's had asked to be included they might also and again they might have been providing some of the funding for this i'm not exactly positive but there are none number of organizations who are participating because it's much easier for us all to gather together to get the information out at one time by that specific question having to do with native hawaiians was asked by that department and that's why they're included i certainly appreciate the extension i guess from the office of point affairs study i would hope we would ask them to consider including the department of homeland homelands again they build homes they have the land base and they have they're clearly on a is directly to the wants and providing homes i guess so a conversation has sort of started at least i've had some conversation that there are many possibilities information he just so you know members i chose not to post the specific maple pools here on the on the study really we're not going to discuss each individual project and it's not been posted current requests for the hundred thousand dollars and what we expect from the state or what we expect the state to do from this so if you would please adjust the parameters of questions in discussion please ok well i'll hold that question for another time but i would appreciate if they'll come prepared to answer that i would also like their sense of rental shortage so i think it obviously this study may help us identify what that need is more specifically but i'd like to have them come prepared next the next meeting to discuss  let me ask a few questions to the committee can understand why i posted just the study and again members we do have information under two thousand and thirteen plan two thousand and fourteen plan and of course to coming up with a two thousand a administrate of expenses as we i may have missed but i haven't seen a timeline for the housing study as well as a description of the are you able to give us some comment this morning  areas in the guards to the study lease elting in housing this study is critical for us to get our federal funding for hide my niece and for home finance which essentially brings housing had twenty fifteen study obviously we need to wait until the data is actually available for our use but the twenty eleven study was used extensively in my justification to receive the two point four million dollars that we are alu project i mean it's also the study that we would have used when we are writing proposals for our projects so i mean i don't have extensive history on how the study has been used in the past but i do know that that twenty eleven study was critical we would not ever see bosun's it had not been for that study characters how many units have been built in type or units based on on the study that study no i'm sorry but i can't get that information for you or q you request that so we get a sense of success or failure of this program in the studies and sarah earth department i also know that when holly mahalo and other nonprofits and developers are proposing projects and asking for funding from the federal government they often cite these same studies that i use when i go to the state or to the feds for funding so if we'll look forward to those numbers because i think what the there right so that the seventy thousand dollars proviso for use of the funds for administrative expenses are already existing in there i haven't gotten an indication from the department of what they're going to be using seventy thousand dollars for but that's the reason why there is no amendments to the appendix a for inclusion of that is because it's already i would recommend you can make reference to the component of the budget a subject here any other questions or comments and no thank you for being your department thank  as it pertains to part two special purpose revenue schedule or revolving special funds for fiscal year two thousand and sixteen first of all housing fund two thousand and fifteen how are you housing planning study them that's the intent of this right now the fair market rents are provided to us by hyde and we can choose to accept those fair market rents or we can choose  to do our own study which hopefully and there's no guarantee hopefully we'll show that our fair market rents on maui and that appears to be the case from what we've seen are much higher than the fair market rent that high end currently provides us and so the idea is that if the study shows we would be able to go back to hide and request a higher payment standard and so are actually folks would have a going to be the whole hundred twenty thousand but without this kind of a study we can't justify we have a much much more difficult time justifying applying and  receiving not only the section eight funds but the home funds and also relies on some of this information as well for you know when they're trying to justify the use of funds for particular kinds of projects you know as i said the two thousand and eleven study which we had participated in if it hadn't been for that i would not have had the data that allowed me to justify use of the two point four million for home and so you  know hundred twenty thousand dollars every three or five years that brings in you know that kind of money to the county not only through the home program but also for section eight i think that's a good investment i understand your questions and certainly we need to come to you prepared to give you that kind of information but i think it's a very good investment thing for you comments any questions for you know just that brings up the question but it was in the department of point affairs all of those organizations that the director had mentioned previously as a participant is also kicking money and i can give you the total cost for the study one hundred  twenty thousand is only the county of maui portion and what it would is the total or just what the what the state entities are put in to do it  specifically because we were concerned for our section eight people and the fact that they're having such a difficult time finding rentals and landlords who are willing to accept our payment standard and then the second thing we also ask them to to look at is the effect of off island purchasers of our of our homes here and the effect that that has on our housing stock and the ability for our local people to find housing so we've asked them to do a couple of extra things so normally think probably the study would be you know more in the range of you know eighty thousand or eighty five thousand dollars if they had not asked them to do those i dish and all those additional elements for us yeah that makes some sense but at the same time i'm a little bothered care that seems like the state is is of what the other three counties are paying yes why is paying seventy thousand dollars a little more than seventy thousand dollars honolulu is paying about seventy six thousand dollars our core request without the additives was going to be eighty seven thousand dollars part of that is because we have three islands rather than one in our in our county  positive from this it is less expensive to group together to do this we have done other studies in the past on the one i can think of specifically had to do with the analysis of impediments which something that we would do for our fair housing office and in the past the counties and the state had grouped together to do that and that study the next time after that the county about we contracted that ourselves and it cost nearly nearly what the study for the entire state cost just to have us do our own and part of that it's to do with mobilization of the organization and in addition to having the state  work with us we know that this study is very consistent across year from study to study which is which is important when we're looking at trends in housing this control of that information through the state  the or we the basic study as proposed by the state but we all have to approve what the questions are and make sure that it actually is going to address the needs of of each of the entities that are involved in the special requests from this crony yes you control that were those was the control that we reviewed that the fair market rents actually have to be the the way that those questions are phrased must be approved by hyde prior to the study actually being done and worked with us somewhere worked with heidi in order to get that warning and get that  that survey designed correctly so that they would accept it when it was finished but yeah that's that's something that we control and again wade would have been more involved in it than i am i've i've only picked this up you know and and have built for management and the area they finally as old as i am i have never seen that place being renovated they finally i mean their place is condemned in that housing day to day basis these we believe you know have in our own perspective communities but you know if this department feels the need to chime in and jump in on on this bigger picture study to help us just us in our you know community needs but i know not one hundred percent totally bought into this because of the lead i guess agency involved here because i'll tell you it's been nothing but trouble in my district and unfortunately my state people they're coming to me the county i don't have any oversight on this but i've had to make inroads to have some type of you know work being done to bring the quality of life to this community because it's been very difficult so we can get some good news out of this to help  you very much there is yes mr lloyd sorry to read can we request from the department a listing of what the other counties have asked for to be provided in the in the study and discussion on this i don't have a cheery intends to have no decision making and this will continue to work on this but i will be here eventually asking during the term for a decision on  i will say that it is as your chair it is my intent during this upcoming budget session to look at reducing the thirty million dollars subsidy from my target is cutting it in half so one of the options will be dedication as a way to avoid certain types of taxation that the property owner may choose to voluntarily entered into  am also looking for anyway is one of the things that i can tell you that i would ask all of us to work with and will ask your coach a sect of his i would like to come up with only one definition for agriculture and a requirement  one agricultural plant akin to see a seven forty permits with four definitions and each one got to come up with their own version of an eggplant that drives me crazy and it drives the agricultural people crazy we've got come up with one definition and one plant and i'm leaning to use the federal definition and i'm not looking at giving any consideration to substance subsistence farming this is about active commercial and that's what i'm going to go and protect and again and  make policy decisions on what they felt because counsel's intent i think we should make it very black and white and let our people make a clear cut decision based on those factors not their or what they feel is an opinion or have them interpret a policy of counsel so that's where i'm going to drive this so we need to do it homesites one definition one plan and i don't have a problem making it easier to determine whether that is true reg or not if it's a set of dollar amount for gross sales or net still so be it any questions for the chair this t us from a taxation policy standpoint and what i believe for the long term is to the health of this county's agricultural it's a dedication saw from the budget standpoint go forward because i want to make sure everybody's clear on or where i want to go and have enough time to have the type of community discussion and have them respond to what they feel is fair or not county so i'm looking at the water department projects and looking at waste water projects and looking at public works in their transportation projects that we're going to need to line up a lot of money for  long term needs of this county and what will be excess acceptable levels of that service so for me we know it's going to come members and so my thing is we need to show that we've been responsible in saving the counties fiscal situation well and affordable so that it will impact us being able to provide daily operational services because i don't want to be like our sister counties italy enough police and have forced many people from the financial standpoint this item again mr chair is still the same i have provided in the past through our data property assessment so the technical staff to work with you because if we  spend the time to get a great rules that we can implement we might save some in the appeal process and we probably don't have to stay on the phone much much more than what we do now to explain to the community the way that we do so again mr chair my offer at the time is to provide you technical  whenever you have the meeting and also i just want to ask that you know during this time and the beginning of the year is beriberi assessment so i hope you guys keep that in mind when you're schedul again even with the training that we doing today i pulled out i am administrator to be here said that he can bring to our team there the importance of working with you for you to provide us with different alternatives and the the data that was provided would have suggested other alternatives or and or to enhance the existing bill and so we were waiting for the written response on the data computation from that he parm it and apparently they may have gotten it done but it was never transmitted but we are still awaiting for that additional data to verify or at least if these alternative solutions would actually benefit the county so i believe the cow the member you have a copy of the letter that i said to finance this as well as the data back conspectus will know what a farm is are you that something that has been lacking for a long time and are putting the onus on our big deal water they're not equipped for that that's not their responsibility we should have someone who can big this is a farm follows all the great period that we set forth and then r b t water and the rich will just follow suit and say ok it's done and not have so many men and women running around trying to evaluate and say this around there and that's it sounds like a tall order and i think you're figurine that by addressing bill seventy and things we work through we'll get you to that number  is a lot of revenue that we are losing to people who are not doing farming even if it is just subsistence and i agree with you on that point as well so i'm looking forward to a solution that fits both sides i know you mention that you've got everybody in the community who aren't part of ag that are all supportive of this and some who are part of  group and the folks here because they they seem to have come up with some solutions at least that's what they've said in testimony so whether or not it's today we definitely have to hear from the department r b t we all know that we're losing out and we all know the inequities we just have to figure out how to fix them and it whether or not this bill is the way to go or some sort of hybrid of this bill and whatever that working group came up with something has to be done and i appreciate you bring it up and i was hopefully we have the conversation and ultimately i think what i end up with like we have in  business we have be one b two b three i have a feeling we're going to have a one a two a three and only three gets the valuation or something like that so i just don't fit seeing that there's chair i i think there's a lot for us to digest job this this hold so called disparity and a lot of it i'd like to  i guess rely on the department also to to come up with their analysis in regards to this but when we talk about defining a on the state how they come up to identify important eggplants the thing to it that sort of is the consideration is when i hear market value versus the viability of egg lands to you know if you if one decided to purchase egg land what are the intent is to turn it to market value or is it  truly how we understand agriculture to be and supposedly so defined to to utilize it as one who cultivates or  utilize the pasture or our lifestyle or what have you as far as i can recall this shouldn't be any confusion as to what is again  generation to generation that identify it from the beginning of time as egg land so how do you take that into consideration also as opposed to the new owners who want some proof of this so i think it's fair you know i i look forward to discussion because this is something that i've been concerned about for over twenty i said it before when i when i purchased my parcel upcountry i paid some of the neighborhood of four hundred thousand dollars for it i got my first tax bill and it was valued at eighty eight hundred dollars so i called the tax apartment i said you guys must have missed the sale and they said no you're your part you're an egg and so my market value is nine hundred and forty thousand or thereabouts my market but what i pay on the on my land is a value of twenty nine thousand dollars so if i go down the street to moscow wow and take and choose a house site the same size of mine i haven't done this for a while so i don't know what the current values are but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred  fifty thousand dollars so my concern has always been that a home site is a home site it's in our rules that if you have an agricultural parcel that is being used for something other than agriculture such as a home site then that should be assessed at the value of a home site elsewhere so that's been in the rules since one thousand nine hundred one so one of the one of the issues for me in putting forward b f seventy was to fix that inequity at a minimum because i don't think it's fair for me to be pain taxes on my land at a value of twenty nine thousand dollars it's just not right so in my case i get the benefit of the ag valuation on and on top of that i get the homeowner exemption and on top of rate so what i'm paying for my property is similar to what somebody is pain and seven thousand square foot lot with a house that's likely half the size of mine that's not fair i know that i'm not the only one i know there's lots of people and i've given this committee over the years of a large number of  of examples where the ag being done on the property is similar to the ag that my wife does she's got a bunch of animals that she loves dearly but she makes no money off of them because she can't bear to see any of them go to market so it's a hobby for her and something she gets great enjoyment out of and and groups are a joy but i make my living in a hotel i make a living here i don't make my living off of farming so i don't deserve the kind of treatment that a farmer gets so my i'm i'm very excited about the direction you're going because i i think we need to be taxing the home sites at the true value and what we do for the farmers for their farm i'm i'm wide open i'm open to because i think that's going to it's going to make people honest about what they're doing but the honest true farmers are going to be happy to do that and we need to make it as easy as possible as as mr niles mentioned but part of the reason i think we need to provide a level of dedication is that we have places not just of this use all the while them as an example i don't know how many parcels look i didn't count them recently but just gone through think around fourteen or fifteen parcels hundreds of acres each of the parcels is pain minimum tax because of the ag valuation so it's cochran drives by there all the time i drive by there a lot of the time i haven't seen a cow there in a long time i haven't seen any active ag there in a long time so why should why should we not be asking people to provide a dedication if they're going to develop that in some way shape or form the next five years but i'm dedicated for five years and pay the remainder and in taxes or pay an appropriate level of taxes for a five year dedication they're going to dedicate for ten years then let's lower the amount of taxes they pay if they're going to dedicate for twenty years and i say we leave them where they were but we've got to provide some structure so that the tax department knows what's fair and how to address their concerns all of us have i also agree with you with respect to not make an exemptions for subsistence farmers because in my view if you have the land to farm then you've got a benefit that far exceeds what anyone living in  because they don't have the they don't have the ability to have become self sustaining on a farm so if you're if you're so generating farming activity and you and you're bartering or basically doing things to support yourself off of that but it's subsistence farming i don't feel that that rises to the level of the remainder of maui providing you a subsidy so i i look forward to further discussions on this i know and checking through  f the various tax rolls there are a lot of farmers adult live where they farm there are a lot of ranchers that don't live where they ranch so why should they be treated differently or why should the people them get to live where they ranch and live where they farm be given special dispensation the reason i bring that up partly is because my daughter i think most people know my daughter is a rancher on the big island i see what she pays in her taxes on her property she branches full time the big island i believe i haven't looked at it recently but i believe that the agricultural compo on the big island provides more tax revenue than any other any other sector of the tax rolls and so i you know i think you're headed in the right property and there's a tennis court and a clump of banana trees but a clump is not a farm you know i have i have a clump of banana trees on a walk with it i have i love to go on and pick from but it's you know a club gives you maybe a bunch of bananas each month every two weeks if you're really lucky but that's not farming so i buy look for the discussion and i know this is a tough issue for a lot of us because there are people who are benefiting significantly from what we are doing without farming much the considerations of the new policy and again i appreciate the concern for old families that have farm for generations hundreds of years  so you know we can have the discussion but at the end of the day i'm looking at something that we can defend that is fear consistent in its application tree imagery that we have in house so but what i want to focus and and just give you a general overview is this is a huge eleven point five acre lot it has one acre of home site located across the street is three hundred sixty thousand so i mean all i'm seeing is is this the home site of the parcel that has farmland and its valuation is three six hundred sixty thousand and the reason for b f seventy is to address these inequities for how you value it homesite how you value the ras is not the main concern the inequities that we find that is the most obvious is how we value the home site and ninety eight cents and the half acres house house lot is paid eight hundred ninety five dollars so without going into the details about how you value land and all these other things and even though i don't want to get down to taxes but ultimately results in taxes is the inequity is very clear here and that is what we're trying to pass in b f seventy days one of the aims or the goals of the bill as it was  crafted years and years ago you know warren sitting back there and i have no more and for exactly fifteen years because i know we started in the first i grew up in the year two thousand this isn't three groups that have been working with and we're still not hav show you some of the gross disparities that we're having out there i hope this is very clear and that was the overall exercise of today's presentation for you so if there's any questions are you more than happy to answer in german six thousand when that at a total area of eleven acres versus a half acre parcel at three hundred sixty eight thousand i don't know anyone that can look at see there's not very clear as to how to value the homesite if i administratively just choose to make the decision how to value that i'm sure the public you have three thousand people giving you a call so i think that by going through the council and mr white chair white made a comment about we have the bill the in the rules in since nine hundred eighty one is that in administrative rules or is that in ordinance i think director is looking at it right now and i believe it has the effect of law but similar does big island at that time that had had the same type of rules to just change midstream of how you value your home s is not going to be effective well i understand that your comments there but if we do it via law versus rule which has the effect of why it is changing midstream that's that's the first comment the other one is what what happened on the big island because you keep mentioning the big island and somebody doing exactly where were you have the option to do what happened in the big island th mistreated at the time made the decision to value home sites like how we think we're going to value homesites as as comparables when he made that change that there was so much public outcry that the council the following year me all home are valued at five hundred dollars so that's how much money that they lost to the magic how much money they lost by going from one system to a new system to the third system which effectively made them lose more money in the first system so i don't think a five hundred dollar home state is equitable among all properties and that's why i feel that by going through the council and identifying how we're going to value homesite would be the best structure for this committee and for the for the department in your responsibility regarding taxation in agricultural areas any comments regarding moving towards the one unified or one agreeable definition for jared after fifteen years you kind of hear it all i think the dedication is good i think the ag working group brought up a good point about parcells that may be have its challenges with dedication i don't think dedication is at all costs measure i think it's good because it alerts people when they buy property so whatever day they have to live with dedication runs with the  land dedication is also good because it provides us with a mechanism of a robot should you fail to meet your whatever you tried to dedicate need is a large saving so i think there's consequences that comes with it i think the schedule  s from all working groups it was one of the items that they've identified that a commercial farm would would would schedule so i think the schedule is a good method as it is a g number i mean there's there's several  things i don't thing you can do is going to be so many different situations that would come upon of the five thousand some odd people that are currently receiving it there's not going to be a one fit all and i think the working group initially in two thousand had identified a it board so to speak is the opportunity for that individual with a rare situation to state the case as to why he was denied i think i think it is a good fallback measure for th t but i think there's nothing in it that we are opposed to i think we prefer it to be simple that is the easiest for the department to carry out whether it's a person expertise in agriculture is the best i'm not sure maybe there's mechanisms in there are ready that will create a lot of partials to fall out because they probably do not follow the schedule found a bit income test of some some amount but i think  i think there is a time for that discussion to one identify some bare needs of of the agricultural producing lot and the home side and i think that alone chairman will get you very close to your on your fifty percent when we find or send out mailers to people who've bought properties and asked them about the agriculture use being they don't even know what i recall to use we're talking about so you know just by the law of averages chairman i think even by you know sending them a required of dedication a schedule etc who will weed a number of parcels all to begin with so r two things i wanted to that may help the committee we understand that the state allows wild land owners to dedicate land under the under the seat dedication quo i'm assuming that they are currently receiving agriculture and they would continue there is no additional benefits that the ordinance provides other than to dedicate for a longer period such as a twenty year dedication would would bring the valuation down in half so that is the only advantage that i know of is to secure a twenty year land dedication to keep as far as we understand the state does not give the land owner any type of tax can give you a created for purchases of equipment or something you know i'm not sure right the other thing i think we want to bring up so the members can at least think about it because i am also willing to look at ways know i'm not a farmer i know you're not going to do a i'm willing to paid my rate for share of taxes but i don't think agriculture is the rate designation for me because i would like to put up that's something we want to consider too because i think it's also fair for the proper known as this that i say i'm not a pharma i want to pay my fair share help me put me in that class that makes sense for me in a county and i'll pay accomplish that so i just sort it out at that that's something we may want to say from the council will initiate and will put one hundred eighty day clock or whatever it would in six months we can get you squared away so with that missed the two i know you've done it before but i would also send back to this community your calendar of when things happen for your requirements because if we do certain things now we may be too late for the next cycle or so i just want to be a wor that if this goes in effect it'll be the second cycle which is almost two years gone by road if you meet certain changes and i just want the members to be clear when things may or may not take effect  to appear like that members this cocker thank you chair and chair we need in your opening comments you did and a little bit ago wanted to work off possibly the federal ag definition so i've been trying to also in regards to i import nag land designations on the state level i believe when it was good there was supposed to have been a comprehensive plan i think statewide and i don't but again each it's one of the things i've been working with the planning department they're responsible for doing that but they haven't been you know the state said we're going to fund you to do this and they haven't funded the planning department to do that so either we as the county can find and hopefully get a reimbursement from the state or they're still going to wait for the state farm to the state legislature to fund studies so that's something that may maybe we would want to yes i mean we put in hundred twenty thousand for that housing this study just a minute ago and so this is something that you think you know state mandate you know it's worth the money that comes with it never does but  area i guess this is a for your own type of program is this something the public can tap into yes ok or our offices but i'm just looking chairman trying to break this down a little bit more though in regards to one properties degen dedicated the other is not one i think is claiming homeowners exemption the other is not one is has of building exemptions if the bigger property has building and it will be both have building exemptions but the second more urbanized looking one has more higher building exemptions so what is the difference i mean you would think that don't mind to figure is actually how we determine the bigger lot gets the lesser taxation this is through thinking sure i don't have the detailed information but i can tell you for certain that both parcels are receiving the home exemption if you look down this is all there plus of both says nine homeowner regardless of how the exemption is apportioned it is if it doesn't go to the building it spills over on the land so it's force applied to the building didn't escape i don't know which building to live in how much of the building they live in so the receiving it probably of one or the or the other need might be only you know it's hard to for me to tell off the bat but i can tell you that both are receiving exemptions for the home exemption in this case because you can look in their exemptions under building an exemption in one of only sixty two thousand three hundred therefore the net taxable of building is this and then it says land exemptions it has twenty eight thousand one hundred so maybe they're not getting guitar two hundred thousand because they're not entitled to the entire two hundred thousand in the second building it looks like they're receiving all of the two hundred thousand because it looks like one zero to one hundred plus land exemption ninety seven i said every saving at all so it really depends on the situation but in either case the homeowner will be entitled to the exemption to whatever they can qualify for yeah but you can see dramatically it's basically the amount of land of the of the home site in the two situations are very significant the value differently and that's all we see is that our our goal for the b of seventy was to create or corrected inequities in the current way of doing than two different or three different ways and i think a lot of the bills before you mean is a means to that goal that i think chairman has in my so we're just here as a resource to provide that information to clean up the code to make a living easier for people to so you know there are some you know it's a it's a disparity that we need to fix because of people that are living in cali why look at all the all the you know the smaller lot areas are paying significantly more than those of us are fortunate enough to live with areas they control thank you any other members any questions or comments for the chair or mr i consider this upward movement for the gentleman he's a licensed engineer and so this is mr molina's last official meeting with the budget in france comedia as it's one of its senior staff and i want to say to mr molina thank you for your service we are a better committee because of your assistance to us we wish you well in your future endeavor and much success with the water department and again we thank you for  serving the people of this county jury thank you so much mr couch thank you mr chairman thank you for that i also wanted to express my best wishes he's been he was on my committee for a while and still kind of is so we're going to miss him and i wish him good luck and he's really good staff thank you thank you basically make a chair and i totally agree that we're going to this his belly to make a difference and i have to say after the time that he spent in council services he's shown himself to be someone who rises to the occasion whenever called ok and you know that's it's a wonderful  attribute to have i don't think he's been thrown a challenge that he has sidestepped but he's been in council services so the water department is getting a great guy and we will miss him so time always got information that was necessary necessary to bring forward whatever it was going to and i doall me so i know that by going to the department of water supplies and engineer hopefully they'll help mr taylor and that department even do a better job overall i think he's in his commitment to this county bar none you know as a young person i'm very impressed you know most young people at this age they're too busy with other issues on which the morning has proven time in time out that he is committed to make this county a better place for his future and future generations so i think when we have young leaders like that in our community i don't worry so much anymore you know sometimes you know we all get that what is the next generation going to be able to do right i think our parents thought about us that way we think about our children that way but i think general more a lot of young people going to really dedicated and they'll be the future leaders so just don't forget our senior program that's all i got to say about that that's where we're all the great now and if anybody doesn't believe me just check your social security ledger thank you much to anyone else and i think it's here and yeah getting tired of saying goodbye to jordan but i don't think it's ever go by because he's still with the county from my office yes you need to have fire in your belly and go get em attitude to work in my office but then he i didn't really use him because then he became a legislative analyst in my i e m committee so you still got to have jordan and again yes very detail order oriented work so hard goes above and beyond always and so now to have a move to the water department i am happy because i know it will be some good sense moving into that section of our county and some good things will start happening i did speak to director taylor the other day and said hey  things take in jordan but he is very excited and has great plans to have jordan there so again we haven't really lost him he's in a good area in our department that is needed for our upcoming young you know leaders like himself to be a part of and i always can't think actually you know his mom for a reason and because his brother too worked a little bit of my office raising some great great kids so thanks to those who for all her intelligent and your analytical skills are very impressive you've always come up with ideas that are thinking outside the box and are able to balance things back and forth with me so i i i really appreciate mr cherry on this one i think the council members for the kind words and the opportunity to you know be in this position and to learn and serve the people of my county it's been a great honor and appreciate working with all the members so all items will be moved to the following month and this is our last meeting for the calendar year so with that members happy holidays safe everything