should bring this meeting to order this is the council's comedian budget and finance we're meeting on the twenty ninth of march two thousand and sixteen but it's a race chairman mr white the chair will impose a five dollar penalty for the gallery we ask that you keep your noise making devices on silent or off mode as we prepare for to receive testimony on any item that has been agenda is for today's meeting as we take testimony requests you state your name if you represent in organization to share that information with us and you have three minutes and three minutes only there is no one minute to conclude in this community we will it will assist you with your time with the lighting green means speak yellow means you have thirty seconds to co place in ky hey when the county council passed the s t r ordinance in twenty twelve we had been retired for a few years we saw an opportunity to start a small business using our home we began the application process painstakingly following all the rules to become a legal s t r h we did not run our home during the application process and continued to pay real estate taxes without the homeowners exemption in anticipation of receiving a permit we never imagined that in both cases the process would take so long we applied in the fall of two thousand and twelve three years and four months after applying we finally received our permit on february twenty third twenty sixteen we have seen the county council over this time period push onerous classification increases on s t r each owner's well used by code has been defined as residential we are not a hotel or a resort we do not have the same development or use rights granted by hotel zoning we are limited by the number of occupants on property s t r's are not allowed to have weddings have a no party restriction s t r's cannot have that many commercial activities that a hotel is allowed we have restrict noise levels and quiet hours outside from nine pm until eight a m and beyond those things are s t r each permits add no value to our properties should we sell because the permit cannot be transferred  the sale of our home s t r h permit holders who have done the right things to get permit it should not be penalize paying creasing our taxes so drastically to the hotel rate please let me explain what i mean by a drastic increase had we claimed the homeowner's exemption our taxes would have been twenty three thousand dollars because we got our s t r permit in two thousand and sixteen our real estate taxes will be forty nine thousand eight hundred dollars but as proposed with the who classification we would be in our home all day and without our home owner's exemption we would be paying seventy six thousand seven hundred dollars just by being permitted we saw our real estate taxes increased twenty seven thousand we don't know if we will be able to rent our home or for how many days each year it will rent we are just a small start up business so we have only had expense and risk this will be a real burden on s t r owners i'd be happy to pay the hotel tax rate if i had the development rights and usage granted ron writes a hotel past a good ordinance that can benefit the county of maui in a very positive way it just needs some minor changes i forgot to mention that we also do retake in written testimony so if you choose to as sending additional comments in written form the commute to be happy to receive those comments c aloha counsel and budget committee members my name is stacy vosburgh and i'm the operations manager for nelly's rentals and thank you for letting us read our thoughts on testifying against raising the tax rate for short term rental home from the commercial classification to the hotel classification s t r h's are not household names like are hotels such as the hyatt marriott westin or sheraton we do not have the same amenities that they do some of these are lobbies meeting rooms gift shops bars and restaurants we don't provide room service daily maid service or valet parking we are totally different and to s t r each are defined as residential in the code those of us with permits should not be penalized because there are others who didn't get theirs at the end of two thousand and fourteen this committee decided by a seven to zero vote to tax us as commercial for tax valuation this was a good and fair decision please let's keep it that way hello my name is surely smith good morning good morning we live at four as they are lined front street and the first gentleman said everything that i had planned on saying so it's just a waste of time but i wanted to let hall that were not for raising our taxes again and we've complied with everything and we i enjoy my very much thank you very much would you please teach a name for the record surely something happened since then to justify a change in tax policy this class of properties does not appear to be significant enough to truly affect the county's tax income bottom line either way and a number of these property owners may be able to absorb the thirty percent tax increase however the biggest impact will appear to be on those come on to families who are dependent on the income they can generate from their family properties a thirty percent tax increase will be a big hit for them for families who just applied for their permit who apply for permits and set their budgets since the tax rate was set six months ago such an increase  for those considering applying for a permit the message will be that the county cannot be trusted to be fair why would such an increase not be fair because short term rentals are not hotels they the business value is limited to the actual income because the permit cannot be transferred the business cannot be sold this is the this is this does not add to devalue the property when the property sold by contrast to owner of a resort condominium enjoys the the right to short term rent by zoning there are no heavy county rules affecting the use there's no permit required and the owners are able to sell their businesses vacation use is very much a factor in the value of their property on the question of applying hotel rate to vacation rentals operated without a permit good luck just three weeks ago a corporation council ruled in the same room that since you say you represent a large number of folks in your experience when somebody tries to get a refinance of their home and they're classified good morning chair good morning good morning council my name is sydney smith my husband and i own a coffee on the current president of the maori coffee association and i'm on the  entire farm at hotel and resort tax rate i know other farmers which with much larger parcels that have that i have and who have a fraction of a percent for their vacation rental and this won't work for them either it took me two years hundreds of pages of documentation and a public hearing before the planning commission to get my license at that hearing i got unanimous approval and a standing ovation from the commissioners for operating a beautiful successful farm and doing everything right and i was gratified to get some encouragement for a change this bill is not encouraging it especially harms farms and ranches that operate on multiple t m case at a meeting a few weeks ago with some farmers and asked them if they were interested in working with the mayor to buy early some of the eight cns land to put in some large orchards or farms the overwhelming answer was why when every five minutes there's another attack on ag from the county they don't want ag they want houses so i got no takers in the mare's state of the county address he said he was also unable to get any vegetable farmers interested in  stannis land are any of you surprised no business is more uncertain than farming diversifying your business makes good economic sense now a county needs to support farming and ranching instead of assaulting it on a regular basis if you did we could have a healthy vibrant agriculture economy here on maui but we won't have it if we have to spend all our time repairing a ta group and i'm super confused and i feel like we're in another case of one brush does not fit all and i'm feeling down to five do and damned if i don't my husband and i bought property up country eleven years ago and what the county considers to be an farmable adland it is in the bottom of a gulch with steep cliffs and periodic inundation zones and because we're on ag land in order to do anything i had to figure out how to become a farmer so i went to the master farmer's classes are the master gardeners classes studied farming i've been doing everything i can i keep the nursery open seven days a week i'm doing all that we can to do add we've cleared trash off the property we fight invasive species we do all these things and yet it's excruciatingly expensive to do that so then when the property next door came up available we thought wow we could put a stop to the drug use going on here the drug deals going on here the dumpsite going on here and the domestic violence going on here but that's expensive too a vacation right well seemed like the perfect solution to finance that and it would be except for that we've been continually treated like we're the bad guys for trying to make a living on a farm and trying to do those services so if you'd like to far to tax us that hotel rates just like the other people said great give us sidewalks give us stop give us street lights give us water so we can turn our seasonal stream into year round one wouldn't that be nice water feature on the property give us all of the services that the hotels get and all the rights that the hotels get is on us as hotels i don't think that's what you want and i don't think that's what we want and ironically the people who stay with us stay with us because we're not a hotel s request of you is to follow wisdom stop penalize ing us for trying to make a living on the island and community and serving the community please please do not let this bill go through thank you any questions for the levy on testimony presented members every night thank you very much and my refinance got turned down because i'm a working farm to be followed by john miles mail on behalf of palm council members approximately eighteen months ago it was determined by this council that the taxation for short term rentals and commit was the commercial category the concept of hotel resort classification was brought up at that time after discussion it was decided that hotel did not fit for at least the following reasons weddings and parties are not allowed similarly businesses such as hairdresser boutiques jewelry permit is not transferable and does not run with the land there is no increased valuation to the property for property sales the taxation rate the taxation rate per room for a hotel is much lower due to the fact that s t r is are actually limited to a very small number of rentable rooms the management of the hotels are employees but the s t r management is limited to relatives or real estate agent employees are not allowed in the management here a manager may only be off island for a maximum ninety days per annum there is no similar restrictions to hotels accordingly i'm openly in favor of raising the s t r rates to hotel rates as t r s are given the same rights and privileges as the hotel hours otherwise i would it would be extremely unfair to charge their steers the same price as hotels but restrict them with their operations and opportunities thank you very much thank you for sharing your thoughts and questions members every now and thank you very much for being here john miles please and after mr miles are going to district offices applications submitted in approved in now we are faced with sampson who it's a penalty have to pay it to penalty you know we asked for is to be treated fairly thank you thank you for your just a moment any questions for the gentleman on his thank you very much thank you any questions for the lady on her testimony members irene and thank you very much for your just the money is there anyone else miss hundred ninety four when she applied and went through the permitting process we are now in the third new all of that permit and the existing classifications seems appropriate and fair and we believe that an increase will probably put a lot of people out of business it takes approximately between thirty and fifty nights of rentals to pay our current taxes  proposed increase may take some fire between seventy and one hundred nights to pay the taxes we appreciate the work that you have done and we implore that  keep in mind that the the guests in our homes and come because they cannot afford hotels and they wish to have an experience of the i know they meet people like myself and eve holder and tom crawley they meet people in their homes they want to be part of our community in a more closely related situation they spend more propose that the correct classification be held in place thank you very much for your time and your efforts thank you missing goes any questions for the lady on testimony pre english thank you for being here you said that year units are affordable so what would those prices be in reference to a hotel you sit there they like it because it's more affordable distain it so it's a three bedroom three bath home when they got there personally after the family got their conditional permits the taxes went up from about five thousand to approximately twenty thousand dollars this was a big hit but it was something that was manageable if this ordinance is passed originally presented it would hurt the effort of the loo way founding to preserve what they believe is their heritage a mortgage to be paid and there are other expenses for repair and maintenance and so they're just making it at the present time so i asked the consul consider just the alison free land to be good morning thanks for your time my name is allison freeland of lived here in my for about twenty years a small business owner worked in the visitor industry for many years and just in the last few years was able to purchase a home with a small cottage  tried the long term thing didn't work out too great as far as the damage to our property as well as to the cottage so about eighteen months ago i believe i don't know the time line but when the commercial rate was approved i thought well maybe i'll you know approach the office and see about doing an s terry i had a very positive experience actually with the county over there took about six to seven months and i thought they break so in the timeline of a lot of other people who had frustration i feel like they did a very good job and i think some of the limitations especially in haiku are probably good for our community that there aren't a lot of other outside activities but we certainly are not a hotel it's a four hundred square foot cottage and i think that the people who come to stay in haiku are there for wind sports they're there for things that they don't want to drive forty five minutes to and i think specifically where i am near the cannery the the areas prospered immensely from vacation rental because new restaurants have opened we've gotten rid of drug problems we've cleared out you know a lot of issues community issues that were taking place there because there were empty buildings and back alleys which now are not because the land owners of those commercial properties see that by putting in a nice restaurant or shopping there are people to consume those products locals too but a good percentage are coming from small places like mine  that's about all i have to say i agree with most of thing everyone said however i don't operate in that environment so i don't want it to be a hotel we don't want more and more and more you know and i think the number of permits is probably applicable to our area thank you thank you mr lind any questions for the lead to your her testimony members thank you very much for you thank farmer rancher i mean here twenty four seven but anyway my point on this my take on this is you know again it is going to hurt us again on aggregate i don't have a show in but you know maybe some day i'd like to put something on our farm we have calls i have calls trying to pick up the child i want to stay on my property but you know now this is going to hurt the farming and ranching there was something that was given to us that we could do that would make it a little easier for us but now again we get chopped down you know and it's tiring you know we fight and we fight and we fight you know until we can't fight no more you know there's a lot of people you know that have like to say the hotels they have sidewalks they have street lights they have everything they need you know about us up country we take care of ourselves i pave the county road to my house and help my neighbors to get to my place so you know why i come on give us a little break here you know people need to make something when you guys want to just chop us down again and that's all i got to say thank you thank you any questions for the leave you and just the money presented thank you miss wife and children and i a part time residence here with all of the beautiful island of maui our house is a permitted s t r h when we're not on an island having a permit creates jobs for our management company employees our house cleaning folks and to some extent our landscaper and pool service because well if i were if i was not here when i'm not here i could have somebody else clean the pool or landscaping is kept really top notch because we have gas so all those things are additional expense s i'm one hundred percent supportive of the s g r h process i have encouraged other neighbors to get their permits and they've had success so i've been i've been advocating for for the county in that respect and i'd like to express my views on why the increase in the property taxes i would hope that you would reconsider that we rely solely on the nightly income we receive from our guests we don't have restaurants and bars to generate income in addition to our nightly accommodation rates we can't host corporate meetings and conventions that are a significant source of revenue for hotels and resorts we do not have the ability to book activities and earn commissions from booking activities from people we if we pay the same rates as a hotel could we have a wedding on our property we're not permitted to do that we're not allowed to have group gatherings we're not allowed to have more than eight people on our property so if we paid the same rates could we have a luau on our property i don't i wouldn't think that would work in our neighborhood i wouldn't be and i would not advocate that but somehow paying the resort rate seems akin to being able to do more  property i think we're an excellent source of revenue for the state and i believe some of that money flows down to the county we collect over thirty thousand dollars a year and get untapped taxes and multiply that by all  h permit holders on the on the cow and the county and i think that's a whole lot of money i once heard somebody say that owning a house on maui and running it out as a nest here is a golden ticket but it's actually and i'm not crying poor not crying not complaining but it's actually a lot of work because we have to maintain our homes at a very high level we have pots and pans and dishes and knives and forks and appliances in our kitchen that all have to be there for the gas hotels don't do that so there are additional expenses additional efforts to go into maintaining a top quality short term rental home and i hope you agree that these are valid reasons and that's all the time i have thank you for your attention thank you mr ev any questions for the gentleman on his testimony thank you very much  that in the merger that you give the fire chief and give the ocean safety section all the resources needed to do this and not cut corners or or things like that it's really important to understand that since two thousand and two that we've been running a pilot program whereby we respond to all nine one one calls and this pilot program hasn't been included in the past years if you look over the goals for the previous years one of our main action beings is to provide high quality lifeguard service at our county's designated beach parks it doesn't say anything in past budgets about also responding on the nine one one system with jet skis and so from the front lines experience we've been severely understaffed to the point where many times we have to make the decision where we're going to have the shortage if it's going to be on the response to the nine one one system or to the left guard beach that we're supposed to be quote providing high quality life guard service in my opinion i think we need fourteen expansion positions for the seven get each jet ski would have a team of a driver and a grabber when necessary the most recent occurrence i think that i can remember for me was january fourteenth we had big swells as you guys might have seen in the newspaper and in the television a young man broke his femur and we only had three guys which is more than usually you have a lot of times you only have two guys and i made the decision to take a grabber with me leaving our designated beach park which is where we're supposed to be providing high quality lifeguard service with one guy this is twenty foot feces two hundred people we left one guy there to go respond to the kid with a broken femur and we were gone for a bottle i would say forty five minutes you know so with a murder and i i think you know up until this point in the our designee beach park has been the priority and i think that's a question that you guys really need to look into with corporation counsel when people come in especially tourists and residents alike if they come to a beach park and see a lifeguard tower there is an expectation that there is a lifeguard there during working hours from eight to four thirty the next week next that employees regarding the propos unit fourteen negotiated a really good contract and it as he said to us this is just a starting point for things going in the right direction up until now we were the only jurisdiction in the state that didn't pay our  fifty more an hour and that's important and i totally support it but you need to think if the rescue craft operator is going to be operating within the beach part of the designated beach park or they're going to go the entire coastline and so we need the staffing for the entire coastline because you know if you think about a fifty meter pool they don't open without three lifeguards many many these we have beach parks which are over a thousand yards operating with two life barge and that's not just beach park for my beach that i work at we work from about vacation rentals being b s hotels everybody comes to mind for the ocean otherwise if they were coming just for the sand they could go to arizona and especially with this past year you can see that the ocean is really unpredictable if you're going to leave us to be short staffed then we won't be prepared for a year like this year you know in studies from what i've heard our drowning rates are already much higher than in the rest of the nation and i'm not seeing because we don't have great water men and women it's you know we need to be proactive on the scene and we need to fund these things because lives are at stake and it's better to put the money proactively than get sued later on down the road in the money's even the point is someone's loved one it could be year father your mother your wife your husband your kids your christmas break summer break these are all times when there's a flood of people you need to look in the newspaper and there's like record numbers of greek everyone's making money but some people are dying thank you this transfer just interested in your comments in regards to the nine one one calls and so when you're asking for these expansion positions because it's seeming like there's they a priority for nine ones no matter what so you're saying you folks have to go out and take care of these calls but leave towers on attended actual unattended that's the directive that we've been given by  battalion chief when we merged the nine one one calls will take precedence in the audience you can probably question him where later but we've been told explicitly that the nine one one call it takes priority and if the grabber like if it's an injury or a dead body or something that we they would like us to go and somebody else can but they don't want us to wait for the call at our own beat and the reason that concerns me is a lot of times we get nine one one calls from serious or you know condo life guard and and i don't want to discount people from calling nine one one because you never know what the situation could be but we've had calls for just people doing don when you know on a stand up paddle board and that's a pretty popular pastime noddy's when it's when the people just get on a stand up paddle board and you know paddle a little bit and let it push them they'll put in it like in a p t b and get out at airport beach and someone from middle america is not familiar seeing someone out in the middle of the ocean and they'll call nine one one and we have to respond and the thing is where somebody else is information over our own expertise we could be at our beach and have a very active rip current where we're constantly telling people to get out pulling it it'll take me of a matter of seconds for someone to jump in here and get pulled out there and if you know how to deal with it or if there is someone local to help them out it's not be the deal but if they start to panic then you only have really  a few minutes to address the situation so i guess you're saying that you are looking for more cover more bodies at the site specifically yeah to address any calls whether life or death i mean calls and i don't call it's  y for somebody and thereby address but yet have coverage of the actual beach my point is why i put us in the position where we're having to choose you know if if we have four people at  every beach with jet ski then you have a crew of two tuesday and a crew of two to go and then it's not so much of a question you know i mean i think the resolution that you folks had passed earlier was to pay to jet ski operators we have seven jet skis so that's fourteen operators and then your beach crew not seeing that each time there's a nine one one call will need two people but those of us that have been doing this for decades know you know if there's an injury if it's on a there's a dead body or something like that we know by hearing the nature of a call if we're going to need a grabber or not and this way we're prepared you know for that occurring without having the expansion positions or the contract position there what have you then there will be a time when we have to choose whether who we're going to short you know if we're going to short that if we're going to short the call and i just think you know as professional as as a destination that we tolerate everybody to come see the ocean come spend time in the ocean we should be prepared as a colony to provide the highest level of safety and you know of a few dollars proactive can help us in the long run from spending big money for a settlement or a loss ok thank you very much moon chair a committee tom proly an untested buying on behalf of the bowing vacation rental association you've already heard enough times why it's inappropriate to classify short term rental home permit holders as hotel  resort these properties were pit permitted for residential use and the provisions in code spit specify that it's a residential use some want to put forward the idea that that granting the ability to rent for less than one hundred eighty days of the time is the equivalent of a hotel use as but from what you have already heard you can see that that's not true in real estate assessment language the term highest and best use specifically refers to the development rights given to a piece of land if the development rights allow the construction of a hotel or a commercial business or residential home the highest and best use for that land is hotel and that's how they base and assessed value on that land but when we talk about highest and best use in terms of our taxation it's not that you know your granting a short term rental permit is giving you the highest and best use of a hotel it's not so it's inappropriate to even consider putting these properties in the quest cation as as hotel but i do recognize there is a second component to the proposed be a forty two that allows the county to reclassify properties that don't have permits that are being used or being advertised as short term rentals and while i believe this is an attempt to penalize the property owners who were not following proper zoning laws i believe that it also could create many more problems than it would solve i'm not sure that shifting zoning in foresman issues to the real property tax department is a wise thing to do i believe it may result in many tax appeals and you'd have the real property tax board now having to make decisions on that and i also ask what kind of a message would it send to an illegal operator we're now taxing you  hotel but we're telling you that what you're doing you're not allowed to do so it just puts puts in a very difficult position i don't think it's fair to the people who have permits to even allow that to continue i also want to point out that in our current code if someone claims a homeowner exemption that they're not entitled to perhaps because they're running a short term rental from their home we already have the ability to reclassify that to its underlying zoning take away the benefits of the homeowner exemption this bill would actually make it better for that guy because you're saying we're going to just reclassify you to commercialise residential which would be a lower tax rate than his underlying zoning tax rate would be i don't think that this bill would mr yes i don't think that this bill would allow you to retroactively apply tax which i know is is something else that we want to do so it's a good attempt but i don't think that that it's having the right it's targeting the right thing thank you thank you christian for the gentlemen members ha anyone else will go to the district offices anyone else in honda would like to give testimony thank you miss out on anyone on molokai he would like to give testimony to be if sixty six is regarding the transfer of the ocean safety program to the department of fire and club safety this is under b of sixty six you have a communication from mr bar dated excuse me a number of sixteen dish thirty guarding the transfer of ocean safety program from parks and recreation to department of fire in public safety and its impact on the annual budget again to move the devotion safety division section of the department of parks and recreation to the department of public safety as per the charter member passed in two thousand and twelve so can see how to discuss this in any answer any questions you have we also have resources here from fire and and ocean safety as well as our personal services chad the first item you're discussing is the transfer and then the second item is related to specifically the b u fourteen cost items and just so the committee under stands whether or not the ocean safety officers get transferred to the department from public safety the b u fourteen cost items are are subject to those employees no matter which department they're in so just to clarify diligently with fire and having them come together and we've got to the point where we've gotten everything straight and tight as far as the transfer without going into details with budget issues the transfer itself with understanding of  equipment and personnel and the chance for of operational itself i think this is the year that we've all come together and really worked hard over the past year now to get that transfer through any your regular program or is there an adjustment you going to need to make in the pool program chair with the transfer itself we will in a lot of fact the pool whatsoever i think for the chance for itself on the  we've been operating from a parks and recreation side as if the transfer had already taken place over aquatic standpoint with the transfer does not happen for some reason during this fiscal our fiscal year seventeen transfer like the both directors before me have stated we are poised to move forward i believe all of the meetings between our groups for the past year and a half ursule which was multiple times a month have we're at that point where i believe the movement should be made and i know the discussions for items will be done at a later time but we'll be happy to answer any questions  far in this merger so thank you for the opportunity thank you budget chair budget director for making this happen because i think this is really important so chief as far as your understanding positions that we're asking for we would like to have those done as soon as possible and we all know that the process for hiring and what have you takes a lot so i'm not sure exactly what would be the best take off date for that  but that would be definitely a hurdle in this process either we've got three directors then one chief so i know a lot of questions research or reading of course is all i have to say it's about time i thought i would be out of this building before you guys got this done and that's all i got to say about that been resolved it has been been worked on we have been working on those issues between both departments as well as d p s on the process and the procedures that was also covered during the bargaining unit arbitration as well so all we feel fairly confident moving forward with that ok and they will be you know right now the pool guards fill in for the beach as a county deal with the potential liability for employees using medical marijuana and operating equipment is that something you folks have addressed and have a policy in place because i am not a comfortable chair in this matter and chair it is further west than significant jump in a little bit on that one so it during this whole process as we went through the whole county and going back and forth with the union process i think there was a misunderstanding it's not necessarily medical marijuana cards that are lifeguards or holy it's the marital prescriptions that we're trying to sure which again is the issue is someone as a lifeguard already kind of public safety having a bear and all prescription which in return for the testing as we do grab the jug testing would show as a result of the possibly being dirty or hundred percent resolved on that you know those are things that we're still working on to make sure we were all aware and we're all trying to get to that point of getting it out of there and working with the unions but again to transfer goes it's still an issue and encourage that we're dealing with you know my thing is if the employee needs medication i can understand it but to me then that means that the person should be operating equipment care and we hundred percent of your that as well so we are working poor life guards and ocean life guards and if i remember when i first started in a couple of times to explain to us that ocean guards could come into pool gardy book pool guards could not go to osha unless they were contract with that and they are funding the mckenna lifeguard stand so those positions at mt can are currently have return rights in the event it was to not get funded they have returned to come back to the pool with this process and with the  extra expansion positions you know we'll still have a couple of them that will have return rights but as time goes on it will be in a sense we develop we're no safety lifeguard we've actually have any return rights back to the pool for the questions members should bring this meeting back to werder we are currently on a dome sixty six during the transfer of ocean safety program from parkes to the department of fire response thank you chair for that question it's basically the closeness entity to the situation and it will work together so normally how that would work and see we pick something in the p d or no p d fire station if they're available will respond to that call from shore to provide rescue services and if we have the opportunity to utilize a jet ski unit based on the situation we will they will they will be called for that situation at the same time and it would be the command there on shore that would help direct the rescue operation  and and that's only from eight o'clock to sixteen thirty in the afternoon so we have that resource available during the daytime hours all of the hours  firefighter would be the first yes and the only man choice yes q and with that chief so we're clear and they bring it up only because the legislature is going to consider that just to be clear on areas of jurisdiction our understanding is anything below the high water mark is the men are and once in the waters it's coast guard and the maritime law and maritime enforcement so we'll cut how much protection does our county employee said in here is a jurisdiction that is clearly state and federal government i think not sure about the jurisdictional matters but it would essentially be a question of whether or not the employee was negligent it would probably likely look at negligence more than  there's still a need to be some agreements regarding memorandums agreements on the between the parks department and the department of foreign public safety regarding equipment transfers and just beach stuff but i'm sure they can work all of that out rather quickly thank you parks there after chair that has been completed as well as everything is set for july first  yes if i may i did mention earlier but vaguely about the positions that we are asking for administratively to help us operate this division we will be accepting the ocean safety positions but there are no administrative positions that are coming along with that so i will provide that people work to d p s ahead of time in hopes that they get approved so that we can take action immediately once we have the funding and hopefully we can put that whole process and everything in order by october hopefully that's the goal s quote administrative officer is one but the i mean chief he is the only one we have no clerical staff nor soprano support staff with that chief we appreciate that comment and request how your employees that are being relieved of responsibility over this ocean safety area what are the going to be doing into the you have the ability to transfer positions chair so basically the adult safety will be transferred we currently in aquatics have already put those positions into place early short as well and with that being said is because of the aquatics the way the  positions are reallocated for the transfer however they were ready we were ready short we never got the clerical that we needed for the beginning over the past few years not it has been going through fire has been the one asking for the budget improvements or d p s expansion positions and we've been sitting back and waiting for that to happen so where we don't even currently have in ocean safety clerical kearney as it speak now so there is no need to transfer on that standpoint these financial impacts from the transfer including additional person effort administrative costs does not include for additional positions it's based on current positions risky firefighters they are trained to do ocean as well and again i talk about the timing when ocean safety is at the beach which is approximately about eight hours a day so everything after that exhausts and prior to the development of ocean safety the fire department was tasked with all of that so we're trying to provide harmony between the two so that we can work together and be much more efficient and jobs i guess responsibilities the possible issues in regards to leaving coastlines and attended i guess is that where maybe i mean i can have a firefighter sitting in a lifeguard tower but you know how can that be adjusted and not having to ask for more and more e p a if normally in that situation how it's done today is the beach captain will respond to that open beach to try to fill in during that time upon their availability so in these situations there we're talking about that happening on a daily basis we're lucky if it's just one or two people on the larger incidence it's a multi jurisdiction multi division response you know whether it be a boat or an aircraft or what have you we're prepared to do all of those in unison so the daily on provide a challenge to our personnel and we have to make those adjustments every day so but we're prepared for the larger ones as well very good that beach captain you mentioned is i guess a row can be  or just the captain itself so all depending on the situation and the veil ability of resources ok all right very good looking for forward to further detail discussion chair on this matter thank you thank you m session and the target is july first two thousand and sixteen for the official implementation of this transfer in the new fiscal year two thousand and seventeen budget proposal  which is in that patch proposed resolution entitled approving cost items for unit fourteen ocean safety officers along with summary of cross items this com review requests and see if we are going to forward and approve this contract thirteen act one three seven the two thousand and thirteen state legislature established a new collective bargaining unit to represent law enforcement officers that belong to the state and thirty ocean safety or water safety officers that belong to the county in a county of mali has approximately fifty five safety officers on july thirty one two thousand and fifteen the hawaii labor relations board well we negotiated with the bar in a fourteen which was represented by the howard government employees association and on july we could not come to a total agreement on the collective bargaining agreement hearing employer group and the union were able to come to agreement on approximately fifty articles and what went before this arbitration panel was five and award the cost of the award for the county molly is before you and i can answer any other questions that you may have with regard to this cost items and by law we have to present this cost to to each respective legislative body so the state would present it to the state legislature and city county would give it to the city county conn county council my indications is all employees must agree or have one employer does not agree the country does not move forward is that good a good understand chair you know we we researched out and there's some  older our attorney general's opinion with regard to what happens if the any legislative body rejects the cost according to the attorney general's opinion with regard to this type of  award it's an interest arbitration award compared to a negotiated and ratified contract so this isn't a go this is a arbitration award according to the attorney general's office we go back to the it's a victory no questions interesting dilemma really at this point no questions just seems like a rock and a hard place just depends on what everybody comes up besides the various counties right to the drawing board negotiating table as we understand here from our personnel director ok under the current and crosses and currently we only heard from  anyways share it is it is and fortunately we always have that that hardship about not being at that table and we get figures and put out and pay for this we were never there to even have any type of say so i yeah it's frustrating when we get to this point but thank you thank you to mr coach here was chair so in the resolution it says for f y twenty seventeen it's an additional one point zero thank you mr chair and member coach which page are you referring to exhibit one the last page of exhibit one stool to the ok fiscal year two thousand and seventeen is an additional one point zero six million dollars that's correct yes based on the information provided from department of human resource development at the state ok that's covers fifty five people  plus the ten grand positions sixty five that includes the ground position is the fifty five but that's about a twenty thousand dollars raise per individual average individual because they moved over to the fire department is that they're still here moto not because they moved over to the fire department this is a that's right they went to different collective bargaining for this barney unit so it has nothing really to do with the transfer to fire ok and then the three fifteen hour it says when a is that mean if somebody is aside there's three assigned to a beach and one of them is the designated jet ski operated that day for that day that they're on the  three dollars fifty cents per hour differential i see one hundred seventy eight thousand three hundred fifty on the so we would so they would be like fourteen operators in a day that are would be entitled to the differential because they're on desk duty correct whether they in this fiscal year twenty seventeen additional costs does that include all of the fringe for that  accept it does that mean that the city and county of want to look also comes back on the table to according to the attorney general's opinion yes it would all go back to the people so they have to be a unifying what they're looking for is is just a unified approval correct all of the legislative respective legislative bodies were i have to concur except the cost items and then i would have a co sixteen the first year of that agreement yes it is ok so that's why there's no to your cost most of the employees in this new body unit at four percent increase in first year ok so for fiscal year two thousand and sixteen would they have received a four percent increase yes ok so this is an additional based on their years of service so it it was approximately for a little bit more than four percent for the and for the employees so that's what they received in the first year f y sixteen and this cost i don't and it was because of the arbitration panel decision to consider what was negotiated on the unit three and unit four to continue to june thirtieth of this year they just the panel awarded increases to this increases to this barn unit effective july first of this year ok so essentially this is a one year contract  number eight on the list is appears to apply to employees that are not included in the salaries schedule is that correct number eight states a four percent increase to basic rate of pay for all employees plus a one time payment equal a four percent of new annual basic rate of pay for employees not administratively assigned to the salary schedule and i don't believe the county molly has anyone that fits number eight  these are employees that are who are hired probably like on an exempt basis not us not through civil service and was given a rate that is not on the salary schedule goes my next question  twenty our safety officers started s r fifteen so we will unless we create a new type of classification we won't even need to use our ten to start fourteen again fifteen to i think a start twenty four twenty six me and what was the rationale for eliminating the first three steps because that's a that's a significant increase if you just started as ocean safety officer and this this new contract is implemented you get a minor standing as you get a four percent across the board increase you get a three step increase i don't know what those steps amount to probably a couple thousand each each step is approximately force that four percent so what you just mentioned it's and it's around sixteen percent ok so which one are they not getting the across the board or the one time payment the one time payment is for i believe that's the one that is awarded to employees at the far right of the schedule that cannot move three included in the budget or are these in addition to the budget and such i think you the receipt of this was right before we transmitted the budget to council so i was able to put in a lump sum  appropriation for this adjustment similar to what he did a couple years ago with the collective bargaining agreement so we did appropriate and approximate amount of funds needed for salaries and wages for this  discussions you'll see the sixteen amounts as well as the the seventeen amounts and then there was an interesting request from the committee that we are in a finance already responded to that has a very good table the you'll be interested in if you look at  pretty it's actually appreciative that the committee asked that question very telling story don't applicable to the county or mine we most are some are not as indicated by director here or moto so quickly members of the main points one they have across the board increase of four percent billion the twelve steps of the new salary schedule placing the employees on the step with the corresponding pay range of the new salary schedule so if you're in the first step you from the current the employees plus one time payment equal to another four percent of a new annual basic pay over eight rate of pay for employees not administrate if we assign to it schedule and finally a continuation of us that movement thinking this must be sizable because they have my recollection was that they had been getting increases over the last couple of years but hearing from mr moto that they have been getting those increases along with the other units as much as i support the ocean safety folks this is a this is a huge challenge and i'm not i'm not ready to support it today my bike to have some time to look up mr boces f and one letter and and see what see if there's some way that i can get myself to swallow this large a number but at this point i'm not able to be that i'd like a little more time he understood any other comments or questions for the chair or or three directors and a chief mr victory no is there any time since of the pain sensitive issue and in regards to this issue do you know of any place here who we have to the research as he relates to affordable housing and the subject was my we housing supply demand property taxes and affordability ability to purchase of fordable housing dr boyd is giving you his perspective to see it is his perspective on how we could be how we could consider some of his points that is before within as a way to possibly having a positive impact on affordability offshore influences and that the benefit to the current community read that i is something i would like you to think about in a more macro perspective on taxation and a opening comments they would share with the committee sure bring this meeting back to order we are on b if forty two knew the heading of tax classifications for transit accommodation so i'm opening it up to members for christians for comments at this time it's a carol any questions if that was already in the ordinance from the last time when it was passed i believe me twenty third two thousand and twelve had something to do it when the one of the earlier rounds of conditional use permits was granted that was my understanding and liked in no way show for that request misplaced thank you thank you abnormal i don't know what words to use here but basically in the end the closing sentence is not a state demands pushes up prices and it's the middle class actually that is really having a tough time in affording their own homes so yeah supply and screaming and crying for affordable housing so it's pretty clear here chair thank you for that handout it's kind of a sad situation and reality  sorts it clearly states why ruin this predicament they were in here here to try and address that and hopefully make some changes accordingly because that's and p would like to see our the article i'd also be curious to see what do you hear guys have to say about this article has some very interesting points and there's no question i don't think there's ever been a question that changes in demand for the changes in demand in hawaii has been and continues to be driven by offshore demand prices for homes are being driven by mainland demand there's no question that that's what's  happening and one item that fosters this demand is our property taxes all the way around at the bottom of this thing it says taxing vacation miles and condo owners would increase the supply of rental housing and lower and lower rent s my question would be by how much because if you do the math if all eight hundred permits four hundred short term rental homes and four hundred bed and breakfast homes were given out and were permitted that amounts to one point one percent of the housing on this island what we need is the taking a look at the maui island plan where it says we need to be constructing around fifteen hundred homes a year for the next twenty years and we're only doing two to three hundred we need to so while this is a very good article i don't know how much as one one percent one point one four percent an issue on this specific bill so that that's my comments on this my question is you know we've been looking at  some of this testimony that's been around this being to us all and i don't have any concern i mean i don't have any notions about trying to figure out where we put these units where we're going to tax them we discussed it a while back it was commercial basically to put short term rental homes because that's all we were discussing at the time in commercial we also have bed and breakfasts that we have to deal with and we also have condominiums that were built long  before the need for affordable housing that were built strictly for transit vacation rental uses and those those are included in some of these numbers here where it's sixty two percent of the mainland or sixty two percent of condos are owned by mainland people most of that is in our resort areas both in   so as far as this other class of dwellings it's mainly single family homes  and it is a it is an industry that is worldwide that is increasing worldwide so we have to figure out what we're going to do they they are exactly hotels yes they they sleep people every night but sort of long term rentals and so do hotels but hotels also allow for big groups to get out of it certainly  rentals don't allow i mean we put it strictly in the law no nobody but the people sleeping there can go there they can have guests come over for dinner friends and relatives come over for dinner they can have these parties they can have weddings they can have  restaurants i mean there's a lot of things they can't have that hotels can have one of the big things is their permit is not transferable once they sell their house it's whoever buys the new house has to go back and get a new try to get a permit and if we're at our caps they may be out of luck it's one of those things that ultimately there's going to be a catch kind of like taxi medallions and so that w one person sells their house that house comes back into a different im in tory and hotel obviously you can transfer or you sell the whole told somebody else they still get their permits and they're still go right along so i agree with the ability to tax somebody if they're advertising i do have a question for a corp council about that is you know we asked that in my committee before whether or not they can do that they weren't happy with that at the time but they may be more happy now because it's written in the code so that would be my first question is the part think the chair we discussed this i don't know what this questions were had in your committee and so i can't say anything about that i can tell you that i did discuss this with mr wong and already for condos that language was existing  in three forty three or five see who is for and we just wanted to bring parity over to the regular parcels and i guess by advertising just for those things as the shift three b has been in our opinion that this amendment to the code changes how  we look at classification from the highest and best use and actually puts it for transit uses into actual use as opposed to whether or not you have a permit so that was the big distinction for our office it now for transit uses you look at actual use and not whether or not permit type one two three or four is actually had by the owner it's what are you using it for that's what you get asked for so that's the we allow or we charge somebody attacks for a use that they're using that is illegal that implies that we're that we're condoning that use that was one of the biggest concerns with thank you chair what i can say is it would still be any legal use out assume i'm not one hundred percent sure what the laws and each circumstance would be different however property tax is going to where it's going to when the tax people that they don't see on the list inform the planning department that they have to change the taxation certain parcel or this owner i wouldn't say necessary that being taxed or actually uses condone any an activity it's i think it happens right now it illegal structures like  partially that don't have building permits i believe that tax them for them and report them to the building permit department that type of thing so it's an actual use thing thank you yeah that was one of the big things in my committee on just short term mental homes so if if the department can if the corporation council says they're ok with that then i'd be willing to consider that one permitted operators i think moving forward they'll probably keep that seem standard but again the actual use taxation system now so it's not going to be driven by the permits so i'm not and thank you for this article that you know it's interesting when you compare the los angeles and median residential big city many of us think we have high taxes but compared to  or the property it is obvious as as far as the cation rentals i have a hard time distinguishing was a commercial residential is it a store is it what type of business are we commercializing with the s t r and or do we look at  dwelling that you're having visitors stay in for an overnighter or two hundred eighty days or less so that for that reason and i look a why we need to relook at the tax valuation or perhaps perhaps there needs to mean or more tweaking our class for specifically for the s t r classification and this this is in hopes for us to regard and taxes for the highest and best use i think there might be questions on accordingly and not take away from the complete farm actual farming that's been done if there is truly the farming that we need to are to protect then maybe we need to work with the real property tax people how do we assess it as such so this is this is why i am the bad girl who  revising the spin codes and categories to fit the current times in needs of this county them continue to put it into sells has been made us on how we can approach this type of taxation issues and minimize the ability to be more creative and innovative so that they can be as fairly as possible so do not be limited under the current self structure members i thought the testimony was again productive was helpful and for me i'm looking at ways to try and see if we can make revisions so that one of you with some innovative pr question has been discussed before several years about separating hotel from resort because they are very two different entities and they move at different rates the hotel component is relatively stable but even in the event of a disaster it could be very volatile the secondary market of short term are those that move differently from truly tells so when the overall classification either rises or discussion to provide that opportunity to separate the two the the current amendment as to take all t v s from commercial  unfortunately it's titled hotel and resort it should be entitled something differently but it is what it is so i can support that because it brings more consistency to our cochairman and if there's any more questions i could be more than happy to answer at this time thanks to provide some consequences and in that area i'm not sure how i feel about separating hotels from condos because there is the majority of the so i think that's always a little bit of a challenge but you know we have we have some additional issues as i as i normally do when i get e mails i go and look up the var properties and found some interesting things and i won't i won't name names but the first one i looked up the owners actually own three contiguous lots on each lot there are two two structures one one lot has a homeowner designation there's two structures there so one could be one is obviously the residence the other as either a short term rental or a long term rental i don't i can't find out who's permit and who's not but of the so you have one lot that is the homeowner designation of second lot which is commercialized residential which my understanding is you have to live on that lot in order to get commercialized residential but both all three properties are owned by the husband and wife so i'm not sure how how you can get merchandise residental on one and homeowner on the other and then the third parcel is commercial and i looked at another property and that was it's a kind of minimize property on the on ocean front one of the and it's the the lot is three condominium eyes ourselves and one is apartment one is hotel resort and one is commercial so i think it we've got all kinds of distinct go down the road of look at tax issues thank you thank you for that interesting the findings of your due diligence one thing that we do  in this county is our landry and our building rate is basically the same the county of hawaii i believe has different tax rates for the land and building  and the chair is in this for this year is open to look at different rates for building versus land as one wait to see if we can adjust  area to make sure that everybody piece their fair share so i'm going to look at rate a different rate than the land for the buildings as another week to potentially have a positive impact allow me i would rather have my comments after lunch because i know some people really need to go pretty quick now so yeah i know a couple of members need to leave so yeah so i'll wait if you would your permission to say what i need to say after much of practices and on a particular website it does state after years of long term rentals we remodeled this house and wanted to allow visitors to rent instead so that's clearly in black and white on their site they had done just that tree in earlier years so i went back and looked well there's clear farming in two thousand and ten but taken that same taking a photo of the same property two thousand and fifteen there's absolutely no indication that any of the previous farming survived as continue to be practiced so again people come in and send us letters thinking that there we're not going to look but there are those of us who are going to look and it's just concerning to find that what they're telling us and the e mail is simply false so it's just that doesn't of march twenty ninth two thousand and sixteen members at the recess we were still in discussion on b f forty two which is under the heading of tax classifications for transit accommodations and part of the discussion is a  maybe in the future one way to do it this is place anything less than a hundred and he d s is that then the magic number is that we work up anything under that but it was a six month target i would be open to maybe have everything and to come sure residential and adjust the rate cordingley this misplaced thank you very much chair and  i am very excited about ideas that you're tossing out i think it's good that we take a look at it in possibly come up with some other ideas but you know this idea of the magic hundred eighty days that you just mentioned that's something that bothers me to you know out there in the public a lot of people do not understand the definition of long term and short term term there are oodles and oodles and oodles of people renting places on a month to month basis all nineteen i believe it's a planning definition and it goes with you no exceptions of course anything less than one hundred eighty days is a transit use typically you know transit uses  allowed in certain zoning so and i'm not sure what that month how that month to month lease reads if you know i don't know if we probably would it might be contingent upon what the agreement says mr a pause the zoning enforcement administrator and his comment was that if there was a six month lease to begin with if a long term rental six month lease and then once that lease expired months a month is ok because the initial six months is fine but if you come straight in month to month and that is not under the current definition that is not a  is this thing was if you plan to be draconian on the short term cite you must consider is toy writ his article to give some incentive to the property owner to consider the long term right something that you know i wanted to make sure that we didn't lose in the discussion is that as i understand from the university's proposal they must be both sides of the scale going to just be on one side on the  nothing on the benefit of the owner must be a balanced approach so i just wanted to share that comment because i think that is something that we need to be very cognizant and keep in mind when we look at the issue of point yes i believe for such a long time our structure has needed some or revisions we've tried in certain areas and been successful at times and  others have met more resistance and resistance isn't a bad thing it really makes us think before we react before we act on the issue so i think that's important and i get it i got to remember to remind our colleagues too that we're very fortunate as a colony we're not responsible like many of our other colleagues are the sister counties for hospitals for schools for what you call that the judicial system sure's although the counties for example because my son lives in vegas i'm very familiar with  property tax whichever way you want to call it and you are looking at the comparables i think we hear that if you had a house that was one million dollars in l a you would pay my son and vegas piece for his house which is just about the same level and it's close to thirteen thousand dollars a month thirteen thousand dollars a month you heard  said definitely some improvements in our tax structure should be made and i believe and i hate going to have to agree with mr cox because that really hurts me but it lack of inventory is really our first problem we can do a lot of other mandy solutions but without more housing out there not going to come plummeting down and we charge commercial versus what we charge homeowners there's a big disparity tremendous disparity and i think our all mourners are really to be perfectly town is really expensive so i see you know we need to look at this again i hate to agree mr culture but there's something to like and there's a lot of things that i don't like and so we need to flush it out but i will wait for your leadership in and my colleagues ideas to bring forward what i call the change that is necessary and necessary for this county we can't keep walking this seems bad because we know it's not working right now here's a chance to make what i call a real improved positive change in the whole structure s to think miss camilla for bringing this item to our attention for discussion because it has generated a lot of good discussion i do i want to say that we did talk about and i can't remember which committee it was i think it might have been yours mr chair bout potentially in the tax taxation of all different types of categories one of the things was there was talk about and  he talks about it here in the last page of the report homes over a certain value i think i think we've bandied about if a home has over two million dollars the first two million dollars they get the homeowners exemption and the rate anything over that is a residential some sort of residential rate that if that is legal it appears that something like that is legal according to this report but i would love to ask mister i know he hasn't had a chance to you know consider the legal ramifications of that last paragraph just before the summary disguised as it's legal but you know i don't know that he's a lawyer i know mr restate your the last two paragraphs of the last page just before the summary talks about essentially lead legality and constitutionality of of sort of discriminat against different types of homeowners in taxation so that's one thing mr to well he's looking at that the other is you're right we've got to figure out what to do with long term rentals i'll give you an example my own example got a house renting it out long term paying it same taxes as somebody who lives in that house either doesn't live it at all but doesn't rent out or only lives in it a couple months out of the year paying the same amount of taxes but they're not providing a long term rental for somebody where whereas we are so is that the same right now we're taxing the same and i'm fine with that is that something is that an incentive for more people do long term if you either raise the empty one or lower the full one either way that may make more incentive for keeping houses occupied so those are the two questions i have right now thank you for that thank you in concept i believe you could do that for higher valued homes the details of it would might be where you get into the sticking point so without just blanket saying yeah that's ok of course we need to take a look at the legislation but in concept because you can also look at not giving the homeowners exemption for certain values you know there's a lot of various ways to deal with it but so in concept yes it's ok for approval has to form in the galaxy we'd have to read it and see how it works good discussions because during the budget process i am going to make some recommendations on rates and that's why i've been upfront that i i'm going to even look at a different rate for building versus land because that is another way to approach this is already regarding fixation on the residential site and i and i agree with that i think that's another potential way to go lumping anything over under one hundred eighty days into the same category might be a little bit different because there are all different types of other uses as we've been discussing so that one of different things and plus one thing that we really haven't mentioned in here that is very important to decide land at least is we have a traveling nurse program and traveling doctors program where they come in for three months out of the year or take they rotate every three months it's hard for them to find places because they have to have six months leases so there's shelf things going on and other things there were if that were easier for people to be able to do that then we might have more people coming in to help out with our health care i mean though those are some things that are happening as well not only nurses but doctors but in construction issues as well now you bring up a very valid points that we need to take into consideration mr coach so i get you know nothing is off the table for see because i think we should look at everything as best as we can but the truth is going to make some adjustment in texas because i will wait for the state or others to adjust affordability we know we can make adjustments to our authority and our ability on the budget so i'm going to make sure that we exercise our authority for what it is the best benefit for the general community this law as being proposed  is i'm going to be looking at from a macro point of view i don't support laws that would just the care one property owner so this will not be crafted for the property owner this will foremost and then maybe for mister you know sitting on different reach for structures versus land i concur with that i think that's about it that's long overdue and i think that's a bad thing however how your system value is going to be really a challenge because in insurance industry if you have a house that's fifty years old that's twenty five hundred square feet and right next door you have us another house that's twenty five hundred theory but built five years ago we get to distinguish between amounts to the fact that when it burns down replay you replace that's where it becomes a real challenge because the two houses bowl forty years in difference of age if something happens to the one you replace it with today's materials today's labor cost and two days ordinances at that point so when you start assessing homes for tax purposes that has to all be part of it and just that geographically and also has to be important to understand that the hey you do one mile from the beach and one who where you five miles from the beach or a nice us will the beach maybe not all of the beaches right makes a big difference also ocean front property in papa is a little different than ocean front property in common so that you know i again i hear all of these other pieces being put in but there's more that needs to be discussed there's a lot more needs to be discussed and i hope that the discussion will not impact fully hurt the ones we want to help protect most diligently are long term multi generational families those are the ones for some reason we need to continue those like m family who want to live here and reach his family now they're the ones being pushed away so i just wanted to bring up those issues because i think they're very important they're going to be very relevant as we go on this discussion and finally i don't think there's a magic bullet but i think we can find some what i call compromise in this whole issue where when we walk out of this room at the end the budget she's in this year that we really are a lot fear an architect structure that every one of us walk around feeling that this is the way best suits my county and i'd be all for it if this helps us bring down the price of housing apartment rentals every aspect i'll be very pleased to walk out of this room in my final days knowing that we got that much done but again i go back to my first statement we need inventory and until we get inventory the rest of this battle is not going to be won very easily it's going to be long and arduous we put more lot open speech means very little money coming into the county very little money that comes into the county we're going to have this balance i think i've said enough thank you very much for secure i think you mr victory no no as i said  is pretty much required to follow the yellow book standards on valuations it has to be something they can go back and defend so i'm not that concerned about valuations he's going to have to follow just like to point out that this tax issues are always a real challenge and you know you brought forth earlier something that would have brought some fairness to  an issue near and dear to my heart and near and dear to my pocketbook but just to just to put it in perspective mr victory you know brought  much work which were charges in certain areas but one of the breakdowns we don't look at very often is the the tax effective tax rate based on market value and as i've said before you know the market value of my property is about was about one nine hundred forty thousand it's now one point two million so my but my tax  value for tax purposes is thirty seven thousand dollars so because i get the tax you know this s value break from the ag value plus the sixty three cents per thousand whereas an every other category the rate you see is the rate they pay so if it's if it's commercial at six sixty they pay six sixty per thousand i'm paid sixty three cents per thousand i don't think that's fair and we tried to fix that a couple of weeks ago and didn't get anywhere but if you take a look at the  exemption if you take the total taxes that we generate from homeowners category and divide it into the the gross value of the homeowners category the effective rate is of i think about a dollar seventy per thousand so that compares to residential where a lot of our rentals are and camera right five forty or something like that again it's one of those things it's it's always tough to change but it's certainly something we need to discuss and flush out a little bit more so i appreciate mr bell bringing this up that this is going to be exactly what happens but it at least it continues that discussion that we should be having on how we tax and whether it's truly fair thank you anything else  this through and still come up with additional issues but the one thing that probably stands out in my i'm just reading through it is that section d so i take it from the corporation counsel that may right now it's kind of grandfathering in those units that had some types of permits my understanding is that me twenty third twenty twelve was the de current s t r each laws went into effect on the evening one of the things that i also forgot to mention is if we choose to do something with this proposal and i see if one also pool because for certain things if it does move forward we need to consult with the department and the division on its implementation requirements is there are additional cost factors that we are totally unaware of is there a need to be reprintin county code for public information and access to the revised there may be three actors involved in anything we do so again it's still needs a lot more it share with the rest of the committee at the appropriate time so that we can move forward on a more efficient basis if you are clear on what you're unhappy with or what you would like to major rescue now to be at fifty four it is under the title of distribution of county wide administrative and support cost to county the part mints we do have a communication number fifteen this name  one is the full cost allocation plan that was prepared in two thousand and fourteen and one is the only m b eighty seven compliant cost allocation plan and for those of you who have dealt with federal grants before you know that the eighty seven complaint one is related specifically to over head costs are allocated to federal grants so it's a different set of criteria that's created we do have the deputy director of finance here i may be to go over what these plans in tail and other were developed and and serve we can both answer any questions you me have your if there's anything specific you want us to go  mark walker deputy director of finance committee members we had discussed this previously i think in this committee within the year and if memory serves there was some grumbling from various departments on what they were allocated at the end of the day that intake was fair they thought it was too high and i think there were some questions among the committee members about how the the plan was arrived at  and the numbers they used so again we're here to discuss what we do have now i will let you know that in our finance budget proposal this year which actually go here tomorrow we have we will be requesting additional funds to redo this cost allocation and now that everybody understands including the various departments and department heads what their answers to the consultants questions might or might not do to their i mean we want the truth obviously but some said oh i didn't understand i didn't know and whatever so we are going to be requesting additional funds to redo this allocation for cost allocation plan and if you believe that's what we're the then that's something you'll pass out thank you thank you so you still have many internal issues with some of your departments especially with this upcoming budget consideration mr walker regarding the services that much and so obviously the previous plan hadn't been updated for ten plus years and so there was a cost of certainly risen over that time they were very surprised with the jump in what they were being allocated for overhead expenses so here's a here's an opportunity i guess to redo the plan with because the information they're using for this plan was two thousand and eleven two thousand twelve actuals now there'd be a chance to update those numbers to more current numbers i would think that be probably the two thousand and fourteen numbers maybe fourteen fifteen what is the  would think i would think five years on the outside i mean typically i would i would probably say that every two years is too much but given the fact that we had done it in ten and then there was some grumbling and i don't know i don't understand i think it might merit another pass and see if the numbers change markedly and then and then if if if that passes muster then i would say you know every five years or so probably is seems fair and reasonable i don't know  any particular standard out there but that seems logical reasonable to me is there any sense from since we do state wait contracts from a state wide employers  l perspective to have some unified overhead costs because we deal with the same countr you know and then of course each employee will have its own unique adjustments but we all work off the same contract the same percentage of increase it is classified  factor that is with this county the budget directors a lot smarter than i employer part from the state wide agreements thank you mr chair take a stab at that so you know just taking a step back the cost allocation plan is  a basically a roadmap that shows us what the overhead costs are for the different functions and we have central service departments we have providers and then we have the grantee departments of receivers office is the central service because mr king in his deep division services all the apartments correct so if you look at page thirty two of the cost of a kitchen plan it details out the  provider's county council office of the mayor management corporation council auditors office clerks office finance admin treasury purchasing you know personal services risk management finance accounts eighty services you know list goes on and on basically there but that page is what the essential service departments that provide services to the other areas are the costs that you see in the fourth column there expenditures are based on the actual expenditures from fiscal year two thousand and twelve entities do that fixed asset cost adjustment is basically depreciation costs and then there's some negatives in there for different credits and different things that we went through all the consulting went through the different  central service agencies provider agencies and said ok well there's a certain function of that maybe that program that doesn't apply to the whole county or it shouldn't be then allocated those costs out and so those are reduced from the that most of those are reductions of cost adjustments other than that depreciation and then you have a total that's going to be then taken and dispersed out the receiving agencies are receiving departments that are going to be paying the bills for council for mayor for corporation council for my office different things like that right so as we go through the  next you know the next section is is all of the different agencies and department programs that are receivers so you got a couple pages of those and then it describes a little bit about the plan itself some there's some terms in here that you can you can see it goes through each departments and details out of their structure some of the incoming costs as well as the expense details two hundred fifty pages of that there's most of the question comes in about costs because those are the ones that are most critical in the largest numbers that gets allocated and so we try very hard to make sure that that's appropriate there was a concern that worker's compensation wasn't being distributed properly and that maybe the department of water supply was getting double charged because they pay their own workers compensation and there was a listing in there for compensation for the permanent water supply but when you look at the details of it that they paid in workers compensation costs is actually credited back to them so they're not being double charged it's a very intricate detail document that is basically just a plan when it comes down to it this is what we utilize to charge the overhead costs for reimbursement to general basically is general fund right so when the department of water supply or public works highways fund activities or other environmental management either sewer funders all based on any of those special revenue funds we want to make sure that the general fund  is well we want to either express what the general fund is subsidizing to those pressure revenue funds and try to recoup it or not you know it's a conscious decision that the council would make on setting the appropriation of the overhead that we are recouping those costs into the general and it's not something in in laws this is you have to but the mayor's proposed budget is based on this breakdown of that and we're going to be providing it to you shortly as well and you have a detailed information but it's basically that again it's the it's the conscious decision that we are making to try to allocate the costs of running the county or running that different that program to the correct department that runs mr walker you know the additional benefit is that you get a true you know assuming the numbers are correct you get a true cost of the operations of each of the different departments and so it's incumbent and the goal of course is to get these numbers as accurate as possible right now we understand the purpose of the cross allocation clerks takes over the requirement of elections and so there's additional personnel additional expenditures and so i am assuming that the consultant made the appropriate adjustments on the allocation of every other year because of the election requirements that the clerk is bound to provide the community so yes i'm just making certain assumptions  the allocation numbers mr white thank you chair what does the projected cost of the new study we're asking for a budget amount of twenty thousand dollars i think the last one overhead amounts are adjusted you know each year theoretically based on some kind of cost calculation but it's it is a percentage that we do every year the idea of redoing this plan t was a learning experience you know one of the major factors that came up during budget committee discussion was the overhead of the water supply and how come that went so significantly and  recollection is the wind from like a three point five percent overhead cost allocation to about a forty two percent cost allocation and so you know it seems like a huge number but you've got to realize that in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine when th last cost allocation plan was done the water department was some autonomy us right they had a board of water by that operated they did very little with the county and now you know it is a county department there's a lot more over costs they do have their own fiscal staff and their own and they pay for a lot of their own expenses so it it's it's actually the lowest of the special revenue funds it's the lowest percentage of overhead that's charged but it's  still way significantly higher than it was you know before the plan was introduced so i think that it's a good idea just to kind of confirm at this point now it's a few years later they're going to be using fiscal year  fifteen data so it's three years newer data there's been some reorganizations in different departments since then and we'll have a better idea of making sure we're answering the questions properly to the they're receiving departments and granting departments are asked basically what is your function what are you doing and and how do you service other departments and so we're going to make sure that's accurate  i remember that the shock to the water department was my recollection of what three hundred thousand to four point seven million or something like that a significant increase basically took all the all the rate increase for the year and the rate increase would just to overhead which you know all of us have a little bit of a challenge with but at the same time it is it is appropriate to be sure charge in the departments for  working with our federal grand tours though him be eighty seven compliant allocation plan can be presented to them to create an indirect cost treat i don't know the current status of that we've had some initial discussions on setting a current indirect cost rate for the county or cognizant agency is the housing and urban  that and this compliant plan helps us to produce some of the actual cost information you know this is really good if it's a tough thing to do chair but it's nice apparently we have a very competent i do but it may be very elementary that i believe mr walker seeing that some of the departments would like to have an opportunity to really do just surprised at the result and solved so what would be the the difference between well i don't know and there may be no difference and that's i guess what you know we would do another plan to everyone's been through the process the understand what i think it solves ask a question what you know what they mean if there was any if they if they were confused or there was misinterpretation or something so you know the goal here would be to do it again  consultant is very sharp they spend a lot of time with the various departments if she if it's the same gala she flies here and stays for a week or so meets with all the departments and goes she was that this litany of questions and you know a could reduce the costs right i mean that's what i was getting at it was they are implying that that was i think that the only did a do over to you know i'm somehow show that there's a reduction of overhead as compared to what is presented i mean right now they heard us they didn't realize what they were saying was going to be so impactful and so i'm not saying they would change their answers and i you know i i defer to the consultant who knows what she's doing and has been through this once was it suddenly the department is older we don't use them well we don't use that department i mean i she's going to know if someone's in her leg or not so thinking we should do this again and see what the differences as the budget director mention it's three years fresher data right everybody's been through it one time let's see what their results i mean at the end of the day the bills are being paid we just allocated the money thank you for bringing it forward we and i invited some of the departments if they would come and share their thoughts regarding the cross allocation and so i'm go a subject that we are currently discussing how you foresee dealing with it within your department of water supply were kind of dumbfounded because we we did not participate in it and we wish we could oh and the finance took the initiative to do it and so we need to we took what we were told we had to pay so yes we would be agreeable and like to participate if that does come up again did you have a chance to work with the consultant during this current  definitely did interview departments i got interviewed and not sure exactly so i'm sure it's in her and her notes somewhere of the various representatives of the borne by the county they were distributed out to the receiving departments so you know we could look at that and base it on the total budget for fiscal year twelve but the other thing to understand is that the full cost allocation plan provides for the the costs to do be dispersed to all the receiving agencies no matter what their funding sources  the ones the departments that are general fund funded police fire parks mostly they aren't being charge that overhead rate in that department because their general fund funded departments to begin with is only the special funds where you see that dollar amount coming back into the general fund of what was a dollar amount as a percentage of the total i'd have to get back to you my recollection of that water was something like four point six four point seven million wastewater was a little higher a number stake in solid waste some of this kind of kind of odd because solid waste got a huge allocation and we turn around and fund them with general fund money anyway   cover the costs but as a as an entity and as a as a business unit we want to still show what those costs are and to a certain extent it would be nice for us to show those costs to all of our business units including all the general fund ones but the resources required to produce that information be pretty significant so when we look at things like solid waste or even though we're doing a supplement transfer it  you know so yeah the money is just coming in and out of the general fund the same thing at least it shows then what the true cost of the solid waste operations are so you know that we can look at you know if it's if it's the initiative of the council to move forward to covering more of those costs we can understand what true costs are and stalling because i'm still looking up the county wide overhead reimbursement we have that is some comments you like to share for environmental management regarding the crossover condition subject created two departments you can imagine if this plan hadn't been updated when i started in d m i found out we were still paying funds to help support public works like waste water and saw that we were paying part of the direct some of the money towards public works as directors office because previously they were together they got separated by the tried armament but that the study not being updated didn't have the opportunity to separate at all so this update does all of that corrects all of those changes that have been made so we've been pretty much in in support of it and we look forward to the updates to see if it possibly fit reduced our portion of the the support funds that we had to the department you're ok with we're kishen in the numbers that are currently being utilized that are being charged to your respective cost centers some of it we you know like for example the m i a s we all don't realize how much they do for us because they do behind the scenes type work to maintain our network they maintain our access information for us we don't see it so we're like why the percentage so high but in reality every morning we turn on our computers they're the ones that make sure that we can have access and it's not connected to our telephone systems so without our computer in our network we don't have telephones so yeah it sort of takes a little bit of understanding on our part more is there any areas of concern or interest that this committee should be made aware of within your department's jurisdiction not at this time because it can vary from year to year for example i'll take corporation called so if we're not in any litigation we obviously aren't using them but now fiscal year two thousand and sixteen the adopted overhead reimbursement that we're looking at is about twenty point five million dollars and for fiscal year seventeen the proposed is about twenty two million dollars thank you thank you very much quick response any further questions or comments members recurring this is the chair is open to friendl communication fifteen issue eighty nine all related documents relating to the reclassification z o c positions changing bargaining units from january first twenty fifteen to december thirty first and fifteen on second page there and you see that there is a number of positions that have been reclassified on  the left hand side the first column is got the department short name there it's got the position number the effective date if there was a change in bargain the unit would have a new unit there the new  job and in a new scale if there is a scale for that job so you can see here that number of positions were reclassified to higher levels some of them were requests by to lower levels and the department staff of the department directors and managers go through on a regular basis in review positions mostly when they become vacant but sometimes other times to see if there is a need to change the duties of that position so that they can better be utilized within their management perspective sometimes you see that the existing position  you know the person from a went from a one to a two to a three to a four now they're finally retired we bring that position back to down to a one for the new employee to start so different functions in year and you know you have any specific questions regarding these roof classifications you know maybe you could get it in writing to the different department directors and they can you know respond if there's a specific issue here when you look at that sixteen is fifty job site and see where the job the position description changes the classification of that current position and if it does we have to determine what those that position description accurately seventeen that it would reflect the change position it depends on when this happened it looks like this these are all reported changes in calendar year two thousand and fifteen so i would think  it could be because we begin our budget process towards the ending of the calendar year and if this changes happened after the our department of some middle to budget office it may not reflect  assume that most of them were presented to the department from the department to my office in their proposed budgets we did catch some that we knew about it and was able to fix it i guarantee you with twenty five hundred positions we didn't get your mall but  you know we try our best the question you had regarding you know the so that they would say they reclassified a go back to one of the ones you mentioned there need a landfill bulldozer operator in the fiscal year seventeen budget now that position would be an expansion position so there's no there's no real without just by a specific position number is the only way that we can track whether or not a position is existing or invention and if they do requests my position and then come you know a year or two later and say well you know now we need a landfill landfill bulldozer operator which they're not going to because this is public works not even environmental manager it's i'm not even sure why there was a landfill bulldozer operator position in public works across anyway but if they did for some reason need to to add it then it would be an expansion and that has to be then what i've noticed is that a lot of times you know the difficulty that departments have in creating new positions sometimes it's easier for them  sitting there and it was easier to think that position and stick somebody in it and three pacify it then either request five and six somebody in it then to just go in and have personnel services you know create a whole new position with another number of things and it's i guess that would you explain the mr bottoms you're right there are times when that's you know the better way to approach it so i understand what you're sharing wit landfill attendant i just i was going to make a common chair that interested in me enough last year where you provided landfill attendance at the same time it looks like they  reclassified when the landfill attendants to waste water treatment plant operator yes is it correct that what it shows on this report so be it but the thing that it's not in this report is so when we review the an item like this it was probably in a different position but in the personnel systems classification it's still classified as a landfill attendant when it hadn't been filled or used or authorize or funded for that position for a number of years and we could go back and new that's a possibility that's most of these that we're not going to it wouldn't authorize a solid waste funded position to be reclassified to a wastewater funded position you know that that funded position is funded through solid waste and has to function in solid ways but in the previous year we had taken a position and solid waste and give it to wastewater and this would be that hard to public works oh yeah right well a little odd we were we had lots of arguments over how many landfill attendants there were and and were taking one landfill attendant position authorised runoff rise and move it to waste water and then a little further below there's a mechanical engineer three which they were also requesting this moved to an equipment operator three about the same time and a recycling program assistant that was made into a mechanical engineer and right yes these and that's why it's really hard to explain and to really look at a report like this this and say specifically that that you know whatever it was the easy one zero five landfill attendant was that a funded or authorized position may have been vacant for five years but the department just utilized that that you know they can and unfunded for five for five years and they just use that position number versus creating a new position you know if we scrapped this process and just went to ok every time you want to create a new position we just created a  position number we run out of position numbers attention no no i don't care iraq i i appreciate what the administration is doing but reclassification because i think it's you know in many cases it's it's helping us request of a cation because members if you look for a one two three the fourth and fifth positions from the bottom of the page it's interesting you will see any mechanical engineer shifting to an equipment operator three and your shift in a couldn't operate three to a mechanical engineer three yeah they changed it and then two months later they changed it back this is what the outcome of that was so that the equipment operator so yes over d easy one six zero it was any goodman operator and it this was a position that and if i'm really letting this properly this could be the position that was requested in the budget then but it was in so it was funded in the budget but prior to the budget being approved they wanted to recruit for that position so they might have taken a vacant position and reclassified it so they could actually go through their recruitment process and then on july first once the new budget was in place and that new engineer it was approved was created been created we took that position and put it back to the