 Thank you to all of you for participating in this seminar. I am Bob Toyafuku, the President of Pacific Law Institute, and it is my pleasure to moderate this talented panel. I have been lobbying at the Hawaii State Legislature for over 30 years, but I also have been sponsoring continuing education seminars primarily to lawyers through the Pacific Law Institute, and I am using this company to provide this seminar. We want to focus this morning on how the coming legislative session will be conducted because of COVID-19. The panelists will be discussing the schedule, hearings and testimony, whether there will be in-person meetings available at the Capitol and the budget and money issues. Hopefully we have anticipated many of the possible questions to answer during this presentation, but please feel free to type any questions in the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen and we will do our best to answer as many as possible as time allows. I am also planning to send some of the written information that the legislators have provided me and we'll be discussing sometime next week and possibly especially the verbal testimony guidelines, although a lot of the information will be available on the public access room information. I'd like to now take a few moments to introduce the legislators on the panel as well as the Senate President and the House Speaker who will make opening remarks. First of all, Senate President Ron Kochi from Kauai has been a member of the state Senate since 2010. Prior to becoming a member of the Senate, Senator Kochi was a member of the county council on Kauai for 22 years, with 12 of those years being the chair of the council. Senator Kochi was Senate Vice President before becoming the Senate President in 2015. House Speaker Scott Psyche was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1994. Speaker Psyche has served on many various committees during his tenure and served as House Majority Leader from 2013 to 2017. He was chosen to be Speaker of the House in May 2017 and has been the Speaker since that time. Senator Gilbert Keith Agaran was a member of the House of Representatives since 2009 and became a member of the state Senate in 2013. He is currently Vice Chair of the Ways and Means Committee and has previously served as a Director of the Department of Labor and Chair of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Senator Jay Kalani English was first elected to the state Senate in 2000 and has served as Senate Majority Leader since 2015. Senator English is also a member of the Ways and Means Committee which he has been a member for quite some time and prior to his election to the state legislature, Senator English was a member of the Maui County Council for two terms. Representative Della Albalotti was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2006 and she has served as Chair of the House Health Committee as well as being a member of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Representative Della Albalotti has served as the Majority Leader since 2018 and continues to serve in that role. Lastly, Representative Sylvia Luke was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1998 and has served as Vice Speaker of the House and was previously the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Representative Luke has been Chairperson of the House Finance Committee since 2013 and currently serves as the Chair, primarily responsible, the House Chair, primarily responsible for passing the state budget. So I'd like to now turn it over to Senate President Ron Kochi who will make a few comments. Senator President. Thank you Bob and thank you to Tech Hawaii for helping put this together. I'm told there are over 600 participants so you clearly have peaked the interests of the community and so we really appreciate you helping us communicate what's going to be happening in the upcoming session. I'm not going to get into the details. I have Senator English and Senator Keith Agaran to do that but instead I'll just share something I shared with Conference of Non-profits a few years ago. Normally when I would come up to lobby I like to look around the individual's office and see you know what are the pictures, what are the degrees, what are the areas of interest, how do I find common ground to talk to the person I'm about to try to lobby and get a personal connection via Zoom that's going to be complicated as you can see all of us have virtual backgrounds except Senator English and in the frame it's difficult to make out what's behind him and then you got a professional like Bob who doesn't want you to get any insight into what he's doing so he has a clean background that gives you no insight into who or what he is and what he's interested in. The other thing I shared with them is that you have either in the nonprofit world especially passionate advocates who care so deeply about the issue that they are coming in to talk about or you have clients and the clients have passion and the clients sometimes may not be aware of the process and you're given either a 15 or a 30 minute block of time and I recall somebody talking to me and they were showing me a PowerPoint and I can see the clock running on the screen and when they got to 27 minutes of talking nonstop at me and then they said so what do you think I said I think my next appointment is going to be walking in in three minutes thank you for coming and you know at that point they wound up not hearing any of my ideas any of my thoughts they had no clue about what I thought of their presentation because they took all of the time so be sure you monitor your time via Zoom you know the next appointment my experience working this way is it's in the next room waiting so when you get to that by the minute you click out of one meeting you click into the other and really it's critical to find out what the legislator is thinking so you know tailor your presentation to allow enough time for that interchange to occur but I think this is the valuable you know the value of having seminars like this and Bob trying to help you become better advocates for the groups and the issues that you represent so I thank you very much for what you guys are doing thank you very much senator president I'd like to now turn it over to house speaker Scott psyche thank you to the bob to the pacific law institute and to think tech for sponsoring this very important forum this morning I thought I would just begin with a couple of some top with some top line information on a couple of topics so the first is just on on the house of representatives in general so as you know we have 51 members and this year we'll be having 47 democrats and four republican members we have eight new freshman members all the one is a returning but we're looking forward to working with our eight freshman members we will have 16 committee standing committees in the house 12 in the we'll meet in the morning and four will be meeting and I know that the major leader and the finance chair will give more details on on the mechanics of all of that the second thing that I wanted to just discuss generally was some of the the guiding principles that we um try to follow as you plan for this session so we knew that when we suspended our regular session on March 17 that we would have to begin planning for a basically for a pandemic session and there were three things that kind of guided our planning process which began in March as I mentioned the first is public health um we know that public health is still a top priority for the general public we wanted to make sure that this legislative session protects the health of not only our members and our legislative staff but also the general public that needs to interact with the legislature the second principle was that notwithstanding this pandemic and and the virtual session we wanted to ensure that there was full access by the public to our legislative process and that is why the the planning for this virtual session began in March the house and senate IT staffs worked over the past months to build the capacity and the bandwidth so that we could hold virtual public hearings and then the third the third area is to um just to set priorities the house um you know the house knows that we need to focus on number one maintaining and building our public health infrastructure and number two that we need to reopen and rebuild our economy so everyone can benefit from that one of the things that the house did was to create a new committee um it's called the pandemic and disaster preparedness committee it'll be chaired by Representative Linda Ichiyama and that committee will focus on all of and most of the pandemic issues that we are now having to deal with so we're you know we're even though we're in a pandemic and even though there are limitations here we're really looking forward to working um with all of you as we as we begin our session on January 20 and thanks again for having us Bob uh before we get into the the really heart of the discussion I just want to spend a couple of minutes on a brief overview I think many of you I'm hoping uh have some experience with accessing the state legislature and we want to highlight the changes that are going to be made primarily because of the pandemic uh and the fact that the capital will generally be locked down and uh everything will be almost everything will be virtual uh first of all I'd like to highly recommend you go to the Hawaii legislative website which I think many of you might be familiar with which is the key portal to get the information about the legislature and the process and the link is capital capitol dot Hawaii dot gov now I recommend you spending some time uh on the website and there is a guide done by the public access room which is very very helpful especially if you look on page seven of that guide they talk about uh hearing notification uh how to do testimony and uh measure tracking so that could be very helpful to those of you who are not as familiar with with the process the legislative schedule hasn't been altered that much and uh Representative Balotti and Senator English will be discussing that uh in a couple of minutes uh and as I mentioned earlier the panelists will spend time on the changes uh that have been made we wouldn't want to cover uh basically the schedule the hearing process the testimony especially how to do verbal testimony um and whether you can have in-person meetings at the at the capitol and of course uh Representative Luke and Senator Gilbert Keith Agaron will be talking about the budget and any appropriation type bills and how that's going to be handled and the physical implications so without further ado let me turn this over to Representative Balotti and Senator English to first talk about the schedule. Thank you Bob and thank you to everyone who is on this webinar I think it's really important that we all kind of get ourselves ready and primed for session because the more that we prepare in advance we will have a more successful session something that we learned during the pandemic or what I learned during the pandemic was that there's actually very few constitutional requirements around the legislative session the main one is opening day the third Wednesday of January so we are prepared to open on January 20th and then the only other real requirement is the five-day mandatory recess which will be on February 25th for as long as I've been elected uh I believe that the legislative session had to be 60 days but in reality it's a limit of 60 days and so what we saw during the um the first part of this pandemic was that we had a lot of flexibility and we recess adjourned and came back before we adjourned signing die um with respect to the 2021 calendar uh the next the last most important date is in April April 29th is signing die and um I mentioned that because we do have 55 legislative days but as speaker said you know we still really wanted to have full participation and take the time to really dig into bills so the first part of the calendar you know we typically have first decking first crossover second decking second crossover we still maintain all of those deadlines uh with opportunities for committees to hold their hearings and then we really shortened the the timetable by taking a few days out of conference um I think this is a reasonable calendar um as we continue to look at developments and one really concerning thing was yesterday's high numbers you know we are going to continue to remain flexible and nimble but this is a calendar that has been negotiated by the House and the Senate and we think it it's a timetable that can really work so I'll hand it off to Senator English for any additions yeah thank you thank you Bob for hosting it and aloha everyone um I think they'll have covered it I'll just recap maybe in um very straight English you know we've reduced the number of days of recess days from 13 to 9 um we shortened the conference by one week and we're ending session one week early so usually we end the first week of May this time we're ending April 29 so those are the main things with the legislative calendar it was published a few days ago and that's circulating so if you get a hold of that you just post it up you'll see the deadlines that we have things like bill introduction um laterals and things like that so you can see how the schedule goes and uh that's how the legislature will operate both the House and the Senate on this schedule so that's the quick highlights and what's happened with the schedule thank you Bob oh thank you Kalani uh I'm in center English I just wanted to point out to those of you that who may not be as familiar with the process the there are deadlines called first lateral that means that the uh first committees that are referred to a bill must have it heard and passed out of that committee by that time and that's in mid February and uh um and then there's uh what they call the deck the first deck where a bill that uh is completed by all the committees that have been referred to that bill must have uh finished passed it out and filed it by that date and so when you look on the website and we just typed it into the q&a box capital dot hawaii dot gov uh you can see a tremendous amount of information you can get a more detailed schedule with all the deadlines in it and as Representative Bellotti and Senator English had mentioned uh there will be various referrals there still may be triple referrals that means to three committees double referrals which is very common to two committees and maybe some joint referrals where two committees uh uh join up and have a hearing so that kind of completes uh the the situation with regard to uh the schedule uh can i can i yeah i'll go go ahead Rep Bellotti I know that the audience might be interested if there are going to be a reduction in the number of bills introduced and what I would share is from the house perspective we have imposed limits um since about 1997 and we've seen that that so so the limits are 20 bills per member are are their limits we have additional bills that can be introduced by chairs um up to 10 by committee chairs and then up to 15 by the chairs of cpc consumer protection finance and judiciary um there is one change for caucuses we have a limit of five bills per caucuses those are the official legislative caucuses that are recognized by the senate president and the house speaker so um there is going to be lots of opportunity what we found that when we started this project um uh decades ago that that we have approximately 1,500 to 1,100 bills that get introduced um on the house side and so it doesn't stem um robust discussion that we have and I think that as we continue this practice it's really important because we really want to focus uh as speaker said on really the core things during this pandemic that we will have to address um primarily also the the state budget which is on everyone's minds right and bob I wanted to talk about the senate procedures because we're different um you know we don't have a bill introduction limit on our members and so we have asked the members to uh think about the amount of bills that they're putting in and also uh you know one member is introducing a bill maybe not to introduce the same one again we you know about referrals though we have always referred on the subject matter of the bill uh the senate has always tried we rarely do triple referrals that means three committees um you know and it really just depends on the mood of our chairs because when we tried to do a more broad referrals we had a huge amount of re-referrals by the chairs and then they would say you know while you didn't include us and then when we do include them they say we have too many committees in there so I have to say that it's really uh the referral committee will do the referrals on the merits of the bill and we're asking the chairs then to understand that you know we're trying to the overriding principle is that the bill should have a chance to make it through and that's how we base our referrals in the in the senate side thank you senator bob let me just add one thing to what Kalani said sure and when we when we talk about re-referrals and our practice is uh the general rule is you can't ask for a re-referral just because you want to kill the bill that's that's not uh the purpose of a re-referral the re-referrals are to make sure that the issues in that particular bill are going to be heard and so if if people are asking for re-referrals in the different committees this year uh they need to show say that they're actually a plan to hear it uh thank you senator uh I just also want to mention for those of you that uh want to uh have a better idea of how the house in the senate refer bills you need to take a look at the house rules and the senate rules because in those rules they describe the committees and the jurisdiction that those committees have and so sometimes when you see a double referral both the consumer protection and commerce committees and the judiciary committees have jurisdiction over a particular type of bill and so that's how the leadership decides on on the referrals um and uh does uh rep luke do you have any other comments thanks bob one of the things that happens in the house is unlike the senate the senate allows the second committee to forego public testimony the house rules require that when bills go through the process every committee has to have a public hearing so for finance you know we usually end up hearing anywhere between 600 to 700 bills in a session it takes a lot of effort I think this year because we're trying to minimize the duplicative bills there might be situation where you might have for instance a mask mandate you know changes to the mask mandate maybe introduce five times and you know it's going to be up to the chairs to vet out and then pick one as opposed to hearing all five bills I think in the past there was a tendency to hear all the bills um and that's just going to be a little bit more difficult this year I think you know because we are in a virtual hearing because of you know we're giving a lot of time for people to testify and we're giving a lot of time to ask questions but just in this process you can see how things get delayed and takes a little bit longer time because it's virtual and it's Zoom so we're trying to manage that at the same time allow for great public access thank you Reblu and Bob let me just mention one thing about what the finance chair just mentioned you know in the senate we do not what we don't do in the second committee is if for the most part take oral testimony again I think that's what she's referring to we certainly welcome written testimony and in fact written testimony often results in amendments that are proposed by the chairs of the second committees and those committees are usually judiciary consumer protection and ways and means the other thing that happens is and this happens in the house as well is the second committees can't just make the changes they need to get the agreement of the chairs that heard the committee earlier because those committees usually deal with the substance of the committee that's why we call them the the substance of committees that ones the the committees that deal with the main issue in the bill whereas the afternoon the morning committees in the senate deal with money with the legal issues and with the broader concerns and so that's the gate we kind of call them the gatekeeper committees because you know the bills need to go through all three hearings before passing over to the other the other body right Bob so what the term of art is called prior concurrence thank you prior concurrence of the chair before before the other committees can make a change that's a really good clarification thanks Gil so you know one of the things that a lot of committees that or a lot of testifiers come to ways and means and finance with substantive amendments and they present testimonies and and then end up getting disappointed when we don't make changes to the substance of the bill it's because of what senator auguron and senator kalani english just talked about because we're trying to retain the jurisdiction of the subject matter you know there's some restrictions in the second and third committees to make changes to the substantive portion of the bill you know one of the things that senator english pointed out earlier i just want to elaborate just for 15 seconds is that you know you have 51 members in the house and you have 25 members in the senate so historically there always has been a difference as to how the senate operates necessarily and the house and the other thing that the senate has to do is confirmations and so that kind of lengthens the time that they have to utilize to confirm boards and commissions judges etc okay so let's move on to what i think is an important part of this presentation uh is the hearings and the testimony uh and i'd like to turn it over first uh to senator english and or senator keith auguron to discuss the hearings first and then we can get into uh the house members and then we can discuss the testimony which is even more crucial thank you uh yeah thank you bob well you know first of all let's just the reason that we do hearings is to inform the legislators on different aspects of a bill how it impacts the public how it impacts people different views so you know that's one thing that i really i found over the years um that people have forgotten i'll give you a real quick example i remember about 10 years ago the senate senators had to go to session um it was the last day to hear a bill up we had hundreds of people wanting to testify up front we said we're gonna pass the bill the way you guys wanted but you should let us pass the bill people insisted on testifying we ran out of time and the bill died so you know you have a right to testify but you gotta let us vote right so that's the thing it's like here the hearing is to give us information but you have to give us some time to deliberate and to vote um you know all we the senate will be conducting um all of our hearings via zoom and then it will be put out on youtube uh as well shortly after it'll be live on youtube and then put out recorded on youtube right after you know we're going to have generally the same amount of hearings uh it's not going to lessen the amount of hearings but we're asking the chairs to consolidate and think about how they line up their bills as um uh rep luke said earlier right instead of hearing all five bills on the same one choose one as the vehicle and move that one the other thing is that um we still have the 72 hour notice so our hearing notices you have 72 hours we put that out in a hearing notice that's still in effect uh we're asking our chairs to limit the amount of waivers that they ask for so that people know that you know the hearings are coming up like i said we asked we asked our chairs to consider consolidating the bills but in the senate we do leave it up to the chairs for how they run their committees and how they schedule their bills and what they choose to pass out um the one thing that was going to be different on our side is we're asking the chairs to have a strict adherence to the allotted time so think about it we have morning committees and then afternoon committees one committee following the next between them uh so if your time ends at say to 145 you have to end at 145 because we have a team that goes in and disinfects because remember we have staff working a couple members that are in there they'll disinfect between the the hearings and then we have all of the online mechanisms everything ready to go for the next hearing so we in the past we've sort of been flexible and the first committee will go over into the other committee's times we're not going to allow that it'll be a hard stop and so we're asking people that are testifying to be very cognizant of that you know another quick insight is don't read your testimony you've already submitted it by writing you know you know the professionals when they say I stand on my testimony as written and some of them will say you know just highlighting we've recommended this verbiage for an amendment that's in our written testimony if you do that because we actually do read the testimony so if you don't read it it helps us quite a bit it helps you and it helps the time to move ahead um you know and again we're going to accept written testimony if you want to come on in person or not in person a virtual testimony you have to sign on 24 hours in advance you'll be given a slot and you'll be sent a link and the link only works for you and you can come on and do your testimony and then log off so we've we actually were putting this in shortly before the pandemic so we have a few other systems in place that we were testing but it's all new territory so you know work with us as we work through this and perfect it thanks. Senator I have a quick question and I may have missed it I was typing an answer to some of the questions that came in when we view the hearing visually will all of the senators be in the room listening to or is it going to be mixed or virtual? We you know we we're limiting it to I mean we're trying to set no more than five people in the room at any time so you have to account for the staff that's in there normally the chair and maybe one or two other committee members but the rest will be on zoom as well and so you know we have allowed for our virtual participation and most of the members are gearing up their offices and other spaces to zoom in as they participate in the meeting. Okay thank you Rep Bellotti from the house how is the house going to handle the hearings either you or Rep Luke? Sure thank you Bob similar to what Senator English said we will be conducting virtual hearings with remote testimony by the public and in person this is where there's a little bit of a difference in person participation by members and so I want to take a pause here and really send a huge thanks to our house IT our house Sergeant of Arms our house Chief Clerk who have done a tremendous job in getting our conference rooms ready both with fiber coming in with the audio system the the remote video that's going to be there to enable a good kind of back and forth between members and between members and the public. We will be having zoom as our platform and it will be live cast live broadcast to YouTube and then archive there as well so that's how it's similar to the Senate. Yeah Bob maybe I can just add something too since we're talking about testimony you know that we're requiring written testimony you know I said put in something in writing because that's helps us on the record it helps us with everything but previously it could just give oral we're saying please submit everything written as well yes we're allowing verbal testimony via Zoom but we're asking for something written as well and for neighbor island testifiers right so we're thinking about how will the neighbor islands participate that's we're asking them to come in via Zoom we're also working with the public access room the state libraries the different entities out there for people that don't have the electronic capabilities so like a lot of my constituents for example in rural Molokai or in upcountry Maui or in Kippo Hulu and Kaupo and Hana they can go to a specific site and participate so we're trying to work those out and you know I really have to say thank you to the public access room they've been really really helpful and really working with us on this so that's how the neighbor island guys can participate as well we're kind of flowing into the next part of the script but I think it's really important here because the questions are starting to pile up in the chat about late testimony and how do we get a link and everything I think if there's one thing that every person on this call webinar should do if you don't have it already is visit the capital website register and create an account for yourself and for your organization that's going to be the single most important thing you can do to prepare because it will take you through the process of enabling you to submit written testimony and then it's going to be through that account where you as an individual or your organization will receive a link to participate remotely and and provide oral testimony if that's what you want to do like Kalani like Senator English said where we are requiring written submission of testimony and I think that's actually really to the advantage of the community because that's where you can really put down all of your thoughts put down proposed amendments and those things and really the verbal oral participation is to provide an opportunity for you to enhance and amplify your message to legislators so one most important thing is to log on and create your account right away yeah thank you and about late testimony you know we basically we're not accepting late testimony I have 24 hours to get it in if you do get it in it'll be there you know we'll get it we'll see it but it's just think of the logistical nightmare of having to go in and create all the files for each of the committees and go back so in the past when it was paper and in person we were very lenient with late testimony now we're saying look there's a 24-hour deadline and it's because we need to process once we get it our staff there's a lot of staff work behind it that has to process all of it into files put it in order put it in a way that we can read it and use it and put it away that you guys because the public access is this as well can make sense of it so we need that time to put it all together so we're we're asking you to please please please honor our 24-hour deadline one clarification because you know I there are sometimes like say you're like you have 18 hours to go yes you will still be able to submit but your written testimony will likely get us a late stamp and so it may not make it into the hands of the chairs because chairs will be requesting that the testimony be processed and provided to them so it's really critical against especially because you're here you know it's two weeks before session has started this is the time to get ready and to work out your procedures internally with your organizations to figure out how to do this and one other thing that I would say because I know that there are a number of organizations here the accounts that are created the account that submits the written testimony will be the account that is given the zoom link three hours before the start of the hearing that zoom link or the link that says zoom requested will turn into the zoom link to which you are going to click to be allowed in and we are asking that members of the public who do receive that link to log in 30 minutes before the start of the hearing to allow the staff to make my checks and make sure your video is checked and to make sure you're there and present and that any technical glitches on your end that you can take care of you will a one last thing I would say about about the the unique nature of the account is that if you are with an organization and oftentimes what we see is we see maybe the administrative assistant is the one who submits the written testimony internally organizations will need to figure out which email account they're using it for and then it's from that account that the link will have to be accessed so again it's it happens with organizations it happens with state agencies we know routinely the person submitting may not be the person providing the testimony so this is a really important opportunity to to lay out all of those processes and procedures internally for your organization so I hope this helps I'm looking at some of the questions and people have been asking about you know time to come in on the zoom I hope this helps answer what representative Bellotti just said helps to answer that you know 30 minutes before please come on so that we can line you up and you know it's like any other hearing things may go faster or or slower but there is a hard stop for us in the senate on the back end yeah so one of the things that things that senator English brought up with which was really important was concentrating a lot of your testimony and written testimony the reason for that is is the past finance committee did not have any time limit on the testifier so you know I know some of the committees allotted two minutes or three minutes per testifier finance committee has not in the past but as you can imagine because we're opening zoom accessibility basically to the world so there might be issues that are of worldwide interest that will be taking up that you'll have people from New Zealand or from California or DC logging in to testify and we actually really want to hear from our local residents and a lot of times you know if we had bills in the past where you know I would say a substantial amount of testimony came from out of state and so because it's a virtual testimony you know they they will all have the ability to come on and testify if we were to take all those testimony and give a limited time you know you can imagine it could go on for hours on a certain bill so because of that we're still unclear and we're still deciding whether we will put time limit so if that's the case then you know it's more important you know for instance if you cannot put all your thoughts and then finish it in two minutes it's really important to concentrate on the written testimony so there will be much more emphasis and making sure that you know your testimony is complete and be written and have really concise oral testimony. Thank you Rep Luke you know one of the things I also wanted to emphasize is that prior to this COVID-19 situation when we go into a hearing to testify the chair always asks is there anyone else that is willing or would like to testify a person can raise their hand and be called up to the table to testify whether they had written testimony or not and they have been asked to submit written testimony this session is going to be very different and there still has to be a lot of things worked out but because the testimony will be virtual I think especially what senator English has said there's there may be a very hard stop at the 24 hours so it's incumbent upon those that are wanting to testify to submit written testimony 24 hours ahead of time because there may be a process and uh to then after you submit written testimony and there's a method of how to do that that is explained on uh the capital web the legislative website then you have to request that you are going to want to have verbal testimony and there's going to be a guideline as to how you do that uh I will work with uh the house leadership uh maybe primarily uh representative Bellotti and uh senator English in the in the senate the two majority leaders uh to uh finalize a guideline on how to do verbal testimony that I will send to all of you on this seminar before the opening day uh you know there are things like the uh submit written testimony and then request to testify on zoom deadline to submit how to use zoom and whether you're going to get if you request to make verbal testimony you're going to get a zoom button and uh to convert to uh the join zoom button and where you can join the hearing and there's going to be you know what they call you're going to be in a waiting room and then when you're ready to testify at a certain time the staff person will then notify you through chat to join the hearing so there are going to be some issues that have to be worked out I'm sure and you know as we go through the process it's hopefully will be as smooth as possible but these are some of the things that you need to be aware of and after I work with the uh the senate and the house on a one page sheet on how to um uh do verbal testimony I will send it to everybody on this uh uh seminar and I'm pretty sure the house and senate may have something posted at some point before session two one other point one other point um for the senate side you know previously we would accept testimony by email to the committee or committee chair we're no longer accepting it so do not send us testimony by email you must go through the portal right and if you send it by email it will not be included uh and just to reiterate what senator english said when you go to the website right there is a portal on how to submit written testimony and you have to have a login initially uh with an email and a password so that uh you can officially uh submit written testimony this has been going on for quite a while but sometimes I think when people got late in submitting uh testimony and could not get it through the portal they would send email to the chair and that's what senator english is saying that they're not going to be accepting that uh any longer um I'm not doing I'm reading through your questions and one you have an anonymous attendee that has a lot of questions maybe if they can give us their name because you know the one that's catching my eyes says they've attended senate committees and only the chair and vice chair attended um etc well you know that because everything's on tv and the hearings uh most of the members as you know are in the office is watching um and taking care of five things at once this is going to be the same where we're on zoom and you may just have the chair in the committee room or the chair on zoom doing the hosting the hearing and taking it so we all uh normally we would come in physically in the old style we would come in when there was a vote because we've been monitoring it uh in our offices come in and take the vote based on the recommendation of the chair does any oh one of the questions I had uh to to the panel members has it been worked out as to let's assume I'm testifying on a particular bill and a member of the committee wants to ask me a question uh even though there may be a two minute time period and I finish will the member be allowed to ask me a question at that time I can take that one from the house perspective so chairs have a lot of authority about how they run their hearings most chairs will um leave questions to the end of a of the bill testimony um and so yes members for the house who are in person in the room will be able to ask questions of testifiers and so it would be important for members of the public to stay on because they may be called upon to testify further to answer questions and from the from the senate side um you know we have great discretion with the chair so each chair handles it differently some chairs will allow the questions right there others will limit the other questions and still others will take it at the end but you know for the most part I think when questions are asked there from the members that dialogue is allowed you know uh panelists let me uh mention a question see anybody can answer it if the speakers get a set time what happens if the hearing goes faster might people be called on earlier than quote their time that's why we asked him to come on half an hour earlier yeah because it's all going to be monitored by a staff person and uh corresponding through the chat right okay thank you there also might be questions about um sequence so for instance in the past um you know we gave deference to you know if the governor's office show up we gave deference to um uh departments or um uh the governor's office or budget and finance and then we go through sequence that even that will be up uh left up to the chairs um because um um the committee clerk and the clerk's office will be gathering all these testimonies sometimes it might be easier just to do it first come first serve and um in as much as we want to you know uh group departments together and organizations together individuals uh you know sometimes you know it just might be difficult so you know the earlier that you submit your testimony you may be able to testify earlier it depends on the chairs and if um Kalani or Della if you guys are aware of how other chairs will be doing it I think we're still deciding what to do whether it's going to be first come first serve or not yeah for for for at least on the senate side again it's up to the chair and we have some chairs that would do it by departments first agencies second and then neighbor island people others will do you know for the chairs especially from the neighbor islands they'll generally say okay neighbor island guys if you're here you can go first um and then others take it as first come first serve so uh we generally leave it to the discretion of the chairs um and how they want to organize their hearing you know one quick question and then let's take two questions from the q and a box senator english you know with regard to neighbor island uh uh people who want to testify if they don't have video capability they can just call in right just on by the telephone you know I I'm I don't know the answer to that um that might be difficult uh to do um because it's all through you know that's why we're trying to set up public spaces for them to go to that they can make arrangements there so for instance at the school in hanah at the public library and even you know some individuals that have access it said people can come to my space so we're trying to work those out but the reality is you know so during the pandemic I did a huge number of zoom meetings where I'd have you know 800 900 people on the zoom meeting from molokai I'd have a thousand people from the night there's 2,800 people on the night um you know I'd have 800 people from hanah I'd have a thousand people from our country so I think the reach of the technology is pretty deep and most people most people have access there are a few that don't and you know those that have reached out to us and I just want to segue into you know because I've seen questions about ADA and accessibility and you know call I mean that's we we will make arrangements we will make arrangements for people but you have to call our clerks and let us know that I want to testify on this reach out and then we'll work with you to make sure that you can properly testify and your voice is heard so we're inclusive both the house and the senate we want to hear from you and we don't want anything standing in the way so but you have to let us know and then we'll make sure you're heard great thank you senator really two quick questions will floor sessions be live stream both in the house and senate yes yep okay thank you then the other question is you know in terms of decision making after a hearing if all the committee members aren't present in the hearing room will there just be an open discussion on zoom and a vote taken at that time well I can speak for the senate side our we have adjusted our rules to allow for remote voting so yes it'll be just like you're there where if the chair decides to take a vote at that point we can have that this question motions are made the question is debated and then the vote is taken and that can be done with in-person and remote participation so that's on the senate side now the house I'm not sure you guys might be a bit different yep oh in the house again we are going to have members participating in person to vote and ask questions now that can change again the numbers the tier system opening and closing those things can still be in flux but we are aiming to do in-person participation and question and voting so quorum rules will continue to apply for the house committees I think that question bob was actually referring to the process of decision making because I think I think what happens sometimes is we'll call a recess and then there'll be a discussion among the members and as has happened only the people in the room will actually hear any of the discussion that's offline and then we'll call the meeting back into order and then make and then orally have a discussion on decision making at that point so I would think that again we're going to leave it up to the chairs on how they handle that on whether or not there's going to be some discussion about about what the chair's recommendation is when they come back for decision making but it'll probably be along the lines of the way we've always done it but you know dealing with the with the technology that we're working with we have you know a little more than half an hour to go so I'd like to move on we'll try and answer as many of the questions in the Q&A box as we move along but let me now turn it over to Representative Luke and Senator Keith Agaran to talk about the budget and the financial issues that will be discussed during this coming session which is really a key aspect everybody wants to know what is happening how it's going to happen what are the chances if you have a bill that have appropriations in it what about the grant in aides etc so I'll take the easiest one the senate president and the speaker issued a memo joint memo saying that there will be no grants in aid this year just because of the fiscal situation let me just briefly touch upon the budget the budget that we will be working on is for fiscal year 22 and 23 so in layman's term what that is it's the budget starting July 2021 runs through June of 2023 so it's a two-year budget that we're looking at currently based on what we're dealing with we are looking at a 1.8 billion dollar budget deficit a 1.8 billion dollar budget deficit just to put it in just to relate it to something tangible the department of education budget is close to about 1.8 1.9 billion dollars so essentially even if we eliminate the department of education budget we still would have very difficulty in balancing and that's the type of situation that we're in we have never had this type of budget deficit in comparison in 2009 great recession it was over a three-year period but they had a about 2.1 billion dollar or sorry 1.2 billion dollar budget deficit I think over a three-year period in this situation we're looking at a substantially more amount and that amount is going to continue to have issues right let me just quickly turn it over to senator Keith Algaran and then I can always pick up yeah thanks chair really what what's what what will happen with the budget is what happens every year the house will start and they will take a look at a budget draft at the same time the ways the means committee will be working on our own draft so that we're once the once the budget passes over to the senate and we'll be we'll be holding hearings on different budget issues one of the things I did want to touch on is that unlike the federal government you know we do need to pass a balanced budget and we can't spend more than we take in and how we do that is where we we kind of control ourselves by relying on what the council and revenues projects now I know that some of you may be aware the council revenues just came out with a new projection which is you know probably a little bit rosier than they have been but it doesn't change really the magnitude of the budget deficit that we're going to be dealing with the the other thing that people should be aware of is we're a little hamstrung this year with the capital budget as well because we have limits in the constitution on how much debt we can we can have and because of some of the steps that the governor has had to take we are at a point where we have some limits on how much capital projects will be will be funded with general obligation bonds so if if you take a look at the governor's budget that's probably the cap of what we're looking at as far as public works projects that are funded by general obligation bonds there's going to be some certain kinds of limits as well for the specially funded departments that that also have projects department transportation maybe our boat little small boat harbors and the like and I'll let the finance chair chime in and if she has anything about any approach that she wants to take on dealing with specific types of budget adjustments because I know that on our side I think we're we our government operations committee is going to be taking a close look at different functions and program areas to see if we need to make adjustments broadly thanks thanks Gil let me just make some clarification so in 2009 when we had the great recession it was a 2.1 billion dollar budget deficit over three years sorry I said 1.2 it was 2.1 but that came with costs right because that that impacted furlough fridays you know furlough fridays were implemented and there were massive program cuts and even last year there were prior to COVID there were departments still coming back and trying to reinstate or reestablish programs that were still suffering from the 2009 cuts so as you can imagine the cuts that we have to do now will be substantially more severe because it's a short amount of time period that we need to make up 1.8 2 billion dollar 3 billion dollar in a very short time frame it has been a very painful process so you know I encourage you folks to watch the current budget briefings that senate WAM and the house finance committees are doing some of the reductions that are being proposed is reduction in sex assault treatment centers immigrant services you know civil rights commission you know there will be cuts in health programs a lot of purchase of services that impact community services so you know we're very mindful of that and as we go through every department and talk about some of these cuts you can see the impact it has on the members because it has been very difficult and heartbreaking at times but we are but at the same time you know we are looking at you know not just for the next two years but what does the budget look like for the next basically four to six years going back to the council on revenues yesterday council and revenues adjusted the 2021 revenue picture upwards but at the same time what they did was for 2022 numbers they adjusted downwards so what that meant was that for 2021 the situation might be a little bit better but for 2022 they adjusted the number downwards which impacted the 2022 numbers which is the budget year that we're looking at so the amount continued to be significant one of the things that is not part of the governor's financial plan is the amount that we're borrowing right now to pay for everybody's unemployment claims prior to covid in the ui trust fund the state had about a little over 500 million dollars by july 500 million dollars was gone so from july till now we've been borrowing from the federal government the amount that has that department of labor has borrowed from the us dol is about 700 million dollars that's only for six months and that entire 700 million dollars become due on november 2022 we have no inclination from the federal government that they will forgive this loan they have not discussed any of of any approaches to delaying or forgiving if that's the case then the state would have to pay for the 700 million dollars so as you can imagine that's only for six months so come 2023 the number could be exacerbated unless we you know see a vast improvement in the economy so that is kind of what is is even adding even more to the budget problem you know it's overlaying the borrowing that the state is doing for unemployment payments and the department of budget and finance already borrowed a separate 750 million dollars just to plug the budget hole currently so it is going to be difficult so you know we ask the public for your patience i know there are many needs out there but but the problem is any appropriation bill would have to be will have to be balanced with more cuts so you know if we were to say hey you know we're gonna appropriate money for you know help safe travels that money has to come from somewhere so that that's gonna mean more cuts to state services which will have major impact so we are trying to balance and we ask for your patience in limiting the money requests from the legislature because we are in a situation where you know we probably won't be able to do many of those requests just to follow up on what the chair said one of the things that we deal with is that the council revenues does meet quarterly so they will have a they may have a different projection by the time that the budget passes over to the house or from the house to the senate i haven't looked at the calendar this year to see if that's going to be the case but the other thing is that for people who say that we should we can wait on what the federal government's going to do you know that's one of the things that we were kind of hopeful for all last summer is we were hoping that that the congress was going to come back with additional support for the states obviously that didn't happen it didn't happen in the in the latest 900 million and we don't know what the congress will do and how long they'll take to do it our session ends at the end of april we need to pass a balanced budget by the end of april we can't pass a budget and say well hopefully the congress will fill in the fill in the holes and and so what we're what the approach that we're taking is as uh the finance chair says is we're asking our members to try to limit the number of appropriation bills or to understand that uh ways and means committee and the finance committee are going to be making a lot of hard choices and bills um bills may not get heard and because we need i think we're putting together financial plans um and that's one of the challenges that we have is that the governor submitted a financial plan uh but we're not sure how that financial plan is supported by the bills that he uh his administration plans to introduce in terms of uh what kind of revenue enhancements um any if he's talking about any kind of tax hikes you know or anything else that would impact the budget and people i think have been making all sorts of suggestions about how we can increase the the amount of revenue that the state has to to work with but they have to be aware that there's going to be a time lag on a lot of the a lot of the proposals they're saying we're not going to pass a bill that goes into effect sometime next summer and fill a large part of the budget deficit that we need to deal with in passing a balanced budget you know uh senator auguron and and rep luke uh let me just ask you this question because people have talked about it privately you know when you have uh new programs that require appropriation uh from private the private sector uh different organizations need certain things i assume that it will be tough sledding to get a large amount of appropriation because what you both just said on the need to balance services by the government and the amount of money that you have is that accurate i mean not to not you can't commit to that but i mean i'm looking at it's going to be tough for certain organizations to put in a bill that requires a significant appropriation well i i think in the finance chart can elaborate on this but when we when we're talking about the amount of discretionary spending the state has there's some things that we can't cut i mean we really can't do much and so what we're talking about is there's a limited amount of operating funds uh from the general fund that would be on the table to look at making adjustments on we're not going to be able to for example cut our ongoing commitments for retirement benefits and the like we can't cut our debt service i mean we might be able to renegotiate and reissue bonds to maybe uh reduce the debt service for the next two years but that's that that's limited i mean we so what we're what we're really dealing with is we're looking at the operations that need to continue i mean we need to maintain our roads we need to maintain our our school buildings and the university buildings so there's a lot of things that you know we're not going to be looking at cutting i mean those are things that uh would be needed regardless of the kind of budget deficit that we're facing so if we're looking if we're talking about new programs i i think it's going to be really tough to get the kind of support to pass that that type of legislation this year um and but you know i wouldn't for i wouldn't foreclose that i mean there may be things that um are so important that we need to deal with it i know that there's a lot of people in the in the legislature they're interested in dealing with some of the climate change implications not just in the in the future but in the near term and if those are the types of spending that we need to do it it might be a worthwhile investment i mean looking at the cost benefit of what we're what we're facing thank you um you know before we move to the next segment because we have about 15 minutes left although we can actually go over the 1030 mark but i usually like to finish up as uh on time um the there's a question as to whether or not meeting and conferences with legislators other than on zoom or by email by phone whether because the capital is closed whether there's still going to be an opportunity for members of the public who have issues before the legislature to have personal meetings with any legislator so i'll turn it over to uh senator english and representative baladi to just talk very briefly about this yeah thank you bob so i'll speak on behalf of the senate side because we have a different set of rules i mean generally for us it's up to each senator right at their discretion but we do have some procedures so you know most of the senators will do zoom meetings or telephone meetings etc but for those that they agree to come in um they would have to get pre-approved we have to submit a name to the sheriffs and to our senate personnel downstairs they'll get on a list one a member of our staff would have to meet that person at shortly before their appointment at the rotunda downstairs underneath so you know where you come underneath and that's where you enter that's the only point to enter the capital our staff person will meet you will escort you through you have to go through the temperature check you'll get a um a sticker like this that you place on your with the day and you place it on your that you've been temperature checked you'll be escorted up to the meeting after the meeting you don't have free room of the building after the meeting our offices will escort you out of the building so if you make one meeting at 11 with one senator you cannot then go off to the house and talk to a house member or go talk sorry with somebody else we'll escort you out of the building if you're making a 11 with us an 11 30 with someone else they'll take you out you'll meet that other person there and they'll escort you back in and out so it's up to the members um we're we're being very cautious of the amount of people coming into the building um you know each office in the senate has uh we have plexiglass plates up we have stanchions we have social distancing spaces our staff are spaced out differently um and when people come in we're asking that you know they really well it's up to the senator right but we're not we're saying instead of bringing 10 people from an organization you know please well that wouldn't be allowed but uh bring one person that can speak for many we really encourage the use of technology for the meetings um and then finally you know uh given where everything is we think that it's probably safer for the general public to do remote meetings as well so we really encourage that but it's up to each senator how they want to handle their individual meetings so for example I just use you know for me um I have a courtesy called by one of the council generals um that's new and you know I suggested we do it by uh remote but their their home office their foreign office wants them to have a personal meeting so I agreed to that and I set out the rules that we will be distance apart we'll be wearing masks the whole time we'll dispense with the traditional handshakes and all of that so that's known before they come right and the picture is going to be uh the little trick we use is one is in the front and one is in the back like this and it's six feet or more apart but in the picture it looks a little bit closer so that one we've made an exception you see the example yeah so with senators announcement actually I believe the house and the senate procedures are now more in fact aligned um there has uh I would like to take this time to thank our house sergeant of arms who through march really kind of took the reins uh in their control and tried to set up a procedure that would protect the staff and the members uh in the capital building and so they really worked out that procedure uh at the bottom of the rotunda where people would enter get temperature checked sign in and then be greeted by members of staff who would take authorized personnel to their respective meetings so that's very much similar to what the house is following and again just like the senate highly encouraging members to conduct meetings remotely through zoom accounts that have been provided to each member um I think one of the silver linings of this pandemic is that a virtual testimony has actually or the virtual tools we now have in our toolkit have actually made it very much more possible to to reach out to members of the public and organizations and so we can still have a lot of public access although not in person but we still have access with our members and with members of the public thank you Rob Bellotti before we go on we have about 10 minutes left I want to tell those that have posted questions on the q and a box I think that we will probably not have enough time with the with the time remaining to answer all those questions but uh think tech and zoom I have a list of all the questions I will review the questions and probably uh type them out with an answer uh to the ones that have not been answered and send it out to all of you that are on this seminar the last thing before I forgot to mention it for those of you that are lobbying at the legislature and have to sign in and register there are new ethics administrative rules that were promulgated and passed and you need to be aware of that because there are some major changes that you need to be aware of I think the ethics commission already had one training session and they have another training session on January 11 so those of you that have to register as a lobbyist I would strongly recommend that you take in that training because there there are some major major changes I can answer about 10 of these questions in like three seconds go ahead 88 um notices are printed on every single one of the house and senate some uh hearing notices and has been done for years that way so it's a part of our boilerplate language it's on every single notice facts some testimonies will not be accepted only testimonies on our portals um and then you know maybe just I've seen a lot of the questions that are sort of projecting a lot of different things I mean we're asking people basically it's the common sense test right we're trying to figure what's the best and easiest way to get something done so a lot of the questions are unique circumstances that we may not have reached yet or we you know we'll we'll cross it when we come to it and there this actually helps us to think about some of them so thanks for posting them but those are the two big ones I wanted to cover thank you senator uh rep luke and senator agaron do you want to make any quick comments on the conference committee process is that basically going to be the same uh or is the public going to be able to view the conference committee uh hearings when you both the house and senate get together I know it's going to be shortened uh it's less time for conferences before a closing day but I think we're still going to have a lot of discussions about how that's actually going to happen because for the most part you know conference committees are really for the members of the conference committee so just be legislators and the discussions are usually between them so I haven't we haven't really talked about it um in practical terms or whether or not just the cameras are going to be on all the time in the conference rooms or um because uh it's it's it's a shortened time too and yes um and I I think it's I think the the leads on the different conferences are going to have to uh be very succinct and they're in the discussions and there's probably going to and hopefully we'll have the members there to vote if if we actually have a bill that's going to move over I think the practical thing to tell people if you're advocating for a bill is you know try to avoid conference which is sort of the sort of the advice that um we give to everybody every year is you know try to get the language that you want agreed to on both sides um you know before it needs to go to conference committee and I I know that's easier said than done but it is the best thing to do. Rep Luke you have any comment on conferences? No not on conferences but you know something that I wanted to highlight because you mentioned the new ethics rules um there is a strict um gift policy that has been implemented and the ethics commission basically got rid of um the the token of aloha or um uh token gifts um so uh even uh you know something small like banana bread from a constituent were not allowed to take so um in as much as possible if uh you folks could pass that word around and um not drop off gifts because then what we had to do was we had to collect it and um either ship it back or you know um send it back and that takes a lot of coordination so um there is a strict um policy that the ethics commission came out um uh you know to some extent some part doesn't make sense because you know if um somebody in your district want to give you a banana bread you know I mean it's just kind of rude to reject it but you know it is the rule now so um it is going to make it easier for us if you folks could coco and um uh not drop off gifts at uh like an opening day not not deliver gifts to the capital rep look thanks for mentioning that you know an issue came up that I heard about where uh an organization is sending uh information to all the legislators and including a very inexpensive mask because of the pandemic and uh whether that's uh uh allowable or not I mean if if the mask costs two dollars maybe I'm not sure if the mask costs 10 bucks I don't think it's allowable yeah even even if it costs two dollars we returned it all yeah so that's a that's an issue okay so as we wind up uh we have some final any final comments by um the panelists senator english any final comments and then uh senator agaran yeah sure you know we're trying to make this as as um easy as possible for everyone it's new territory for both the house and the senate our staff I really want to thank all of our staffs have been working so hard to put all of this together and um you know that I've seen some of the questions where will this be on other than facebook well we're putting it out on youtube we do put it out on facebook but the main archive is on youtube and then the olelo and others will be picking up these as well so the traditional ways of doing it is out there but what both the house and the senate is doing is making it much more accessible than it's ever been by what we're using so you know work with us on it guys we appreciate it thank you senator senator agaran any final uh quick comments no I think I just appreciate uh being being on the seminar today and and for all the people who showed their interest in signing up for it and I know that and bob you might want to mention this afterwards is where the where this seminar is going to be replayed and available for people who didn't register in advance because there's a lot of information that uh when we went through this in this seminar and there's going to be a lot of information it'll be available on both the house and the senate websites as well as the public access room and and I again I think the best advice is what uh representative baladi mentioned earlier which is if you if you're even thinking that you may want to testify at some point during the session you know please register for an account so that you'll you'll get the hearing notices and you'll get the links that you need to submit your testimony and I think that's very important thank you senator represent baladi any final uh words yes um I think you know I'm an optimistic person and we have gone through a rough year but I really like to look for the good in things and one of the good in in this opportunity as senator Keith agaran pointed out is that there's an opportunity to actually be more involved and more engaged and more informed once you create an account and you want to submit testimony you're going to find that you can track bills you can read testimony so this is a fantastic opportunity to increase trust in government and increase participation in government the last thing I would like to say uh is if you enjoy this webinar this is a great opportunity to thank Bob Toyafuku who put this together and really put us through our paces and asked us really good questions and it's an opportunity for you to lobby him as senator Keith agaran said we don't quite know what conference will look like so I know that uh Bob puts together these great programs so lobby him to do another one of these in March and I think you'll you'll be able to get some of us back here thank you Bob for everything okay thank you rep baladi rep luke last words yeah thank you and you know I think well one of the things that we're very mindful is we are very sensitive about the the whole virtual hearing and virtual um session so we're trying to be even more accessible so don't be afraid to reach out and um you know ask for a meeting um you know now I'm beginning to find out as opposed to doing you know 10 live meetings I can whip through 20 virtual meetings because I can go in and you know take care of it for 15 minutes and I don't have to walk to another office you know I can just go from one Zoom meeting to the next so um so you know I mean don't be afraid to reach out to your legislators and just ask questions you know I think this is um we ask for everybody's patience and you know continue to be safely 2021 um we're hoping for better things but we're still going to struggle through it even if the vaccine gets widely distributed by the middle of 2021 doesn't mean it's inoculation people are still going to get sick and the social distancing masking will continue for a while so you know be safe and be be mindful of each other and you know we wish you good health and best wishes for 2021 thank you rep luke while I make my final comments which will take about a minute and a half I'd like to have some feedback from the people that are on this seminar and to follow up too on senator agarans said it will be replayed on think tech and also probably on olelo and we'll look at other possibilities too but anyway if the if the people on the on the seminar can vote one of the things that I have been thinking about which rep baladi mentioned I am thinking about having another seminar in March after the first crossover to bring everybody up to date answer any questions with regard to how the virtual testimony has been going and what they can expect in the second half of the session so if you're interested in that there's a question that that you can click on lastly I want to thank all of you who took the time to sign in and watch this seminar and especially thank the panelists I mean they have spent time on this not just today but we had several get-togethers to discuss how the program will be going and going over any kind of schedule and scripts and so I'd like to thank really thank senator english senator Keith agarans rep baladi and rep luke for the time they spent and sharing their expertise and lastly I want to thank jay fidel of think tech and his crew for helping put this on and again good luck to all of you and please fill out the evaluation so that's the end of the seminar stay safe as this COVID keeps continuing and we'll see you hopefully in March if not before thank you very much thanks everyone