KEVIN DAYTON/Honolulu Civil Beat

Honolulu Civil Beat
Voting blind: Why lawmakers don’t know the cost of bills before they vote
After days of bargaining in private meetings, House Finance Committee Chair Kyle Yamashita announced on April 26 that lawmakers had cut a deal for an enormous state tax cut.
 
Hawaii to open prisons and jails for inspection of mental health services
The agreement was reached as part of ongoing efforts to resolve a federal lawsuit filed in 2019 over prisoner suicides.
 
Hawaii Salary Commission approves hefty raises for legislators, state officials
Those raises for lawmakers would be followed by 4% pay increases in each of the following two years and another 8% pay increase on Jan. 1, 2030, for a total 48% pay increase over six years. At the end of the six years, rank-and-file lawmakers would make $114,348.
 
Hawaii is scrambling to fix SNAP food program following $11M fine for errors
Hawaiʻi has been fined nearly $11 million by the federal government after its payment error rate for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spiked for two consecutive years.
 
The Hawaii state Capitol could be closed for years to fix aging systems
Regan said estimates of the total cost range from $50 million to $100 million, but it is not yet clear when construction will start or how long the work will take. The project will require the Legislature and the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor to temporarily relocate.
 
The number of Hawaii children in foster care dropped to lowest in decades
Agency officials dismissed the possibility that fewer children in the system could be attributed to staffing shortages in the agency. However, the report confirmed staff vacancy rates, especially for workers who assess troubled children and families, are dramatically higher than a few years ago.
 
Insurance prices threaten an affordable housing oasis in Hawaii
Lahilahi Heen has lived for decades in a three-bedroom house surrounded by a carefully groomed garden in the lush Hawaiian Shores subdivision in Lower Puna.
 
Hawaii’s prison system confronts ‘a huge mental health crisis’
The 30-year-old inmate had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression.
 
Tough choices on Hawaii’s prisons and jails lie ahead, official says
That is just for starters. Even if the Legislature and Gov. Josh Green agree to spend those many millions, the most difficult decisions lie ahead.
 
Hawaii prisons are getting new scanners that can detect drugs without opening mail
The screening equipment detected paper that had been soaked in “illegal substances,” according to procurement records. The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not identify the type of drug involved or say whether anyone was arrested or charged for sending or receiving the material
 
"What we found in the deeper dive of the data over the last several months, by us and by several other independent parties, was that our initial findings were spot on,” said Rick Mihelic, NACFE director of emerging technologies. The analyses also led to these additional findings.
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Short-handed Kona public defender’s office won’t accept new drunken driving cases
The Kona public defender’s office notified the Judiciary on June 12 it would no longer handle new DUI cases or Class A felonies “due to our current staffing shortage.” The memo indicated private, court-appointed lawyers would have to handle those cases until further notice.