SR154

WHEREAS, after decades of petitioning, item G.37 of section 3, was included in Act 134, Session Laws of Hawaii 2013, to appropriate $130,000,000 for "Kihei High School, Maui[.] Plans, design and construction for a new high school in Kihei Maui. Ground and site improvements; equipment and appurtenances"; and

WHEREAS, following several more years of planning, the State finally broke ground in January 2016 on the long-awaited high school in Kihei, Maui; and

WHEREAS, constructed on approximately seventy-seven acres of land next to Piilani Highway, the high school is designed to have an enrollment of one thousand six hundred students, many of whom would walk across Piilani Highway from their homes on the other side of the road; and

WHEREAS, recognizing that Piilani Highway is one of the busiest thoroughfares on Maui and, in an effort to protect students and other members of the community, the Land Use Commission issued a requirement that the Department of Education construct a grade-separated pedestrian crossing as a condition for rezoning the land from Agricultural District to P-1 Public/Quasi-Public District;

WHEREAS, a grade-separated pedestrian crossing required by the Land Use Commission could be a pedestrian overpass or underpass, both of which would allow for the safe traversing of the highway by pedestrians; and

WHEREAS, the Maui County Council, in Ordinance 4135 (2014), reaffirmed the Land Use Commission's decision to require the Department of Education to construct a grade-separated pedestrian crossing as a condition for the rezoning of the land; and

WHEREAS, on April 25, 2019, the Land Use Commission reiterated and affirmed its requirement for a pedestrian overpass or underpass and issued an order stating, "Kihei High School requires that a pedestrian overpass or underpass be constructed before the opening of the first phase of the new high school in Kihei and that construction of the overpass or underpass was a mandatory requirement and was not optional."; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Education, as late as March 23, 2020, stated that it "is committed to moving forward with the design of the pedestrian overpass"; and

WHEREAS, on April 23, 2020, the County of Maui Department of Planning informed the Department of Education that "the "overpass (or underpass) must be completed and usable before or at the same time that the school buildings are ready for occupancy"; and

WHEREAS, on September 22, 2021, the Department of Education Facilities Development Branch approved an Authorization for Change to change the originally designed signalized intersection at the intersection of Piilani Highway and Kulanihakoi Street to a four-lane roundabout intersection at a cost of $16,081,058; and

WHEREAS, it is unclear how the Department of Education obtained the approximately $16,000,000 to construct the roundabout or whether the original legislative appropriation was for a different project; however, it appears that the source of funding may have been from the original $130,000,000 appropriated for the construction of the high school, and it is unclear whether Act 134, Session Laws 2013, authorized any of those moneys to be expended for an improvement to the highway adjacent to the new school grounds; and

WHEREAS, the newly named Kulanihakoi High School was expected to welcome its first students in January 2023, but was not able to do so because it could not obtain a necessary temporary Certificate of Occupancy from the County of Maui Department of Planning; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Planning informed the Department of Education that, despite the completion of the roundabout, the Department of Education had not substantially completed construction of the required grade-separated pedestrian crossing and that if the Department of Education occupied the buildings before the grade-separated pedestrian crossing was built, the Department would be in violation of its State and County entitlements; and

WHEREAS, in January 2023, construction of the grade‑separated pedestrian crossing had not yet started and, once begun, is expected to take approximately five years to complete; and

WHEREAS, it remains unclear why the required grade-separated pedestrian crossing was not constructed; whether moneys were appropriated or otherwise made available for this purpose and, if not, why, and, if so, what happened to these moneys; why a roundabout was constructed in place of a grade-separated pedestrian crossing; where the moneys for this construction came from; and whether those moneys could have been used for the State- and County-mandated grade-separated pedestrian crossing; and

WHEREAS, there appears to be a discrepancy between the assertions of the Department of Education and the information presented by other government entities; and

WHEREAS, among the duties of the Auditor are that:

The auditor shall conduct postaudits of the transactions, accounts, programs, and performance of all departments, offices, and agencies of the State and its political subdivisions. The postaudits and all examinations to discover evidence of any unauthorized, illegal, irregular, improper, or unsafe handling or expenditure of state funds or other improper practice of financial administration shall be conducted . . . as may be required by the legislature for the purpose of certifying to the accuracy of all financial statements issued by the respective accounting officers and of determining the validity of expenditures of state or public funds.

as specified in section 23-4(a), Hawaii Revised Statutes; and

WHEREAS, section 23-5, Hawaii Revised Statutes, grants the Auditor the authority to "examine and inspect all accounts, books, records, files, papers, and documents and all financial affairs of every department, office, agency, and political subdivision" and to issue "[s]ubpoenas duces tecum compelling the production of accounts, books, records, files, papers, documents, or other evidence, which the auditor reasonably believes may relate to an audit or other investigation being conducted"; and

WHEREAS, the Audit Revolving Fund, established pursuant to section 23-3.6, Hawaii Revised Statutes, was created specifically to collect moneys for audits (including postaudits, which are a specific type of audit), and the Legislature specified that:

Moneys in the audit revolving fund shall be expended by the auditor to conduct audits of the State's departments, offices, agencies, and political subdivisions, audits of special, revolving, capital improvement, or trust funds, and for the services of certified public accountants contracted to conduct such audits[;]

now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Thirty-second Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2023, that the Auditor is requested to conduct a performance audit of the Department of Education's use of moneys appropriated for the construction of Kulanihakoi High School; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Auditor is also requested to determine:

(1) Whether moneys for road improvements of the grade‑separated pedestrian crossing were included in the original appropriation for the construction of the then-named Kihei High School or whether the Department of Education later requested moneys for the grade‑separated pedestrian crossing during the planning or construction process of the high school, and if so, what happened to those moneys;

(2) Whether the Department of Education, or the Department of Transportation, had, at any point during this project, made plans or designs for a grade-separated pedestrian crossing and spent any moneys for this purpose and if not, why;

(3) After the Land Use Commission and the Maui County Council confirmed that the grade-separated pedestrian crossing was required to open Kulanihakoi High School, what were the Department of Education's decision-making process and reasons for not completing the process to design and construct the grade-separated pedestrian crossing;

(4) Why the Department of Education prioritized constructing a roundabout instead of a grade-separated pedestrian crossing, which was necessary for Kulanihakoi High School to open;

(5) If the Department of Education funded the planning, design, and construction of the roundabout in Kihei, when a highway project of that nature typically would have been funded by Department of Transportation moneys, why and how did the Department of Education fund it;

(6) When, why, and under whose direction the traffic signal fronting Kulanihakoi High School on Piilani Highway was changed to a roundabout; who approved the construction change order; where the moneys for this purpose came from; and whether the moneys used to fund the roundabout planning, design, and construction could have been used to plan, design, and construct the critically required grade-separated pedestrian crossing; and

(7) Regarding the approximately $16,000,000 used to fund the planning, design, and construction of the roundabout, what were those moneys originally appropriated for, who approved the redirection of the moneys, and whether legislative approval was required for that change; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Auditor is requested to submit a report of its findings and recommendations, including any proposed legislation, to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2024; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Auditor, Chairperson of the Board of Education, Superintendent of Education, and Director of Transportation.

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:

Auditor; Audit; Kihei High School; Kulanihakoi High School; Construction; Overpass; Grade-Separated Pedestrian Crossing

THE SENATE	S.R. NO.	154
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2023
STATE OF HAWAII