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 Staying PHOCUSED
Protecting Hawaii's Ohana, Children, UnderServed,
Elderly and Disabled
TO KEEP OUR SECTOR
AWARE OF AND "PHOCUSED" ON THE ISSUES FACING OUR STATE AND ITS MOST
VULNERABLE CITIZENS
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Contact Us |
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Alex or
Nicole
p:
808.521.7462
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Board
& Staff
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Board of Directors
Joanne
Lundstrom, Chair
Howard Garval, Vice
Chair
Victor Geminiani, Vice
Chair
Debbie Shimizu, Secretary
Alan Shinn, Treasurer
Susan Chandler
Jan Dill
Marya Grambs
Kathi Hasegawa
Nanci Kreidman
Ruthann Quitiquit
Jerry Rauckhorst
Sandra Yoro
Staff
Alex Santiago, Executive
Director
Nicole Brodie, Office
Manager
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| Message to the Members | |
MONDAY AT THE CAPITOL
I hope all of you have
received our messages about the important
PHOCUSED Event set for Monday. Click here for our flier. Please
make
every effort to attend. It is very important for the legislators to
see that we do want them to find the revenues needed to fund the
essential Social Service needs of our State. We need to show them
that there are lots of people who care deeply about this. One hour is
what we need from you. Please be in
the Senate Chambers at 11:30with
your green shirts (we will have extras for those who have not yet
received one). At noon we will go
over to the Houseto again show
some force in numbers. We should be done by 12:30. Prior to this show
of force a smaller group will be going to each Legislators office with
a handout outlining our concerns.
THE LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
On Friday, Senator Chun
Oakland met with a group of Safety Net
supporters and outlined her understanding of how the Budget situation
presently stands. Both the House and the Senate have very different
ideas on how the revenues to fund the needs of our State will be made.
Neither side presently has a GET increase measure on the table to raise
revenues. It will be very interesting to see how they reconcile their
differences and if they can do so in time to actually balance the
budget and override the guaranteed vetoes from the Governor. The
Senate has restored much of the POS funding that was removed from the
original Budget Bill by the House. However, the Senate also removed
the
restoration of positions to the DHS and the DOH that the House
inserted. In addition, Sen. Chun Oakland also outlined how SB 2469
"the
rainy day fund" bill tries to cover all of our bases by including -
sometimes duplicating what is in the Budget Bill HB 2200 - all of the
safety net needs she has been made aware of. The understanding is
that
if the funding items are restored in the Budget Bill, HB 2200 they can
then be removed from the "rainy day fund" Bill, SB 2469 and only those
items not included in the Budget would then need to be funded with the
"rainy day fund". What is not yet clear is how much if any of the funds
from the "rainy day fund" will be allowed to be used. For those of
you
who were around last year you will remember how at the very end of the
Conference Committee deliberations a decision was made by the House and
Senate conferees to use only a portion of the "rainy day fund" for
other purposes, and not for the funding of the programs outlined in the
"rainy day fund" bill at that time. We hope to not see a repeat of
last year.
Conference Committee Hearings will start next week.
We will
notify all of you of the start times. It would be great if we could
fill the room with green shirts to monitor the conference. We only have
a few weeks to go and as is usually the case, much of the critical
decisions will begin to take shape next week. Anything can
and
sometimes does happen. We will try to monitor the action and report
back to you as often and in as timely a way as possible.
On a
separate but related note. This past week a group of committed
Parents took up residence in the Gov's office to protest the ongoing
Furlough Fridays. We admire their commitment. They have asked
us to
relay this info to all of you in case any of you would like to join
them in their effort. On Saturday they will be moving across the
street to set up a protest in front of the Governor's Mansion. They
will be there in front of Washington Place on Saturday morning at 9:00
am and will come together again at 5:30 pm. Saturday night. They
plan
to return to the Governor's office on Monday morning. The
protesters
are holding everyone responsible and while they have met with the BOE
the DOE, the HSTA, and with Legislators, they have informed me that the
Governor is the only one who has not indicated a willingness to meet
with them. They would appreciate any help and support from the
public.
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PHOCUSED Work
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PHOCUSED
PHRIDAYS
We still have a few PHOCUSED Phridays left.
This is a great opportunity to get your staff and constituents involved
as well as a good chance to get some face to face time with Alex to talk
story about what your organization gives to and needs from the state,
the community, and PHOCUSED.
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Action Steps | | What you can do:
- Join us the Capitol on Monday!!
- Email us with your thoughts, questions, and concerns
- Call our office 521-7462 to sign up for PHOCUSED Phridays
- Provide PHOCUSED with data and/or stories about how the cuts
have affected services
- Recruit more organizations to join our efforts--PHOCUSED cannot
exist without membership support
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We hope to send out emails like this one to keep
our members informed about the process and issues of this year's
legislature. Because the work we are doing is in the political
arena and the landscape is often uncertain and changes with very short
notice, we request a bit of understanding of our perceptions as conveyed
here. |
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