Money for the new state fire marshal isn’t nearly enough, the fire board says

The Hawaii State Fire Council says lawmakers should invest $1 million to $4 million to revive the Office of the State Fire Marshal — up to 23 times more than the $172,000 lawmakers have allocated for the office so far.

Fire officials have repeatedly said the office could address ongoing deficiencies in Hawaii’s fire prevention and safety practices in light of the 2023 Maui wildfires. The state has hasn’t had a fire chief since 1979 when lawmakers disbanded the agency, citing an overlap in duties with provincial departments.

But the appropriation the Legislature approved for the office last legislative session, which included salaries for the marshal, an assistant and office supplies, falls short of the resources that would be needed to handle a list of duties. the fire council has established.

The fire board will finalize these recommendations Friday before sending them to the Legislature for review ahead of the 2025 session.

They call on the marshal to focus on fire prevention by regulating building safety and fire safety standards, guiding the state’s wildfire prevention and education efforts, developing regulations and coordinating state agencies.

Lawmakers have allocated $172,000 to revive the office Deed 209established in July. State fire marshals and other fire officials have said funding is too low to set up an office, let alone hire a fire chief to build the agency from the ground up.

Hawaii County Fire Chief Kazuo Todd, chairman of the fire board, said he suspects the money was intended as a stopgap measure to give lawmakers an idea of ​​what an office should look like and what funding it should receive.

But the government recruitment process is slow. In fact, the job has not yet been advertised.

The legislative funding is nevertheless difficult to reconcile for Elizabeth Pickett, co-director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, especially after the Maui fires that killed 102 people and destroyed more than 2,200 structures last year, prompting state and federal governments cost billions of dollars.

The nonprofit was founded 23 years ago by former state wildland firefighters to help communities protect themselves from wildfires.

“We just raised billions of dollars, but we can’t scrape together more than $170,000 to make sure this doesn’t happen again? This is about our priorities as a state,” Pickett said.

The Act 209 appropriation included $120,000 for the marshal’s salary, a pay level that county fire captains would expect to receive but not what a high-level executive fire officer would typically earn.

Honolulu Fire Chief Sheldon Hao will get at least $224,304, Big Island’s Todd will make $194,400 and Maui County Fire Chief Brad Ventura will get $183,889.

Salaries for state fire marshals are typically about 15% of the income of department heads in large cities, said Butch Browning, executive director of the National Association of State Fire Marshals. The current proposed salary is “extremely low,” he said.

The fire board’s draft job description requires a bachelor’s degree and five years of experience as a fire chief or deputy fire chief. Desirable qualifications include a list of specific fire certifications and a postgraduate degree.

Start ‘on the low side’

The $120,000 salary is in line with what the fire board has indicated recommended to Gov. Josh Green last yearaccording to a summary of the council’s December wildfire management proposals.

Todd said not much attention had been paid to the $120,000 recommendation, but acknowledged that “the goal was to come in on the low end.”

Two phases of the Attorney General Lahaina Fire Incident Analysis Report have emerged since the council made its proposals. Each phase has revealed shortcomings and gaps that a fire chief could address, expanding the scope of the position’s responsibility after legislation had already been passed.

“That’s why we come back every year for a session, so we can confirm what we want the fire chief to do,” said Rep. Linda Ichiyama, who co-chaired the House Wildfire Prevention Working Group last year.

The council, which will appoint the fire chief, has since informally contacted several potential candidates, but with little success, members said at a meeting in late October.

“We are counting on this person to be the solution to many problems, but not really offering the salary that would be in line with expectations,” Todd said.

The council is now proposing $150,000 as a more appropriate salary in its draft report to the Legislature, Todd said.

Meanwhile, there is debate over whether the marshal’s office should be under the governor’s office or under the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

“We fly the plane as we build it,” Todd said.

The fire board last month approved the possibility of making a temporary appointment for the position, although Todd doubts this is practical since the marshal will have to organize an entirely new office.

Hawaii’s executive branch has proposed temporarily turning to the state Department of Forestry and Wildlife and the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization to implement more immediate fire mitigation measures.

Pickett said this could be appropriate given the immediate need for the state to strengthen fire safety and wildfire prevention.

And it would give the state time to determine the marshal’s ultimate role and how to fund it, Pickett said.

Three staffing models proposed

As the only state without a fire department, Hawaii has 49 potential blueprints it could look at. Some states make the marshal’s office a standalone agency, while others place the marshals under departments such as the state police.

The fire council is proposing three possible office structures, all under the Ministry of Labor and Industrial Relations.

They include a fully staffed office costing $3.98 million with 42 administrative, operational and training staff, a mid-level model with 23 employees costing $2.27 million and a smaller staff model with 14 employees costing 1.36 million dollars.

By comparison, Oregon has allocated just over $92 million to its state fire marshal’s office the 2023-2025 budget after elevating the office to the level of a state agency last year.

The fire board is proposing to allocate an additional $500,000 to the state fire marshal’s office once it is established so it can hire consultants to help the agency understand the cost implications associated with implementing everything in Act 209 has been recorded.

Once that picture becomes clearer, the state could consider creating sustainable funding channels for the office, said Browning of the National Association of State Fire Marshals.

States typically pay their firefighters through permanent funding lines, similar to state police. Once a state fire marshal is installed, the office may also be eligible for federal funding opportunities for fire safety programs.

Some states have added a 1% to 2% tax to insurance premiums to help fund marshals’ offices, Browning said.

civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.