Mayor Alan Arakawa has increased the annual budget for his administrative staff by 17 percent over the four years he’s been in office.
For the current fiscal year 2015, the Maui County Council approved the mayor’s $1,714,321 budget for his administrative staff. In the last fiscal year, Arakawa was granted a budget of $1,631,792 in salaries and wages for his administrative staff, which includes executive assistants, clerks, budget specialists, secretaries and other positions. A year prior, Arakawa spent $1,516,174 on his staff; and in his first full year in office in fiscal 2012, he spent $1,465,676.
Though mayoral terms conclude at the end of the calendar year, the mayor submits budgets that encompass the entire fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30. Figures available to The Maui News were fiscal year calculations.
County spokesman Rod Antone said that about $230,000 was cut from previous Mayor Charmaine Tavares’ administrative staff budget once Arakawa took office at the start of 2011. Though she had budgeted $1.7 million for administrative staff for the fiscal year, which ran six months into Arakawa’s mayorship, Antone said Arakawa’s administration cut that budget – with about $1.5 million spent on administrative staff that fiscal year.
Arakawa’s spending for administrative staff during the two subsequent fiscal years 2013 and 2014 came in lower than what Tavares spent in her second and third fiscal years in office. Tavares spent $1,611,088 during her second fiscal year in 2009 and $1,693,130 in fiscal 2010.
It’s difficult to obtain an apples to apples comparison between administrations for administrative staff because of differences in the number of staffers, structure of departments and the way those costs appear in county budgets.
Comparisons are further complicated by the fact that the terms of mayoral administrations run on a calendar year, while budgets are done on a fiscal year, skewing comparisons during transition years.
Arakawa’s administration currently has 28 salaried administrative staff positions, including the mayor, according to the council-adopted budget for fiscal 2015.
Among Arakawa’s administrative staff are 10 executive and administrative assistants, whose salaries range from less than $50,000 to more than $112,000 per year. Those staff members help the mayor by representing him at meetings and events, drafting legislation and responding to community concerns.
The mayor’s chief of staff, Herman Andaya, is the only assistant who makes more than $100,000 per year – his annual salary is $112,596. Andaya oversees the mayor’s office staff, the budget division, the communication team, the Office of Economic Development and Community Development Block Grants, a county official said. He also serves as an adviser to the mayor on all county issues.
“The chief of staff is more like a department director than an (executive assistant), and his pay scale reflects that,” Antone said in an email.
All county department heads and nearly all deputy directors make more than $100,000 per year, following pay raises approved by the salary commission early last year.
The chief of staff position is a relatively new one. In his previous 2002-06 term as mayor, Arakawa took on many of those responsibilities himself, Antone said. But the position was created when Arakawa took office again in 2011 in order to help the mayor manage county affairs, Antone said.
The managing director and deputy managing director – both of whom make more than $110,000 per year – also are tasked with assisting the mayor with management of the county and overseeing “all line executive departments and agencies,” according to the county website. Those positions do not fall under the administration program but under the Department of Management.
Tavares did not employ a chief of staff, according to budget documents.
The Maui News obtained the salary figures from Madge and Bruce Schaefer of Maui Meadows. Bruce Schaefer filed a request with the Office of Information Practices in August, after he experienced delays in getting “basic” information from the Mayor’s Office about trash pickup services. He previously told The Maui News that he wondered why he could not get a phone call returned and questioned the need for executive staff because no one responded to his query.
Madge Schaefer said her husband felt he could get action with the Freedom of Information Act request.
“He was trying to get an answer. Apparently, that’s a chronic problem,” Madge Schaefer said about the timely responses from the county.
Asked what she thought about the salary figures, Madge Schaefer said: “I think the pay is pretty handsome, when you put the total cost in that.”
Madge Schaefer alluded to other “annual perks,” which she said include health insurance and vacation.
Antone apologized in an email to Bruce Schaefer for the delay and explained that his trash pickup message was forwarded to the correct person. That person was going to respond but got tied up with other matters, according to email correspondences that were forwarded to The Maui News.
Antone said other executive assistants in the Mayor’s Office may have been preoccupied with their own assigned duties and priorities at the time Schaefer’s request was received.
“I try to help take the load off our EAs (executive assistants) when I can but was not made aware of this until only after I began asking questions about what spurred your FOIA request. Again, I am sorry about that and hope we can get you all the information you need soon,” Antone told Bruce Schaefer in an email.
As for missed calls or emails, Antone replied: “It is impossible to not miss a few calls or emails here and there because of the volume that comes in but everyone tries. I am no different.”
* Eileen Chao can be reached at echao@mauinews.com and Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.
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