The Maui County Council has suggested a budget of more than $20 million for the County of Maui’s newly established Office of Recovery.
The office was established in September to address the county's immediate and long-term needs after the devastating fires on the island, including the fatal Lāhainā wildfire.
Those needs include community planning, housing, infrastructure, resources, economic resiliency, health and social service systems.
Now the office needs funding and staffing. The council introduced a bill last week that would provide the county’s Department of Management $20.2 million from its fiscal year 2024 budget for the office’s operations, and just over $400,000 to staff it with eight employees.
Josiah Nishita, the county’s deputy managing director who also heads the recovery office, said that even after recovery efforts for the fires are finished, it could still serve a function.
“The expectation here is that this function wouldn't dissolve, even after Lāhainā’s substantially rebuilt. It would continue on into helping to protect other communities within our county, you know, helping to respond to other events that may occur,” Nishita told the council while it held a hearing for the bill on Thursday.
“I mean, in any given year we have multiple brush fires. God forbid we have any hurricanes or tsunamis or whatnot that hit but you know, building up those resilience efforts, I think is where we would kind of shift focus to,” he said.
The bill died during the council hearing and will likely be re-introduced. The council noted that the office’s funding comes from an emergency proclamation by Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen, and council members wanted more information on that money first.
The council also wanted to know how much of the money would be reimbursed by the federal government.
