County hiring practices blasted in audit

Hawaii County’s hiring practices, long a source of complaints of unfairness and favoritism, are sharply criticized in a report released last week by the county’s legislative auditor.

Auditor Bonnie Nims said in the 49-page report that the creation by former Mayor Billy Kenoi and the Department of Human Resources in 2013 of a Staffing Review Committee contributed to “questionable hiring practices” and “inappropriate involvement” in a hiring agency’s choice of qualified candidates.

HR’s “insufficient monitoring” of county departments contributed to the problem, the audit said.

“The county’s hiring practices did not ensure equitable, uniform and transparent selection of candidates which may have resulted in non-compliance with applicable laws, rules, regulations and county policies and procedures,” the audit states.

The audit focused on hirings of Clerk III, Laborer II and Park Caretaker I positions in four departments: Environmental Management, Parks and Recreation, Public Works and Finance.

Of the 404 civil service positions filled in 2016, auditors reviewed 46 and found 42 contained questionable hiring practices.

It found cases in some departments where applicants were offered positions before interviews were conducted, where no references were checked, where the number of interviews were the same as vacancies even though there was a large referred list, where a random number generator instead of a skills test was used to winnow applicants, where applications with mainland addresses were discarded and other questionable practices.

The legislative auditor, considered an independent auditor, is hired by the County Council to a six-year term and has authority to subpoena witnesses and compel the production of records, under the county charter.

“We found numerous questionable hiring practices including how applicants were identified to be interviewed, how applicants were assessed and how departments were using (HR’s) referred list of eligible applicants,” Nims said in a cover letter Thursday to the County Council. “This situation resulted, in part, from a fear of retaliation including a lack of a safe mechanism for reporting concerns or complaints.”

A Mayor’s Office survey of about 1,000 county employees in April found 39 percent were afraid of retaliation if they raised sensitive issues while 36 percent were not. About 25 percent scored in the middle category, creating one of the lowest scores in the survey.

Mayor Harry Kim dismantled the Staffing Review Committee and froze new hiring shortly after taking office in December. His staff was studying the report Friday.

“We’re still reviewing the document, and we’re trying to be as transparent as possible to restore trust in government,” Managing Director Wil Okabe said. “That’s something the public expects us to do.”

Kenoi could not be reached for comment Friday.

The HR director is not a member of the mayor’s administration but is selected by and reports to the Merit Appeals Board. The board is likely to take up the audit at a future meeting.

HR Director Sharon Toriano said she expected to be answering questions from the County Council when the report comes up for review. She told auditors her department is already working through the recommendations.

“(HR) will be taking a much more active role going forward to monitor departments and ensure that the applicable policies and procedures are followed in all hiring activities,” she said in an Aug. 31 response to the auditor.

The County Council is likely to take up the audit in early October.

The Staffing Review Committee was composed of the department head of the hiring agency, the HR director and a representative from the mayor’s office. The committee had the authority to choose whether it would be an internal or external recruitment, the selection process and signing off on the new hire.

Departments were instructed to not make any employment or appointment offers without first receiving SRC confirmation of the selection process.

“As a result of these procedures, the SRC had the opportunity to override the appointing authority’s selection,” the audit states. “In general, the individual hiring department has a better understanding than the SRC, on who would be the best qualified candidate.”

The audit recommends the mayor and HR continue to ensure that the hiring selection rests solely with the appointing authority and prevent preferential treatment of potential new hire candidates. They should consider implementing an independent whistle-blower program, it said.

Finance Director Deanna Sako said in her response to the audit that her department used a random number generator to sift through more than 200 applicants as a way to ensure fairness. She said mainland applications were discarded because experience has shown that mainland job seekers aren’t interested in positions that paid $2,400 monthly.

“The Finance Department has 126 employees or about 5 percent of the county’s employees, yet the auditor selected all 18 Clerk III positions for Finance which is 39 percent of the sample,” Sako said in an Aug. 30 response to auditors. “The sample method seems a little skewed.”

The heads of the other three departments — Environmental Management, Public Works and Parks and Recreation — were not in those positions during the audit period. They said they are changing or have changed procedures to conform with audit recommendations.

Former Parks and Recreation Director Clayton Honma in 2015 defended the SRC, saying his department still had some say in hiring decisions.

Auditors recommend that HR implement procedures to provide adequate controls, including monitoring, oversight and training to ensure the county is in compliance. In addition, HR should develop written policies and procedures defining prohibited personnel hiring practices and consider working with other jurisdictions to define these practices in state law, the audit said.

Toriano said in 2015 that the SRC provided a countywide hiring process that allowed for uniformity and consistency across all of the departments. It ensured each position to be filled is necessary and allowed for greater fiscal control of personnel costs, she said.

In addition, she said, department heads or their designees remained actively engaged in every step of the hiring process, and their input was fully considered.

The department has taken the following steps, according to the audit: Communicated to all the departments that the mayor and HR will not be involved in the hiring selection process, established a template for interview and selection procedures to include a more uniform and transparent process and provided mandatory training to those responsible for hiring.

West Hawaii Today received numerous complaints during the past few years from rank-and-file workers and job applicants alleging unfair hiring practices. Employees and applicants asked to remain anonymous because they feared reprisals.

“I’ve applied for numerous full-time positions with the county with the last previous two openings right here in my hometown. I was told it wasn’t possible to transfer from my department to (another), that I have to apply with the public,” a nine-year part-time employee told the newspaper last year.

“Anyways, the position that I was interested in was soon filled and the person who was hired for this position worked at (a private-sector job) with two other guys that are full-time county workers and now they all work in the same county department,” the employee added.

“Now was this a fair hire or an equal opportunity or a type of pull,” the employee asked. “I feel so discouraged that I feel like calling it quits.”

A similar story came from an individual with advanced degrees who said she had been interviewed more than 10 times, but never offered a position.

“I just have had to accept if I wanted to live here: ‘It’s not what you know but who you know,’ ” the applicant said.

Enough people told the newspaper about the concept of “POI,” or “person of interest,” that they said is often marked on the “request to hire form” to indicate preferential treatment, that West Hawaii Today in 2015 submitted a public records request under the state Uniform Information Practices Act for two years of forms from the Departments of Parks and Recreation and Public Works.

A review of the sizable stack of papers HR returned from the 2015 request showed no sign of forms marked with the POI acronym. The newspaper has not yet examined 2016 records.

Approximately 2,600 of the county’s 190,000 people work for county government, accounting for more than half the county budget.

To see the full report, visit www.hawaiicounty.gov/legislative-auditor and select audit reports.

Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.