As more and more of government goes digital, there is a real question of whether or not we still need bookshelves and filing cabinets.
Already the state Capitol basement is lined with big metal file cabinets awaiting donation to various public schools. The hulking file cabinets are now unneeded because much of the Legislature has switched over to a paperless system.
What then are we storing?
Reports. We are still getting reports. We must have some place to hold all the reports issued by task forces created by Hawaii’s state government.
The state Legislature’s own search engine found more than 10 pages detailing the various task forces either adopted or called for by the 2013 Legislature.
Task forces are mostly about their creation; rarely are they about the task force activities and almost never are they about a task force’s results.
In other words, a task mostly accomplishes its goal by being announced.
For instance, at the beginning of the year, there was a great fear that the federal budget would unravel over sequestration, the unilateral budget-cutting Congress forced on the budget because it was unable to responsibly trim the budget.
Hawaii was singled out as one of the states that on a proportionate basis suffer some of the biggest cuts.
A recent Gallup Poll found that 27.8 percent of all workers in Hawaii are employed by county, state or federal government, with nearly 35,000 working for the feds.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie, appreciating those numbers, came to the rescue with a task force. In his message creating the task force, Abercrombie added that his task force would include a "sequestration response team."
"The team will include representatives from government, nonprofits, the military and business leaders, who are ready to identify how we can help our citizens and segments of our community that will be most affected," said Abercrombie in his March 1 announcement.
Although the announcement was made in March, Abercrombie’s spokeswoman, Louise Kim McCoy, said the executive order establishing the sequestration task force was signed on April 5.
"Finance Director Kalbert Young is the chairperson of the response team, which is still in the process of selecting its members. He is currently waiting for entities to respond on who is available and/or willing to represent on the response team," McCoy said in an email response last week.
Abercrombie has had better luck with an earlier task force he created to monitor the fate of Tesoro’s announcement that it would close its Hawaii refinery.
"I am tasking this group to investigate the impacts of Tesoro’s impending closure on Hawaii’s fuel supply and economy to ensure a reliable and competitive fuels market," said Abercrombie, who first announced the group in his State of the State speech.
Since then, the task force has been appointed and held a meeting on April 10.
"The first meeting was mainly organizational and no recommendations have been made at this time. Per the executive order, this task force will submit a report of its activities and recommendations to the governor for consideration," said McCoy, who added that a second meeting is planned for June 18.
Tesoro said it was delaying laying off refinery workers because it was talking with a potential buyer, but late last month, the firm warned that it could start dismissing employees as early as June 14.
It does not appear that Tesoro is waiting for advice from Abercrombie’s task force. Like many other task forces, this one’s work was done when it was announced.
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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
