Hawaii lawmakers are looking to fund a corrections oversight commission that was granted broad powers in 2019 but has been unable to hire staff due to a lack of funding.

The House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs on Tuesday advanced Senate Bill 664, which would appropriate funds to the commission to hire an administrator and support staff.

The commission was formed two years ago to oversee the Department of Public Safety amid support from advocates of corrections reform and upon the recommendation of a legislative task force chaired by Hawaii Supreme Court Associate Justice Michael Wilson. While the five-member commission has met monthly for more than a year, it has no staff to actually carry out much of the work that was envisioned, including inspecting and monitoring correctional facilities, investigating complaints and implementing broad reforms to the state’s correctional system.

Gov. David Ige declined last year to release $330,000 in funding to allow the all-volunteer commission to hire staff. This year he didn’t include funding for staff in the biennium budget he submitted to the Legislature, which is currently being debated.

SB 664 provides another vehicle for providing funding to the commission. But it’s not clear whether Ige will release the money if the measure passes. The governor’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Last month Ige told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he had withheld the commission’s funding because of the coronavirus pandemic and that starting new programs “doesn’t really make a lot of sense right now, considering the state of the economy.”

Since then a federal aid package that was approved this month and rosy projections about the recovery of the local economy have bolstered confidence among state officials that the state budget is in good shape.

Funding the commission has broad support from groups that have long advocated for the reform of Hawaii’s correctional system, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii and Community Alliance on Prisons. But the funding is tied to another provision in the bill, which authorizes the Department of Public Safety to build a new Oahu jail to replace the current dilapidated and overcrowded Kalihi facility.

The project has been in the works since 2015 and attracted criticism from those same groups. They say the state needs to downsize the jail and focus on reducing the inmate population.

The Department of Public Safety has already spent $9.8 million on planning and design for the facility, which is expected to cost $450 million to $600 million to build. The Legislature has yet to fund the Ige administration’s project.

The oversight commission voted at the end of last year to delay moving forward on the jail, citing in part the need to reconsider the size of the new facility, which is planned for the old Animal Quarantine Station in Halawa.

Mandy Fernandes, policy director for the Hawaii’s ACLU, wrote in testimony on the bill that moving forward on the new jail in the middle of an economic crisis and against the recommendations of the commission “is imprudent and harmful to Hawaii’s communities.”

Hawaii’s ACLU in 2017 filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice alleging that conditions in the state’s jails and prisons violated constitutional protections against “cruel and unusual punishment,” citing severe overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and understaffing of medical and mental health services, among other problems.

The civil liberties organization is advocating for major reforms to the state’s pretrial system, including bail reform, as well as alternatives to incarceration, all of which could drive down the jail population, before building a new facility.

SB 664 would require the Public Safety Department to obtain input from the oversight commission on the new jail’s plans and designs, but the language is a watered-­down version of an earlier proposal that would have required the commission’s approval.

The House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs on Tuesday shelved another bill relating to corrections reform, Senate Bill 1243, which would have instructed the oversight commission to come up with a plan to bring back Hawaii prisoners who are housed on the mainland. An earlier version of that bill would have also required the commission to first approve any expansion or construction of a new jail or prison.

The oversight commission submitted testimony supporting the bill, noting that it fits squarely within its mission, but noted they still had no money for staff.

“What is asked of the commission is of great importance. It would be difficult for (any) group of volunteers, no matter how well informed and experienced, to do such challenging work. We therefore ask that the Legislature consider providing us with the necessary resources so that we can effectively perform these and our other important functions,” the commission wrote in testimony.

State Rep. Mark Naka­shima (D, Kukuihaele-Laupahoehoe-North Hilo), who chairs the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, said he deferred SB 1243 because its supporters were upset the original version had been weakened. His committee could have amended the bill but declined to do so.

Nakashima also said there is no room in Hawaii’s in-state facilities to house the mainland prisoners.