The Hawaii State Fire Council says lawmakers need to invest between $1 million and $4 million to revive the State Fire Marshal’s Office, up to 23 times more than the $172,000 that lawmakers have allocated to this office so far.

Fire officials have repeatedly said the office could address persistent deficiencies in Hawaii’s fire prevention and safety practices in light of the 2023 Maui wildfires. no fire marshal since 1979 when lawmakers disbanded the office, citing overlapping duties with county departments.

But the appropriations approved by the Legislature last session for that office, which include salaries for the marshal, an assistant and office supplies, fall short of the resources that would be needed to manage a task list. the fire council has arranged.

The fire board will finalize those recommendations Friday before sending them to the Legislature for consideration ahead of the 2025 session.

They call on the marshal to focus on fire prevention by regulating building safety and fire safety standards, guiding the state’s wildfire prevention and education efforts, developing regulations and coordinating state agencies.

Lawmakers allocated $172,000 to revive the office as part of Law 209promulgated in July. State fire chiefs and other fire officials have said funding is too little to create an office, let alone hire a fire marshal to build the agency from the ground up.

Hawaii County Fire Chief Kazuo Todd, chairman of the fire council, said he suspects the money was intended to serve as a stopgap measure to give lawmakers an idea of ​​what an office should look like and the funding it should receive.

But the government recruitment process is slow. In fact, the position has not yet been advertised.

Legislative funding is nonetheless difficult to reconcile for Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, especially after the Maui fires that killed 102 people and destroyed more than 2,200 structures last year, costing billions dollars to the state and federal government.

The nonprofit was founded 23 years ago by former state firefighters to help communities protect themselves from wildfires.

“We just paid out billions of dollars, but we can’t raise more than $170,000 to make sure this doesn’t happen again? These are our priorities as a state,” Pickett said.

The Act 209 appropriation included $120,000 for the marshal’s salary, a level of pay that county fire captains could expect to receive, but not what a senior fire officer would typically earn.

Honolulu Fire Chief Sheldon Hao gets at least $224,304, the Big Island’s Todd makes $194,400 and Maui County Fire Chief Brad Ventura gets $183,889.

Salaries for state fire marshals typically make up about 15 percent of the income of department heads in big cities, said Butch Browning, executive director of the National Association of State Fire Marshals. The current salary offered is “extremely low,” he said.

The fire board’s draft job description requires a bachelor’s degree and five years of experience as a fire chief or assistant fire marshal. Desirable qualifications include a list of specific fire certifications and a postgraduate degree.

Start “at the low end”

The $120,000 salary is what the fire board expects. recommended to Governor Josh Green last yearaccording to a summary of the council’s wildfire mitigation proposals from December.

Todd said the $120,000 recommendation hadn’t been given much thought, but acknowledged “the goal was to get to the low end.”

Two phases of the mandate of the Attorney General Lahaina Fire Incident Analysis Report have come out since the council made its proposals. Each phase highlighted gaps and loopholes that a fire commissioner could fill, expanding the scope of responsibility of their position, once the law is passed.

“That’s why we come back into session every year, so we can confirm what we want the fire marshal to do,” said Rep. Linda Ichiyama, who co-chaired the fire prevention task force last year’s forest.

The council, which will appoint the fire marshal, has meanwhile contacted several possible candidates informally, without much success, its members said at a meeting in late October.

“We’re counting on this person to be the solution to a lot of problems, but we’re not really offering a salary that meets expectations,” Todd said.

The board is now proposing $150,000 as a more appropriate salary in its proposed report to the Legislature, Todd said.

Meanwhile, discussions are underway about whether the marshal’s office should fall under the governor’s office or the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

“We fly the plane while we build it,” Todd said.

The fire council last month approved the possibility of temporary hiring for the position, although Todd doubts it would be practical given that the marshal will have to organize an entirely new office.

Hawaii’s executive branch suggested temporarily turning to the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife and the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization to implement more immediate mitigation measures fires.

Pickett said that might be appropriate, given the state’s immediate need to strengthen fire safety and wildfire prevention.

And it would buy the state time to determine the marshal’s final role and how to fund it, Pickett said.

Three suggested staffing models

As the only state without a fire commissioner, Hawaii has 49 potential plans it could review. Some states make the marshal’s office a standalone agency, while others place marshals under departments like the state police.

The fire board suggests three possible office structures, all under the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

They include a fully staffed office costing $3.98 million with 42 administrative, operational and training staff, a mid-level model with 23 workers costing $2.27 million and a reduced-staff model with 14 employees costing $1.36 million.

By comparison, Oregon allocated its Fire Marshal’s Office just over $92 million in its 2023-2025 budget after elevating the office to a state agency last year.

The fire board suggests allocating an additional $500,000 to the state fire marshal’s office once it is established, so it can hire consultants to help the office understand the financial implications associated with the implementation of everything provided for in Law 209.

Once that picture is clearer, the state could then think about creating sustainable funding channels for the office, said Browning of the National Association of State Fire Marshals.

States typically pay their firefighters through permanent funding lines, similar to those for state police. Once a state fire marshal is installed, the office could also be eligible for federal funding opportunities for fire safety programs.

Some states have added a 1 to 2 percent tax on insurance premiums to help fund commissioners’ offices, Browning said.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is funded in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.