Kauaʻi County annual report

Kauaʻi county publishes an annual report summarizing the activities of each department for the past fiscal year. The 2012-2013 report is just out and can be found here.

The county fiscal year is from July to June, so that means it took nearly 13 months to get the report out this year. I wrote to the mayor's office asking why the delay and with persistence heard this year they took extra time without an explanation of why. Normally the report is out by late fall they said.

A few highlights from reading a few sections:

• County Auditor
• The review of county take-home car policy (notably including the gas the county pays for that allegedly went to personal use) is still in progress.
• County Auditor returned 36% of the budget unused
• County Attorney
• almost $500,000 over budget (apparently unplanned high cost of litigation)
• the county is embroiled in lawsuits against it: well over 100 cases were pending at the start of the fiscal year (two years ago, July 1, 2012) and just over 100 were filed during FY2012-2013; since only 50-some cases closed that means the county had nearly 200 cases pending as of June 30, 2013.
• Mayor
• a collection of reports from a number of boards and projects under the mayor's office

There are a total of 19 department sections in the county annual report. I will update with highlights from a few more at a time.

Fiscal Year 2012 - 2013 Annual Report by Department

Annual Report Cover

Message from the Mayor
Table of Contents
Section I: Office of the County Attorney
Section II: Civil Defense Agency
Section III: Department of Personnel Services
Section IV: Office of Economic Development
Section V: Agency on Elderly Affairs
Section VI: Department of Finance
Section VII: Kauai Fire Department
Section VIII: Kauai County Housing Agency
Section IX: Department of Liquor Control
Section X: Office of the Mayor
Section XI: Department of Parks & Recreation
Section XII: Planning Department
Section XIII: Kauai Police Department
Section XIV: Office of the Prosecuting Attorney
Section XV: Department of Public Works
Section XVI: Transportation Agency
Section XVII: Department of Water
Section XVIII: Office of the County Clerk
Section XIX: Office of the County Auditor

Healthcare in Kauaʻi

We visited West Kauai Medical Center recently and this post is a small thank you for excellent medical
service. Everything went smoothly and the staff was uniformly friendly and competent.

While visitors don't think about this when considering the trip, we do read in the papers about visitors needing medical care unexpectedly while here. No Kauaʻi facility does complex major surgery (airlift to Honolulu for that) but the capabilities for here are hardly primitive either. Visitors with serious emergencies can get support from Visitor Aloha Society of Kauai - one of those things nobody wants to ever need, but nonetheless it's good to know it's there.

Living in Kauaʻi one often hears complaints about the level of medical care available. Many times I have heard this as the stated reason people move to the mainland or to Honolulu which has comparable facilities. No doubt regional healthcare is a major challenge in this country and being on an island makes it even harder. Certainly anyone with chronic health issues requiring specialized or intensive treatment will find it difficult if not impossible to live here.

Locally people are worried about plans to possibly close the Kalaheo Clinic and are taking action to keep the doors open. With a small population and everything being expensive here there are a number of clinics that rely on government grant subsidies, and this year money is tight.

UPDATE: The Kalaheo Clinic has just gotten a six-month extension to stay open but the battle for survival is far from over.

Healthcare is not a hypothetical issue for any of is. Coincidentally while writing this for the first time in this neighborhood we heard sirens and fire department and later ambulance arrived at a house a block away where they seem to be taking someone to the hospital. Annually 911 gets over 2000 calls for medical emergencies.