Hawaii

Thousands of Hawaii School Employees To Get Up To 25% In Pandemic Hazard Pay

Published

2 years ago

January 23, 2024

Thousands of Hawaii School Employees To Get Up To 25% In Pandemic Hazard Pay

An arbitration decision has determined public school employees in five bargaining units of the state’s largest union are entitled to back pay of up to 25% of their total salaries for as much as two years, according to the state’s largest union.

The Hawaii Government Employees Association said the decision covers up to 7,800 Department of Education employees, including school nurses, office employees, and classroom educational assistants.

“Those working in the DOE were some of the most exposed among public service employees, putting their own health – as well as that of their loved ones – at substantial risk to keep services running in Hawaii’s schools,” HGEA Executive Director Randy Perreira said Tuesday in a written statement.

The House of Representatives opens the legislative session Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024, in Honolulu. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2024) — The arbitration decision awarding tens of millions of dollars in pandemic hazard pay to Department of Education employees will complicate the budget picture this year for both the state and counties. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2024)

Arbitrators considering the hazard pay issue have “thus far have been unanimous: our members faced severe hazards over the course of the pandemic to sustain government operations, and they deserve compensation,” Perreira said in the statement.

The decision will not apply to public school teachers because the Hawaii State Teachers Association does not have hazard pay provisions in its contract. DOE did not respond to a request for comment.

The award is expected to complicate the budget picture at the state and county levels, and Perreira said in an interview he expects DOE will need to ask the Legislature for extra funding to cover the cost of the award.

HGEA and other unions are in similar negotiations with the City and County of Honolulu and the Big Island.

House Speaker Scott Saiki said Tuesday he has not yet seen the arbitration decision, but “this was not really anticipated as we entered the legislative session, so now we’ll have to go back to the drawing board when it comes to approving a balanced budget.”

HGEA has language in its contracts calling for hazard pay of 15% or 25%, depending on the severity of the hazard. Perreira has said the Covid-19 pandemic is the first time that contract language has been applied to government employees statewide.

The union estimated the latest arbitration decision may require the state to pay up to $150 million in back hazard pay for the DOE workers, but Perreira said a more precise calculation will have to come from the DOE.

He said the $150 million estimate assumes all 7,800 of the employees covered by the award will get at least some back hazard pay.

State Budget Director Luis Salaveria also deferred to the DOE, saying he has not yet seen the decision and could not estimate the total cost.

State House Finance Committee Chairman Kyle Yamashita said in a written statement that Gov. Josh Green’s administration is “still working on this.”

“We’re still waiting for details that will give us a better understanding of how to proceed,” Yamashita wrote. But the impact on the budget will likely be substantial.

Republican House Minority Leader Lauren Matsumoto said the hazard pay issue will “cost the state and the city a lot of money, but it’s important that we honor the contracts that we put into place. I don’t know if there’s any way around that.”

The template for settlements and awards on hazard pay is generally expected to follow HGEA’s arbitration award on Maui in 2022.

That decision confirmed the pandemic qualified as a “hazard” under the HGEA contract and determined more than 1,300 employees were entitled to back pay for the first two years of the pandemic. Maui Count employees began receiving hazard compensation payouts at the end of 2022.

Another decision on Kauai also concluded HGEA members there had faced a hazard and therefore qualified for hazard pay by contract, but the union said a follow-up case will be necessary to determine exactly who qualifies for payments.

Arbitration proceedings or negotiations are also underway with Hawaii County and Honolulu, and the unions involved include HGEA, the United Public Workers union and the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers.

The DOE arbitration decision “is a clear signal to the state and counties that it’s time to get serious about how they will cover the hefty price tag of THP (temporary hazard pay) payouts,” Perreira said in the statement.

According to HGEA, the DOE arbitration decision covers the period from March 4, 2020, to March 25, 2022, when then-Gov. David Ige’s pandemic emergency proclamations were in effect.

The hazard pay will not apply to periods when employees are teleworking, on leave, or absent from the work sites. However, it does apply to some jobs that may not usually be considered to be public-facing.

Perreira said office assistants, clerks, secretaries and others continued to directly serve the community through food distribution programs that operated daily from the schools.

“That was where the most public contact took place, the food pickups,” he said. “It was an all-hands-on-deck thing.”

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Hawaii

Hawaii suffers first defeat of the season against Loyola Chicago | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Published

4 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Hawaii suffers first defeat of the season against Loyola Chicago | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

The second-ranked Hawaii men’s volleyball team expected a different Loyola Chicago team to show up Friday night in the rematch of Thursday’s 94-minute sweep by UH.

They were certainly correct in that assessment.

Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said flatly the Ramblers were better after No. 7 Loyola Chicago handed Hawaii its first home loss in January in two years in a 25-23, 25-22, 24-26, 29-27 win before a season-high crowd of 5,811 at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

Aleksandar Sosa put down a match-high 19 kills and setter Ryan McElligott set the tone with four of his five aces in the first set for Loyola Chicago (1-1), which out-served and out-blocked the Rainbow Warriors.

“I thought they touched a lot of balls on the block and those first two sets, the first set, we had three or four balls back on our side to score some points and we didn’t,” Wade said. “We kind of screwed it up. We weren’t quite as crisp and efficient and against a good team, we let them hang around and they come back and make some plays late.”

Hawaii looked done for the night trailing 20-13 when it mounted a furious comeback in the third set to avoid a sweep.

Loyola Chicago had five match points in the fourth set and finally put the contest away with a double block of Ofeck Hazan to complete the upset.

“I think they served way better and we really struggled passing their serve,” said Hazan, who started in place of Trevell Jordan in the middle. “They were more creative out of system. (Thursday) they just hit into our block and today they just found the touches or just played better.”

Louis Sakanoko led Hawaii with 18 kills and set a career high with 12 digs, and Kristian Titriyski added 16 kills before sitting out the fourth set. UH hit .254 for the match and had six aces to the Ramblers’ eight. Loyola Chicago hd 15.5 blocks to Hawaii’s 10.5.

“We weren’t clicking on all cylinders and I’m not trying to use this as an excuse, but (setter) Tread (Rosenthal) didn’t practice all week. He had a back that tightened up,” Wade said. “Trevell’s back tightened up and I thought Ofeck played pretty well and he gave us a nice spark, but you’re just a little off rhythm there. Kristian was kind of grabbing his back late and obviously we made the decision to go with Kainoa (Wade) to give us a spark and he gave us that.”

Kainoa Wade and Sakanoko each served three straight points for UH in the third set after it fell behind 20-13 and Finn Kearney came off the bench to serve the final two points that ended in blocks to get UH back in the game.

Hawaii hit just .171 in the fourth and made eight service errors. It had 20 serving errors for the match and served in at less than 80%.

“Obviously it’s a work in progress. We’re in game four of the year,” Kainoa Wade said. “We got a lot of work to do, but we’ve got to trust what we know. We’ve served a lot of balls in our lives, all of us, so we know we can go on runs and make plays.”

The Ramblers gave Hawaii a taste of its own medicine in the opening set with McElligott building a strong poker hand of aces during an 8-0 run during which Charlie Wade used both timeouts.

McElligott had three aces after Jake Read’s kill put him behind the service line, and despite two Hawaii timeouts and the media timeout, he poured it on until UH caught a break with a Loyola Chicago net violation on an overpass that almost certainly would have been a Ramblers point.

Sakanoko followed with back-to-back kills, including a deep tip into the far corner over a triple block that prompted Loyola Chicago to call timeout leading 17-14.

Hawaii extended the run to 5-0 after Titriyski put down a kill following a long rally to pull UH within a point.

The Rainbow Warriors got back to even at 22-all on Kainoa Wade’s ace as a serving sub. The set was tied once more until a Rosenthal service error and a McElligott ace for his fourth of the set handed UH its first set loss of the season.

Rosenthal wasn’t able to spin serve all night due to the back injury.

Neither team separated by more than a point in the second set until Justin Todd had two aces during a 4-0 UH run to put the ‘Bows ahead 13-10.

Hawaii led 21-19 when the Ramblers scored six of the next seven points to go up two sets to none.

UH’s only point during the final 6-1 run came on a Loyola Chicago service error. The Ramblers scored three of their points on errors by UH and another on their sixth ace of the match.

The Rainbow Warriors will have four days off before playing four matches in three days next week.

Hawaii has doubleheaders against Roberts Wesleyan and Rockhurst in reverse order on Wednesday and Friday.

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Hawaii

2026 Sony Open field is announced. See who’s playing in Hawaii

Published

16 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

2026 Sony Open field is announced. See who’s playing in Hawaii

The Sony Open in Hawaii has the honors of being the kickoff event to the 2026 PGA Tour season after the cancellation of The Sentry at Kapalua this season.

Instead of Maui, the Tour debuts in Honolulu on the island of Oahu, Jan. 15-18, at the Seth Raynor-designed Waialae Country Club, where Nick Taylor prevailed in a playoff over Nico Echavarria last year.

Among the changes this season is the field size, which was reduced from 144 to 120, and, there is no longer is a Monday qualifier offering four spots. Will that help with pace of play? Stay tuned.

The field includes the following notables in addition to Taylor and Echavarria: Daniel Berger, Keegan Bradley, Michael Brennan, Corey Conners, Tony Finau, Chris Gotterup, Brian Harman, Russell Henley, Billy Horschel, Robert MacIntyre, Collin Morikawa, Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Sahith Theegala, Gary Woodland and 62-year-old Vijay Singh.

Here’s the full field for the Sony Open, which will be live on Golf Channel all four days as well as NBC with early-round coverage on Saturday and Sunday.

This year’s Sony purse is $9.1 million and the winner also will receive 500 FedEx Cup points.

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