Analysis paralysis: Legislature commissions lots of studies, but what do they accomplish?

When in doubt, commission a study.

That seems to be a common practice among state lawmakers, who often appropriate millions of dollars to study an issue without ever researching how much the study will actually cost or specifying what exactly should be studied.

Take, for instance, Gov. David Ige’s request for $489.3 million in general obligation bonds to relocate the Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC) to the grounds of the existing Halawa Correctional Facility during the just-ended legislative session. It failed, but lawmakers instead appropriated $5.4 million to study “possible sites” for the construction of a new OCCC.

No one — including the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) or the Department of Accounting and General Services (DAGS) — seems to know how that figure was derived or what exactly the multimillion-dollar study will encompass. Before a Thursday meeting was held with a key House Finance Committee member, a DPS spokeswoman said the department was still awaiting direction from lawmakers as to how that money can be spent.

“If you’re going to fund something, you should have a very clear plan with boundaries and options. These studies aren’t cheap,” said Sen. Sam Slom (R, Diamond Head-Kahala-Hawaii Kai), who has advocated fiscal responsibility at the state Legislature.

But lawmakers put the cart before the horse on a regular basis, Slom said, noting that money is often appropriated for studies before parameters are set.

“I’ve been in the Senate for 20 years now and it’s been going on for longer than that. … We have a warped sense of fiscal reality down at the Legislature.”

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano, a longtime legislator, also questioned the practice.

“It wasn’t common in my days. It usually was, the departments would go and ask for a study for planning … it’s a mystery how they got the figure,” Cayetano said in reference to the $5.4 million study.

“The Legislature is not equipped to do that so how do they approve the amount when they don’t have the expertise and knowledge” to determine the proper appropriation? Cayetano asked.

Rep. Kyle Yamashita (D, Sprecklesville-Upcountry Maui), who oversees capital improvements plan (CIP) appropriations for the House Finance Committee, said he would decline to speak with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about the OCCC study until after last Thursday’s meeting with DPS Director Nolan Espinda and DAGS.

But following that meeting, Yamashita, through a staffer at his legislative office, referred questions to Espinda.

Dick Pratt, professor emeritus of the Public Administration Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said it’s not unreasonable to commission a study in this particular case.

“But it isn’t a good idea to not be up front about how they came to recommend that amount of money for the study,” Pratt said. “That hurts the credibility of the Legislature and leads to guessing as to what else might be going on.”

Toni Schwartz, DPS spokeswoman, said prior to Thursday’s meeting that House and Senate CIP authorities (Yamashita and Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz) would be better suited to answer questions related to the OCCC study funding.

“We are awaiting their guidance on what their expectations are for the use of the money,” Schwartz said in an email.

Schwartz, contacted after the meeting, said further coordination between the departments and legislators will take place in the coming weeks.

“It’s too early to say anything definitive … Nothing’s been set. Nothing’s been planned” with regard to the study, she said.

“All relocation options that were discussed during the legislative session are on the table for consideration at this point,” Schwartz said in an email.

DAGS spokeswoman Cathy Chin said in an email the department provided the Legislature with preliminary cost information for the OCCC relocation and expansion project.

“However, we did not have any input regarding the $5.4 million appropriated for the project,” Chin said.

Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Jill Tokuda said she cannot speak for the lawmakers overseeing the CIP appropriations, but that in general, figures are sometimes based on past appropriations for similar studies or derived by taking a certain percentage of the actual request for study or planning purposes. At times, it just boils down to what funds are available, she said.

“Just because you didn’t get what you asked for, it doesn’t mean it’s a lost opportunity,” Tokuda said, noting lawmakers are open to giving the administration legislative guidance. “This governor and this administration need to seize the opportunities with the resources they were provided.”

Lawmakers, during the 2016 legislative session, authorized 21 studies — on topics ranging from decriminalization of certain illicit drugs to establishing a task force to study effective incarceration policies, according to information provided by the Legislative Reference Bureau.

Over the past decade, lawmakers have commissioned an average of 20 studies each session, figures show. Legislative-sanctioned studies are separate from those commissioned by individual state departments, but figures on how many studies are generated annually by each agency were unavailable.

“This is a growth industry in Hawaii,” Slom said, noting that businesses chosen to conduct these studies are able to generate a great deal of income. “You’ve had businesses that developed just to take care of these legislative needs, and they’ve done very well.”

Cayetano said the studies often give lawmakers a chance to delay key decisions.

“The Legislature — sometimes when they are stuck on a hot issue and (want to) kick the can down the road — they say, ‘Let’s do a study on this.’ Some studies just aren’t necessary,” Cayetano said.

Some studies simply end up collecting dust. The state Department of Transportation, for instance, sat on a 2008 federally funded 43-page report called “Pavement Preservation Technical Appraisal.” It included 16 pages of key recommendations to better preserve the islands’ state roads, but was largely disregarded for nearly eight years; in fact, a department spokesman in early February said he was unable to find a copy of the report. Soon after the Star-Advertiser obtained a copy that same month, the DOT started to implement some of the improvements recommended years earlier.

Colin Moore, a University of Hawaii political science professor who heads UH’s Public Policy Institute, said there is no data showing that the Hawaii Legislature commissions more studies than other state legislatures. But state lawmakers often use the “creation of committees and commissioning of studies as a way to look like they are looking at an issue even if they don’t realistically support the policy or see any chance that the policy” will become law, Moore said.

The practice of lawmakers setting the spending priorities for the state depart- ments is “a supremely unwise and inefficient way to make public policy,” Moore said in an email.

“It seems to indicate the Lege does not trust the spending priorities of the experts in the various departments. It’s also likely that some of these spending decisions serve political goals, rather than policy goals, by appropriating money to the districts of influential members of the Legislature.”

In addition to the $5.4 million for the OCCC relocation study, $17.5 million was appropriated for design and construction of a new Maui Community Correctional Center (MCCC), which was not even included in the Ige administration’s budget proposal.

Since 2011, nearly $14 million has been spent on consultants and design and engineering services for that project, which would relocate MCCC from Wailuku to Puunene, on a parcel owned by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. The project, plagued by jurisdictional squabbles, has been on hold since 2013 for lack of construction funding.

Tokuda said it’s been well-documented that Maui needs a new jail. “There has historically been a call for a facility on Maui,” she said. Lawmakers wanted to ensure there are “adequate facilities statewide and not just on Oahu. Everything was placed on Oahu.”

In the end, Tokuda said, “it really is about trying to balance out” all the needs of the state.

“It does become very difficult.”