The State Historic Preservation Division under DLNR, and Labor’s Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health each are under federal corrective plans that all sides attribute largely to the effects of staff cutbacks to critical positions.
The governor, labor director and a representative of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA signed an agreement Friday on a plan to mend operations of the state’s workplace safety division called HIOSH.
“We weren’t covering the hazards the way we should,” Gov. Neil Abercrombie said. “The number of inspections that should have been made were not being carried through, simply because we did not have the personnel."
Both the state and the feds say the culprit were the job cuts and attrition in the recession — 32 positions lost, most of which were essential to federal approval of state self-regulation.
“We have a safety branch, a health branch, and consultation, together there’s a minimum of 22 positions that are required,” said Labor Director Dwight Takamine. “When Gov. Abercrombie came into office, none of the three had been attained. Today we can say all 3 have been achieved.”
On Friday, those 22 positions are filled, but training will take time.
“Federal OSHA will temporarily assume responsibility for enforcement in select industry while HIOSH rebuilds it capacity," said Ken Atha of OSHA.
HIOSH will continue to oversee construction, transportation and warehousing sectors, but the feds will monitor the rest and offer training and operational support, "which I believe will enable HIOSH to reassume sole enforcement authority,” Atha said.
Meanwhile businesses can expect to see more inspections — which had dropped to nearly half of the annual target a few years ago and is steadily ramping up.
"The rules that HIOSH has as well as our rules are very similar with regard to penalty amounts,” Atha said. “Whether or not there would be an increase in penalties, I couldn’t say."
If cited by a federal authority, any notice of contest would go through OSHA instead of HIOSH. The department has been reaching out to labor and business to explain how it will work.
“Even today there was a meeting with the transportation people, and I think we’ve had about 7 of these meetings thus far reaching out to over 300 people,” Takamine said. “We’re going to continue to have them."
The OSHA official said the federal oversight at labor will be funded by Washington. If any of their grants to the state in 2013 have not been expended, some may be transferred to support the federal effort.
Separately, the State Historic Preservation Division within the Department of Land and Natural Resources is closing in on a Sept. 30 deadline. It has to wrap up a two-year corrective action plan under federal oversight, and submit a report soon after, on whether it fixed problems such as review & compliance or survey & inventory procedures.
A federal spokesperson said, "It will be reviewed by the National Park Service to whether the improvements required by the corrective action plan have been met. We look forward to continuing to work through this process with the Hawaii State Preservation Division to improve the protection and preservation of the Hawaii’s historic resources.”
"I have pretty good assurance we’re going to be on track,” the governor said of the SHPD status. “Being on track doesn’t mean we’re going to be as far as we’d like to be."
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
