Hawaii Invasive Species Council requests $5 million recurring as oversight and a 2030 administrative transfer loom

The Hawaii Invasive Species Council asked state lawmakers on Jan. 16 to preserve the council’s staff and programs as administration shifts to the Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity and to appropriate $5 million annually to sustain core work.

Patrick Chi, interim invasive species coordinator with the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife, told the House Committee on Agriculture & Food Systems (meeting jointly with the Senate agriculture committee) that the council received its usual FY26 appropriation plus an additional $4,250,000 tied to Act 236 but that the Act 236 funds had not yet been released by the Department of Budget and Finance. “We are still awaiting its release,” Chi said, adding that the extra funding allowed HISC to support 50 projects in FY26 compared with about 19 the prior year.

Chi said the council is preparing for a statutory administrative transition scheduled for 2030 that would move HISC administration to the Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity. He urged lawmakers to ensure the council’s programs and the staff who run them are carried forward during the transfer so that early-detection, outreach and rapid-response capacities remain intact. “We want to make sure that the HISC remains when it transfers to be a cabinet level interagency council, and that there be a staffing transition,” he said.

HISC’s written submittal to the legislature asks for a recurring $5,000,000 appropriation to fund the council annually and to be managed by whichever department ultimately administers HISC. Presenters and committee members framed the request as a hedge against losing continuity during the administrative move: several legislators pressed HISC staff on the risk that programmatic knowledge or interagency coordination could weaken if positions and operational structures were not explicitly maintained.

Lawmakers also discussed how HISC’s online and phone reporting systems—managed by HISC for the 643pest.org site and by the Department of Agriculture for the toll-free phone hotline—might be integrated as part of the transition to make reporting and response data more accessible.

The briefing did not include a formal vote. The committee’s next procedural steps were not specified at the close of the session; staff said they would provide outreach materials and could follow up with committee members who requested templates for constituent newsletters.