Maui County officials unveil Align HR project to modernize hiring and personnel rules

Chair Keani Rollins Fernandez convened the meeting to hear a presentation on "Align HR," a countywide project to review personnel rules, HR practices and a strategic implementation roadmap. The county identified the work as a nonlegislative presentation (a 7b item) that would be followed by public comment and council discussion.

Cynthia Razzle Porter, director of the Department of Personnel Services, said Maui County has grown substantially and faces new workforce pressures after the 2023 wildfires. "From 2010, the county's budget was $736,000,000. In 2020, it was $870,000,000. Today, it's $1,600,000,000," Porter said, using those figures to underline the need to update decades‑old HR rules and processes. She said onboarding and retention challenges and the complexity of current rules motivated the Align HR effort.

Consultant GuideHouse introduced a multi‑member team and framed the project in the context of nationwide public‑sector HR trends. "Align HR provides an opportunity to address these challenges holistically by modernizing rules and policies, evaluating current HR structures and processes, and creating a strategic roadmap for implementation," GuideHouse director Matt Petrovsky said. The firm described two parallel workstreams: one focused on rules, policies and procedures; the other on HR practices, organization and service delivery. GuideHouse said organizational change management and training would be integrated throughout the lifecycle, with year‑two emphasis on implementation and staff training.

Why it matters: Council members stressed that hiring and retention problems affect service delivery and departmental capacity across Maui County. GuideHouse and county staff said Align HR will produce practical, implementation‑ready recommendations, but several members also pressed that some solutions (for example, bargaining‑unit changes) will require state or multi‑jurisdictional coordination.

What's next: GuideHouse reported preliminary progress—10 interviews and eight working sessions to date—and said it will continue stakeholder interviews and draft recommendations. The project team plans to return with updates as workstreams advance and before the next budget cycle.