Maui County’s volunteer boards are under fire after a months-long review found chronic mismanagement, missed meetings and muddled oversight that ripple through everything from homelessness policy to property tax appeals. The Cost of Government Commission says the problems are so widespread that minor fixes will not cut it and is calling for structural changes to how these panels are created, staffed and supported.
In a report released by the Maui County Cost of Government Commission, reviewers looked at 15 boards, committees and commissions. They traced recurring trouble spots to thin recruitment pipelines, fuzzy lines of departmental support and overlapping responsibilities. The commission said it began this boards-and-commissions study in October 2024 and used the same evaluation framework throughout, weighing legal mandates, how well each body fulfills its purpose, operational performance and risk.
“These are not problems that can be solved one board at a time,” Commission Chair Dino Goossens-Larsen told Aloha State Daily, underscoring the call for system-level fixes. Local coverage notes that the commission is pushing for more than paperwork tweaks. The review urges consolidated structures where appropriate, clearer staff support for panels and changes to how members are appointed.
What the report found
The county report pulls together 15 individual reviews and highlights a set of recurring themes. It points to lifecycle gaps that let defunct or ineffective panels linger, a hostile or opaque confirmation process that discourages applicants, and inconsistent administrative backup that leaves some boards unable to meet at all. The Cost of Government report labels the Commission on Healing Solutions for Homelessness as effectively non-functional, noting it transmitted only one formal recommendation in five years and had seven vacancies as of April 2026. By contrast, the Real Property Tax Review Board is described as overburdened, with a volunteer, five-member panel handling more than 1,000 appeals. The study recommends lifecycle rules, authority for alternate members and clearer alignment with departments in order to reduce risk and cost.
Boards the commission flagged
The review recommends eliminating or sharply restructuring several advisory bodies. Among the entities the commission singled out were the Affirmative Action Advisory Council, the Commission on Healing Solutions for Homelessness and the Urban Design Review Board, along with other panels that the report says should be evaluated for elimination or major reform. Aloha State Daily summarized the full list and the commission’s recommendation that the County Council consider dissolving or consolidating those panels where appropriate.
Quorums, cancellations and heavy workloads
The commission ties many of the failures to chronic vacancies and a confirmation process that can drag on for months, leaving boards without a quorum and meetings repeatedly canceled. That has concrete consequences. The Council on Aging met with quorum only twice in 2024 and only four times in 2025. The Commission on Healing Solutions for Homelessness has been largely unable to function. At the same time, the Real Property Tax Review Board faces a steady, high-volume docket that tests the limits of a small volunteer body.
State code establishes the board of review process and membership rules for tax appeals, which can put serious operational strain on a volunteer panel when caseloads spike. The codified rules on Municode require an appeals path and set membership parameters that are difficult to adjust quickly in response to rising workloads.
What comes next
The Cost of Government Commission has sent its findings to the mayor and County Council and recommended that Maui adopt a lifecycle and reauthorization framework. Under that model, new boards would need to be re-authorized after a set period and dormant ones could formally sunset instead of drifting along on paper. Some fixes, such as creating alternate positions, changing membership counts or reassigning certain duties, could be handled administratively. Others would require Council action and changes to county ordinances.
The report also points out that similar recommendations about some of these panels date back to 2010-2011, making the current push both a continuation of and an escalation from earlier governance debates.
Local fixes already under way
County officials have already rolled out smaller changes aimed at easing the logjam. In January, the administration launched a new online application platform designed to make it easier for residents to apply for board and commission seats, and recent ordinances now allow alternate members to step in and fill mid-term vacancies on an interim basis. Maui Now reported that the Granicus platform is intended to speed recruiting and add transparency to the process.
The commission’s review frames the issues as structural rather than cosmetic. Without clearer rules about why boards exist, who is responsible for supporting them and when they should end, Maui risks leaving important policy advice on the table and key functions understaffed. The County Council now has to decide which panels to keep, which to fold into departments or other boards and which to dissolve entirely, choices that will shape how residents weigh in on land use, homelessness policy and taxpayer appeals in the years ahead.
