Public Safety · Labor · Hawaii
In March 2025, Maui County commissioned a professional compensation study for its directors. Every argument the consultants used to justify those raises applies equally — in most cases more forcefully — to the firefighters those same leaders chose not to treat the same way.
Hawaii's firefighters can work 53-hour weeks without earning a single dollar of overtime. The law that makes this possible is optional. And most people have never heard of it.
Hawaii's firefighter applicant pools are shrinking. The passing bar is dropping. The partners holding it all together go unnamed. And on International Firefighters' Day, counties across the state issued proclamations. Here's what they didn't say.
Police officers just won the largest pay increase in nearly two decades. Hawaii's firefighters received less than half that — with no step raises for four years. Both outcomes are now final. Here's what the numbers actually say.