Every year, state agencies and departments are required to file reports prior to the opening of the annual legislative session on a myriad of topics.

You can find a list of all these reports. From the main capitol website, click on the link for “Reports and Lists,” and then search down the list to find “Reports to the Legislature.”

Here’s the problem.

Although it is described as a list of reports, it actually is a list of the letters of transmittal when the reports were submitted to the legislature. There are no links to the actual reports. The links take you to the list of Departmental Communications (DC), consisting of pdf versions of the transmittal letters. And these letters do contain links that get tantalizingly close to the reports themselves.

More problems.

First, I tried several times to copy the provided links and paste them into a browser. None of these attempts succeeded. All produced error messages.

And, second, many of these links–if typed in by hand–go to another long list of reports done by the agency for submission to the legislature.

So what appears at first glance to be a timesaving list of reports posted on the capitol website, turns out to be quite frustrating. You will undoubtedly find reports of interest, but getting to any one of them takes several additional steps.

I did eventually find an copy links to reports from certain agencies.

University of Hawaii

Department of Land and Natural Resources

Office of the Auditor

Dept. of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism

Board of Education

There’s plenty of reports here to dig into, depending on your interests.

Please share your experience, and any interesting tidbits that you come across.