Stimulating a downtrodden state economy, balancing a two-year state budget with over $300 million less than expected in revenues, and getting a handle on where state Department of Education money is spent are 2002 session priorities for the Kaua’i delegation
Stimulating a downtrodden state economy, balancing a two-year state budget with over $300 million less than expected in revenues, and getting a handle on where state Department of Education money is spent are 2002 session priorities for the Kaua’i delegation to Legislature.
While the session officially convenes this morning, bills have been drafted and printed since last Friday.
“We’re not going to have money,” said Rep. Bertha Kawakami (D-14th District), vice chairwoman of the House Finance Committee which will wrangle with Governor Ben Cayetano’s proposed $7.2 billion fiscal biennium budget (covering July, 1, 2002 to June 30, 2004).
“First of all, we’ve got to balance the budget,” said Sen. Jonathan Chun (D-7th District), one of two Senate majority leaders.
Rep. Ezra Kanoho (D-13th District) said “everybody’s priority is coming out with a balanced budget.”
The economy tops the priority list of Sen. Avery Chumbley (D-6th District). Without a strong economy to bolster businesses and create jobs, there will be no funds to fix Kaua’i beaches and harbors, fund educational improvements, or for just about any other need, he said.
Rep. Mina Morita (D-12th District), chairwoman of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee, said pushing legislation in her committee will help the economy, because many of the bills she is advocating will promote economic development and help steady energy prices.
“All of my energy bills touch on economic stimulation, because you’re trying to stabilize energy prices and encourage economic development,” Morita said.
With the federal government making research money available for using hydrogen to produce electricity and run cars, supporting such research can open doors for economic development in Hawai’i, she added.
Kauai’s delegation agrees with legislative leaders of both houses that there likely isn’t enough support to back Cayetano’s plan to use $213 million in the state’s Hurricane Relief Fund to help balance the budget, or to pass any legislation allowing legalized gambling in the state.
But it will likely take a combination of ideas to balance the budget, said Chun, including a “mentality adjustment” in ways state government views special funds and state employee retirement funds, scrutinizing expenses, and generating additional money.
“Any idea by itself probably won’t do it,” said Chun, who is more worried about the second than the first year of the two-year budget.
Chumbley said he and many of his constituents on Maui and Kaua’i oppose gambling and raiding the hurricane fund as ways to boost the budget. He said he also opposes increasing the liquor tax, cutting state departmental budgets across the board by 1 percent and other budget-balancing ideas.
He prefers instead a “targeted approach,” looking at services the state may be able to do without either temporarily or permanently, while continuing to make priorities out of education and delivery of health and social services.
The tourism industry is not going to rapidly get better, Chumbley said.
It will be difficult to get money bills passed, said Kawakami, who is drafting legislation to get relief for the single person who is in charge of auditing the finances of the education department and its $1.45 billion budget for fiscal 2003.
The department is asking for an auditing staff of seven additional bodies, but that might not happen this session, Kawakami said. Still, the sole auditor does need help, if for no other reason than to give the Legislature clear information about the school system’s financial picture, she added.
Chun said his second priority after balancing the budget (without raising taxes, he insisted) is to address the long-term needs of the public schools, including better management of their finances. That deals with both the Felix consent decree regarding delivery of educational and health services to special-needs students.
“Unless we know how our money is spent, how can we do it wisely?” Chun asked.
Every year, the idea comes up that the way public education is delivered in Hawai’i isn’t the best way, and every year the Legislature talks about it, and every year nothing is done to change it, Chun bemoaned.
He said voters should decide the question of whether or not an elected, statewide Board of Education is best to oversee the scbools.
“Education is always big because it is so important,” Kanoho said.
Morita said the House Democrats’ package contains legislation proposing educational reform, looking at restructuring education department and the Board of Education, and empowering public-school complexes on each island.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
