HART requests $1B appropriation from state

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation is seeking a $1 billion appropriation from state funds for the city’s rail project.

The rail agency has petitioned the state Department of Budget and Finance to appropriate that sizable sum for the agency’s next two budget cycles.

The $1 billion would come from the mass transit special fund, created under a 2017 state law known as Act 1.

According to the legislation, in 2005 Honolulu adopted an ordinance to establish a one-half of 1% surcharge on state tax, “for that surcharge to be levied, assessed, and collected beginning on Jan. 1, 2007, to fund a rail transportation project.”

The state law allows the city and county to receive local tax revenue through 2031 — the deadline to finish HART’s nearly $10 billion rail line to Kakaako.

During a recent HART board of directors special meeting, the panel approved a formal letter signed by board Chair Colleen Hanabusa to petition the state Department of Budget and Finance for the appropriation.

At the Sept. 25 meeting, board member Robert Yu summed up HART’s written request.

“Really, this letter is to increase the appropriation out of the mass transit special fund for fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2027,” he said. “And the purpose is to ensure that HART will receive all the (general excise tax) and (transient accommodations tax) collected on behalf of HART by the Department of Taxation, (and) that we receive all of that money that we are eligible to receive.”

Yu added “the appropriation will be actually $1 billion.”

Hanabusa said the reason for calling the special meeting, and drafting a letter to the state, was because “technically, we’re already late.”

“It should have gone into the request of the (budget and finance) to the governor,” she added. “We have to now kind of catch up, but they were willing to do this for us, so we have to get this to them as soon as possible.”

According to the board’s Sept. 25 letter, the amount of GET and TAT surcharges “HART is eligible to receive is limited to the amount deposited in the (mass transit special fund) subject to the audit and certification provisions of Act 1.”

“This appropriation request eliminates the need for emergency appropriation requests for fiscal years 2026 and 2027,” the letter states. “(Emergency appropriations) were necessary in fiscal year 2024 and again in fiscal year 2025 because GET and TAT surcharge collections were higher than the amount appropriated out of the (mass transit special fund).”

According to Yu, the board’s adopted letter to the state was to be delivered immediately.

Meanwhile, HART must submit its annual operating and capital budgets to the city administration for fiscal year 2026 by Dec. 1.

During a preliminary budget review last month, the rail agency noted increases to debt service on the project’s loans as well as increased labor costs for Skyline’s construction.

According to HART, 2025’s total operating budget will rise to $175 million — an increase of $36.6 million, or 26.5%, over the rail agency’s current $138.3 million spending plan.

HART’s main funding sources — local taxes and federal funding — total $1.2 billion for fiscal year 2026, budget plans indicate.

Next year’s federal funding sources total $125 million, or about 10.2% of the project’s funding budget, compared to over $491.2 million, or about 40%, derived from local taxes, according to HART.

In related business, Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s latest voting member to the panel made his first appearance at the Sept. 25 meeting.

Christopher Moylan, a teacher at ‘Iolani School, comes to the board with a varied background in politics and academia and a history with transportation projects in California.

A former two-term City Council member in Sunnyvale, Calif., Moylan was also an appointee to various transit-related panels in the San Francisco Bay Area.

He holds a degree in chemistry from Princeton University and a doctorate in physical chemistry from Stanford University.

A Manoa resident, he currently serves as a member of the Manoa Neighborhood Board.

“Mayor Blangiardi appointed Dr. Moylan due to his extensive experience in state and federal government, including expertise in transportation, land use and technology,” Scott Humber, the mayor’s communications director, told the Honolulu Star-­Advertiser.

In a written statement, HART Executive Director and CEO Lori Kahikina welcomed the mayoral appointee.

“I look forward to working with board member Moylan in this new capacity,” she said.

Blangiardi filled this board vacancy following the resignation of Michele Chun Brunngraber in August.

Appointed on Sept. 18, Moylan’s term on the HART board runs through June 30, 2029, Humber said.