HILO — A decision on a whether there will be a special session of the state Legislature to consider a disaster relief funding appropriation, especially for Puna communities impacted by lava from Kilauea volcano’s lower East Rift Zone eruption, needs to be made soon, Hawaii County officials said.
Roy Takemoto, executive assistant to Mayor Harry Kim, said earlier this week he thinks a decision by legislative leaders on whether to recommend such a session “is imminent.”
Gov. David Ige has the authority to convene a special session. Also, the presiding officers of both houses are required to convene the Legislature in special session at the written request of two-thirds of the members of each chamber.
If a special session isn’t called, the county will have to wait until the 2019 regular legislative session to ask lawmakers for money to help Big Islanders recover — not only from lava, but from damaging floods brought on by torrential rainfall from Hurricane Lane.
Takemoto said that following a Sept. 5 meeting with state House leadership, the county scaled back its funding request for immediate needs through the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2019, as well as its second-tier priorities, which are for state-funded initiatives that don’t include federal funding.
He said House leadership asked the county “to recheck our priorities and make sure that they are high priorities. And, number two, to check with the governor’s office again and see how much of that they could fund.”
“When we took a closer look at the (top-level) priorities, we reduced that almost in half, to 6 (or) 7 million (dollars),” Takemoto said. “And when they took that number to the governor’s office, they said they could probably find the money to fund us. So that took it out of the immediate ask of the Legislature.
“Then, we took a closer look at the phase-two projects and … focused on what were really the higher priorities for phase two. When we did that, the number that would be a request to the state fell to about $140 million, which is kind of in line with what they approved for Kauai for just flood damage at $100 million last year.
“When we got it down to $140 million that seemed to be more of a reasonable ask.”
Takemoto said the county’s amended request “still preserves all the options we’re looking at for housing, but we definitely would be not as ambitious.”
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Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
