LIHU’E – The state Legislature’s taking of $29 million from the hurricane relief fund to balance the state’s $7 billion, two-year budget may not have been a one-time-only raid, according to one Kaua’i legislator. State Rep. Ezra Kanoho, D-Waipouli-Lihu’e-Puhi, said
LIHU’E – The state Legislature’s taking of $29 million from the hurricane relief fund to balance the state’s $7 billion, two-year budget may not have been a one-time-only raid, according to one Kaua’i legislator.
State Rep. Ezra Kanoho, D-Waipouli-Lihu’e-Puhi, said at a forum at the Historic County Building council chambers Tuesday night that the fund may be the subject of more withdrawal symptoms if legislators feel the need to raid it to balance future state budgets.
The $29 million helps to make up for an estimated shortfall of around $314 million in state revenues for the next two years in a budget that was projected and budgeted for before the events on and after Sept. 11.
Legislators also dipped into many of the state’s 107 special funds, and a “rainy-day fund,” and made substantial cuts to virtually every department in state government, to come up with a balanced budget, said state Sen. Jonathan Chun, D-East Kaua’i-South Kaua’i-West Kaua’i-Ni’ihau.
The special funds provided nearly half of the expected budgetary shortfall, or around $140 million, leaving around $80 million left in those various funds. Another $83 million in cuts were made to various state departmental budgets, Chun explained.
Enough was left in the various special funds, and the hurricane relief fund, to provide funds for emergency purposes if necessary, Chun said.
Even though the vice chairman of the House Finance Committee called the recently completed session “one of the leanest” she can remember during her House tenure, state Rep. Bertha Kawakami, D-South Kaua’i-West Kaua’i-Ni’ihau said much was accomplished, particularly in the area of funding for education.
Of the state’s two-year, $7 billion budget, a full 31 percent, or over $2 billion, was appropriated for lower education.
Also, priority areas of balancing the budget (as required by state law), providing economic stimulation through state construction and other projects, protecting the needs of poor, needy and disabled residents (something Gov. Ben Cayetano demanded by threat of a budget veto if such provisions weren’t included), reforming campaign financing, and other matters were completed during the 2002 session, Kawakami continued.
Failure to reform educational governance by way of establishing local boards of education is something Kawakami and others regret, but millions of dollars for school repair and maintenance, and streamlining of bidding and other procedures, should mean more money flowing faster to schools for badly needed repairs, she said.
Most schools are in compliance with a federal-court order mandating improved educational services to students with disabilities, and to ensure what she called a “continuum of care” for those students throughout their public-school careers, the state Legislature appropriated $221 million, Kawakami explained.
The total of over $621 million for compliance with the Felix Consent Decree represents nearly 9 percent of the total state budget for the next two years, with only lower education, social services ($1.09 billion, or 15.6 percent of the state budget) and higher education ($864 million, or 12.3 percent) getting more general-fund attention.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
