The state Legislature has approved a $3.6-billion supplemental budget that includes $20 million for highway and road improvements, design plans for a new jail on Kaua‘i, a new cafeteria for Kilauea School, and a new administrative building at Kaua‘i Community
The state Legislature has approved a $3.6-billion supplemental budget that includes $20 million for highway and road improvements, design plans for a new jail on Kaua‘i, a new cafeteria for Kilauea School, and a new administrative building at Kaua‘i Community College.
The House of Representatives and Senate approved the bill on April 15, and have forwarded the legislation to Gov. Linda Lingle for action. Lingle has until April 30 to approve or veto the funding bill.
State Sen. Gary Hooser, D-Kaua‘i-Ni‘ihau, said all of the Kaua‘i legislators reviewed the funding proposals, and support them.
They include state Reps. Hermina Morita, D-North Kaua‘i; Ezra Kanoho, D-East and South Kaua‘i; and Bertha C. Kawakami, D-West Kaua‘i-Ni‘ihau.
“It means a lot of different things to different people,” Hooser said of the Kaua‘i projects in the funding measure.
“It means Kilauea School gets a cafeteria that they (administrators, teachers, students and parents) have been waiting for a long time. It could mean lower rates for people who use the Performing Arts Center (where a new air-conditioning system is planned).”
Lingle’s approval of the budget, and subsequent release of the funds, could aid mentally challenged folks on Kaua‘i through a provision funding dental care for patients at Friendship House (a psychiatric rehabilitation program in Kapa‘a), Hooser said.
The funding bill approved contains:
- $2.1 million for equipment and construction of a new cafeteria at Kilauea School. The state Legislature appropriated $250,000 in design funds last year, and now the construction funds could be available. “She (Lingle) just has to release the design money, and we can move forward on it,” Hooser said;
- $250,000 for the design of a new library at Kapa‘a Elementary School;
- $1.7 million for the expansion of the Hanapepe Public Library;
- $10 million to build a “one-stop center” at Kaua‘i Community College. Administrative-service divisions are currently located in two to three buildings on the campus, and they would be consolidated into the new building, opening the way for better management of college operations, said Hooser;
- $350,000 for an air-conditioning system at the KCC Performing Arts Center;
- $50,000 for the operation and maintenance of an irrigation system in East Kaua‘i to benefit farmers and ranchers, strengthening efforts to preserve the agricultural industry on Kaua‘i;
- $560,000 in bonds for a residential treatment facility for island youths with drinking and drug problems. Currently, youths with those problems are treated at facilities on O‘ahu or on the Mainland;
- $475,000 to plan and design a new Kauai Community Correctional Center. The current facility in Wailua is old and overcrowded, and needs replacement, Hooser said;
- $200,000 to the Kaua‘i Community Health Center, including $50,000 for dental services at Friendship House. “It is important for them (clients at Friendship House). They have been waiting for this for years,” Hooser said. “It was one of my priorities, and I am happy to have been able to secure the funds;”
- More than $27 million to 12 rural state hospitals managed by the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, which includes Mahelona Medical Center and Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital at the West Kauai Medical Center in Waimea. Of that $27 million, $338,000 is proposed for renovations of bathrooms at Mahelona Hospital;
- $10,000 to fund a veteran’s newsletter;
- $150,000 to renovate the tropical-fruit disinfestation facility by the Lihu‘e Airport, a treatment center for the export of island-grown papayas and other fruits;
- $3.1 million for various highway- and road-improvement projects on Kaua‘i;
- $850,000 to replace pumps at a sewage-treatment system in Lihu‘e to ensure effluent or sewage doesn’t leak out of the system and flow into streams leading to Kalapaki Bay. The funds, if released by Lingle, would also be used for the design of a new sewage-treatment system in Waimea, opening the way for the development of more homes and commercial projects, Hooser said.
In determining what projects were to be funded in the $3.6-billion supplemental budget bill, state legislators attempted to “fairly distribute our state’s limited resources,” Morita said, adding, “it was a difficult process.”
Hooser said, “I am especially pleased we (Kaua‘i’s legislators) were able to secure the critical funding needed to support our education-reform measures and the very-important drug-treatment and community-health programs.”
Hooser praised other Kaua‘i legislators for their help in securing $20 million for island projects. “It is definitely a partnership with all the Kaua‘i legislators,” he said.
Kawakami said, “We want to reassure the public that we have been both responsive to the needs of our communities, and responsible in how we allocated limited state funds.”
Kanoho said, “Our continued success to serve the people of Kaua‘i is the result of excellent cohesiveness and cooperation of the Kaua‘i delegation.”
Staff Writer Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
