• Legislators’ $100 million for Kaua‘i could have been boosted Legislators’ $100 million for Kaua‘i could have been boosted Capital improvement projects and other items earmarked for Kaua‘i improvements total over $100 million in the new state budget. We’re slated
• Legislators’ $100 million for Kaua‘i could have been boosted
Legislators’ $100 million for Kaua‘i could have been boosted
Capital improvement projects and other items earmarked for Kaua‘i improvements total over $100 million in the new state budget.
We’re slated now to see highway improvements, more school buildings, a plan for the state’s expansion of its park at Ha‘ena, a homeless shelter and other items.
The legislators gathered at the State Capitol also decided to boost the state’s conveyance tax, aiming at having mostly high-end buyers of Hawai‘i real estate pay additional tax dollars when they take possession of a property. The funds will go to rental housing, improving watershed areas and other areas of spending.
Also coming out of the legislative session for 2005 is a potential 12% boost of the excise tax on Kaua‘i. Honolulu’s Mayor Mufi Hannemann has already rolled out plans for a boost of the same size to the excise tax charged on O‘ahu purchases. However, on Kaua‘i the word on the street is that it would be political suicide for local officials to boost Kaua‘i’s excise tax bite to pay for mass transit projects for the Island. We shall see. In a recent report published in The Garden Island, we found across-the-board that no one wanted to boost the excise tax here. Again, we shall see six months from now.
A long list of projects funded in the new state budget was published in Friday’s issue. Similar lists appear every year a new state budget is announced, and show that Kaua‘i is getting its fair share of funding in relation to Maui County and Hawai‘i County. The list is common to funding given to Kaua‘i in times of normal economic growth.
However, in this era of skyrocketing real estate prices, underemployement due to so many jobs being available and a booming economy the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Japanese “Bubble Economy” of the late 1980s, it would have been spectacular to see funding for quick fixes to our long-term highway congestion problems, to wipe out drug abuse for good, and even for something simple like a yearround lifeguard at Ke‘e Beach. These important items could have been funded by taxes collected from our flourishing economy.
Instead the surplus of cash flowing into state coffers has gone to pay raises for government workers unions. While the state workers do a good job and deserve pay raises, it is unlikely that most businesses in Hawai‘i would have rewarded their workers – even in this booming economy – to the levels the government union workers have been rewarded during this session of the Legislature.
This came about due to the reinstitution of binding arbitration for government unions in Hawai‘i. Former Gov. Ben Cayetano strongly opposed this, as is Gov. Linda Lingle today.
Lingle is calling for repeal of binding arbitration. If this change is made we may see some of our wish list funded the next time the Legislature beings allocating funding for projects on Kaua‘i.
