Two steps backward, one step forward

We applaud Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s administration this week for ending the furlough program it unnecessarily implemented last year.

Kaua‘i needs one of the island’s largest employers — county government — to keep the vast majority of its workforce running at full throttle whenever possible, especially during financially challenging times when we need those extra dollars circulating in the local economy. We particularly need our police, firefighters, lifeguards and other essential safety personnel operating at full staff and full pay.

There was more than enough surplus in 2009 — and even more padding in 2010 — to maintain current operations without furloughing county workers or raising taxes and fees. And all this while keeping enough in the reserve for a rainy day.

Before the furlough was implemented last year, the most recent financial forecasts and accounting of revenues for the previous year indicated that the county would have an estimated unassigned reserve of some $28.26 million when it started its next fiscal year July 1. This represented some 29 percent of the county’s total revenue; conservative accounting practices recommend keeping 17 percent.

By utilizing this 12 percent cushion council members stowed away over the previous few years — mostly by padding the budget with positions department heads have no intention of filling that year — the county could have skipped furloughing most its workforce two days per month.

But as it turned out, the county decided to furlough its workers. When last fiscal year ended, the surplus soared 31 percent to $43.1 million. After putting aside the necessary amount for a rainy day, the county actually overcharged its taxpayers.

But instead of giving us all a refund, we are watching county leaders restore the cuts made under the furlough program and scratching our heads as they simultaneously increase a host of fees for residents and add new high-paying positions.

On the surface, the furlough program could and should have been avoided. But it is hard to tell if there were any underlying reasons for implementing it because the county failed to communicate clearly and openly with its tax-paying constituents.

If some of the theories we heard through the coconut wireless last year were true, we can better appreciate where county officials were coming from but we still believe they erred in their decision. It would surely help voters — not to mention all the county workers who had to find ways to make ends meet while missing a big chunk of their paychecks — to have heard then, or at least now, some of the real reasons for implementing the furlough program.

We understand that Kaua‘i decided to furlough its employees, at least in part, so the county could maintain an appearance of suffering through these tough economic times to the same degree as the state and the other three counties. If not, the risk was the state taking away the counties’ share of the hotel-tax revenue, an estimated $12 million for Kaua’i.

Our elected officials decided to play politics rather than do the right thing for county workers and its highly taxed constituents.

This political game had the unfortunate effect of hitting real people in their pocketbooks during a time when Kaua‘i should have been patting itself on the back for prudent financial planning and comfortably weathering this financial tsunami.

The counties will likely lose their share of the transient accommodations tax sometime down the road anyway. So why not just take the safe bet?

Even if we need to tighten our county budget under this hypothetical, we hope the administration and council will ensure that key safety personnel are excluded from the equation.

We should have at least postponed for another year any furloughing of county employees. The benefits to those workers directly, and the subsequent trickle-down effects to the island as a whole, were more than enough motive to make these necessary budget changes.

But putting the past behind us, we are glad to see the county has at last decided to end its furlough program. We just wish it never took effect in the first place.