NAWILIWILI —After several weeks of fine-tuning, the Kaua‘i County Council’s Committee of the Whole has nearly finished reviewing and modifying Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2012.
Despite Councilman Mel Rapozo saying the county is facing the “worst fiscal time” he has seen, he said the committee was set to act on the “most agressive-spending budget” ever at $185.97 million in operational expenses and $83.23 million in capital improvement projects.
Throughout the departmental review process, Rapozo said the council would have to look at making cuts in the budget. But when the council reached decision-making this week, he said it felt more like Christmas due to the way the budget was ballooning with requests for extra funding.
The committee will hold a special meeting at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday to vote on the entire budget. Then on May 25 there will be a public hearing followed by a special full-council meeting to vote on the budget for the last time before handing it to Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. for final approval.
Council Chair Jay Furfaro said the mayor has line-item veto power, meaning Carvalho does not have to approve the budget as a whole. The mayor can veto line items individually. However, a council super-majority (five of seven votes) overrides a veto.
Changes
On May 5 Carvalho sent the Committee of the Whole a modified version of the budget, referred to as a supplemental budget, in which he added, subtracted and changed certain line items. The committee convened on Monday and Tuesday to review and vote on this budget.
The committee finished this task around 10 p.m. Tuesday, 13 hours after the meeting started.
Some of the positions that were added to the budget include a council secretary position at $35,000, a Washington, D.C. lobbyist at $55,000, two deputy prosecutors at $202,134, a sustainability-green energy manager at $95,000 and a transportation planner at $35,000 for half a year.
The council on Tuesday also added to the final version of the budget $50,000 for the Kaua‘i Invasive Species Committee, $38,000 for Kaua‘i Independent Food Bank, $125,000 for the YWCA, $5,000 for the Kaua‘i Humane Society spay and neuter program, $435,000 for the Comprehensive Economic Development feasibility studies and other items.
A negotiation between workers’ unions and the state government also affected Kaua‘i’s budget. The workers’ unions include county employees, who will have to provide half their health fund contribution going forward.
Prior to that, the split was 60 to the employer and 40 percent to the employee. This is expected to save the county thousands of dollars.
The May 5 submittal added a reserve fund of $26.26 million to the operating budget. Finance Director Wally Rezentes Jr. said the figure was based on 22.5 percent of the current year’s actual operating expenditures.
The council’s proposal calls for contributing $23.39 million to this surplus.
The administration also plans to propose some tax bills to be evaluated by the council within the next 30 to 40 days, Rezentes said.
Councilman Tim Bynum said he will be proposing to bump up homeowners’ tax exemptions, which would “put tax dollars back into the pockets” of some 13,000 homeowners on Kaua‘i. He added that he will also propose to slightly raise tax rates for hotels and resorts.
Kaua‘i has the lowest hotel and resort tax rates in the state, at $7.90 per $1,000 net assessed values for buildings, and $6.90 per net assessed value for the land.
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@ thegardenisland.com.
