While for many of us March Madness consists of the struggle of collegiate basketball teams to win the NCAA tournament and become national champions, for the Kaua‘i County Council, it is the process beginning in March to develop a balanced
While for many of us March Madness consists of the struggle of collegiate basketball teams to win the NCAA tournament and become national champions, for the Kaua‘i County Council, it is the process beginning in March to develop a balanced budget for the forthcoming year.
The Kaua‘i County Charter provides that the mayor shall submit to the council by March 15 of each year a proposed operating and a proposed capital budget, and thus begins a procedure that is onerous, frustrating and at times comical.
The operating budget consumes typically the bulk of the council time. It contains the proposed expenses of the various county offices and departments, such as the police and fire departments, which are essentially non-revenue producing, and the county enterprise functions, which are expected to generate revenues to cover some or all of the operating costs.
The enterprise functions consist of the water department, which serves the great majority of the county, the sewage or waste water department, which serves about one-fourth of the county, the Wailua Municipal Golf Course, the solid waste disposal operation of the public works department and the Kaua‘i Bus system.
While in the past the mayor and the council have optimistically projected what they hope will be budgets for the water department, the golf course and the waste water disposal system that will equate income and expenses, normally their proposals have been in vain and an operating loss for these operations is reported.
In the case of the bus system, there has been no pretense that revenues would match costs. In fact, according to the mayor’s office in the current year, there has been a deficit of more than $5 million. These shortfalls, of course, are the burden of the taxpayers.
The council has recently adopted a Transportation Plan, which seeks to predict the course the county will take over the next 20-plus years. That plan proposes a trebling of the bus service over that period. Hopefully, that will not mean a trebling of its operating losses, but the plan is singularly vague about its financial impact.
The solid waste disposal program currently has financial results similar to that of the bus system despite the recent imposition of an $144 annual charge for residential property owners. The prospects for improvement of this large deficit are influenced by the completion of a new landfill for deposit of solid wastes. It will be interesting to observe our governmental officials wrestle with this continuing bugaboo in the forthcoming sessions.
On several occasions, the council chair has deferred council consideration of matters raised by concerned citizens advising they would be discussed in the budget process.
For example, recently the council approved $20,000 for special counsel to represent the mayor in the Police Commission lawsuit.
When asked by a citizen why the mayor could not be represented by the county attorney or a deputy to save burdening the taxpayer, the citizen was told the subject would be brought up at budget time. The county attorney offered a flimsy alibi that there would be a conflict of interest for his office to represent the mayor.
Since it was the advice given by the county attorney that the mayor relied on to take the action to discipline Police Chief Darryl Perry, it is hard to see why the county attorney has a conflict defending that advice.
And with about $1.5 million in salaries and benefits annually budgeted for the office, it is difficult to understand why special counsel must be routinely retained to represent the county and its officers.
More importantly, the county pays about $3 million each year for electric power to Kaua‘i Independent Utility Cooperative.
Yet, the county has remained consistently aloof about questioning KIUC concerning its service charges, which are among the highest in our country.
It even cold-shouldered a firm that proposed investing $100 million to provide an electric power source that would be less costly than the diesel-naptha now in use and would eliminate fossil fuel input. When asked by a citizen if the county would support an investigation into the use of liquid natural gas (LNG), which — after eliminating some technical hurdles — potentially would reduce the power bills of our residents and businesses and that of the county by about 25 percent, the council chair demurred saying it would be considered at the budget sessions.
Some initiative is needed here and we can wonder whether the council is able or willing to provide it. We should recognize that the council will be remembered for not only what it did, but also what it failed to do.
In some past years the council has simply rubber stamped the budget proposed by the mayor.
With the many issues suggested above together with the comprehensive review that should be the regular responsibility of the council, the budget sessions should be worthy of active public attention.
Our citizens should expect that the council will serve its constituents honorably by careful attention to its duties and the matters it has indicated would be examined.
• Walter Lewis is a resident of Princeville and writes a biweekly column for The Garden Island.
