The 2026 Hawai‘i legislative session is just over two months away, and officials throughout the state are vying to get their issues on the agenda.
The Hawai‘i State Association of Counties released last Thursday its 2026 legislative package, a list of 13 proposed bills and one resolution recommended either by specific county councils or HSAC as a whole.
The counties’ recommendations to the state Legislature can be split into a series of key issues:
Housing
Three bills within legislative package specifically target housing-related issues. The most pertinent to Honolulu, recommended by the Honolulu City Council in October, would repeal a state bill — Act 294 — passed only this year that prohibits counties from imposing stricter conditions on new housing development projects.
At October’s council meeting, Councilwoman Esther Kia‘āina said that bill “stripped the authority of the counties” to set greater controls on affordable housing projects, and that the council had requested that Gov. Josh Green veto the bill. She said the bill had been devised to support projects on Maui following the Lahaina fire, but felt it should not apply to O‘ahu.
Another housing proposal would similarly repeal a provision from a 2024 bill — Act 45 — that had increased the authorities of the counties in developing mixed-use housing developments. Act 45 allowed the counties to exercise equivalent powers to the Hawai‘i Housing Finance and Development Corporation to develop housing until mid-2028; the proposed measure, recommended by the whole of HSAC, would repeal that sunset date.
The third and final housing proposal would require the Hawai‘i Housing Finance and Development Corporation to set aside an unspecified percentage of units within any of its projects to state or county employees.
Health and Safety
The most prominent plank of HSAC’s health and safety platform would establish a pilot program allowing paramedics responding to drug overdose cases to administer the drug buprenorphine, which the bill states “can significantly reduce withdrawal symptoms” in overdose patients, citing a 2023 study in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine.
According to the Department of Defense’s Psychological Health Center of Excellence, the medication naloxone — better known under the brand name Narcan — can cause withdrawal symptoms when administered. By using buprenorphine, itself an opioid, in conjunction with Narcan, those symptoms can be alleviated.
The program, proposed by the whole of HSAC, would provide training for paramedics in the use of buprenorphine and would begin in only one unspecified county at first before potentially expanding to the whole state.
Another health proposal, the sole recommendation by Maui County, is a lengthy measure that would include Hawai‘i among the Psychology Interjurisdictional Compact — or PSYPACT — which allows licensed psychologists from other states within the compact to practice remotely across state lines.
Currently, Hawai‘i is one of only seven states in the U.S. not participating in PSYPACT.
HSAC and the Honolulu City Council both also recommended a bill repealing an existing law that supersedes all county laws governing tobacco products. Where state laws currently regulate the sale of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and the like, the proposed bill argues that “counties are uniquely positioned to quickly address the health habits of their communities,” and therefore recommends that the power to regulate tobacco sales remain with the counties.
Taxes
The list also includes several tax proposals. One of those, proposed by HSAC, would provide a temporary income tax credit to residents for the cost of upgrading or converting a residential cesspool.
The proposal suggests a credit of up to $10,000 per residence connected to the cesspool, although the total amount of credits awarded per year would be capped at $5 million. The program would last until the end of 2032.
According to the state Department of Health, there are still about 88,000 cesspools in the state — most of which are on Hawai‘i Island — and the state has a mandate to close all of them by 2050.
Hawai‘i County proposed two tax amendments. One would extend each county’s general excise tax surcharge until 2045 — currently most counties’ surcharges expire in 2030 — and would remove limits on how counties can spend the revenues from that surcharge.
The Big Island’s other tax proposal would increase the state conveyance tax in order to establish a “homeless services special fund.” The tax increase would establish several additional tax tiers for the sale of higher-value properties: at the highest end of the scale, the sale of a multifamily residential property valued at $100 million or more would incur 2% conveyance tax.
The homeless services fund would be used by the state Department of Human Services to develop housing projects and other programs to help the homeless around the state.
Miscellaneous
The final items on HSAC’s list of proposals are a grab-bag of various issues.
Two firearm-related bills are on the list, including one which would establish a statewide gun "buyback" program, and another that would fund public awareness campaigns regarding gun violence protective orders, which allows a court to temporarily prohibit a person from accessing a firearm if that person is deemed a danger to themselves or others.
Another bill concerns paternity cases. As proposed, in paternity cases in which there are allegations of domestic abuse, the current requirement for mediation between the two parties would be exempted in order to protect abuse victims from further interactions with alleged abusers.
The final bill on the list would simply allocate more state money to the Water Pollution Control Revolving fund for the 2026-2027 fiscal year.
Meanwhile, the sole resolution on the list urges the Department of Education to allow public school recreational facilities to be accessible outside of school hours, with an appropriate application period.
The Honolulu City Council will discuss HSAC’s list at its meeting Wednesday.
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