More than 230 bills are going before the full Legislature on Wednesday for a final vote. I looked at all of them to find out where the state wants to spend more money. What you see here aren’t even the massive budget bills, that run for hundreds of pages, where other increases surely lurk. These are just the 32 new ideas that had their own legislation this session, which will add to the state’s spending if passed this week.
Combined, they add up to nearly $214 million to the state's $10 billion operating budget covered by the general fund (the total budget is more than $20 billion, including federal spending via the state). If all 32 pass, they'd take the equivalent of $288 from each of Hawai‘i's roughly 743,000 tax filers.
Most of these bills appropriate the money from the general fund, unless otherwise noted, meaning they have to come out of your paycheck or the GET you pay on every purchase. And the context here is that the session began in a panic over the budget following the Trump administration’s cuts to certain programs. There wasn’t a dime to spare, we were told, and the recently promised tax cuts were no longer possible.
While the Legislature seems poised to preserve some of those cuts, nevertheless, the message was one of freaked-out austerity.
From largest to smallest, here are the year’s spending bills with a side of commentary. You may love or hate these bills; either way, you have until Wednesday to nudge your legislators on these bills, to vote for them or against them.
Links go to the final draft of each bill.
$95.8 million in hazardous duty pay for unionized state workers who totally got to keep their jobs and weren’t shut down like the rest of us during the Covid-19 lockdowns. In fact, they work for the entity that shut us all down. The state can’t afford tax cuts, but can afford to pay extra money for its own employees. And this is on top of the $600 million that the state has already paid its workers in hazardous duty pay related to Covid in recent years.
$49.5 million out of the stadium development special fund for, well, a lot of things, it’s a lengthy bill, but in brief, for infrastructure improvements to the stadium area to make possible the larger redevelopment beyond just building the stadium itself. I’m including this because of its size and the nice-to-have versus need-to-have nature of the stadium project.
$30.7 million to replace money that used to come from the federal government for SNAP and health insurance. You might recall that these cuts were the reason Gov. Josh Green hit the panic button on the budget and suddenly tax cuts for us had to go, and yet, this is hardly the biggest expense of the Legislative session.
$10 million to subsidize the University of Hawai‘i’s Name, Image, Likeness program for student athletes. Of this $10 million, the bill says the Legislature will appropriate to $2.5 million while UH is required to take $4 million out of its tuition and fees special fund and raise another $5 million through gifts, grants and donations.
Look, we like UH sports. We cover UH sports because we know you like UH sports. Heck, we even pay a lot of money to advertise ASD at UH games in a variety of sports. We do so voluntarily. That said, I do not care for UH leaning on the Legislature to steal a buck from every man, woman and child in the state of Hawai‘i just because it can’t get enough money out of donors and alumni to compete with the money student athletes can make at Mainland universities through NIL deals. The Legislature should have told UH to try harder. This is not a core function of government, and while I know it means a lot to some student athletes, UH sports are a form of entertainment enjoyed by only some of the state’s taxpayers. I’d say the same for the proposed subsidy for the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra, but that bill seems to have died.
$4.2 million more in hazardous duty pay for still more unionized state workers who faced no more risk than anyone else in Hawai‘i.
$3 million to create a state construction manager pilot program for Department of Education schools located in Neighbor Island counties, includes one new manager and five staffers.
$3 million to “establish a Hanai memory network program … to support individuals with dementia and their caregivers.”
$2.37 million to buy one patrol boat and 20 patrol vehicles for the Hawai‘i Island conservation enforcement division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
$2.26 million to increase the amount of money made available to candidates running for office through Hawai‘i's partial public financing program. The amount hasn’t been increased since 1995 and wasn’t pegged to inflation so this spending is to catch up on the buying power of the funds. The bill still neglects to tie the funding to inflation, however, so legislators will have to fix this again in the future.
$2.2 million to hire state government fire marshals and fund their operations to inspect state government buildings, work that used to be done by county fire departments. Also establishes a State Fire Code to supersede all county fire codes, in which case, how many fire departments and fire codes in how many governments do we need anymore?
$2 million to create and launch a KupunAloha pilot program “to provide in-home health care and support services for individuals who do not qualify for existing government programs and cannot otherwise afford these services.”
$2 million, max, per year, plus $55,200 per year for an administrator, to create and manage a pilot project that would reimburse Hawai‘i ranchers and farmers for transportation costs.
$1.8 million to develop and implement a program offering taxpayer-funded colorectal cancer screenings and treatment, including hiring a manager for the program.
$1 million to help Leeward O‘ahu care homes improve their facilities to better withstand disasters.
$684,385 to raise the pay for jury duty from $30 per day to $50. What’s this? A raise … for us? Sign me up! Clearly, I’m very judgy.
$625,000 to add Hilo’s Banyan Drive area to the Hawai‘i Community Development Authority list of regions to redevelop. Includes money for administration and one staffer. Crazy idea, but what if … just suppose … the state got out of the Banyan Drive business entirely, sold the land, and let the private sector do its thing?
$500,000 for the state to develop a program to pay off people’s medical debts.
$375,000 for three positions in the UH system to help create more multilingual translators in Hawai‘i.
$375,000 to establish a bachelor’s degree program in agricultural science at the University of Hawai‘i-West O‘ahu campus, including hiring an administrator.
$300,000 to create an Office of Community Culture, Arts and Innovation within DBEDT as a “sister entity to the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.” Pays for one executive director and one staffer to literally just write reports. Remember, folks, you can’t make art or innovate unless the government helps you!
$300,000 to create an office that certifies community behavioral health clinics and hire its executive director.
$300,000 to create and fund the Hawai‘i Braille Literacy Education Act. There are about 170 kids in K-12 public schools in need of Braille instruction, but only 10% of them have this service in their special education programs. No critique here other than surprise.
$203,750 to create and fill a full-time program management position for the cesspool conversion revolving loan fund. Hawai‘i’s cesspool problem is truly its biggest environmental disaster, and one we can actually solve, unlike climate change. Every penny of the new Green Fee on tourism ought to go toward getting rid of these things as a public health menace, if you ask me. So my critique here may surprise you — we aren’t spending enough on closing cesspools.
$200,000 for the state hire an outside contractor to train child welfare services staff on domestic violence issues.
$200,000 to develop a pilot program requiring each county, “to establish a summer streets pilot program that temporarily closes vehicular traffic and repurposes roads for pedestrian and cyclist use, outdoor events, temporary installations, and other community-driven activities.” I mean, we have perfectly good parks, parks equipped with parking lots, where these activities could happen. But let’s instead make taxpayers pay for temporary traffic jams to teach them a lesson about the good life they could have if they just walked everywhere.
$150,000 to establish a commission to figure out which public schools the state will need to close or consolidate in face of declining enrollment. “Projections from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education indicate that Hawai‘i is expected to experience the nation's steepest decline in high school graduates over the next 16 years, with enrollment decreases likely to accelerate,” the bill notes. Can you say, middle-class flight?
$100,000 to commission a University of Hawai‘i study into how to pay for the growing long-term care needs of Hawai‘i expanding senior population.
$100,000 for the state Health Planning and Development Agency to “develop a comprehensive state plan on hearing loss focused on improving access, affordability, awareness, and early detection of hearing loss in collaboration with community stakeholders, relevant advisory boards, and state agencies.”
$100,000 to hire a disability integration specialist to make sure the state’s disaster planning includes the needs of people with various disabilities. This position satisfies a new demand on the states by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
$90,000 for the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to create a program that would raise awareness among business owners about how dementia might be impacting their employees and customers.
$50,000 for the Department of Education to “establish a two-year student-authored book publication pilot program in which students research, write, and publish original works” in Kalihi, Nānākuli and Wai‘anae elementary schools. This sounds terrific, and so obviously good that my question is — why does this require a law? The DOE has an annual budget of more than $2 billion dollars. Is it completely incapable of figuring out how to get a mere $50,000 into a new program without lawmakers telling them to do so?
$50,000 to be paid to the City & County of Honolulu for feral chicken eradication. What can I say here that would be funnier than that?
A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.
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A. Kam Napier can be reached at kam@alohastatedaily.com.
