An Insight on the Cost of Paradise
Hanabusa: Should DHHL be Treated as 'Tribal Land'?
WHT: Many of the parties whose land would be affected don’t feel they are getting that discussion, she said. Hanabusa said she is also investigating whether DHHL property should or could be treated the same way as tribal land in other parts of the country.
read ... Akaka Bill Back Door
Watch out as city politicos mull ‘revenue enhancers’
Borreca: This may be an off-election year, but the effects from last year's election are just starting to catch up with Oahu residents.
Last October, the Star-Advertiser reported that a new study predicted that 19 percent of Honolulu's general fund and highway funds would be needed for rail, the bus and Handi-Van.
That means Honolulu "would need to reduce the rate of growth in non-transit uses of these funds to less than the historical average."...
"(Mayor Kirk) Caldwell has warned the City Council that it will need to cut spending or raise either property taxes or bus fares to balance the city's $2.09 billion operating budget."...
"I said repeatedly during the campaign that the city would have to raise taxes but both Kirk and (former Mayor) Peter Carlisle denied it, saying everything was accounted for and there would be no need for raising taxes.
"So either the city increases revenues or cuts services, or does a combination of both. One did not have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out," Cayetano said in an email.
In a 2012 Honolulu Magazine interview, Caldwell said not to worry about increases in the city budget.
read ... Watch out as city politicos mull ‘revenue enhancers’
Abercrombie Budget Cuts: DoE Could Struggle to Pay Electric Bills
SA: The Department of Education says it's facing a $12 million budget shortfall during the next year under an imposed budget restriction that could undermine the school system's ability to pay for utilities, bus transportation, school lunches and substitute teachers.
Officials say the restriction is especially concerning in light of more than $7 million legislators already cut from the department's proposed operating budget.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie alerted state departments in a memo last week that the state will continue to withhold 5 percent of discretionary spending from all departments for the fiscal year that began Monday....
Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi described the 5 percent restriction as "quite significant" at Tuesday's Board of Education meeting, where board members first learned of the projected $12 million cutback....
BOE Chairman Don Horner said the department's budgeting style is partly to blame for the wide-reaching impact the $12 million reduction could have.
"I think, bluntly, part of this challenge is our own doing in that we have all of these school-based items buried in this accounting matrix," Horner said at Tuesday's board meeting. "I mean, clearly, utility costs, food service, transportation, substitute teachers are not part of (DOE) administration; they're part of school expenses. So when people try to protect the schools and reduce the administration, it impacts schools."
The latest budget scramble comes just weeks after the department decided to shift funds around to make up the $7 million lawmakers trimmed for school accreditations, auditing staff and a phased plan to provide all students with laptop computers, among other initiatives....
read ... Accounting Matrix
Feds Re-Open Public Comment on Grab for 19,000 Acres
AP: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it is reopening public comment on a plan to designate nearly 19,000 acres of land on the Big Island as critical habitat for three plant species.
Nearly two-thirds of the land is owned by the state of Hawaii. The proposal includes designating more than 2,800 acres associated with Kamehameha Schools, plus 87 acres associated with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
The agency says the plants are threatened by urban development and non-native plants, feral pigs, sheep and goats.
The agency said Tuesday it plans to hear public comments until Sept. 3 on a proposal that includes listing 15 species as endangered. It will also hold an informational meeting Aug. 7 in Kailua-Kona.
U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa said in a statement that there are still unanswered questions about the plan.
read ... Federal Land Grab
SHPD: Last chance to dig out of hole
SA: Hawaii's State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) was warned more than a decade ago that mismanagement had created a risk in losing federal grants, but little has been done in all that time to correct the problems. Failure to take firm steps before and after Pua Aiu was named administrator of the division five years ago has increased the risk, and her resignation this week was necessary.
William Aila, director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which includes the preservation division, on Tuesday announced Aiu's resignation. In a critical report last week, the National Park Service found that Aiu "has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding" of the office's budget, basic hiring procedures and staff time and attendance.
Those problems did not begin with Aiu in charge, but they must end. The state auditor issued a report in 2002 of mismanagement of the agency that could result in risk for matching grants that the Park Service now estimates at more than $1.1 million a year. In 2004 and 2007, the U.S. Department of Interior's inspector general found that the state agency had neglected to correct the problems.
A year after Aiu took the job in 2008, a federal team of historic preservation professionals found that "significant operational problems" with activities required by Interior remained at the Hawaii preservation agency.
read ... Hole
Salary Plus Pension? Hawaii Congressional Reps Are Double-Dipping
CB: The $174,000 a year members of Congress get seems like a decent salary. But many, including three members of Hawaii’s delegation, are doing even better. They're able to supplement their income with thousands more in in state pension benefits.
Take Sen. Mazie Hirono. According to financial disclosure records she filed in May, Hirono, after holding several positions in state government, received $46,556 last year from the Employment Retirement System of the State of Hawaii.
Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who also served in the Legislature, reported receiving $22,158 in Hawaii public pension benefits. Sen. Brian Schatz is also collecting a pension from his time in state government, most recently as lieutenant governor, his spokeswoman said. She did not say how much Schatz is receiving.
read ... It goes to the Top
CEO of Hawai‘iGas works to bring liquefied natural gas to isles
SA: "...bringing (liquefied natural gas) now is going to allow everyone to save money, now,” said Alicia Moy, president and chief executive officer for Hawai‘iGas....
With the Tesoro announcement of Par as a buyer, for us, given that we've been a customer for a long time for our naphtha supply, we had been working with Tesoro through the transition and not sure what they were going to be, they were converting to a terminal. With the new buyer, we understand they want to restart it as a refinery, which means they'll have naphtha.
We found out about the announcement along with everybody else, so we're looking forward to meeting with them soon to hear about what their plans are, in terms of how they're going to operate the refinery. We need to figure out what our long-term situation is.
If anything, I don't necessarily say it ramped up our plans with liquefied natural gas, because we were already working through ways to diversify our supplies so we're not as dependent on it. So we've been continuing with our efforts through this whole period. And with me coming on board, we've basically been revisiting our plans … refocusing the team and aligning behind that, and driving to really execute on our plans for LNG....
working on our what our contingency plans are, what happens if one or both of our refineries shut down, because they were both talking about it a lot. What's our strategy here if we don't have any more naphtha?
LNG was brought up in the meeting. I remember everyone saying, 'Wow, this is where the costs are; now, with LNG, this can actually be feasible.'
read ... LNG Future
Is Hawaii's Interisland Cable Plan Dead?
CB: Hawaiian Electric Co. says it is years ahead of schedule in meeting renewable energy goals. And it won't have to rely on controversial interisland cables to bring power from the neighbor islands to Oahu, the company says.
A major component of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative has been to connect the electric grids of Oahu, Maui County and maybe even the Big Island via undersea cables. That plan was put in place in 2008 in an agreement between the state and HECO and requires the company to produce 40 percent of its power through renewable sources by 2030.
Utility executives and policymakers viewed Oahu, which contains 75 percent of the state's population, as energy hungry and resource poor. Tapping neighbor island resources for Oahu was said to be critical to meeting clean energy goals.
But a new report that details the utility's five-year energy plans for Oahu, the Big Island and Maui County says that Oahu can meet its renewable energy requirements on its own.
read ... Dead in the Water?
HPD delayed disgraced major's promotion because of extortion rumors
HNN: Police sources told Hawaii News Now that years ago, long before the early 2011 indictment, there were rumors at HPD that Nishimura was accepting bribes from gambling operators.
At the time, Nishimura was up for a promotion from captain to major. He was the executive officer in charge of HPD's Information Technology Division.
Former Police Chief Boisse Correa delayed Nishimura's promotion twice for months and months, while HPD internal affairs detectives investigated Nishimura, sources said.
But they were unable to come up with strong evidence that Nishimura was doing anything wrong, sources said.
A source said Correa then contacted federal authorities to ask them if they had anything credible about illegal behavior by Nishimura.
Their answer: other than hearsay, they had nothing they could prove, a source said.
So HPD promoted Nishimura to major in the fall of 2007. Correa retired from HPD in August 2009.
Shortly after that promotion, sources said law enforcement developed information that he was involved in illegal gambling.
The federal indictment claimed the extortion happened between April 2004 and March 2006 when Nishimura was a captain in the urban Honolulu district, which covers downtown and Chinatown.
read ... HPD delayed disgraced major's promotion
Hawaii Co Bus Fares Doubled
WHT: Hawaii County Council members voted last month to double bus fares and care registration and vehicle weight taxes. The bus fare hikes are expected to raise an additional $617,500, while the vehicle registration and weight fees will raise about $2.8 million annually.
Kai reported to council members last month that it costs $5.87 per passenger to run the county public transportation system. That number was expected to spike to about $7 per passenger in the budget that began Monday because of added costs to run the bus system, she said.
read ... Doubled
Telescope running out of money
WHT: The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is looking internationally for help after a prime chunk of funding runs out in September 2014. The University of Hawaii’s Joint Astronomy Centre, which manages the 13 telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea, issued a prospectus last week seeking nearly $5 million a year to keep the British-funded astronomy research facility open.
Steep funding cuts for scientific research by Great Britain are having that kind of an impact on Hawaii Island. The JCMT is owned by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the funding agency for astronomy in the United Kingdom. With a 15-meter diameter, the JCMT is the largest astronomical telescope in the world designed specifically to operate in the submillimeter wavelength region of the spectrum, according to the telescope’s Web site.
read ... Telescope
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