State Democratic House members hope to boost the number of high-end jobs by offering business tax credits for job creation. Democrats propose
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By Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.comUnder a proposed job-creation tax credit, Hawaii businesses that increase their staff members by 10 percent over a certain period and pay them a minimum of $39,000 annually would be eligible for a nonrefundable tax credit.
In the House majority legislative package, Democrats offered a bill for the tax credit, which would allow businesses to deduct 3 percent of a worker's salary, or up to $1,500 per worker. The tax credit has been tried successfully in Maryland, Ohio and Michigan, said Brian Schatz (D, Tantalus), House Economic Development Committee chairman.
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He said the tax credit would create at least a thousand new jobs.
"We know that our families and our friends are beating themselves up trying to make ends meet," he said. "The problem for a lot of us is not that there aren't sufficient jobs, it's that there aren't sufficient high-paying, high-quality jobs."
The proposal was among a half-dozen economic proposals pushed by the 36 House Democrats as part of their legislative package this session. With little money for anything new in the state's proposed 2003-2005 biennium budget, legislators focused on issues that they said can produce results.
"We know that the people of Hawaii want to see us very focused, they want us to work hard and they want us to bring results back to them," said Scott Saiki (D, Moiliili).
The majority is also pushing a campaign-finance reform bill that bans government contractors from making contributions to legislative or executive-branch candidates.
On the education front, the House Democrats said they want to allow schools to prioritize their repair and maintenance projects. And they want to give principals a discretionary fund of up to $5,000 to deal with their own schools' needs, said Roy Takumi (D, Pearl City), House education chairman.
While Gov. Linda Lingle has proposed decentralizing the school board into seven separate boards, the House Democrats want to create advisory boards for each of the state's 15 groupings of schools.
Takumi said the public will have an opportunity to comment on all of these options.
Democrats also have focused on the environment this year, and are asking for $25 million in general obligation bonds to install solar energy equipment in government buildings to cut costs.
House Environmental Chairwoman Mina Morita (D, Kauai) said the state spent more than $83 million on electricity last fiscal year, and this is one area where savings could be made.
