CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
City worker Harold Chock repaired a pothole yesterday at Rycroft and Sheridan streets near Wal-Mart in Honolulu.
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$10M held back from fixing isle roads
Lingle legally cannot release funds for work on county streets
GOV. LINDA LINGLE says she cannot legally release $10 million in state funding for county roadwork -- including Honolulu's plans to resurface streets and patch potholes.
Lingle told the counties and the state Legislature this week that state law allows money from the State Highway Fund to be used only on state roads.
"It does not authorize the use of the State Highway Fund ... for the road systems of the counties," Lingle wrote.
The City and County of Honolulu was supposed to receive $4 million and each of the other three counties were slated to get $2 million.
Mayor Mufi Hannemann said he is disappointed with the news but noted it was too early to tell if a delay in the funding will curtail pothole patching and street resurfacing.
"Every little bit helps," Hannemann said. "We were really counting on this to accelerate some of the road repairs. We were counting on that because we just don't have enough money for the work that people want us to do."
According to a City Council resolution urging the governor to release the money, the city planned to use the funds to develop a road pavement maintenance program, purchase road-paving equipment, buy asphalt and resurface roads.
Other counties were also looking forward to the money.
Hawaii County Managing Director Dixie Kaetsu said Mayor Harry Kim's administration had been trying for several years to obtain state funding for so-called roads in limbo -- over which the state and county could not agree on ownership. The state mandated the county to take over the roads.
The county has been lobbying the Legislature for four years for funding to repair these roads and county officials were happy when the money was approved this past session.
"It's a disappointment because we were looking forward to beginning to address the need," Kaetsu said.
Kaetsu said the county has about 425 miles of these roads to repair and upkeep and many of them are in poor condition and are located mainly in rural parts of the island.
Maui County spokeswoman Ellen Pelissero said that not receiving the money won't affect the county's budget because the funds would have been surplus funding.
The county already has $2 million in its budget for road repairs, and if the state money had come through, the county had planned to switch that funding with the state funding and use the additional $2 million for other county needs.
"It was going to be helpful," Pelissero said.
Lingle said that when the Legislature approved the funding last session for the county road subsidies, it did so without changing the language in the law to allow for the money to be expended on county roads.
She said she will go back to the Legislature next session to rectify that.
"As part of my 2006 legislative package, I will be submitting a bill to permit the State Highway Fund to be able to expend the $10 million appropriated for the fiscal year 2005-2006 to assist the counties in their efforts to improve their roads," Lingle wrote.
Hannemann said he hopes that the Legislature will take up the issue at the start of the session so that the city will be able to use the money before it expires. "I hope they can address it early on," Hannemann said.
Lingle notified the counties and the Legislature after receiving a formal opinion from the state Attorney General's Office that said it wasn't legal to transfer the money.
Deputy Attorney General Randall S. Nishiyama's opinion said corrective legislation needs to be enacted before June 30, 2006, when the funding would expire.