City budget
panel can’t find
enough cuts

The committee favors adjusting
property tax rates and charging
a garbage disposal fee but
still comes up short

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Maintaining tax revenues, increasing bus fares and charging a fee for garbage disposal has been recommended by about 50 of the island's top business leaders.

But the suggestions from Mayor Jeremy Harris' blue-ribbon budget advisory committee failed to find enough cuts in services and increases in revenue to rid City Hall of a projected $130 million shortfall.

Harris, at the conclusion of a three-hour committee meeting yesterday, said the monthlong efforts of the task force show that his administration has done what it can to cut services and needs state help to balance the budget.

"What we've learned so far is what the departments have learned," Harris told the group. "In the long run, we need to get the Legislature to make changes."

One key change Harris wants is getting a share of fines and forfeitures, which the counties enforce but the state collects. Harris and other mayors have lobbied the case unsuccessfully for years.

While the city argues at the Legislature for more funding, task force members have been asked to spend another month looking for ways to help the city raise revenues, reduce waste and increase efficiency.

Harris emphasized at the end of the meeting that while the suggestions made to date will be seriously considered, none are guaranteed to make it to his budget submittal to the City Council, due March 15.

Among the key recommendations:

Keep tax revenues for the city the same in the face of falling property values by adjusting rates. The property tax review subgroup estimates $28 million in revenues recovered by doing so.

The same group also proposed eliminating senior citizen home exemptions for those 55 to 59 and reducing the amount of exemptions for other seniors. Those recommendations, however, wouldn't be allowed to take effect until next year.

Charge a refuse collection fee of $1.25 per pickup and move to a once-weekly service. The environmental services subgroup said that would bring in about $20 million in fees.

Increase user fees for riding TheBus, playing at city golf courses and other city services.

Bus riders currently pay $1 a ride or $25 a month. The median fee on the mainland is $1.25 and $41 for a monthly pass, according to the transportation subgroup.