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Cayetano cuts
operating, capital
improvement budgets
The operating plan is pared
more than 0.1% and capital
improvements by nearly 5%School projects get the budget ax
rBy Bruce Dunford
Associated PressGov. Ben Cayetano has used his line-item veto to slice more than 0.1 percent from the state's $3.1 billion operating budget and nearly 5 percent from the $712.5 million capital improvements budget for the fiscal year that begins Saturday.
The biggest cut in the operating budget came with the deletion of $3 million that lawmakers added to the Department of Education's school priority fund. That leaves the fund at the $7.6 million approved in the two-year budget approved last year.
"The fund can be maintained at the present appropriation level," Cayetano said. "I believe the additional moneys should be used for higher priority needs."
He cut $100,000 grants each to the Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce, the Hawaiian Chinese Multicultural Museum and the Hawaii Community Service Council. Also cut was a $200,000 grant to the Maui Community Arts Cultural Center.
While the private projects are worthwhile, "I believe it is important that private organizations should raise their own funds rather than asking the state to provide funding support," Cayetano said.
As for the Hawaii Community Service Council at the University of Hawaii, the governor said the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism can provide most of the support needed within existing staffing and funds.
Cayetano cut $44 million in capital improvements, including 27 projects in the public schools.
"I note that none of these projects were included in the proposed budget considered by the Board of Education and included in the Department of Education's priority projects," he said.
Greg Knudsen, Department of Education spokesman, said: "While they (dollars) would have been welcome at the school level, their removal does not represent a reduction of current levels of funding."
Some school projects eliminated from the construction budget: School projects get the budget ax
$681,000 revenue bonds for traffic signals near Kapolei Elementary.
The governor scaled back funding to the current level that had been approved in the biennium budget, Knudsen said.
In other areas, Cayetano trimmed from $16.5 million to $5 million the authorization for a state sports recreational complex in Kapolei on Oahu.
The $5 million is to complete the infrastructure pending a determination of the future use and scope of the complex, he said.
The governor said earlier this month there was no evidence that Japanese and Korean professional baseball teams would do their spring training in Hawaii if the state built the $16.5 million facility.
The complex for years has been a "field of dreams" for Senate President Norman Mizuguchi, who obtained the initial $27 million appropriation three years ago.
Cayetano stalled the project last year, causing the authorization to lapse in a move Mizuguchi felt was retaliation for the Senate's rejection of the 1999 reappointments of Margery Bronster as attorney general and Earl Anzai as budget director.
Other vetoed projects include $7 million for a medial strip on Farrington Highway in Waipahu; $5 million for a secondary freeway exit for Leeward Community College; $5 million for a Palolo water development on Oahu; $3 million for a second access road to Wahiawa from Honolulu; $2.9 million to buy land for the relocation of the Aiea Public Library; $1 million for a Waipahu youth and elderly care center; and $1 million for an extension of Piilani Highway at Wailea/ Ulupalakua on Maui.
Star-Bulletin reporter Harold Morse contributed to this report. State Web Site
