Lowering condo Mayor Jeremy Harris unveiled a $1.1 billion operating budget for the coming fiscal year that includes recommendations for no increases in property tax rates, sewer fees or other user fees.
tax in mayor’s
budget plan
Harris' $1.1 billion operating
budget includes no fee hikesBy Gordon Y.K. Pang
gpang@starbulletin.comHarris also presented to the City Council a capital improvements package of $475.5 million, much of it for wastewater and solid waste projects, transportation and parks construction.
The operating budget is $37 million higher than it was a year ago. But city spokeswoman Carol Costa said that it includes $50 million in pay raises to city employees that already have been negotiated.
For the second straight year, Harris proposed that the apartment-condominium rate for property tax rates be reduced as part of a three-year plan to bring it down to the same amount as the single-family homeowner rate. The reduction would cost the city $3.8 million in lost tax revenues in the coming year.
The proposal calls the apartment-condominium rate to drop to $3.93 per $1,000 of assessed value in fiscal 2002-03, which begins July 1. The current rate is $4.21. It was $4.49 last year.
Costa said the plan is for the rate to drop to $3.65 in the 2003-04 budget year. That's the same amount single-family homeowners have used to calculate their property tax bills over the last few years.
The proposed capital improvements budget represents an 18 percent decrease from this year's $579 million package. About $155 million will go toward federally mandated sewer projects, Costa said.
An additional $6 million will be used to expand the capacity of the city's H-POWER waste-to-energy facility. That expansion, outlined in Harris' state of the city address in January, would increase capacity of H-POWER by 50 percent and reduce the amount of waste going into the landfill by about 80 percent.
Also part of the coming year's capital improvements package is a major share of the construction financing for the city's $1 billion Bus Rapid Transit project.
The proposed capital improvement budget, the second largest during Harris' eight-year tenure, is likely to be highly scrutinized.
Critics of the mayor, who has announced his intentions to resign in July to run for governor, have questioned the need for expanding parks and other improvements and have noted an increase in the annual cost of borrowing money to finance capital improvement projects. Last year's capital improvements budget was $498 million, the largest during Harris' term.
Two years ago, the city's capital improvement budget was $299 million and an additional $84 million in projects was added later.
City & County of Honolulu
