Harris warns As many as 146 full-time city employees could lose their jobs under cuts to the proposed budget that was moved out of the City Council's Budget Committee yesterday, Harris administration officials say.
146 jobs at risk
Administration officials respond
to proposed budget cuts
by the City CouncilBy Gordon Y.K. Pang
gpang@starbulletin.comThe plan, approved 3-0 by the five-member Budget Committee, calls for all nonpublic safety agencies to slash their budgets by 5 percent. Public safety agencies such as police, fire and water safety would be reduced by 1 percent.
Only three members voted on the measure because Councilwoman Rene Mansho resigned last week amid pending criminal charges and Councilman John Henry Felix is on a mainland trip.
Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi surprised both Mayor Jeremy Harris' administration and her own colleagues when she announced the plan Wednesday. Kobayashi said the cuts would result in about $19 million in savings for the $1.2 billion city operating budget.
The cuts are necessary, Kobayashi said, to reduce the $60 million the administration has proposed transferring from the dedicated sewer fund to help balance the operating budget.
The public and the administration will have a chance to comment on the plan at a public hearing at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Council's Honolulu Hale meeting chambers. The final vote is slated for May 29.
Kobayashi scoffed at the administration's dire predictions. She noted that nearly all the agencies in the current year have carried vacant, funded positions in their budgets that would more than make up for the proposed 5 percent cut in salaries.
But Budget Director Caroll Takahashi said that in determining 146 layoffs, her staff took into consideration vacant, unfunded positions. Next year's budget will not have as many vacant, unfunded slots at the end of the 12-month cycle. That is partly because the city transferred money to clean up breeding areas for mosquitos and dengue fever and to buy bioterrorism testing equipment after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she said.
Takahashi said the budget cuts would be devastating.
For example, the prosecuting attorney's budget would be reduced by 13 employees and slow down the processing of criminal charges against individuals, she said.
The Medical Examiner's Office warned that the morgue would need to reduce its service hours, leaving corpses unexamined for longer periods, Takahashi said.
"Brunch on the Beach" and "Sunset on the Beach" would both be canceled, while parks maintenance and summer and senior programs would also be severely affected, she said.
Again, however, Kobayashi said Takahashi and the administration were painting a picture much bleaker than what might actually happen.
"Your 5 percent can be taken anywhere you want," Kobayashi said. "To paint this kind of picture to try to scare the taxpayers or to scare the Council ... I wish we could have cooperation."
Councilman Jon Yoshimura, who is not a member of the committee, said neither the Council nor the Harris administration is to blame for the city's budget woes. He said that instead of trying to pinpoint blame, the parties should be working cooperatively on long-term solutions to increase the city's revenue base.
Yoshimura, nonetheless, warned that Council members seeking to reduce spending levels in the operating budget should be prepared to make the cuts themselves rather than continuing to ask the administration for advice on cuts.
"Our job is not to ask (the administration) to change the proposal," Yoshimura said. "Our job is to change their proposal. The buck stops here. Their job is to propose. Our job is to adopt."
City & County of Honolulu
