Property tax Owners of single-family homes will see a 2.7 percent increase in their property tax rates, while apartment and condominium owners will see a drop, under the budget unveiled by Mayor Jeremy Harris yesterday.
hike proposed
The city budget also calls
for fees to rise and trash
pickups to drop to once a weekBy Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.com
The mayor's proposed $1.178 billion operating budget also includes tax rate increases of up to 15 percent for all nonresidential categories -- commercial, industrial, agricultural, conservation, hotel/resort -- to boost tax revenues by $44 million, to $427 million next year.
"It's hard to raise taxes, but I think we've done it in a fair way," Harris said.
The mayor is also proposing fee hikes for monthly adult bus passes, entrance into Hanauma Bay, spay and neuter services for pets, abandoned-vehicle removal and some transactions at Satellite City Halls.
A new curbside recycling pickup program could also result in residents paying $8 per month to continue with a second day of regular trash pickup a week.
The proposed operating budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 is $62 million more -- or 5 percent higher -- than the current year, despite the mayor eliminating 955 vacant positions at a savings of $32 million and paring city department budgets to $14 million lower than this year.
Harris said the uncontrollable increases to the amount the city contributes to the state health and retirement fund is partly to blame for the city's increased costs.
Harris is also proposing a $288 million construction budget -- $167 million lower than this year's -- that focuses on $73 million in sewer system upgrades, $85 million for roadwork, $15 million for public safety and $13 million for buses and the Handi-Van. "This is the toughest budget we have ever faced," Harris said.
Yesterday was the mayor's deadline to submit the budget to the City Council.
"We're going to start going through (the budget) page by page," Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said. "We're going to be carefully scrutinizing all the expenses."
Kobayashi and others are concerned about the impact the tax hike would have on homeowners.
"We need to look at that a little more because the valuations already went up," said Councilman Nestor Garcia. "In my mind it's almost like a double tax -- the rates going up on top of the valuations."
About $20 million of the $44 million increase in tax revenues is attributed to the increase in assessed values that property owners were notified of in December. The rest will come from the increase in rates.
Councilman Charles Djou said the administration could have searched more for savings before turning to a tax hike.
"Your telling me you can't find another $25 million in savings in a $1.2 billion budget boggles my mind," Djou said.
City spokeswoman Carol Costa said that if revenues are not increased, "it would have a grave impact" on the departments. Harris is proposing that owners of single-family homes and apartment owners pay the same rate. That would mean the current $3.65 per $1,000 in assessed value for single-family homes would rise to $3.75, but the rate for apartment owners would go down 4.5 percent from $3.93.
For nonresidential categories he is also proposing a single rate of $10.63 per $1,000 in assessed value.
Kobayashi said that unlike residential properties, the assessed values for nonresidential properties have gone down in recent years.
The mandatory curbside recycling pickup program could start this summer. Trash pickup would be cut to once a week instead of twice a week. Recyclables like newspapers and glass would be picked up twice a month, and green waste would continue to be picked up twice a month.
Residents will not be allowed to throw the recyclable material in the regular trash.
"The more we can divert refuse away from landfills and our HPOWER facilitates, obviously, the less we need to expand landfills and build additions to HPOWER," Harris said.
If residents want another day a week of regular trash pickup, they would have to pay $8 month. Harris estimates about half the residents would opt for that.
"That might be a good idea, because I don't know about you, but I don't really need that second day of (regular trash) pickup and there's only one bag of garbage inside my bin," Garcia said.
Kobayashi and Djou said the emphasis on recycling is good in light of the problems with the mounting trash at the Waimanalo Gulch landfill, but they both want to see details on the proposal.
Kobayashi is concerned about the administration continuing with the controversial practice of using $29.2 million from the sewer fund and $18.6 million from the solid-waste fund to balance the budget.
"It bothers me because we're facing all these repairs that have to be done on our sewers ... and we also have landfill problems," she said.
If the Council decides not to use money from those funds, they must make up $47 million in other ways.
Other fees would include a $2 charge for certain Satellite City Hall transactions.
"We have a problem with people clogging up Satellite City Hall with functions they can either do through the mail or over the Internet, and the chief offender is the automobile (registration) renewal," Harris said.
Lower ridership and revenues stemming from the post-Sept. 11, 2001, economic fallout led to a proposal to increase the price of monthly adult bus passes to $30 from $27. Individual fares will remain unchanged.
>> Spay/neuter: To maximum of $75 from maximum of $29. Proposed fee increases
>> Bus fares: Adult monthly fare to $30 from $27.50.
>> Hanauma Bay entrance fees for visitors: To $5 from $3.
>> Highway beautification and abandoned-vehicle removal: To $5 from $3.75 per vehicle.
>> Refuse disposal charge (tipping fee for commercial trash haulers): To $84.25 per ton from $72.25.
>> Residential refuse collection fee: $8 per month for a second day a week of regular trash pickup (new).
>> Satellite City Hall counter fee: $2 per transaction (new).
>> Waste-water disposal facility charge: To $4,641 per hookup from $1,126. Paid by developers to hook up homes to city sewer system.
City & County of Honolulu
