City plans Satellite city halls, Sunset on the Beach, vision teams, neighborhood boards and millions in construction projects.
$23 million tax hike
The Council grapples with
a tax proposal that comes on
top of higher property valuesBy Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.comAs the City Council comes to the end of the first round of budget hearings, those are some of the items Council members are eyeing for further cuts. They want to minimize increases in fees and property taxes and to restore what they believe are essential services.
"There's some $44 million in property tax increases, $23 million in fee increases and with all that and we're still making cuts to public safety," Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said. "Many of us are very concerned about that. We're putting such a burden on our residents and yet we're cutting public safety."
Kobayashi's committee heard yesterday more details from the city administration on proposals to increase fees and taxes.
"We need every cent we can get," Budget Director Ivan Lui-Kwan said.
The tax proposal calls for owners of single-family homes and apartment owners to pay the same rate. That would mean the current $3.65 per $1,000 in assessed valuation 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.
An increase and change in the rate would bring in about $23 million in revenue while an additional $20 million would come from increases in assessed values.
Councilman Charles Djou, who sits on the Budget Committee, said this is the largest tax increase ever. Djou said the city is proposing increasing the tax rate specifically to generate more revenue for the first time since the 1980s. Previously when rates were increased, it was to offset dropping values.
"This is the first time where we have actually increased taxes where the amount of money the taxpayer has to write the check for to the government is going up because of a rate increase and it's doubly hurtful because there are also valuation increases," Djou said.
Council members' questions centered on the impact of cutbacks.
Councilwoman Barbara Marshall threw out the idea of closing two satellite city halls during a discussion on whether to charge a $2 fee for certain transactions at satellite city halls.
Carol Costa, Customer Services director, said she has not yet done a cost analysis of what the impact of closing the two halls would be. "I need to take a look at what those costs would be."
Djou said it's "a little contradictory" that the administration has gone through with ambitious expansions of the satellite halls.
"Now it's turning around trying to charge $2 per transaction. It's kind of: Do you want a lot of people wanting to use the satellite city halls or not?" Djou said. "Like a lot of the things that the Harris administration has done, where they've overexpanded and now are finding out that we can't afford."
Djou said the entire vision project also needs to be reassessed and maybe neighborhood boards can conduct fewer meetings during the year. Neighborhood boards and vision teams will be the subject of a budget hearing tomorrow.
Kobayashi said the Council is also looking at whether to continue with the city's economic development functions that duplicate the state's efforts. "And the hidden costs of Sunset on the Beach, Brunch on the Beach," Kobayashi said.
"Between the nine of us on the City Council, I'm hopeful that we should be able to find at least $23 million in savings to avoid the real property tax increase," Djou said.
City & County of Honolulu
