State House and Senate members of a conference committee voted last night to use $67 million from the Hurricane Relief Fund in an effort to end Furlough Fridays.

Rep. Roy Takumi, Education Committee chairman said: “;We believe if there is anyway we can end the furlough days, this is our contribution. As a Legislature here are some dollars—$67 million.”;

The bill now goes to a final vote next week in both the House and Senate and then to Gov. Linda Lingle for her approval.

The bill stipulates that the money can only be used to restore three public school instructional days this year and 17 the next school year.

As lawmakers faced a midnight deadline to get approval on conference version of bills, there was no action on a general excise tax increase. Instead legislators corralled a series of small tax increases to balance the state budget.

Lawmakers have agreed to allow delays in paying state income tax refunds, increasing the oil barrel tax (proposing an increase of 2.5 cents per gallon of gasoline) and raising the tax on cigarettes.

Yesterday, a House-Senate conference committee flirted with last year's highway modernization plan, but House negotiators rejected it last night.

The plan would have raised the six-year Transportation Department construction budget to $4.2 billion from $1.5 billion. A portion of it would have been funded by increases in the state fuel tax, car registration fees and the vehicle weight tax and would have made permanent a $3 increase in rental car taxes. The state estimated that the taxes would cost $170 a year for the average Hawaii motorist.

While Senate conference managers said they were willing to move ahead with a compromise proposal, state Rep. Marcus Oshiro, House Finance Committee chairman, said the bill did not have support.

At 12;26 this morning House Speaker Calvin Say and Senate President Colleen Hanabusa announced that the hotel room tax bill was dead for the year. That means the state will not be able to take any of the $94 million in hotel taxes to balance the state budget.

“;Whatever is in its present form remains in its present form,”; said Hanabusa.

Rep. Blake Oshiro, House Democratic leader, said the House never felt the room tax money was needed this year, although the Senate had wanted to take half of it.

“;Ultimately it was decided that it was an issue that if we need it, we can come back to it next year,”;  Oshiro said.

The county mayors attended the conference committee meetings last night, hoping they could persuade legislators to keep money going to the counties.

Legislators say they are adopting major portions of Gov. Lingle's budget cut plan to balance the budget. For instance, they accepted Lingle's delay on paying state income tax refunds, which she calculates will save the state $275 million.

Also, the state Legislature has sent to Lingle a bill that would increase the tax on a barrel of oil imported to Hawaii and increase cigarette taxes.

Also last night the conference committees took $23 million from the rainy day fund to fund social service agencies, including $3 million for Kupuna Care and $1.5 million for Healthy Start and other programs that had been canceled in the Lingle version of the budget.

Another last-minute agreement will raise the service fee on rental cars at local airports. The increase from $1 to $4.50 was requested by the rental agencies to build new centralized car rental locations. The state also has a $3 state tax on rental cars.