Proviso sections are where a bill’s rubber hits the road

Remember when Mom and Dad announced that you would get an allowance?

If your parents were shrewd, they tacked a couple of provisos along with the stipend.

In other words, “Here’s your allowance, provided that the lawn is mowed and the dog is washed,” or “You get a monthly allowance provided that the report card is B or better.”

Imagine a $13.7 billion allowance and 76 parents each with their own agenda and you have an idea of the proviso machinations ticking away inside the state budget.

All 76 lawmakers are not writing the budget, but all are free to lobby the House and Senate budget committees to have their own special goody included.

For instance, when Gov. David Ige sent his version of the budget down to the Legislature, it said not one word about building an imu, or underground oven, but when it was passed by the House and Senate, the bill includes a proviso for “Design construction and equipment for improvements for Kauai Community College’s culinary arts program to include ground and site improvements, development of an underground oven.”

The state budget for that imu? Two million dollars.

In state government if you want to look like you are doing something without really doing something and therefore upsetting folks, what you do is call for a study. The proviso section is where you tuck the studies.

For instance, two years ago the Legislature created a special commission to examine why the counties are always complaining about not getting enough tourist tax money from the state.

The commission came back and said, “Yup, the state should give the counties more,” which was the wrong answer.

So this year’s budget has a proviso that directs the state to use $100,000 “to conduct a study on the effects of county real property tax rates on the distribution of revenues and expenses between state and county.”

Sometimes the studies come first, but sometimes the study comes with the money.

This year, the Legislature upped the homeless ante by giving the Ige administration $12 million for homeless programs, after it asked for only $9 million.

But, the proviso attached says Ige by November shall have “A plan for the disbursement of the amount, including expected benchmarks on program outcomes, how benchmarks were determined, and how and when outcomes will be monitored and evaluated.”

My favorite proviso requires the folks running the state hospitals — the board of directors of the Hawaii Health Systems Corp. — to prepare a plan to reduce expenditures because the Maui hospital system is now operated by a private outfit.

That is tough because the hospital system still asks for emergency money.

So this year, the Legislature tacked on the proviso that:

“In addition to the proposed reduction of expenditures, the plan shall explain and justify any inability of the board of directors to reduce expenditures of the corporate office by the same amount as the assessment previously imposed on the Maui regional system for those expenditures.”

That is sort of like Mom and Dad saying, “Here’s your allowance, provided you tell us why the lawn isn’t mowed, the dog isn’t washed and you are getting C’s and D’s.”

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com