The 269-acre Patsy T. Mink Central Oahu Regional Park is, without a doubt, one of the most heavily used sites within the city’s parks system.

Since its dedication in 2001, the park has served thousands of children and adults who have played on its baseball and softball diamonds and multipurpose fields and has hosted numerous sporting events drawing participants from all over.

All of that takes money to keep up and improve. Bill 75, sponsored by City Council Chairman Ernie Martin, seeks to put fees generated by the park into a special fund dedicated only to projects at that park.

While the Council should take a long, hard look at how it is budgeting to cover the needs of this popular park, sequestering its revenue user fees into a fund expressly for its purposes would be the wrong way to approach the problem.

Supporters of the bill have said those who pay the fee want the money used only for this park. However, the fact is that the most efficient way to cover the costs of running the parks system is in a centralized budgeting system, which has the oversight that special funds lack.

Nelson Koyanagi, the city budget and fiscal services director, told the Council in written testimony on Tuesday that the three revenue-generating parks in the district contributed a total of $252,900 to the current budget, which is too small an amount to make the separate accounting of a special fund worthwhile.

The Patsy Mink park alone was allotted $1.09 million in the city’s operating budget. Clearly a special fund built of its revenues would fall short of at least one accepted standard for special funds: that they be self-sustaining.

In recent audits of government special funds, another common critique raised is that many of them lack the essential link between the fees that are paid in and the purpose for which the money is used.

This flaw applies to the proposed Central Oahu special fund. Because facilities at this park are so wide-ranging, it’s likely that money raised through the use of one field or facility would get funneled into an improvement that benefits another.

Martin has argued that the creation of the Hanau-ma Bay Nature Preserve, which does maintain its own fund, set a precedent that Central Oahu can follow. But this overlooks the fact that Hanauma raises enough to cover its operations and improvements, where Central Oahu does not.

Instead, as Koyanagi rightly countered, passing the bill could represent a "slippery slope," with myriad city services and facilities demanding separate funds. This adds to administrative costs, which siphons money from parks projects.

Auditors also say special funds work best for needs that can’t be met through regular budgeting. That argument can’t be made here, either. The city can and should provide the funds that such a popular park deserves in an open and transparent fiscal process.

Although there is certainly good reason for advocates to feel frustrated by the cumbersome delays in capital improvement planning, the answer is to make that process more responsive and efficient, not attempt the end run of a special fund.