Austerity remains the goal in new session

State House and Senate leaders, on a spartan opening day of the legislative session, said they would avoid new taxes and major spending increases but may invest in bond-financed construction projects to upgrade  Hawaii’s aging infrastructure and hopefully create jobs.

Shrinking revenue projections during an unsteady economic recovery have made lawmakers cautious about the two-year budget and six-year financial plan they approved last session. While lawmakers will entertain an expansion in construction, they are apprehensive about restoring spending that was cut during the recession or creating new programs until they are more confident in the recovery.

“For the short term, we must maintain stability with respect to the state budget,” House Speaker Calvin Say (D, St. Louis Heights-Wilhelmina Valley-Palolo Rise) told lawmakers. “Maintaining stability means no new taxes for state government from residents and businesses.

“Maintaining stability means no major general fund appropriation increases for the expansion of state programs.”

Gov. Neil Abercrombie has proposed a $188 million increase in supplemental spending next fiscal year, a 1.7 percent bump, to $11.1 billion. The governor has also called for a $1.2 billion increase in construction — to $2.2 billion — including $300 million in general obligation bond-financed projects.

Senate President Shan Tsutsui (D, Wailuku-Kahului) has suggested $500 million worth of bond-financed construction, the centerpiece of the Senate’s plan to spur job creation and reduce the repair and maintenance backlog at public schools, hospitals and state buildings. He said the initiative would play a role in defining the session, symbolically assigning it Senate Bill 2012 to illustrate its importance.

“This bill will have two primary objectives,” Tsutsui told senators. “One, to aggressively cut into the state’s multibillion-dollar deferred repair and maintenance backlog. And two, it would immediately create jobs for our local residents.”

Both the Senate and House want to streamline permitting and procurement to speed up construction. The House, however, is concerned about aggressive new borrowing that would leave the state with higher debt, so the House may not support as much construction as senators envision.

Opening day — traditionally a time for song, food and fellowship — was stripped down to the essentials Wednesday, the second time in three years that celebration was discouraged. Many lawmakers offered visitors pupu and soft drinks, but crowds were noticeably smaller than in years past and dominated by the advocates and lobbyists who make the state Capitol their home during the 60-day session.

Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom (R, Diamond Head-Hawaii Kai) said suspending the traditional pageantry could diminish public participation at the Legislature. He said, however, that lawmakers should be concerned about spending and the tax burden beyond the symbolism of an austere opening day.

“If the goal today was to show the public that we understand their pain and tough financial straits, we should pledge that we will reduce your taxes,” he said. “We invite job-creating employers to this big square building to testify to what they believe should be done, and then we ignore them.”

House Minority Leader Gene Ward (R, Kalama Valley-Hawaii Kai) said lawmakers needed to think outside-the-box about economic recovery.

“Yes, we balanced the budget after the last recession,” he said. “But if that’s all we do is balance the budget — beat our chests and say we’ve done it by doing fees and taxes — we will not be fully serving the people of Hawaii.”

With speeches kept to a minimum, opening day was marked instead by housekeeping.

Rep. Tom Okamura (D, Halawa-Aiea) was sworn-in to replace Blake Oshiro, who resigned from the House last year to take a job as Abercrombie’s deputy chief of staff. Okamura previously served in the House from 1980 to 2000 and was majority leader for nine of those years. Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald administered the oath of office.

Say delivered the oath of office to new Chief Clerk C.J. Leong. She succeeds Patricia Mau-Shimizu, who resigned last year to become  executive director of the Hawaii State Bar Association.

In the Senate, Tsutsui announced that conference committee negotiations could reconvene on eight bills that the House and Senate hope to fast track in the next few weeks. The bills, which include legislation to provide money for a new organ transplant center to replace the one that closed with the bankrupt Hawaii Medical Centers, had broad support but stalled at the end of last session.

The Senate also showed that it could be flexible with invocations before floor sessions. Last year, concerned about the overtly religious nature of some of the invocations, the Senate invited entertainer Danny Kaleikini to give one on opening day but then adopted rules that ended the requirement for invocations. The House still has invocations before floor sessions.

Kaleikini — the “ambassador of aloha” — was back in the Senate again on Wednesday.

Slom said he hoped the invocations would happen more often.

“We applaud Danny and his remarks. But we hope that prayer will return to the Senate this year instead of placating a few individual activists in our community,” he said, attracting some applause and a few shouts of “Amen!” from the gallery.