A proposal to ask Oahu voters whether they want to give the City Council oversight of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply’s budget was shelved Tuesday by a key Council committee.
Several Council members indicated that instead of seeking to change the governing structure of the semiautonomous water board, they were more inclined to support an audit of the agency.
A resolution calling for city Auditor Edwin Young to review the board is to be heard by a second Council committee today.
The Council Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee deferred Resolution 13-177, which would have asked voters in the 2014 election whether they wanted amend the City Charter to require that the water board’s annual budgets and ability to condemn land be subjected to the Council’s "review and approval."
Since the beginning of the year, the board has been the subject of heavy public criticism after the agency switched to a monthly billing system, resulting in the doubling of service fees for ratepayers. In addition, a significantly larger number of customers began receiving estimated bills that may have been very different from their actual usage. Those issues have created a third major problem of wait times of an hour or longer for customers phoning in to the board’s call center.
Executive Matters Chairman Ron Menor said the Charter amendment, if approved, would cause "a major structural shift" in how the board is governed.
"I’m not convinced that such a drastic change in the board’s governance and financial decision-making structure is warranted in order to address the management and operational issues affecting the agency," Menor said. "And I’m also not convinced that by interjecting politics, more politics, into the board’s decisions and policies that it’s going to resolve the kinds of issues that have concerned us and our constituents."
Several of the board’s staunchest supporters have argued that many of the problems now facing the agency are the result of bad and sometimes politically motivated policies instituted by previous water managers and board members, not current Manager Ernest Lau or the current board.
Menor said he agreed and urged his colleagues to instead support Resolution 13-201, which calls on Young to conduct a management and performance audit of the board.
A 2006 audit of the agency questioned its ability to devote adequate resources to growing repair and maintenance needs while awarding salary increases and bonuses to top executives.
Lau said bonuses for agency executives ended in 2005 and that a follow-up to that auditor’s report showed all recommendations were either completed, resolved or dropped.
Councilman Ikaika Anderson, who introduced the Charter amendment resolution, said he supported Menor’s recommendation, adding that the discussion about a possible change in transferring some of the agency’s powers to the Council resulted in a "healthy and important discussion."
Anderson said he supports an audit and noted that the auditor’s conclusion could recommend that voters decide whether to transfer some of the board’s powers to the Council.
Councilman Breene Harimoto said while he’s bothered by the flood of complaints the agency has received of late, he has also been "impressed" by the response to the situation by Lau and the current administration.
Lau again told committees that he and his staff have been working hard to address problems customers raised. Additional staff have been added to deal with customer service, and the number of estimated bills has dropped to 4 percent from 16 percent, he said. But customers calling the agency’s switchboard still are waiting an hour or more, a situation Lau hopes will be improved by the end of the year.
Former water managers George Yuen, Edward Hirata and Kazu Hayashida joined former board Chairman Walter Dods in signing a letter that argued fundamental changes to the board’s governing structure could profoundly hinder its ability to provide safe drinking water and is not a good response to what they deemed "temporary issues."
Mayor Kirk Caldwell also opposed the amendment.
