Rail project slated to get record $63M in GET money

Honolulu rail officials report that the island’s massive public transit project, which recently resumed construction, will receive a record influx of $63.8 million in general excise tax revenue for the quarter that ended Sept. 30.

It’s the largest amount of quarterly GET surcharge revenue for the project to date, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation officials say.

It’s also in contrast to the project’s GET revenues earlier this year, when the project got tens of millions of dollars less than rail officials had anticipated — even though collections of that tax were up across the state.

Overall, the rail project has taken in $1.14 billion in total GET dollars since 2007, when surcharge collections began on Oahu to build the project, HART officials say.

However, that total is about $25 million short of what was originally projected to be collected at this point, they add.

The $25 million represents "less than one-tenth of a percent" of all the GET revenue that HART anticipates receiving to complete the project, HART spokeswoman Jeanne Mariani-Belding said in an email Monday.

"Strong GET surcharge revenue coupled with the $1.55 billion in federal funding that we secured last year is keeping us on the right track to deliver the project on budget," HART Executive Director Dan Grabauskas added in a statement Monday.

By the time it’s completed, the project is expected to cost $5.26 billion, with the GET surcharge covering 70 percent of the price and the federal dollars that Grabauskas mentioned covering the rest. It’s the most expensive public works project in Hawaii’s history.

In May, the state’s tax director told HART’s executive board that a lag in processing tax returns helped lead to the rail project receiving about $29 million less than it anticipated for the first half of the fiscal year.

Tax Director Frederick Pablo also pointed at that time to staff shortages at the state Department of Taxation for the rail project’s GET shortfall. However, he assured the board that the project would receive its fair share even if it doesn’t arrive in steady amounts.

The 20-mile, 21-station elevated rail project is planned to connect East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center in 2019.

Construction restarted in September after HART complied with a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling to complete the archaeological inventory survey across the full route.