Mayor Kirk Caldwell is expected to announce in his State of the City speech Wednesday that he plans to eliminate 618 vacant positions and cut funding for additional slots, moves intended to free up $37 million annually in the city’s $2 billion operating budget.
Besides easing the city’s current budget woes, the move is intended to reduce the amount the city needs to set aside for retirement and health care costs, said Jesse Broder Van Dyke, Caldwell’s spokesman.
The vacant funded positions in city agencies have long been a source of criticism by City Council members, who have argued that the money set aside for the positions has been used for de facto slush funds where departments can store dollars for any purposes later. The issue came to a head last year when the Council slashed funding for the vacancies in half and included a proviso in the budget restricting how the city can use about $65 million to $80 million for vacant funded positions by requiring the money be placed into a single account and barring the money from being used for overtime, premium pay or unbudgeted personal service contracts.
Caldwell returned the operating and capital improvement budgets without his signature, partly as a result of the proviso over vacant funded positions. He argued the proviso would hinder the administration’s ability to maneuver money quickly to hire temporary workers as needed, such as seasonal part-time lifeguards.
The additional funding from the policy moves is expected to help ease a budget shortfall caused in part by increased pay and benefit increases tied to collective bargaining contracts for the bulk of the city’s 10,000 employees, as well as the loss of $8 million in anticipated revenues following the collapse of the deal to sell 12 city rental complexes to a private developer, the so-called Honolulu Affordable Housing Preservation Initiative.
Caldwell, making his second State of the City address since becoming mayor in January 2013, is also expected to provide details on a plan to make up some $3 million to $5 million for his Housing First plan, which was to receive its funding from the sale of rental complexes. Caldwell has suggested that he has, in fact, found even more money from an untapped, City Charter-mandated affordable housing fund that can be used for homeless shelter programs.
The mayor is also expected to announce he will seek additional funding to provide related outreach services for the homeless, Broder Van Dyke said.
Caldwell is expected to renew his call for the Council to pass a bill allowing the administration to sell advertising on the sides of city buses as a means of raising up to $20 million annually. Council members have held off deliberations on the proposal, saying they first want to see Caldwell’s budget for the coming year.
The budget is required to be submitted to the Council by the mayor by March 1 annually.
Among new initiatives, Caldwell is expected to announce that he will seek funding for a long-sought bicycle plan that will include creating a protected bike lane along King Street from downtown Honolulu to the university area this year. The lane would be located between the sidewalk and parked cars, allowing for the protection of bike riders and preservation of parking stalls, Broder Van Dyke said. He will also call for money to be used to set up a bicycle sharing program by the end of 2015, Broder Van Dyke said.
Caldwell is also expected to unveil details of a plan to convert all 51,700 city streetlights to use LED fixtures that use 40 percent less energy while giving off brighter lighting along city thoroughfares, Broder Van Dyke said. The mayor is expected to say he will try to partner with a private-sector entity for the program, he said.
Broder Van Dyke said Caldwell is also expected to give a progress report on how he has done with the five top priorities he set forth for his administration: repaving Oahu’s roads, dealing with federally mandated improvements to the city’s aging sewer system, restoring and improving bus service, upgrading the island’s parks and trying to build a top-notch rail line.
