Council chair Tommy Waters offers budget insights

Honolulu City Council Chair Tommy Waters said difficult decisions on the city’s pending budget need to be made on homelessness, crime and pay raises.

Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s proposed $3.41 billion operating budget for fiscal year 2024 sees a $200 million increase over last year’s city budget, but Waters is questioning whether city officials, including members of the Council, should receive pay raises while thousands of city positions like the 390 unfilled spots on the police force remain vacant.

Last year Waters said the City and County of Honolulu had over 3,000 vacant positions, or about 30% of the entire workforce.

“So the mayor’s idea is basically to put the money back into vacant positions,” said Waters. “And I get it, it makes sense because we want to provide better city services and you can’t do it when you’re understaffed,” he said Friday on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream show.

Waters asserts there’s no money in the mayor’s budget for long-term tax relief — something the Council is attempting as it studies over 30 bills related to real property taxation.

“(We have to) try to figure out how we can help local people stay home in these islands so they don’t have to move to the mainland,” Waters said.

“The city has a windfall of revenue over $200 million, actually as a result of increased property values,” Waters said, adding property values rose 14.1% last year on Oahu. “And one of the things the mayor is proposing is a one-time, $300 credit to folks who have a homeowners’ exemption.”

Waters asserted the Council will look to see whether the mayor’s proposed tax rebate might be increased, though it comes with a cost.

“For every $100 that we give back to the taxpayer it costs $15 million, so the mayor’s idea of $300 basically is going to cost $44 million,” Waters said, noting the remaining $156 million will be reduced further, including $7 million earmarked for the city’s rainy day fund. “And the balance, for the most part, is going towards filling vacant positions.”

Among many options, Waters said the Council is considering an increase to the standard $100,000 homeowners exemption to higher values, like $110,000 to $130,000. But Waters stressed that every $10,000 increase to homeowners exemptions equates to a cost of $5 million.

“So, that’s what you got to weigh, right? Do we take money that’s going to go toward vacant positions or do we use it for long-term tax relief?” Waters said. “And that’s really what’s on the table now.”

Priorities for Waters include fully funding and staffing the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting as well as funding public safety agencies including police, fire and emergency medical services. For the Honolulu Police Department — which requested $40 million under the mayor’s latest budget — that would entail filling 390 vacancies.

Waters added that to see city government work better for the community might entail removing unfilled, redundant positions and then refocusing those dollars elsewhere.

But on the matter of the Honolulu Salary Commission’s recent action to set next year’s salary schedule — granting a 12.56% salary increase to the mayor and city department heads and a more than 64% pay bump, from $64,902 to $113,304, for members of the City Council — Waters remained vague on how the Council should proceed.

“I will say that the Salary Commission sets the salary, not the City Council,” Waters said, but noting that the city charter “puts the burden on us to reject or accept” changes to the city’s salary schedule.

Still, Waters said Council salaries have been “frozen” 19 times by various sitting City Councils in the past 33 years.

“And I think that’s because you’re making it a political decision when it really shouldn’t be a political decision,” he said. “I think that’s why it’s artificially low because we have to decide on it on our own and, for the most part, people are running for reelection; they don’t want to stick their neck out and so they reject the salaries as recommended by the commission.”

On that note, two of Waters’ Council colleagues — Augie Tulba and Andria Tupola — co-introduced two resolutions Thursday opposing the Salary Commission’s increases for the Council and other city positions, with one resolution stating the adjusted salaries “are excessive in light of current economic conditions in the city and should be rejected.”

On other issues, Waters said he’d like to see more done to combat crime and homelessness.

“So Waikiki is in my district and I have to tell you crime is not getting better,” Waters said, adding he’d like to see HPD have a larger presence there. “I do understand that they’re short-staffed … but boots on the ground is the best deterrent to crime. I’d love to see a police officer on every corner in Waikiki and downtown because crime hasn’t gone down, it’s gone up.”

Waters added that he’d be “happy to appropriate” HPD’s requested $40 million for next fiscal year “but we really want to see crime go down.”

Issues like Gov. Josh Green’s plans to expand his kauhale village program to aid the homeless across the state was also touched on. For Waters, properly siting a kauhale village was key to its success.

“I think the kauhale idea is a great idea, but you’ve got to work with the community to decide where exactly these kauhales are going to go,” Waters said. “People in the past have gotten really upset when they are not included in that decision- making process because there’s appropriate places for them and there’s not appropriate places for them.”

Waters noted that his own Council district — which he says runs from Makapuu Point to Waikiki — had little in the way of open space.

“And the open space that we do have is full of children in our parks,” Waters said. “We have a shortage of baseball diamonds, a shortage of soccer fields, and it’s going to be really difficult to take this open space away from the kids and put a kauhale there. So, it’s a tough, tough question and really I want my community to decide.”

Meanwhile, Waters said his office is putting together a community survey — one which will be posted to the Council’s website at hono lulucitycouncil.org — in order to gain public feedback on things like the city budget, crime, the homeless, and affordable housing, among other issues.