Three counties set to act on police pay raise
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
The city's struggle to come up with $5.8 million to cover the first year of a four-year police contract has not stopped the three Neighbor Island counties from moving ahead with plans to pay for their officers' raises and benefits.
Big Island police officers will begin seeing a 4 percent raise in their Jan. 15 paychecks, with back pay for the raises retroactive to July 1.
Since the city and the three counties had to agree to the statewide contract before it went into effect, an inability to pay on Honolulu's part could send everyone back to the arbitrator to rework the raises and benefits.
But that is not how Big Island personnel director Mike Ben interprets the law. His understanding is that the law requires all four counties to agree to the contract and does not apply to financing. Since the Honolulu City Council has passed a resolution agreeing to the arbitrated award, "we can't come to any other conclusion except that they approved it," Ben said. "They just haven't funded it yet."
Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa agrees. "Once we all agreed to the contract, then it's incumbent on us to honor the contract," he said.
With 1,905 of the state's 2,600 police officers, Honolulu carries the heaviest burden of the arbitrated award. The details announced in September include 4 percent raises for each of the four years of the contract plus improved benefits that will cost Honolulu $67 million over the length of the contract — with $5.8 million due by June 30.
Arakawa said it comes as no surprise Honolulu is having difficulty with the raises. While Maui supported raises and added them into the budget prior to the award, Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris maintained that the city could not afford pay increases. "We knew Mayor Harris was going to have problems with the finances for this," because of the budget deficit he had to work with, Arakawa said.
The issue came to a head on Dec. 3, when the City Council shelved a plan to pay for the first two years of the contract with a motor vehicle weight tax increase — without offering an alternative revenue source.
The State of Hawai'i Organization of Police Officers has refused to comment on the turn of events, while the city has not offered another revenue source.
Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said she has been working with the city Budget Department to come up with an alternative to raising taxes and has suggested using the $10 million the city received for the sale of the downtown property known as Block J.
The administration has argued the money from the sale was spent in the budget approved by the council in June.
"We've talked and nothing has come out of those talks," Kobayashi said. "They know a motor vehicle weight tax is difficult for us, and we know that the use of Block J money is difficult for them."
She floated another idea — borrowing the savings from a city department, such as the police, and repaying it when the next fiscal year begins on July 1.
"It's more of a straightforward way, rather than raising the motor vehicle weight tax," she said.
Councilman Gary Okino said Block J is not the answer. "That proposal doesn't even make sense," he said. "We're running out of time. The best answer right now is the weight tax."
However, he has not heard of any movement toward convening a special council meeting to revisit the weight tax issue. "I hold little hope for that," he said.
The council would have to make that decision by Dec. 24 to pass the increase in time for it to go into effect on Jan. 1. Once that deadline passes, the weight tax cannot be raised until Jan. 1, 2005.
As far as borrowing "savings" from city departments, Okino said it could work, but it would be hard to come up with the whole amount. "All the departments are so stressed. I don't know where you're going to find the $5.8 million," he said. "During the last budget cycle, we kind of stripped all the departments clean."
The city eliminated $33 million in vacant unfinanced positions this fiscal year, taking away the city's financial cushion. And the carry over savings from the prior year's budget are spoken for, he said.
Kaua'i County Finance Director Mike Tresler said there is money within that county's budget available for the increases.
Tresler said his department was readying a financing bill to send to the Kaua'i County Council. "I don't specifically know where we're targeting money, but we definitely don't have to raise taxes," he said.
However, Tresler emphasized he was only referring to the first year of the contract. "We're facing a lot of challenges from our constituents," he said, referring to a petition being circulated for a charter amendment to roll back property taxes. "We'll be in bad shape if that happens," he said.
"Right now we can find the money, but going forward, if things like this happen, it will be a bigger challenge," he said.
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
