Posted on: Thursday, April 15, 2004
EDITORIAL
Fund-raiders must use common sense
It appears that no one — not the governor and not the Democratic majority in the Legislature — is going to be able to balance a budget in the foreseeable future without resorting to the traditional practice of fund-raiding.
An interesting variation on this practice is the Democratic majority's proposal to transfer the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs from an operation entirely funded by its user fees to one funded from the general fund budget.
To all appearances, this is a terrible idea.
Hawai'i state government has a bad reputation for being business-unfriendly. To the extent this reputation is deserved, there's no point in needlessly making it even worse.
At one time, DCCA was considered a hell-hole for business people, with long, long lines of frustrated business people having a terrible time getting their state business needs taken care of.
Former director Kathryn Matayoshi is generally credited with reorganizing the department to make it user-friendly. The fees it collects from business people pay for the hiring of the people who do the business people's business.
As department director Mark Recktenwald puts it, his employees now feel they work more for the business community than for state government. And business people appreciate the difference.
Some argue the special fund that these user fees support is running a hefty surplus. Recktenwald agrees, and rather than dump the excess into the general fund, he has introduced bills to reduce fees business people pay. By rights, the excess should be returned to the users.
But a small excess isn't what Democratic lawmakers have their eye on. By putting the department back in the general fund, they figure to free up more than $30 million to use to balance this year's budget.
Left to year-to-year funding by lawmakers, there's every possibility the department will eventually deteriorate to the way it was in the bad old days.
The last thing Hawai'i needs is a reversal on the progress that has been made to make the state more friendly to businesses.
