Posted on: Wednesday, July 14, 2004

EDITORIAL
Improving economy must be used on needy

By all accounts, the Hawai'i economy is on the mend and doing well after years of pervasive stagnation.

The latest indication is a report from the tax department that collections for the past fiscal year (ending June 30) were $98 million more than projected by the Council on Revenues.

The council had been predicting a modest increase in tax collections, and that was the number used to write this year's budget. But when all the figures were in, collections were about 3 percentage points higher than anticipated.

The report has generated immediate, and understandable, demands that Gov. Linda Lingle ease up on some of the restrictions she has imposed on the budget.

Lingle, we would argue, is being properly cautious. She says she is willing to let some extra money go for basic health and safety needs on a case-by-case basis.

But she is not ready to back down on restrictions, including holding back some $2 million in grants-in-aid to private groups and a 1 percent across-the-board restriction in non-fixed costs.

What drives the governor's thinking are "out-year" projections that the state will run a deficit of as much as $160 million because of higher retirement benefits, pay raises and debt service over the next couple of years.

In other words, we are well into the black today but could well be back in the red in two years or so.

Lingle has taken a multi-year approach toward managing the budget, and that is only proper. Good management requires that officials look beyond the next election cycle.

But within that context, the Lingle administration should recognize that budget management is more than worrying about the numbers and what will come tomorrow.

It is also about dealing with real people, with real needs, today.

As the budget loosens up, and we would argue it has, attention should be paid first to basic social services and "safety net" programs that the state is best equipped to serve.

Every free dollar should be targeted to the least among us, whether through direct state services or through grants to private agencies.

The booming economy, it is said, will lift all boats. The first to be lifted should be those who need the help the most.