Today is Day 59 of the session. The session ends Thursday.

With two voting days left before the close of the legislative session on Thursday, elected officials from the governor on down are happy with what they've accomplished.

At a news conference yesterday, Gov. Linda Lingle said the session had been the most enjoyable and collaborative of her three-plus years in office, and that she was pleased that many of her initiatives, such as a "three-strikes" bill, a wiretapping proposal and increased penalties for motorists who violate crosswalk regulations, appear likely to become law.

"I think it was a very good year in the sense that the Legislature responded to the priorities we had set out early in the session," she said.

Where she thinks legislators fell short, however, is in a $50 million tax-relief proposal, less than 18 percent of what she had proposed in relief at the beginning of the session. "I think it's a very, very small first step," she said.

Nevertheless, she said, she was happy that lawmakers appear poised to raise the standard deduction and widen the tax brackets, two forms of tax reduction she has supported.

"I think the method was a good one. We just needed to have more of it," she said.

Sen. Brian Taniguchi, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said the relief proposal expected to go before both chambers Thursday is actually more generous than he had expected. "From my standpoint, I think we did almost double what I thought we were going to do," he said.

Tax relief was one of the last items the finance committees reached agreement on, first putting large sums toward education, disaster preparedness, housing, energy, health and human services, said Taniguchi, D-10th (Manoa, McCully).

With additional expenses, such as emergency relief after more than 40 days of heavy rain, many things had to be scaled back. "With all that tied together, we were trying to keep from spending the entire surplus," he said.

The last time the state had a surplus, the Legislature spent a lot of it, then had to cut back on services when revenues went down, Taniguchi said. This time, lawmakers wanted to try to set some of the surplus aside.

"I believe that we did have to try to look to the future," he said.

Lingle said the state could have increased funding in essential areas as well as returned more taxpayer money. "It wasn't an either/or kind of decision," she said. "This really was a year we could have done it all."

House Majority Leader Marcus Oshiro, D-39th (Wahiawa), said lawmakers did quite a bit. "I think it's a substantial step where 80 percent of your taxpayers will see a reduction, and at the same time, we are supporting and helping the poorest in our communities and low-income working families," he said.

He agreed with Lingle that the Democratic-led Legislature and the Republican-led administration were able to work together on a number of initiatives.

"I think it was a great session, and we collaborated with the administration, and I think together we've addressed the most important issues of the day in education, housing, energy, economic development, healthcare and even some measure of tax reduction," he said.

He noted that further tax relief will go to those who experienced property damage in the Manoa flood of 2004 and more recent rains over the past couple months.

"We were able to address the needs of the community and at the same time make a long-term investment in our future," Oshiro said. "Many, many people will see some benefits from the work of the Legislature this year."

Some residents agreed that this has been a good legislative session.

"It seems like a lot of good things have been passed," said Melissa Graffigna, chairwoman of the Mililani Neighborhood Board. "It seems like the Senate and the House worked together in the crossover."

However, Graffigna said, she would have hoped that more money could have gone to improving education and to infrastructure repair in public schools.

"I think instead of creating tax relief, more of it should go to improving our education system," Graffigna said.

Maeda Timson, chairwoman of the Makakilo Neighborhood Board, said the tax relief was not "meaningful."

"The rebate amounts were not very much," Timson said. "It is not enough to really make an impact on families."

Timson said families in her neighborhood would have benefited more from putting that money into social services and education.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.