West Maui Taxpayers Association
  • HOME
  • Olowalu Fire Station
  • WMTAPAC22
  • Affordable Housing
  • West Maui Lifesavers
  • Wall of Honor
  • Support WMTA
    • Membership - One Time Payment
    • Membership - Recurring Payment
    • Donations
    • Wills & Trusts
    • Charity Walk
  • Newsletter
  • Emergency Planning
  • News Blog
  • About Us
    • Goals & Objectives
    • Accomplishments
    • Board of Directors
    • WMTA vs WMIF
  • Contact
  • Subscribe

Federal COVID Money                                                                                                     By Tom Yamachika, President

6/1/2020

0 Comments

 
WMTA Shares these commentaries, without taking a position unless otherwise noted, to bring information to our readers ​to view the archives of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii's commentary click here.
Picture
Federal COVID Money
By Tom Yamachika, President

This week our Legislature will be recessing after working on one of its important tasks:  figuring out how to spend $1 billion of federal money that is being made available to Hawaii under the CARES Act.

This federal money is being made available for expenditures that are (1) necessary and incurred due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, (2) not budgeted for as of March 27, 2020, and (3) incurred before December 31, 2020.

Senate Bill 75, House Draft 1, gave the Neighbor Islands a share of that money because only Honolulu received a direct allocation of federal funds; gave a few state agencies some money for state COVID response; and then squirreled away the balance, about $636 million, into the emergency and budget reserve fund (also known as the “rainy-day fund”).

Why was it put there?  According to Senator Thielen’s article in Civil Beat, it was put there so the governor couldn’t touch it.  Apparently, the plan is for the Legislature to recess until mid-June, come back into session, and then appropriate the balance of the money so it can be spent by the end of the year.  Senate Bill 75 requires that the money to go a new, separate account within the rainy-day fund, which perhaps would make it easier to say that expenditures out of this account came from the COVID-19 money rather than the $395 million that is already in the fund.

Some have pointed out that the rainy-day fund statute, HRS section 328L-3, not only prevents the money from being spent by the Executive Branch without a legislative appropriation, but also prevents the Legislature from appropriating more than 50% of the total balance of the fund in a fiscal year.  True; if that statute is left alone, it would prevent the Legislature from using all the federal money, which would result in forfeiture of some of the federal funds that have been set aside for Hawaii. 

Thus, the Legislature’s plan must be to also amend the rainy-day fund statute in some way to allow the appropriation.  Can they do this?  Sure, if the Governor is willing to sign the resulting appropriation bill.

But remember that the Governor doesn’t have to play by the rules either.  We have seen that he isn’t shy about using his emergency powers to suspend laws.  His most recent Eighth Supplementary Proclamation has a list of suspended laws that is 20 pages long, and we have already written about how this Governor has suspended a law that affected distribution of tax revenues to take control of moneys that the Legislature had earmarked for the counties. 

If push came to shove, he could easily suspend the rainy day fund statute and take control of that money as well, relying, perhaps, on HRS section 26-8 which gives the Department of Budget and Finance custody of all state funds. 

What all of this means is that the Governor, the Legislature, or both could get into a big, messy argument on how to best use the billion dollars that our federal government has graciously provided.  We need to remember that if we don’t reach agreement on how to use this money, and then actually use it, by the end of this calendar year that the money will return to (or stay in) the United States Treasury. 

We can park the money in the rainy-day fund as a short-term solution, but we don’t have time to argue about it!  We need both parties to come to the table, come to some agreements and understandings on how best to use this money toward helping the general welfare of this State, and then do it before time runs out.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    RSS Feed


    If you wish to further discuss blog posts, please contat our office directly or contact us via Contact page.

    Categories

    All
    Affordable Housing & Homelessness
    Board
    Capital Improvements
    Charity Walk
    Commentaries
    Community Events
    Community Resources
    CON
    COVID 19
    Educational
    Emergency Planning
    Health & Safety
    HHARP
    Housing
    Infrastructure In West Maui
    In The News
    Kapalua Airport Runway Lights
    Kapalua Coastal Trail
    Lahaina Bypass
    Legislature Newsletters
    LLC
    Long Range Transportation Plan 2040
    Long-Range Transportation Plan 2040
    Makila
    MAUI CANCER CENTER
    Maui Cancer Center Llc
    Maui County
    Maui County Budget
    Maui County Dept Of Environmental Management
    Maui County - Dept Of Water
    Maui Destination Management Plan
    Press
    Public Safety In West Maui
    Real Property Tax
    Recycling Info
    TAT
    Tax
    Tourism
    Traffic & Roadways
    Transportation
    Video
    Vote
    Voting
    West Maui Community Plan
    West Maui Hospital
    West Maui Skate Park
    WMTA Annual Meeting
    WMTA Breakfast Events
    WMTA Candidates Night
    WMTA Disaster Preparedness
    WMTA Fundraisers
    WMTA Hot Topics
    Wmta Hot Topics Replay
    WMTA Membership
    WMTA PAC
    WMTA Sunset Sail
    WMTA Whale Watch

Quick Links: 

Home

News

About Us

Wall of Honor

Newsletter

Support WMTA
Emergency Planning

Contact

Copyright © 2021
Photo used under Creative Commons from wolfsavard
  • HOME
  • Olowalu Fire Station
  • WMTAPAC22
  • Affordable Housing
  • West Maui Lifesavers
  • Wall of Honor
  • Support WMTA
    • Membership - One Time Payment
    • Membership - Recurring Payment
    • Donations
    • Wills & Trusts
    • Charity Walk
  • Newsletter
  • Emergency Planning
  • News Blog
  • About Us
    • Goals & Objectives
    • Accomplishments
    • Board of Directors
    • WMTA vs WMIF
  • Contact
  • Subscribe