Legislative Recap

/

The Hawai‘i State Legislature has completed its first week since reconvening session on Monday, May 11th. Here’s a breakdown of what has happened this week.

COVID-19 aka CARES relief funding:

The state directly received $1.25B from the federal government to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and this week legislators discussed how to best appropriate these funds. CARES funds must be spent by the the end of December 2020 and must be used for direct COVID-19 related expenses. The House Finance Committee just approved SB 75 which will now head to the House and Senate floor next week for final approval. Here is a breakdown of how that $1.25B will be allocated:

Funding directly to the Counties, based on population. It will be up to each Mayor and City Council to determine how best to use funding and relief funds for their respective county. It is important to note that Counties will need to pitch in for things like food, rent, and utilities relief, as the state is focused on providing unemployment insurance and did not appropriate state COVID-19 funding for these types of relief:

  • $388M to the City and County of Honolulu

  • $80M to Hawai‘i Island County

  • $60M to Maui County

  • $28M to Kaua‘i County

State funding. The remaining balance of CARES funding will be spent on:

  • $40M to the Department of Defense for the purchase of personal protective equipment, quarantine enforcement, and other COVID-19 response efforts.

  • $50M to the Department of Health, including $14M for contact tracing and testing and $36M for a thermal screening system at airports that will use cameras to scan passengers for fevers.

  • ~$10M to the Department of Labor Relations for upgrading their IT system to better process unemployment and hire additional staff to process unemployment claims. Over 220,000 unemployment claims were filed since March and around 75,000 claimants are still pending unemployment services and relief.

  • ~$2M to the Department of Human Services to expand SNAP (food stamps) eligibility and availability.

  • No funding was given to the Governor’s Economic Recovery Navigator efforts. The $10M budget request was denied over concerns from legislators that $9M of that funding was for consulting services. Legislators are requesting the Department of Economic Development, Business, and Tourism apply for federal funding for the Recovery Navigator.

Overall, $635M of the $1.25B COVID-19 relief funding will go back into the state’s rainy day fund via SB 3139 and will be revisited in June when the legislators reconvene again.

  • Legislators want to review the progress of how the COVID-19 funding is being implemented, see what additional funding for economic recovery is needed from state agencies, and see if additional Federal relief money will be given to Hawai‘i before appropriating the remaining lump sum of $635M.

  • Legislators anticipate needing to use much of the remaining $635M for unemployment insurance and other health and social services needs. Hawai‘i’s existing unimployment insurance fund will be depleted by the end of June and unimployment insurance could cost the state $500M per month.

The State Budget bills:

The legislature has projected a $1B budgetary shortfall over the next fiscal year and this week made adjustments to the supplemental state budget bill (HB 2200), the supplemental judiciary budget bill (SB 3080), the Capital Improvement Projects budget bill (HB 2725), and also delayed executive and judicial salary pay raises (HB 117).

Thankfully, the legislature has created a plan to make up the $1B budget shortfall while avoiding major budget cuts to existing state programs and public employee salaries. To do this, the state will tap into the state’s rainy day fund, reduce all funding appropriated for vacant positions across state agencies, take unused funds from state agencies and excess monies from various special funds, and replace cash funding with bond funding from the Rental Housing Revolving Fund and the Aloha Stadium Fund. In the short term, this will fill the $1B hole in the state budget.

Later this month, the Council on Revenues will meet and release updated tax projections that will better inform the economic impact of COVID-19 on the state’s budget for the next year. It is safe to assume that more adjustments to the budget will be made again in June when the legislature plans to reconvene for a second time. We are anticipating another short session mid-June to adjourn before July 1st, when the fiscal year starts over. We still don’t know what other bills, besides the budget and COVID-19 relief, will be considered in June.

Nominations:

Several Senate Committees have been scheduling hearings to process over 250 nominations to various state boards and commissions. These nominees were submitted by the Governor and need to be confirmed by the State Senate. This week, the Sierra Club testified on the following nominations before the Senate Water and Land Committee, which will vote on Monday, May 18th on the following nominations:

  • Support GM 670- Jonathan Scheuer’s nomination to the Land Use Commission.

  • Oppose GM 583- Chris Yuen’s nomination to the Board of Land and Natural Resources.

Following Monday’s committee vote, these nominations will then head to the Senate Floor for a vote by all Senators.