Maui lawmakers busy on measures state and local

The Maui News
Tuesday, March 30, 2004

By MARK ADAMS, Staff Writer

HONOLULU - With a little more than a month to go in the state Legislature's session for this year, high-profile issues like education reform and gas prices are overshadowing other work being done at the State Capitol.

And while Maui County lawmakers are weighing in on those subjects, they're busy stirring other coals they have in the fire aimed at keeping constituents warm and happy.

They range from garnering millions of dollars for highway improvements and health facilities to resolutions supporting affordable housing and requesting changes in federal regulations governing water-system additives that make people itch.

The latter is authored by East Maui Sen. J. Kalani English, who said health issues are one of the priorities he and his colleagues are focusing on as they work to make sure the county's hospitals and medical centers are funded for the next year.

In the state House's version of the supplemental budget, $31 million earmarked to run the state hospital system was cut, along with $12 million to build the Kulamalu long-term care facility Upcountry.

West Maui Sen. Roz Baker, who chairs the Senate Health Committee, is optimistic that the Kulamalu project will survive intact in the capital improvement section of the budget.

Money for the Hawaii Health Systems Corp. should also be restored, she said. The corporation runs Maui Memorial Medical Center, the island's only acute-care hospital.

South Maui Rep. Chris Halford said the state needs to step up and make a commitment to funding health care, because if there are systemwide deficits tied to a lack of funding and to costs incurred from treating patients unable to pay, the impact will continue to degrade care.

"Either the sick people who can pay will be picking up the tab, or the corporation will cut back on services," Halford said.

Upcountry Rep. Kika Bukoski said the House decision to reduce funding for the corporation was shortsighted, and he understands it was based on a misinterpretation of financial information.

"If it was based on a carryover savings that doesn't exist, that's a big oversight and very irresponsible," Bukoski said. "They are playing with the health and safety of residents."

English said health care needs to be near the top of the state's agenda. "We face an impending crisis with the aging of the 'baby boom' generation," he said. As the percentage of older residents increases, the need for a long-term care facility does as well. Kulamalu will take pressure off of Maui Memorial, which now provides some beds for long-term care patients.

On other health-related issues, Baker said she hopes her colleagues will support bills that will provide an additional ambulance for South Maui and increased opportunity for training paramedics.

She's also advocating a measure allowing dentists from other states to work at community clinics in Hawaii without going through the relicensing process. Another of her bills would allow unused medication from medical facilities like nursing homes and hospitals to be turned in to a state repository for reuse.

In the area of highways, Central Maui Rep. Joe Souki, who chairs the House Transportation Committee, said ongoing highway projects should be safe as final budget decisions are made in the next few weeks.

Road projects include the widening of Honoapiilani Highway on the west side, the widening of Haleakala Highway leading Upcountry and the next phase of improvements to Mokulele Highway between Kihei and Puunene.

"Highways are doing fine," he said, noting that Central Maui Rep. Bob Nakasone is also riding herd on the projects as chairman of the House's capital improvement subcommittee.

Bukoski is also optimistic about capital improvement projects in his Upcountry district, including the expansion of the Makawao Library and the continued improvement of the dual-line irrigation system for farming in Kula.

English is hoping the Legislature will look favorably on his request for $40 million to build the Paia bypass that will run mauka of the town from the Baldwin Beach Park area to Maliko Gulch.

Both Halford and West Maui Rep. Brian Blundell are pushing for money to make improvements to small boat harbors at Maalaea and Lahaina.

Rep. Sol Kaho'ohalahala, who represents East Maui, Lanai and Molokai, said he has support for a $500,000 appropriation to improve the Molokai irrigation system.

He has also authored a bill that would make the state Department of Health more accountable for nonpatient expenses it oversees at Kalaupapa.

Kaho'ohalahala is also sponsoring a resolution that addresses affordable housing issues. He had attempted to win approval of a bill increasing the state's property conveyance tax to establish an affordable housing trust fund, but a review by the state auditor raised some questions and the measure was deferred.

The resolution asks that issues related to establishing a fund that could be used to build affordable housing be studied before the beginning of next year's legislative session.

There is a certain amount of frustration being expressed at the Capitol over the amount of energy being expended on what has become a political fight over education reform, and all of the Maui County lawmakers had it on their minds Monday.

"Our attempts to improve the educational system have kind of become lost in politics," Bukoski said. "It's become engulfed in political rhetoric, which is defeating the whole purpose."

The House has twice defeated measures that would have given voters the opportunity to decide if the state should establish local school boards, an action advocated very publicly by Republican Gov. Linda Lingle in what has become a direct challenge to Democrats in an election year.

Baker, a Democrat, said she is mystified at Lingle's push for the ballot measure, noting that the Senate can't put a constitutional amendment on the ballot by itself and the House has made its position clear.

"Either she doesn't understand how to get an amendment on the ballot, or she's using the issue for political gain," Baker said.

She said the Senate is trying to come up with meaningful reform that will get additional resources down to the classroom level, like more dollars for textbooks and to pay for additional teachers aides.

Kaho'ohalahala, also a Democrat, said the debate has turned into a public-relations campaign by Lingle. Most people who say they want to vote on local school boards really don't have any idea what that would fix or how it would fix it.

"They understand the political part," Kaho'ohalahala said. "But the solution is in the details, and I don't think the public has looked at the details."

He supports a revival of the school/community-based management system, with a community council working with the principal to decide where the bulk of the money going to a given school is spent.

While Republicans are backing a ballot measure, Halford said he doesn't see it as a partisan issue, although he supports it and is also a Republican. "In 1994, the year I was elected, I campaigned for local school boards," Halford said. "And Democrats supported it two years ago."

Halford said every legislator in Hawaii is aware that a "supermajority" of the public wants to vote on the issue.

"That alone should give the Democratic leadership pause" in not allowing a vote to occur, Halford said. And as far as educating the public, he predicts a massive public education effort by all sides with a stake in the issue once a constitutional amendment vote is scheduled, from the governor to the unions representing teachers and other Department of Education workers.

"But it's degrading to the public not to give them the opportunity to voice their view through the ballot," Halford said.

Veteran Democrat Souki said that's exactly the message that will go forth if the Legislature doesn't allow the vote.

"The governor is a hell of a communicator - I have to give her an A-plus for that," Souki said, and it appears that this is a major issue she has chosen with which to challenge the Democratic majority in November.

He noted that if the GOP picks up three seats in the House this year, Democrats won't be able to override a Lingle veto.

"And if we can't override a veto, we're in deep kim chee," Souki said. Given all that, he said he hopes his colleagues "don't fall for her trap."

And although Souki has twice voted against a ballot measure this year, he said Monday he's ready to put it to the voters, although he sees large problems with establishing seven separate school boards with minisuperintendents, or whatever final form decentralization takes.

"I would prefer to give the public the chance to vote on the current system and the governor's system," he said.

Baker said she does not think local school boards are the answer, although she fully supports more autonomy for principals and local school communities in deciding where money is spent.

A constitutional amendment has to be fully formed, Baker said. It can't just be "local school boards" that is put to the voters.

"The thing that gets lost in the crossfire is that you have to have the full proposal," she said. "It has to be framed in such a way that voters know what they're voting on."

There are plenty of troubled schools and failing students on the Mainland that have always been governed by local school boards, Baker said.

"Groups that have done a thoughtful study of the issue have concluded the issue isn't governance," Baker said. "If the governor wants to jump up and down and make it political, that's her thing. I'm here to solve the problem."

Copyright © 2003 — The Maui News

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