Ohia, Saddle Road extension, Kona Airport on governor’s priority list; Ige unveils $28.5B budget

Gov. David Ige was sporting an aloha shirt featuring ohia foliage Monday as he announced a no-new-taxes biennial budget that includes money to protect the important tree as well as funds for other Big Island projects.

Ige tucked $3.5 million into the budget to help stop the dreaded rapid ohia death fungus as part of a $30 million sustainability initiative that also includes expanded farm loans and improved water infrastructure.

“As we know, this disease threatens the most important watershed trees in our state,” Ige said about rapid ohia death.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources earlier this month presented a three-year strategic response plan that estimated the need for $3.6 million the first year. The plan was developed by members of a rapid ohia death working group that meets monthly.

The plan includes seven objectives, from ramping up community outreach efforts to creating a “sustainable, coordinated and efficient response” to new outbreaks. The three-year total the group is seeking is about $10 million.

Specific response plans still need to be developed in areas such as seed collection and forest restoration. An emergency quarantine on transporting ohia and ohia plant parts from the Big Island was put in place last summer by the state Department of Agriculture. That quarantine was made permanent this fall.

Ige’s proposed operating budget totals $14.2 billion for the 2017-18 budget year that begins in July, and $14.3 billion the next year. That’s an increase of 4 percent during the first year of his biennial budget and 5 percent the second year.

The capital improvement budget totals $2.3 billion the first year and $781.8 million the second year.

Ige’s focus in this budget is threefold: Education, housing and homelessness and sustainable initiatives, he said during a 1 p.m. news conference Monday that was streamed live on the web from his Honolulu office.

“This budget is a vehicle for changing the trajectory of our state so our children can make their homes in Hawaii,” he said.

The budget now goes to the Legislature, which opens for its 60-day session Jan. 18.

In other Big Island projects, Ige set aside $85 million for Daniel K. Inouye Highway, also known as Saddle Road, to finish the primary connector between the east and west sides of the island. The money will be used for a new extension of the highway on the west side of the island between Mamalahoa Highway and Queen Kaahumanu Highway, said state Sen. Lorraine Inouye, chairwoman of the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee.

“I’m really happy that we’re moving along on this,” Inouye said.

She said the state is pitching in $17.4 million in bond money and the federal government is kicking in the majority, $71.4 million. Inouye, a Democrat, represents the north part of the island from Hilo to Kona.

Public review of the draft environmental impact statement is scheduled for February, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

And the governor recommitted to his vision to see Kona International Airport become the state’s second major Japan-Hawaii hub, adding $50 million to complete a permanent federal inspection station to allow more direct commercial flights between Kailua-Kona and Japan.

Statewide budget priorities throughout the biennial budget period include $800 million for education, the highest instructional budget allocation ever, $20.9 million to combat homelessness, $123.4 million in programs to promote new housing starts and $59 million for public housing improvements.

Ige plans to plow another $18.8 million to modernize the tax system and $9.2 million to convert the state’s 40-year-old paper-based payroll system to computer.

Budget details can be found at http://budget.hawaii.gov/budget/executive-biennium-budget-fiscal-budget-2017-2019/.

Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.