Governor sees progress with legislative support
Posted on May 29, 2019 in Capitol Connection, Featured, Main
Gov. Ige fields questions from reporters on budget funding.
From his nearly 30 years in the Legislature, Governor Ige believes in staying positive about funding for his administration’s priorities. “We made progress in critical areas. It’s not everything we asked for, but it allows us to continue the momentum in housing and homelessness, education and the environment,” he said. “In working with our legislators and House and Senate leadership, I’ve always maintained that because our values are aligned, our priorities are aligned. We’ll be moving forward together on these issues.”
After the legislative session, the governor highlighted some of the priority areas that received funding:
- Housing – $67M for the Dwelling Unit Revolving Fund and $100M for the Rental Housing Revolving Fund; $26M for the Department of Hawaiian Homelands; $20M for the Hawai‘i Public Housing Authority (HPHA) for renovations and maintenance statewide. Two bills would enable the HPHA and the Department of Education to enact 99-year leases on their lands while the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation is looking at additional possibilities.
- Homelessness – $27.6M for key priorities, including Housing First, Rapid Rehousing, the Family Assessment Center, outreach and civil legal services, and stored property and enforcement.
- Education – $700,000 for Hawai‘i Promise for UH community college students, $1.5M to expand the Early College programs, $1.4M to open 10 new public pre-K classrooms, funding to sustain 18 existing public charter school pre-K classrooms, and $6.5M in general obligation bonds to retrofit 10 Department of Education classrooms to expand public pre-K.
- Sustainability – $6M for watershed protection, $750,000 to address rapid ‘ohia death, additional positions for enforcement and stream monitoring and other measures to address climate change, clean energy and local food production.