The first layer of clouds hovering over the budgeting process for the 2023 Legislature, now officially concluded, has peeled off, but the fiscal gameplan is far from clear. Among many others, the embattled Hawaii Tourism Authority is still in a wrestling match to stake a claim on a share of state funds yet to be doled out.
On Monday, the HTA, an agency whose survival was anything but secure throughout the session, issued three contracts that are central to more carefully managing tourism here, aligning with current state policy:
>> $27.1 million to the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement to handle “destination management” — keeping the use of tourism hot spots under control and in balance with the community.
>> $38.3 million to the Hawaii Visitors &Convention Bureau to handle brand management and marketing services for the U.S. visitor market.
>> $2.4 million to VoX International, doing business here as Hawaii Tourism Canada, to handle the Canadian market outreach.
The hope now is for a break in all the political storms so that HTA has a chance of proving itself. Having barely escaped lawmakers’ push to reconstitute it in some form, the agency faces a long climb back to trust levels needed to conduct business normally.
Repeated false starts over this very procurement process had soured relations with some key lawmakers to begin with, and it’s not a safe bet whether, even now, everything will go smoothly. Making sure that it does will be Job 1 if HTA is to continue steering the state’s principal industry.
Specifically, HTA will have to run the gauntlet in an odd five-point system of oversight to cobble together an operating budget. Expenditures for the authority will go through a “checks and balances” approvals process with consent from James Tokioka, interim director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism; legislative leadership, the state budget and finance director; and both the governor and lieutenant governor.
How exactly this will work is still wreathed in fog. Who’s in charge, if anyone? And even if looping in legislative leaders is seen as a conciliatory gesture, giving a direct decision-making role to a select few outside the bounds of the legislative session is uncomfortably irregular.
In the rushed and confused final days of the Legislature, HTA emerged intact only because there was no agreement on its future, and no budget for its operation.
Last year, then-Gov. David Ige had set aside $30 million for HTA in unspent American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. Ige siphoned off this money to keep HTA afloat because he had vetoed a late “gut and replace” bill to fund it; lawmakers had passed the bill using a political maneuver struck down by the state Supreme Court.
This year’s budgeting irregularities don’t end there, unfortunately. HTA is one of many agencies angling for some portion of the $200 million in unappropriated funds the Legislature left for discretionary spending by Gov. Josh Green.
A caveat was added to the governor’s unusual degree of flexibility, though: Green has to give the Legislature 14 days’ notice of any discretionary spending, and then report back what he actually did, said House Speaker Scott Saiki.
Fine as a transparency rule, and as long as the public is kept informed just as promptly. But lawmakers gave away their discretion over these funds and shouldn’t be grabbing it back out of session.
The speaker seemed to endorse the “safeguards” of this spending process, deeming it “historical.” Let’s all hope this particular history — of messy budgeting and accountability — doesn’t repeat itself.
