To put it bluntly: The time is not right to raise salaries for Honolulu’s top officials and City Council members, nor for top administrators of the state’s Department of Education.
Both Honolulu and the state of Hawaii are in recovery mode after a grueling period of enforced isolation during the global COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to bolstering pay for the city or state’s top officials, the prudent option is to hold steady until it’s clear the economy is secure. And even then, the rate of increase must be reasonable.
Hawaii has been recovering more quickly and fully than might have been expected, based largely on a dramatic inflow of federal pandemic aid. For the moment, both county and state coffers are full. But this temporary wealth is just that — temporary — and decisions that permanently commit the city or state to increased spending on a year-after-year basis must be carefully scrutinized.
A whopping 60% increase in the Honolulu City Council chair’s salary, and huge increases in pay for the mayor and City Council members, aren’t justified under this reasoning — not when uncertainty prevails over government’s ability to fill long-term needs across Oahu. The argument might be stronger for raising certain other city department heads’ wages about 12.5%, as proposed, but if all are part of one package recommendation, it should be rejected.
City administrators, including the mayor and department heads, were last granted raises in 2019. In 2020, 2021 and 2022, the Honolulu Salary Commission recommended against raises for top city officials, which was proper: The entire state was in crisis. And despite current federal pandemic funds, it remains to be seen if the city is financially stable on its own, as global economic uncertainty continues.
The city is also striving to fill widespread vacant positions, including at the Honolulu Police Department, where HPD chief Joe Logan would see his annual pay increase to $231,648 from $205,800 — a premature reward, as the freshman-year chief hasn’t been on the job long enough to show that his appointment is paying off in an improved, stabilized police force.
Increasing elected officials’ pay so exorbitantly when the future is cloudy is poor leadership, and the proposal to do so is already sparking predictable outcries of anger and resentment.
Decisions about public sector administrators’ compensation in the islands should also be made through a local lens, rather than comparing salaries to those on the mainland. That’s a lesson the City Council can learn from the reaction to state schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi’s call for increasing his top administrators’ pay.
The Department of Education’s proposal called for raising wages for three groups of superintendents under Hayashi: 15 complex-area superintendents who work directly with schools; seven assistant superintendents; and Hayashi’s three deputy superintendents.
The Board of Education had asked for pay recommendations only for complex-area superintendents. That was justified, as they in some cases could earn less than school principals, and wages for supervisors should reasonably be expected to rise with the wages of those reporting to them. Hayashi, however — who now says he misunderstood the BOE’s request — gallingly recommended raises for all three groups, including his top-wage-scale administrative team. That prompted an avalanche of opposition, with many rightly angered that DOE would prioritize raises for administrators before addressing salary issues for in-class teachers and support staff.
Properly, a BOE committee cut Hayashi’s proposal, approving pay-range increases only for complex-area superintendents, and only after DOE develops a detailed proposal for setting pay based on standard criteria such as qualifications and experience.
For similar reasons, the City Council needs to shelve raises until they can be more narrowly tailored, and justified by Honolulu’s financial outlook and stability.
