Mayor Rick Blangiardi has officially adopted the city’s $3.41 billion operating budget for fiscal year 2024, providing more funding for affordable housing, to combat homelessness and to bolster public safety.

During a Honolulu Hale bill- signing ceremony Friday afternoon, Blangiardi was seated at a wooden desk and flanked by six members of the City Council including Chair Tommy Waters. He also approved the city’s $1.34 billion capital improvement program to fund more road and highway projects, along with the island’s mass transit system — including operation of the Skyline rail system, which opens for passenger service in West Oahu on Friday.

The mayor also formally adopted the city’s one-time $350 tax rebate that will be granted to nearly 152,000 qualifying homeowners with an active home exemption on their 2023 assessment, regardless of property value. The city says the $350 tax rebate — costing about $53.2 million to implement — will equal a real property tax exemption of $100,000.

Prior to the budget signing, Blangiardi lauded the efforts of the Council and city administration in forging a “shared agreement” that reflects collective priorities for the city.

“We believe it’s of absolute importance for us and what we want to get done for the city in the coming year,” he said.

Honolulu’s latest budget includes:

>> $354 million for Honolulu Police Department’s operating budget — a $43 million increase over 2022’s budget, with $35 million going directly to patrol. The city says the combined funding for public safety and health constitutes over 17% of next year’s budget, or about $591 million.

>> $170 million for affordable housing, which includes funds for land acquisition, planning, design, construction and other miscellaneous costs for the development of low- and moderate-income affordable housing, including housing for teachers and first responders.

>> $20 million to address affordable housing related to homelessness, with a focus on families experiencing acute economic hardship, and providing funds for the acquisition of land, planning, design, construction and other miscellaneous costs for the development of low- and moderate-income affordable housing.

>> $35 million to fund homeless service facilities, including funding for the acquisition of land, planning, design and construction of facilities to support homeless services.

>> $18 million for the Community Revitalization Initiative to acquire, lease, develop and renovate urban rest stops, workforce housing and navigation centers, among other facilities.

>> $85,000 to hire support for the new Oahu Historic Preservation Commission.

>> Adding 16 full-time lifeguards along with $1.3 million in funding to further implement the Extended Lifeguard Services Program known as “dawn to dusk lifeguards.”

>> $400,000 to the Chinatown Task Force, to have HPD continue its work for the entire fiscal year.

According to Waters, the budget is focused on public safety and crime prevention.

“A patrolling police officer is the best deterrent to crime,” Waters said at the signing ceremony. “We’re putting an additional $40 million into HPD’s budget … on top of the $12 million we gave them last year.”

The city is “going to expect more from our Police Department” with the additional crime-fighting money, he said. “We want our police officers out there patrolling; we want them out there catching the bad guys,” Waters said.

Pay hikes

Meanwhile, the city’s top elected and appointed officials will soon see more money to fund their own positions in local government.

As adopted April 25 by the city’s Salary Commission, the annual salary of an individual Council member would rise 64.4% to $113,304, up from $68,904, while the yearly salary of the Council chair — who leads the nine- member panel — would jump to $123,288 from $76,968, a 60.2% increase.

Besides the Council, the mayor and his executive managers and department heads will see a nearly 12.6% pay bump. As adopted, the mayor’s annual pay would rise to $209,856 from its current $186,432, while the annual salary for the managing director’s position would increase to $200,712 from the current pay of $178,320.

Like the budget, the Salary Commission’s adopted pay hikes start July 1 unless rejected entirely or in part of a three-quarters vote — or seven votes — of the Council’s entire membership, according to the City Charter.

On Monday, Council member Augie Tulba — opposed to the Council’s salary increase — told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that his effort to see the 64% pay hikes reviewed, discussed and possibly thwarted had failed.

Tulba claims he’ll return any Council pay raise he’s to receive to the city’s general fund.

But just as he’s done since the Salary Commission’s decision in April, Blangiardi defended the higher salaries that he and his executive management team will receive for running the city.

“I know how hard these people have worked,” Blangiardi said Friday, following the budget signing. “And we set the bar very high for them.”

Due in part to the COVID- 19 pandemic, the mayor asserted that “for three straight years” there’d been no salary increase for his staff. He added that’s why he’d asked the Salary Commission — a volunteer panel appointed by the Council and the mayor — for these pay increases.

“But I had no idea what kind of percentages that would mean or any of that,” Blangiardi said. “I just felt the team had earned that.”