After a promising start, the neighborhood boards have run into a financial snag.

At issue is the small amount of money that has been allotted by the Neighborhood Commission to each board. The budgets for the boards ranged from $300 to $700 for this fiscal year.

The boards use their funds for office supplies (and) the mailing of notices, minutes of meetings and agendas.

The boards insist the budgets must be increased if the boards are to keep in contact with the people in their district.

The financial plight hasn’t gone unnoticed by City officials. There is general sympathy for the boards’ problems, but officials say the commission has received a fair budget for a tight fiscal year. The commission received $134,000 for the 1977-78 fiscal year, an increase of $29,000 over last year.

Dr. J.I. Frederick Reppun, head of the Kahaluu Neighborhood Board, said the commission didn’t expect the boards to grow as fast as they have.

According to Irene Fujimoto, executive secretary of the commission, it had expected to cover the expense for five new boards over the existing 15 in its present fiscal budget. Now, that estimate has been revised, and the commission figures there will be 13 more new boards after the board elections in November. An amendment in the City Charter in 1972 called for the establishment of 32 boards.

… City officials readily acknowledge that the commission budget has failed to keep pace with the number of boards.

Marilyn Bornhorst, City Council chairman, said this year’s budget was the most the Council could get for the commission.

Philip Chun, chairman of the Neighborhood Commission, also acknowledges the financial problem of the boards, but he says they have failed to note in their criticism the services provided by the commission.

… The commission staff, he said, provides consultant services, mimeographs notices, types and mails correspondence and notices of meetings, orders materials and gathers technical information from government agencies.

Chun said the budgets of the boards during the first year of operation were “misleading.” There were few boards then, a lot more money and little idea of the scope of the board’s duties, he said.

Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar