Gov. David Ige announced two of the boldest initiatives of his administration Tuesday by proposing to restructure as much as half of the state’s public elementary schools to accommodate state-funded preschools, and to lease out state lands for condominium developments.

Ige’s preschool proposal, which was included in the State of the State address he delivered Tuesday at the Capitol, would move sixth-­graders into middle schools at some schools, freeing up space in elementary schools for preschool classes.

“First and foremost, we must create a universal, statewide, high-quality public preschool system that will give every child in Hawaii a head start on learning,” Ige said. “Ultimately, we will need more than 300 public pre-K classrooms. Clearly, this is a long-term goal. But we don’t have to wait until we have funding for all of it.”

House lawmakers praised Ige’s speech and said they support the idea of universal preschool but have reservations about the cost. House Democratic Majority Leader Della Au Belatti said Ige’s preschool plan would eventually cost the state an extra $51 million a year for operations and require another $500 million for additional classroom construction.

When asked about those concerns, state schools Superintendent Christina Kishimoto replied that “answers to tough questions is what the Legislature is here for, and so I am looking forward to how they talk about a long-term solution to this.”

“There is national and very long-term research that says pre-K access matters in closing the achievement gap” between students from low-income families and students from higher-income families, Kishimoto said. “We have a huge achievement gap in this state.”

Ige told reporters after his speech that “obviously, it’s a decades-long process, but if we don’t have a goal and we don’t have a vision, then we’ll never get there.”

Housing plan

Ige also announced a plan to build and sell condominiums on state lands that would be leased out for 99 years. He did not say specifically where those projects would be developed, but said they will be built along the city rail line and on “other underutilized state lands.”

“This legislation will be critical to unlocking the potential for thousands of new affordable housing units to be built on state lands on all islands,” Ige told lawmakers. By developing the leasehold projects on state property, the state will be able to “determine the terms” of any resales of the affordable units, he said.

Before they agree to that plan, House lawmakers said they want to see what Ige has accomplished with $300 million they applied toward affordable housing and rentals in recent years. Ige said that money is “pretty much” allocated to planned affordable-­housing projects.

While the state must continuously pump subsidies into affordable rental projects, Ige said the leasehold condo plan would be self-funding. As units are sold, the proceeds would be plowed into the next project, “so we believe it allows us to accelerate availability of homes for our community,” Ige told reporters.

Ige also used his address to state lawmakers to claim some success in coping with homelessness, which he said has been reduced by 18 percent over the past two years, and noted his proposed budget for the next two years includes $315 million for housing.

Other proposals

He also proposed pumping more funding into the state’s Legacy Land Conservation Program, which provides grants to community organizations and government agencies to purchase and protect land with exceptional or threatened resources. That program operates under the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

The state currently funds the program with up to $6.8 million per year in conveyance tax revenue, but Ige proposed lifting that cap.

“If we want green spaces, if we want to grow our own food, if we want places for recreation, if we want clean, fresh water, if we want the environment that has been so central to Hawaii’s life, we need to have special lands in public hands,” Ige said.

Ige also said he will introduce a bill to increase the state’s current minimum wage of $10.10 per hour in a series of annual $1 steps until it reaches $15 per hour, and said his administration is proposing a tax credit to help cushion small businesses from the impact of that increase.

The governor also said he wants to provide more funding for the counties from the state’s hotel room tax revenues. The state currently caps the counties’ share of hotel room taxes at $103 million a year, and the division of that money between the state and counties is debated at the Legislature each year.

Funding preschool

Ige’s preschool plan would have the most impact on the neighbor islands, where more elementary schools include sixth-grade classes. Ige noted that preschools are especially lacking on the neighbor islands, and “that gives us a tremendous opportunity to kick-start this effort, initially in communities where they are most needed.”

Senate Vice President Michelle Kidani described the preschool plan as “a great idea” but said she is concerned about 18 pre-K charter school classrooms that are losing federal funding.

“We need to work together as to how we are going to resolve that issue,” she said.

Kishimoto said the state should also pick up the funding for those charter school pre-K classrooms. She said she does not know how much it will cost to keep those schools operating, but “those classes have been up and running for two years, and they need to continue.”

The state now has 24 preschools in Title I public elementary schools with large populations of low-income students, and preschools are needed in another 110 Title I schools, Kishimoto said.

The Department of Education has a list of 27 elementary schools with empty classrooms that are ready for preschools, which means the sixth-graders do not need to be relocated out of those schools, she said.

Republican House Minority Leader Gene Ward applauded Ige’s proposals on utilizing state lands to create more affordable housing and expanding preschool.

“The preschools — I think that is exceptional because the way out of poverty in America is education,” said Ward (R, Kalama Valley-­Queen’s Gate-Hawaii Kai).

He was more skeptical of Ige’s claims of making a significant dent in homelessness, and said he would have liked to see the governor’s speech address economic issues.

“What I think is most conspicuous in its absence is the economic hardship issue and attacking economic issues. That was, to me, the biggest thing missing: the way that some people have two and three jobs,” he said.

Overall, Ward said that Ige, who is not known for his public-speaking skills, did a good job on the speech.

“This one, he had ownership, he had feeling and emotion,” he said. “He did a great job. He spoke like a governor.”

Common ground

Ige has emerged from the hard-fought 2018 re-election campaign at the peak of his political power, a time when some governors would focus on one or more “legacy” projects that would serve as crowning achievements for their eight years in office.

But Ige must deal this year with lawmakers who have often been openly critical of his leadership, who supported his opponent in the Democratic primary last year and who seem quick to disagree with him today.

Leading lawmakers in the House, in particular, have publicly criticized Ige for failing to do more to address homelessness, the shortage of affordable housing and illegal vacation rentals.

Top leaders in both the House and Senate supported former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa for governor last year in her unsuccessful Democratic primary race for governor.

During his speech Ige noted the gridlock in Washington, D.C., that has shut down portions of the federal government for more than a month, the longest shutdown in U.S. history with no end in sight.

“We have a duty and responsibility to do our jobs and do them in partnership with each other,” Ige told lawmakers and the audience. “That is the least those folks up there in the gallery — the people we all work for — expect.”

Ige at times has shrugged off his somewhat chilly relationship with lawmakers, noting whatever they might think of him, they approve the vast majority of his proposed budgets each year. Once his administration’s budget is law, the Legislature is not particularly relevant to the day-to-day operations of the state.

But the governor spent much of opening day of the Legislature last week visiting lawmakers’ offices in an apparent attempt to thaw some of his relationships there, and told the audience Tuesday morning he has been meeting with House and Senate leaders to find common ground “to shape a budget that best serves all the people of Hawaii.”

He also invited lawmakers to lunch in his fifth-floor office after his speech Tuesday.