Tag: Maui

Testimony: To lift or to not increase the salaries of Maui County officers?


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The next testimony by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii was thought of by the Maui County Wage Fee on Jan. 20, 2023.
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Jan. 20, 2023
9:00 a.m.
Mayor’s Convention Room and Videoconference

To: The Maui County Wage Fee
Chair, Scott Parker
Vice Chair, Grant Nakama

From: Joe Kent
          Government Vice President
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

RE: Merchandise 5.A, Dialogue and consideration of the Wage Fee’s 2023 technique and strategy relating to the salaries for the Mayor, County Council members, Administrators, Deputy Administrators and County Auditor.

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Pricey Chair and Fee Members:

The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii want to supply its feedback on the Wage Fee’s 2023 technique for figuring out the salaries of the mayor, County Council members, division administrators and the county auditor.

In April 2022, the Fee voted to present the mayor, County Council members and division administrators a 5% pay improve. This was the primary increase the Council had acquired since 2013.[1]

Going ahead in 2023, the Fee ought to take into account the next:

>> The Maui County Council is the very best paid Council within the state.

Due to final yr’s pay increase, members of the Maui County Council now obtain a wage of $80,298.75 a yr; the Council chair receives $86,336.25.

On Kauai, the Kauai County Council voted in September 2022 to present itself, the mayor and the division heads 15% raises. By 2024, Kauai’s Council members will likely be making $78,672 a yr, and the Council chair $88,502.[2]

In Honolulu and Hawaii counties, the mayors and county councils didn’t obtain any pay will increase final yr.[3] Their council members are paid $68,904 and $70,008 per yr, respectively.[4]

>> Many metropolis and county council members throughout the U.S. work for much less.

Throughout america, there’s nice variation in how metropolis and county council members are compensated.

In Texas, Austin Metropolis Council members make $116,688 per yr whereas Dallas Council members earn solely $60,000 per yr — regardless that each councils are full-time.[5]

In the meantime, many smaller localities throughout the nation are led by council members who obtain a lot decrease compensation.

For instance, Sandy Springs, Georgia, a city of about 100,000 individuals, pays its mayor $47,000 per yr, and its council members $21,000, adjusted for Hawaii’s price of dwelling.[6] The town is persistently ranked as probably the greatest locations to dwell in America,[7] and is dwelling to a number of Fortune 500 corporations.[8]

Maui lawmakers usually are not essentially full-time staff

Maui County officers are neither part-time nor full-time staff, in accordance with the Maui Company Council, which said on April 8, 2019:

Elected officers are a novel class of public servant who’re neither full-time or part-time. Whereas the county council could designate its members as full-time, the advantages accorded to elected officers usually are not primarily based on that designation. The advantages accessible to elected officers are established by statute. We make no opinion whether or not the Wage Fee ought to take into account the full-time or part-time standing of elected officers.[9]

The truth that the mayor and council have prior to now labored lengthy hours doesn’t essentially imply that they need to work a lot, nor that spending a lot time on their jobs is a “public good.”

For instance, in some situations, the laborious creation of laws that places limitations in the way in which of housing or enterprise exercise, or infringes on the property rights of residents, might really be thought of a “public unhealthy,” and shouldn’t be inspired.

Above all, because the Maui County Wage Fee works on its technique for 2023, it is very important keep in mind that creating an excellent place to dwell doesn’t require paying the mayor and County Council members excessive salaries.

Thanks for the chance to testify.

Joe Kent

Government Vice President

Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

[1] Lila Fujimoto, “Panel awards pay raises to mayor, council,” The Maui Information, April 9, 2022.

[2] Guthrie Scrimgeour, “Kaua‘i county council approves raises for mayor, division heads, councilmembers,” The Backyard Island, Sept. 8, 2022.

[3] Ashley Mizuo, “No wage improve this yr for Council members, mayor and division heads,” Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 19, 2022.

[4] Richard Wiens, “Which County Pays Its Council Members The Most? (Trace: It’s Not Honolulu),” Honolulu Civil Beat, Oct. 17, 2021.

[5] Bridget Grumet, “Grumet: Austin Metropolis Council’s large raises got here with too little clarification,” Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 21, 2022.

[6] Based mostly on Grassroot Institute of Hawaii calculations, Jan. 19, 2023, utilizing the U.S. Bureau of Financial Evaluation cost-of-living adjuster, and Sandy Springs base salaries of $40,000 for its mayor and $18,000 for its council members. See “Actual Private Consumption Expenditures by State and Actual Private Earnings by State and Metropolitan Space, 2021,” U.S. Bureau of Financial Evaluation, Dec. 15, 2022; and “Working for Workplace and Qualifying for the Municipal Election,” SandySpringsGA.gov, 2021.

[7] “Awards and honors,” SandySpringsGA.gov, 2021.

[8] John Ruch, “Sandy Springs Is A Magnet For Fortune 500 Headquarters,” Sandy Springs journal, Sept. 21, 2021.

[9] Letter from Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, Maui County Council vice-chair, to Gary Murai, Maui deputy company counsel, April 8, 2019, p. 6.

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Maui mayor indicators invoice so as to add extra housing rules

A brand new Maui County legislation is being promoted as a method to present extra reasonably priced housing, regardless of appreciable testimony that the promise won’t fairly work out that approach.

The legislation, previously Invoice 107, liberalizes the components by which Maui residents can qualify to purchase reasonably priced housing. Mayor Mike Victorino stated upon signing the invoice on Tuesday that it’ll “put homeownership inside attain for extra Maui County residents.”

The Grassroot Institute, nevertheless, testified final month that the proposed modifications would drive homebuilders to decrease their costs by about 20% and disincentivize future reasonably priced house development. The Institute additionally stated the invoice might be a drain on Maui taxpayers, which the mayor’s remarks appeared to substantiate.

“We are going to proceed to work with builders to make these house costs attainable,” Victorino stated. “We’ve examples of profitable public-private partnerships that carry development prices down by means of subsidies, infrastructure assist, inventive financing, varied exemptions and bonus packages.”

In fact, the most effective, easiest, least pricey possibility is to simply get Maui’s authorities out of the best way, so homebuilders can add to the county’s housing provide with out having to leap by means of so many difficult, time-consuming and costly regulatory hoops.

As Institute President Keli‘i Akina stated in his most up-to-date “President’s Nook” column, “This isn’t a secret. Housing activists from all components of the political spectrum have been telling Hawaii policymakers for years that one of the best ways to extend homebuilding and convey down house costs is to cut back authorities boundaries.

“Nonetheless,” Akina stated, “calls to extend authorities involvement in housing persist. An ideal instance of this flawed strategy is Invoice 107, authorised Sept. 27 by the Maui County Council,” and now signed into legislation by the mayor.

Akina stated, “Little doubt it’s a well-intended effort to ‘do one thing’ about housing in Hawaii, however this isn’t the ‘one thing’ that must be carried out.”

Will Maui mayor heed warnings about misguided housing proposal?


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By Keli‘i Akina

“Do one thing,” goes the favored political name to motion. However maybe it could be higher if politicians added a line from the medical subject: “First, do no hurt.”

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Within the case of housing, the urge to “do one thing” too usually means increasing the function of presidency, which analysis exhibits is strictly the mistaken drugs wanted to treatment one among our most urgent points.

Based on a current examine by UHERO, the College of Hawaii Financial Analysis Group, Hawaii already has the very best stage of housing laws within the nation, which many different research verify is critical reason behind our acute lack of housing and better housing costs.

Keli‘i Akin

This isn’t a secret. Housing activists from all components of the political spectrum have been telling Hawaii policymakers for years that one of the simplest ways to extend homebuilding and convey down residence costs is to cut back authorities boundaries.

However, calls to extend authorities involvement in housing persist. An ideal instance of this flawed strategy is Invoice 107, permitted Sept. 27 by the Maui County Council, which seeks to implement “reasonably priced housing gross sales value tips.”

Keep in mind, after all, that within the context of housing laws, “reasonably priced housing” doesn’t seek advice from affordable housing costs for everybody. It refers to a subset of properties that have to be offered at below-market charges to residents who meet sure earnings necessities.

Underneath current Maui regulation, a proportion of properties in any growth over a sure dimension have to be offered at these below-market charges. However by altering the “tips” of how these below-market costs are decided, Invoice 107 would require homebuilders to decrease the costs of their “reasonably priced” items even additional — by about 20%, or a median of about $120,000.

In testimony submitted to the Maui Council on Sept. 20, Joe Kent, government vice chairman of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, warned that such a diminished value would disincentivize the development of latest properties — precisely the alternative of what the Council want to obtain.

This was backed up by testimony from a consultant of the Waikapū Nation City challenge, who stated the invoice would negatively have an effect on a constructing challenge that has been within the making for greater than a decade.

Regardless of the various reasoned arguments opposing Invoice 107, the Maui County Council handed the invoice by a 5-4 vote. As if the proposed “gross sales value tips” weren’t problematic sufficient, the invoice additionally features a obscure subsidy program for potential consumers that has the potential to develop into a budgetary albatross for many years to return.

The measure now’s earlier than Maui Mayor Mike Victorino, who has till Monday to determine whether or not to veto it, signal it or let it develop into regulation with out his signature.

He has loads of causes to not let the invoice develop into regulation, together with that it possible will discourage new homebuilding, be a drain on the county finances and contribute to increased common residence costs on Maui.

There is also the probability that the Council membership would possibly change after the upcoming election, and this invoice could not symbolize the needs of Maui voters.

Will the mayor hearken to the warnings that Invoice 107 might find yourself doing extra hurt than good? Little question it’s a well-intended effort to “do one thing” about housing in Hawaii, however this isn’t the “one thing” that must be accomplished.
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Keli‘i Akina is president and CEO of Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.

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