The following information relating to the Senate Minority Alternative Budget now takes into account the Senate Draft (SD1) of HB 200, which is now going through the conference committee process.
1. Current Budget Drafts – Biennial Appropriations for the Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015.
Table 1: 1. Current Budget Drafts – Biennial Appropriations for the Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015.
2. Graphical Representation of each Budget Draft
3. Potential Impact on Taxpayers
During the next two weeks, as part of the conference committee process, the House Finance committee and the Senate Ways and Means Committee will attempt to reconcile the differences of their respective State Operating Budget drafts. In addition to the budget, the current conference committee discussions also address some very important proposals. These important legislative proposals such as collective bargaining, early childhood education and mandatory contributions for the state employee’s health insurance fund, forebodes the average taxpayer in Hawai’i to evaluate how these measures impact their Hawai’i and the Hawai’i of future generations.
The following table highlights what the additional tax burden would be for each average family in Hawai’i under each respective budget draft:
This table highlights what will happen if the state would pay for the annual required contribution for the state employee’s health insurance fund, the additional payroll for collective bargaining, and the future long-term costs for early childhood education. These payouts highlight what the potential fiscal burden would be for each family in Hawai’i. This comes to an additional $646 or $1,195 in taxes per family in order to sustain the operating expenditures under both the House and Senate budget draft.
It is clear that Hawaii’s current path is unsustainable. The only budget that does not rely on any future tax and fee increases, in order to sustain current operating expenditures, is the Senate Minority Alternative Budget. Even with adjustments for collective bargaining and early childhood education, the Senate Minority Alternative Budget leaves the state treasury with a general-fund surplus of $463.4 million. This surplus could be used to lower the tax burden for Hawaii’s’ struggling taxpayers with as much as $1,040 per family.
Notes
[1] Annual Required Contribution to pay off the unfunded liability for the state employee health insurance fund: $500 million.
[2] Additional estimated biennial costs for collective bargaining: $177 million.
[3] Estimated long term annual operating costs for early childhood education: $100 million.
