{"id":7095,"date":"2020-05-30T19:17:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T19:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/?p=7095"},"modified":"2020-06-01T18:50:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T18:50:42","slug":"hawaii-in-fiscal-trouble-after-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/30\/hawaii-in-fiscal-trouble-after-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii\u2019s in trouble: pandemic leaves behind huge revenue shortfalls, state’s finances a mess"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRecovery not seen for at least two years\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tHawaii's government seems estranged from its people: poor fiscal management of public revenue-bearing assets has shorted the state $millions over the past ten years . . . and now, in the aftermath of the pandemic, it\u2019s all coming home to roost\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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\u201cWe\u2019re in bad shape . . . \u201c<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Frankly worded messages recently sent by legislators to their constituents are saying things like:\u00a0 \u201cWE\u2019RE IN BAD SHAPE . . . At its meeting yesterday, the state\u2019s Council on Revenues projected a 7% decline in revenues for this fiscal year, and a 12% decline in FY2021. It does predict that FY2022 will show a 12% increase. So we\u2019ll have to weather a terrible storm for two years,\u201d<\/span> from Senator Moriwaki\u2019s message, sent yesterday, May 29, 2020.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The irony inherent to this announcement is that the state has been losing $millions of taxpayer dollars<\/a> on mismanaged public harbor properties, for years, and it was Moriwaki and others who had\u00a0 been helping to bless this fiscal mismanagement<\/a>, through the state\u2019s DLNR, headed by Suzanne Case.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just public harbor properties.\u00a0 At this stage, a full audit by an outside independent auditor should have a close look at all of Hawaii\u2019s fiscal ledgers to ascertain the true extent of financial losses over the past decade as a result of state bungling, and these should be reported to the public.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cterrible storm [that is about to descend on the people of Hawaii]\u201d that Moriwaki refers to in her message will affect the lower and middle income segment of our population the most.\u00a0 \u201c. . . teacher furloughs, statewide pay cuts, or slashing critical social services . . .\u201d<\/em> could be the consequences if state leadership miscarriages yet again.\u00a0 The wealthy -- wealthy outsiders especially -- won\u2019t feel a thing.\u00a0 Let\u2019s be honest, Hawaii\u2019s government has never been \u201cof, by, and for the people of Hawaii.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s been a government whose players have been consistently steered \u00a0by wealthy private financial self interest, at the expense of the wider community.\u00a0\u00a0 It has always been hoped, in this scheme of things, that the rest of the wider population would be satisfied with the leftover crumbs.\u00a0 As a result, quality of life for our grass roots residents here has steadily declined.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

State agencies couldn\u2019t even abide by the governor\u2019s emergency proclamation, much less manage the public\u2019s money properly<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

During the height of the pandemic, state agencies were in flagrant violation<\/a> of the governor\u2019s emergency orders.\u00a0 The Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation, in particular, snubbed the governor\u2019s orders,<\/a> refused to participate \u00a0in enforcement (further burdening local police departments to enforce on state properties), encouraged violations of social distancing and lockdown orders, and outright ignored the governor\u2019s\u00a0 changes to Hawaii Administrative Rules that were meant to keep the population safe.\u00a0 When the state was confronted with these disturbing allegations, silence was the response.\u00a0 No wealthy outsiders complaining = no complaints.<\/span><\/p>\n

CAUTION:\u00a0 Watch carefully as Hawaii legislators, the governor, and agency leaders use the new revenue shortfalls as an excuse to turn over our public lands and assets to wealthy private financial self interests waiting in the wings.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re in bad shape . . . \u201c Frankly worded messages recently sent by legislators to their constituents are saying things like:\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irresponsible-hawaii-lawmaking","category-irresponsible-honolulu-city-government"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hawaiioceannews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Hawaii-in-fiscal-trouble-.png?fit=1498%2C829&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7095"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7125,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7095\/revisions\/7125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}