If there are a few more potholes on West Hawaii roads this year, it could have been for a good cause.
If there are a few more potholes on West Hawaii roads this year, it could have been for a good cause.
At least $132,000 of westside road repair money is heading over to the east side, to prop up accounts depleted by recent natural disasters.
Mayor Billy Kenoi earlier this month signed off on requests to transfer funds from road accounts in Kona and Kohala to pay for overtime, heavy equipment repairs, maintenance and fuel costs associated with Tropical Storm Iselle and the lava flow that threatened the Puna and Ka‘u districts.
Ken Obenski, chairman of the Kona Traffic Safety Committee, said he hadn’t heard about the budget transfers. But he was philosophical about it.
“I can’t say that the roads here are that great that we don’t need the money,” Obenski said, adding he gets complaints all the time about potholes and patchwork surfaces. “No organization within a bureaucracy wants to give up funds. (But) I can see where there could be a higher priority somewhere else.”
Public Works Director Warren Lee said no West Hawaii roads got short shrift because of the transfer.
“The bottom lines is, we’re not doing anything that affects road maintenance by transferring to a district that needs the funds,” Lee said Friday.
He said his department typically doesn’t drain its accounts to zero when the budget year ends.
The money was sitting unused in West Hawaii accounts because several employees are out on workers compensation or authorized unpaid leave on that side of the island, according to Acting Highways Division Chief Keone Thompson in transfer requests approved by the mayor and Finance Department.
“North/South Kona roads has funds due to disasters mainly affecting east and south Hawaii Island, and extremely conservative spending with the foresight of having to assist disaster affected districts,” Thompson said in his transfer request.
The money is coming from the budget for the fiscal year that ends June 30.
The North and South Kona highway fund salaries and wages account, budgeted at just over $1 million, will lose $52,000. The equipment repairs and maintenance fund for the district will lose $20,000 of its $58,000 budget. Another $20,000 is coming from its $90,000 fuels and lubricants budget.
The North and South Kohala highway fund salaries and wages account, budgeted at $827,604, will lose $40,000.
If, as expected, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimburses the county for the roads in the disaster areas, the money will be returned to the highway fund, said Finance Director Deanna Sako. She said the money won’t necessarily go back to where it came from, because the county by then will be operating off a new budget with new money allocated.
Money for the highway fund comes from the fuel tax, the vehicle weight tax and the annual vehicle registration fee.