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The Maui County Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a $1.7 billion spending plan for the fiscal year starting July 1, the county’s first budget since the devastating wildfires last summer.

The council prioritized aid to the ongoing recovery in Lahaina and parts of Upcountry, upgrades to wildfire mitigation, social services and housing solutions for the 12,000 people displaced by the Aug. 8 fires.

The nine-member panel made modest changes to the budget Mayor Richard Bissen proposed in March, mostly by putting about $29 million more into capital improvement projects and about $21 million less to operations. In the end, the council’s version of the budget was about $8.5 million, or 0.68%, more than the mayor’s proposal.

Significant sums are directed at sorely needed affordable housing projects in West Maui, including $15 million for developer Paul Cheng’s Pulelehua project in Kapalua if its water issues can be overcome and a $36 million loan to Ikaika Ohana to rebuild its 89-unit Kaiaulu o Kupuohi low-income rental housing in Lahaina. The budget includes another $3.1 million to buy the land under the rental housing project in Lahaina pending a 65-year lease agreement with the developer.

Jasmine Valdez, who works the front office at The Westin Nanea Ocean Villas in Kaanapali north of Lahaina, urged the council last month to put more funding to affordable housing in West Maui. She said it affects not just she and her family who lost their home in the fire, but also her staff and colleagues who need affordable places to live near work so they don’t have to move off island.

Overall, the council increased by $14.5 million the amount of money the mayor had proposed using from the affordable housing fund, taking it to $61.4 million for fiscal year 2025.

The council also beefed up the Maui Emergency Management Agency in light of its much-criticized handling of the Aug. 8 disaster, increasing its overall number of positions to 22 from nine and providing $300,000 for an updated emergency operations center plan and incident management team development.

The Maui Fire Department was given more than $1 million for 18 new positions in the fire and rescue operations program along with funding for four positions in the fire prevention program and money for new vehicles and a station in Haiku.

With the cleanup effort ongoing in Lahaina, and the temporary Olowalu landfill slowing filling up, the council put $33.4 million in next year’s budget for a permanent landfill site for the fire debris. Legal challenges are continuing to play out, however, with the county’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire a site in Central Maui.

The council decided against funding public information officers across multiple county departments as proposed by Bissen.

Council member Yuki Lei Sugimura, who shepherded the budget bill, said in a recent committee report that the council’s budget committee “noted apparent communication deficits and ineffective coordination” during the Aug. 8 fires, but recommended “keeping the bulk of communication functions centralized to improve response times and messaging.”

The council worked on crafting the coming fiscal year budget over the past several weeks, holding public hearings throughout the county to gather input. The mayor has 10 days to veto the whole budget or parts he disagrees with, which the council then has 10 days to override, according to the county charter.

The breakdown of the overall budget includes $1.05 billion for operating expenses, $210 million for capital improvement projects, $217.5 million in grants and $320.9 million in revolving/special funds. 

One of the biggest factors the council had to deal with, working in conjunction with the administration, was how to handle the state providing $224.5 million less than it had anticipated receiving for next fiscal year.

Some of that was offset by shifting the funding to bonds from the general fund, but Sugimura noted in her committee report on the budget that the mayor had anticipated a $130.9 million state appropriation to the county as Maui wildfire disaster recovery funds to be managed by the Department of Management.

Instead, the state authorized a $62.5 million loan, which the county decided against due to the higher interest rate, according to her report. The state also only provided $1 million of $20 million the administration expected to get for security checkpoints in the Lahaina burn zone. The council added $14 million to the budget to help cover those costs.

Council member Gabe Johnson said he never thought the county would ever have to grapple with a budget that dealt with a catastrophe as colossal as the fires, and that is saying something coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He pointed to the county’s ability to maintain a that lets it borrow money at more favorable rates, and said in the end, “we tried to satisfy everything we could” in the budget for the coming fiscal year.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.