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Small Business News February 2004
Governor Lingle Says Good People Bringing Positive Changes
By Malia Zimmerman, Hawaii Reporter
The visitor industry also is improving, with the number of visitors from Japan increasing after a serious decline because of a SARS outbreak, the Sept. 11 attack on America, the War on Terrorism and weak economic conditions in Japan. She says her administration's controversial trip to Japan six months ago may have in part contributed to the increase in visitors because of the importance of good relationships in Japan.
"It was important to take a step back and thank them (Japanese visitors) for all the years they did come to Hawaii. The message well received," Lingle says. Lingle says the state is looking for other ways to improve the visitor attendance, possibly even above the expected 6 percent increase in visitor arrivals for 2004 over 2003, including building what she calls a "wireless Waikiki."
Meanwhile, Gov. Linda Lingle says her administration is continuing its emphasis on "living within its means" in order to balance the state budget, not raise taxes and not dip into special funds, such as the Rainy Day fund and Hurricane Relief Fund. The administration, headed up by the efforts of Budget Director Georgina Kawamura, implemented a 5 percent reduction in spending and a hiring freeze when Lingle first took office. Gov. Lingle says that the hiring freeze, which is still in effect, mandates that no position left vacant will be automatically filled, but will be rather on a case-by-case basis. Lingle's administration also is working to repeal a number of special funds, because typically money is put into the funds from taxes and fees collected, and then raided when the state needs to balance the budget.
Another focus of the Lingle administration will be to improve a number of small business boat harbors around the state. Lingle says they have been allowed to run down, despite the fact that the boaters who live there have paid more than their share in fees to ensure the harbors are kept up.
She also touted the work of commerce and consumer affairs director Mark Recktenwald and labor director Nelson Befitel. She says she will work with them to focus on such employer mandates as workers' compensation, a major expense and burden on business. Lingle also addressed health-care mandates, saying Hawaii will soon see one, possibly two new medical insurers (one was a sponsor of the conference -- HMA out of Arizona). And she says she also will support legislation that requires the monopoly medical insurers already in Hawaii to offer plans to groups such as Small Business Hawaii, as they have in the past, but stopped offering in the last couple of years, leaving many small business owners without medical coverage.
The administration continues to look for ways to make Hawaii a better place to live and operate a business without going to the state Legislature, she says, and have held 15 talk story sessions in the community to find out what is most important to the community members. "It was helpful to hear from people on the ground about their most important issues," Lingle says. One of the foremost concerns was reforming the public education system. Without doing so, the economy, no matter how it improves, cannot be sustained, she says, because the educated workforce will not be in place to sustain it. The schools already are allocated more than half of the general fund budget or nearly $2 billion a year, but more than half of that money is not getting to the classroom, she says. Lingle says her education reform package will be her number one priority this Legislative session.
At the end of her speech, Lingle thanked the small business community for supporting her both before and after her 1998 and 2002 elections, and her administration since she got into the governor's office in 2002. "You have motivated me, gave me courage to try again, and now I need you more than ever," Lingle said, encouraging her supporters to get involved at the state Legislature and in education and economic reforms.
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She said the state also is planning to spend another half a billion dollars on repair and maintenance of state schools and other state facilities that are deteriorating. "We want to protect the taxpayers' investment in state facilities," Lingle says. "If the state puts off these costs for so much longer, the repairs will be much more costly."