By NANCY COOK LAUER
Stephens Media
The Hawaii County Council on Tuesday will consider increasing the county’s bond debt by $31 million to pay for federally mandated police radio improvements.
Ka‘u Councilwoman Brittany Smart is sponsoring Bill 222 authorizing the added debt after meeting last month in Washington, D.C., with U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. Smart said the federal government is likely to reimburse the county for the cost of the new system, but the county must take the first steps in order to qualify.
She said Hawaii’s senior senator discouraged the county from going forward with its original version of the radio upgrades that would have cost almost $90 million. That figure came from a lengthy study in 2006, said John Drummond, a Hawaii County Civil Defense administrative officer.
“He said, ‘You’re not going to get the Cadillac version; you’d better plan for the Ford,’” Smart said.
The county faces a Dec. 31 deadline to move from its current broadband system to a narrowband one or face possible sanctions from the Federal Communications Commission. Hawaii County, along with about 20 other agencies throughout the United States, has applied for a waiver to extend the deadline to June 2014.
Drummond said the FCC issued its mandate 14 years ago, and even if the county can’t complete the project by the deadline, appropriating the money and hiring a contractor would show good faith and possibly allow the county to miss the deadline. The FCC is making the requirements in order to free up bandwidth, but the end result will be improved safety for the island, Drummond said.
“It will definitively improve service,” Drummond said. “One of our goals is to hit those dead spots.”
The project will entail all new radios in police cars, as well as portable radios and new equipment on the existing transmission towers on the mountaintops.
“This project is a real team effort and I’m pleased to be a part of it,” Smart said.
Paying off Hawaii County’s $305.6 million bond debt is already consuming 15.9 percent of the budget, compared to 10 percent 10 years ago. That means almost $1 out of every $6 the county spends in its operating budget is going to pay off old bills.
Adding more debt concerns Council Chairman Dominic Yagong, who led a 2010 council majority in a battle against Mayor Billy Kenoi’s attempts to float $56 million in bonds for a variety of county projects. Kenoi saw it as a way to put people back to work, while the council balked at what it called writing a blank check when there wasn’t a project list of where the money would be spent. After Kenoi brought back a list, the council approved the bonds last year.
Yagong said Friday that perhaps the county should reconsolidate existing bond authorization and redirect funding to the radio project.
“It is imperative that we determine how the bond authorization would affect the budget recently submitted by the mayor,” Yagong said. “What would be the yearly debt service if we are not able to secure federal funding?”
Finance Director Nancy Crawford did not return telephone calls Friday for comment.
The county is actually in pretty solid shape debt-wise, according to its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the fiscal year that ended June 30. State law limits a county’s outstanding debt to no more than 15 percent of net assessed property values, meaning Hawaii County has used less than 10 percent of the borrowing power it has available.
In 2010, before the County Council approved the $56 million bond issue, the three major rating agencies confirmed the county’s high bond rating, citing the county’s “prudently enacted” property tax hikes, low debt burden and strong cash reserves as factors in its favor. The agencies also praised a low county debt burden of $2,500 per capita.
