Follow along, folks. Money matters more than ever this year

Budgetary first aid: It’s that time of year again at the Legislature. No, The Sunshine Blog isn’t talking about any old conference committee but the budget conference committee when regular citizens are basically shut out of any meaningful participation in the process by Senate and House money chairs who speak in a code only they and a few others can understand. Not to mention most of it is worked out behind closed doors anyway.

Fortunately, the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice has stepped up and created a new online tool to help regular folks (and hopefully rank-and-file lawmakers) keep track of changes to the state budget during this all-important time.

Understanding the byzantine state budgeting process is already hard enough. During conference committee, it becomes nearly impossible for a lay person to grasp. 

In a typical year, the money committee chairs take turns ringing off a series of numbers when they reach an agreement on funding. 

As The Blog reported last year, the public negotiations (and The Blog uses that term loosely) go something like this:

“AGR192 sequence 1100-001 House,” Senate Ways and Means Chair Donovan Dela Cruz said during one non-closed door session.

“OK, AGS111 sequence 100-001, we’ll go with the Senate,” then-House Finance Chair Kyle Yamashita replied.

First comes the identification numbers that correspond with state programs like adult mental health, law enforcement, or public housing. But, say you’re interested in programs affecting the film industry and didn’t know funding could go under the code BED105, the creative industries division. You’re SOL! 

Next, the chairmen read sequence numbers that indicate which version of the budget – the House or Senate – is moving forward. Those are usually hidden in hundreds of pages of budget worksheets.

The Appleseed tool promises to track all of that.

For example, you can pretty quickly see that the drafts of the budget under consideration by the Legislature this year are about $800,000 short on capital improvement funding for the state emergency management agency compared to the governor’s submitted budget.