Authorizing bond funding for the Maui Lani roundabout, reinstating senior citizen paratransit monthly bus passes and adding $5.9 million for a system replacement at the Kihei Wastewater Reclamation Facility — Maui County Council members squeezed them all into their revision of the fiscal 2019 budget on Friday.

In an all-day meeting in Council Chambers, council members proposed various amendments to the Budget and Finance Committee’s nearly $753 million budget, and they passed it on first reading. In March, Mayor Alan Arakawa proposed an overall county spending of nearly $820 million. Changes made Friday will affect the council’s budget total.

After the dust clears, the council’s budget will undergo second-and-final reading on May 29.

By law, the full council has until June 10 to take action on the budget, otherwise Arakawa’s budget becomes law. The budget goes into effect July 1.

A handful of testifiers were concerned about the senior citizen paratransit monthly passes going away next year, and that caught the ear of Council Member Kelly King. She introduced an amendment to put the bus passes back into the budget. The cost of the passes is proposed to rise from $30 to $45 a month, or equal to the amount paid by regular riders.

During budget deliberations, the budget for paratransit services was reduced by $1.3 million for fiscal 2019, but later $850,000 was returned.

The initial reduction concerned riders and county Department of Transportation Director Don Medeiros. He said the spending reduction would not fully fund a $3.5 million annual contract with service provider Maui Economic Opportunity Inc. for next fiscal year.

Also, without paratransit services, the county risks running afoul of federal rules tied to funding fixed transportation systems, like the Maui Bus, according Medeiros. With the addition of the $850,000 Medeiros had been “cautiously optimistic” that paratransit would be able to operate next fiscal year.

But on Friday, his tone changed, and he noted that since the monthly passes were put back into the budget, “we will definitely have a shortfall in the operations of paratransit.”

He added that if $450,000 was not reinstated, at the current time the county “will not be able to execute a contract for a service that is not fully funded.”

Medeiros said via email he was “only speculating” that with the original elimination of the passes the committee was thinking there would be a decrease in usage and less demand for funding.

But, with the passes reinstated and even with a $15-per-pass increase, Medeiros said he didn’t think there would be a reduction in usage. Instead, the current trend toward greater use would continue, he predicted.

The council voted 7 in favor and 2 against the reinstatement. The “no” votes came from Council Member Yuki Lei Sugimura and Budget Committee Chairman Riki Hokama.

Hokama noted that the paratransit budget had increased by almost 50 percent, so he did not cut funding from current levels. He noted the amount of subsidies given to the program and how the contract increased with higher hourly pay for drivers of around $20 an hour.

When voting no, Sugimura said she had spoken to Medeiros, who, she said, understood the rationale for the committee recommending the discontinuation of the senior monthly passes. Therefore, she felt OK about not reinstating the passes at the council level.

Several testifiers urged the council to authorize bond funding for a roundabout at Kamehameha Avenue and Maui Lani Parkway to help with major traffic backups, especially during commuter rush hours and when nearby schools begin or end their days.

Arakawa included the roundabout in his budget, calling for spending $3.4 million, but it was initially reduced by about $1.5 million and slated to instead be a traffic signal. The funding was returned, although Hokama said the bond would not be authorized until a council committee vetted the matter. Hokama said he wanted to ensure the project would be the “best and safest” improvement for the community.

Council Member Don Guzman requested the authorization of bond money of $2.85 million for the roundabout so the project could move forward, and possibly begin in 2019, during summer break so as not to interfere with nearby Pomaika’i Elementary School.

Guzman said elementary school parents and students and the Blue Zones Project, which advocated for the roundabout, expected action on it.

He said the neighborhood didn’t believe it would be part of “urban sprawl,” and a roundabout would be better than a traffic signal. The vote on the amendment was unanimously in favor.

Sugimura requested members add in $5.9 million for the Kihei Wastewater Reclamation Facility grit system replacement. Arakawa had initially asked for $6.5 million for the project, but the budget committee whittled the amount down to $600,000.

But Sugimura referred to testimony from wastewater workers, union leaders and a safety officer’s testimony about the harsh conditions that workers endure while conducting manual cleanings of grit in basins when the system was taken offline.

Outside the meeting, Department of Environmental Management Director Stewart Stant explained that grit is mostly nonorganic material mixed with plastics, red worms, rag and, to some degree, fecal matter. With a new system, it would reduce manual cleanings for 20 years from 40 times to four times, he said.

While wastewater operators would still need to do manual cleanings for the 5 percent of grit that gets through, it would be a reduction of staff facing potential injuries and county liabilities, Stant said.

Stant added that the existing grit system was placed online in 1990. But, in 2007, after spending thousands of dollars on system maintenance and repairs, it was taken offline, leading to grit going through the system and ending up in basins requiring the manual cleaning.

Cochran did not support the amendment and was taken aback by the project’s cost. She wanted more study in a council committee first. She noted a study that showed a replacement wasn’t needed.

While some workers supported the new system, Cochran said others who came to her didn’t. But they wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, she said.

The amendment passed with 7 “ayes” and 2 “noes,” with Cochran and King dissenting.

In a separate resolution, the council adopted fuel tax rates for fiscal 2019.

Most council members voted in favor of an amendment proposed by Sugimura to cut a half-cent increase to the gasoline and diesel oil fuel tax as proposed by the budget committee. With the amendment, the fuel tax for gasoline and diesel oil would remain at current levels at $0.230 per gallon.

Sugimura explained that she heard from constituents who objected to taxing residents more. She said the half-cent increase was added late on April 27 as a way to eliminate any tax on biodiesel fuel.

The full council also approved property tax rates on May 11, with rates remaining roughly the same or a bit lower than this fiscal year.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.