County seeks to stabilize economy

Mayor Charmaine Tavares said the economic slump has businesses cutting bids on county work, which allows the county to do more with less as it tries to contribute to stabilizing the economy.

Commenting on Saturday on her participation in the Hawaii Economic Stabilization Initiative, Tavares said she discovered that Maui County is ahead of other counties in taking steps to move projects that can provide a boost to local businesses.

"Talking about what the counties can do in focus groups with specific plans, we found we already did that," she said. "In a lot of ways, we're ahead of what the other counties are doing."

The Hawaii Economic Stabilization Initiative is a private-public program that had leaders in government, the private sector and nonprofit agencies meeting to discuss options for boosting the economy. The meeting held Friday on Oahu was closed to the public, but state Economic Development Director Ted Liu later said in a press briefing that the participants had agreed on steps they can take.

"I think we know what it's going to take for us to stabilize our economy over the short term," he said.

Tavares said Maui County already is doing it.

She said the administration has been pushing out contracts and projects that had been stalled because bids were coming in high last year and earlier this year. In October, she said, the number of contracts let was double the number issued in October 2007.

"All those projects that were shelved because they came in with high bids in the past, we have put quite a bit out to bid again. This fits in with the strategy of boosting the local economy where we can," she said.

It helps that the fiscal 2009 budget, which runs to the end of June 2009, allocates $100 million for capital improvements projects along with millions in grants for programs operated by private agencies - including $1.5 million in general community grants and special allocations, such as $1.1 million set aside for environmental programs.

The outlook is less positive for the fiscal 2010 budget that Tavares is now preparing, but she said she is hopeful that the county will be a beneficiary of increased federal support for programs to support local economies.

Tavares was one of two Hawaii mayors to prepare an economic development request for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which issued a list of more than 4,600 projects in a $90 billion spending plan in Washington last week.

The Maui County list contained 58 projects that would cost $200 million for which the county is seeking federal support.

"These are projects that we had intended to do anyway but because of a limited amount of county funds, some were put off for two years or three years," Tavares said. "If we have the federal funds, we would push those up to now or next year. That's what we're asking, to be able to move up these projects.

"There are no totally new projects."

She cited the 13 energy projects on her list, ranging from

$1 million energy retrofits of county facilities; to $24 million for solar energy systems for fire stations, police stations and community centers; to $29.4 million for electric vehicle charging and energy storage facilities. The various projects would be expected to generate more than 500 jobs, according to the mayor's presentation.

"The energy projects are ones that had been talked about but not yet put together. But they are relatively simple projects as far as the county is concerned, such as putting solar water heaters in our community centers and solar heaters in our swimming pools," she said.

She said the county is also pushing out contracts for nonprofit agencies to be sure that they are keeping their workers employed. There have been no special requests as agencies lose funding from other sources, she said. But the county is keeping in touch with the agencies to be sure their needs are being met.

"There haven't been an emergency situation when they're going to run out of money in two months. We look at their needs and what we can accomplish," she said.

"Fiscal year 2010 is going to be very difficult," she added. "That's why we're going hard after the federal dollars through the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Main Street Recovery Plan."

Not only are the projects able to go within the month, she said, but the costs may be lower than projected based on the kinds of bids the county has been receiving on contracts being issued this fall.

"One of the bids for a project funded by CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) two months ago, at the bid opening was way over the allotment and they had to pull it back and rethink it," she said.

"Just the other day, it went out again and the bids came in below the budget amount.

"Some of the smaller companies, they just want to keep their people working. They're reducing their profit margin to a minimum because they want to keep their work force intact," Tavares said. "They're asking their subcontractors to cut their overhead to make the bid."

Even if the county already is moving on many of the "solutions" discussed at the state initiative, Tavares said, she thought it was productive for the county.

"We got to hear from all the different sectors, and we also got their commitment to work with us," she said.

But the state, private businesses and agencies all need to follow through as well, she said.

"It's all about implementation. We can talk and talk, but if we don't implement and don't get results, it's only talk. We have to just get going on this, get results. Does this get people back to work? Are there jobs for companies to bid on? We all want to see results," she said.

On the Net:

Mayor's Main Street Recovery proposal:

www.co.maui.hi.us/CivicAlerts.asp?AID=269

Edwin Tanji can be reached at citydesk@mauinews.com.