WAILUKU - Mayor Charmaine Tavares said she made an effort to cut back on out-of-state travel in 2009 because of the county's tight budget.
But she noted that she spent more time than usual at the state Capitol last year, lobbying legislators and state officials against a plan to take the county's portion of transient accommodations tax revenues to help plug a hole in the state budget deficit.
Tavares' office spent a total of $15,385 on her travel last year, compared to $17,863 in 2008.
In addition to taking fewer Mainland trips overall, Tavares said she looked for ways to reduce the cost of her travel to taxpayers.
"If I could combine it with something that was personal, I would pay for the trip myself," she said.
On a tourism promotion trip to Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, British Columbia, in September, Tavares extended the trip into a personal vacation and paid for her own airfare, while the Hawaii Tourism Authority picked up the cost of her hotel and she waived per diem reimbursements, she noted.
"We were very cautious of needing to save money, and travel is a category where we can save money," she said. "I tried to look for ways I could save and still do my job as mayor."
She said it was important to attend some Mainland conferences in order to network and learn the latest information on government, technology and issues affecting the county.
"I would question the people who don't ever travel, who don't go to conferences and just stay home," she said. "To me, they really limit their capacity to bring all points of view to an issue."
Tavares spent $5,115 on four out-of-state trips in 2009, compared to $7,774 on three out-of-state trips the year before.
In addition to the West Coast tourism promotion trip, her travel in 2009 included a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., in January, when she also attended the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Tavares paid for her own airfare on that trip.
She also traveled to Providence, R.I., in June for the annual Conference of Mayors, and attended the Mayors' Fall Leadership Conference in Seattle in October, where she also participated in a Maui Visitors Bureau "media blitz."
Within Hawaii, Tavares made 10 trips to Honolulu that included meeting with legislators or state officials in 2009, compared with four such trips the year before.
"There was a lot of travel last year because of the Legislature wanting to take away the (transient accommodations tax)," she said. "I feel like I was on Oahu last year more than Maui."
Tavares said she felt no question that her presence at the Capitol made a difference as the county fought to keep the $17 million it receives from transient accommodations revenue, also known as the hotel room tax.
Early on in the debate, Tavares and the three other county mayors sent written testimony expressing their opposition to the tax raid - a move that drew a sharp rebuke by Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairwoman Donna Mercado Kim.
"She point-blank asked us why we weren't there," Tavares said. " 'If it's that important, you would be here in person' - we were told that."
Tavares and her counterparts made sure to haunt the Capitol after that, she added.
Tavares' travel records also reflect her tight relationship with the islands' three other mayors.
Her in-state travel included 17 trips that involved meetings with the Hawaii Conference of Mayors.
The mayors have worked closely together and negotiated as a bloc in union contract negotiations held jointly with the state administration.
Other in-state trips made by Tavares last year included the blessing of a Lanai solar farm; meetings with Sen. Daniel Inouye and Hawaii's congressional delegation in Honolulu; the Lanai Pineapple Festival; a United Way event and the Municipal Attorneys' Statewide Training Conference, both in Kona; the ILWU Local 142 Convention, the Land Use Research Foundation's forum, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry meeting, all in Honolulu; a Farm Bureau convention on Kauai; and a meeting with the Building Trade Council and Pacific Resource Partnership in Honolulu.
Tavares said her administration had implemented strict controls on all staff travel in the face of a very tight budget situation.
All county workers must submit requests for both in-state and out-of-state travel to a Financial Implementation Team of budget and finance officials for approval, she noted.
"We've cut travel all through the county," she said.
* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.
