WAILUKU -- The Maui County Council's Budget and Finance Committee lowered the property tax rate for bed-and-breakfasts, while increasing it slightly for unimproved residential lands, as it wrapped up deliberations on the county's annual budget Friday.
The committee is scheduled to return at 9 a.m. Monday to vote on the $524.2 million spending plan for 2011. The proposals will then be sent to the full county council, which must pass a budget for the county by the end of Maui.
Responding to B&B owners who said the proposed property tax rate of $5 per $1,000 of assessed property value was too high, council members agreed Friday afternoon to lower the rate to $4. To make up for the loss of revenue, the committee increased the rate for undeveloped residential lands from $6 to $6.25.
Also Friday, the committee approved provisions that would require the county's Department of Environmental Management to start work on studies of wastewater recycling alternatives and water contamination levels off West Maui before spending money budgeted to rehabilitate existing wastewater injection wells.
For more information, see Saturday's edition of The Maui News.
