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The county budget process is almost underway, and most Maui residents are unaware that the budget will once again violate the County Charter.
That is because it will lack the required anticipatory revenues from unassessed and uncollected developer agreements made with the county.
A whistleblower, who now works in the Mayor's Office, alleged that these agreements were authorized and uncollected for decades by Maui County Department of Public Works in collaboration with county attorneys.
To make matters worse, multiple deferrals of these infrastructure costs, using a one-time-only deferral subdivision ordinance, were approved in violation of that same county ordinance. This resulted in Maui County Council voting unanimously in 2017 to recommend a county audit of these agreements.
The county auditor has been doing this audit now for three years and has not once interviewed the whistleblower.
Instead, he has only interviewed the government officials who were the ones to allegedly violate the county ordinance that enriched private developers. As a result, the Department of Public Works is allegedly doing major infrastructure improvement projects piecemeal, costing Maui taxpayers big bucks, in order to avoid triggering these developer agreements, which are under what appears to be a questionable audit.
Do you ever wonder why there isn't more money for Maui County programs in the county budget?
Christopher P. Fishkin
Kihei