Honolulu City Council Statement on the Proposed Provisional Account

May 7th, 2026

1.) What was the genesis of the plan to make a Provision for Operations and Emergency Recovery fund? 

First, clarification on terms. This is not a new fund. A fund and a provisional account are distinct legal and budgetary instruments. The Council is proposing a provisional account, a tool the city already uses throughout its budget. 

The Council designed this proposal to address two persistent problems: the repeated lapsing of budgeted funds and the lack of transparency regarding how carryover funds are set aside. Over the past three fiscal years, the City has lapsed between $300M and $400M in general funds each year. The city Administration has continued a practice of overinflating appropriations to levels that do not reflect actual spending, thereby bypassing the oversight controls that protect taxpayers. 

The Council's role is not to ratify the mayor's proposed budget. The Council has an independent responsibility to review, question, and adjust it before adoption. That is oversight, not obstruction. 

The provisional account addresses this directly. If funds are to be set aside, the Council believes that the decision must be made before the budget is submitted, not after Council approval, and it must be transparent. Residents of Honolulu deserve to know what resources exist to meet community needs. City departments deserve to know what funds are available to spend. 

If the City's spending patterns shift significantly in the coming year due to the Kona Low storms, the Administration retains full access to these historically lapsed funds through this provisional account. If, in future years, the Administration can demonstrate that its proposed budget aligns with actual intended expenditures, the Council will revisit the scope of this account at that time. 

Please see the Budget Chair’s Closing remarks on how the $41M was established:  https://www.youtube.com/live/aebToQWbdEk?si=7rEFB-QovEEMvfc9&t=6623 

2.) Andy Kawano told me he doesn’t think the fund begets more transparency since interfund transfers are already public information (even if the amount doesn’t cross the threshold for a full public hearing). What’s your response to this? 

We respectfully disagree. There is a stark contrast between transparency and accountability. While the reports Director Kawano refers to public information, it is not the same as public accountability. 

The current reporting structure is largely after-the-fact. It tells people and the council what happened once the decision has already been made. That may satisfy a disclosure requirement, but it does not address the deeper problem,  a budgeting culture in which money is appropriated, shifted, and explained later.  

The provisional account is designed to change that. It moves the conversation from after-the-fact reporting to before-the-fact accountability. 

Residents and the City Council should not have to dig through hundreds of pages of reports months later to understand how taxpayer dollars were redirected. For significant spending tied to operations or emergency recovery, they deserve a clear public explanation up front. 

Please see the example of the City Communication of the quarterly reporting: https://www4.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-356357/Executive%20Program%20and%20Budget%20Fiscal%20Year%202027Volume%201%20-%20Operating%20Program%20and%20Budget%20MM-022(26)%20-%20A.pdf  

This official statement was published in Civil Beat.

Reporter: Ben Angarone | ARTICLE