Great news!

HSTA’s Constitutional Amendment for a surcharge on residential investment property to better fund public education took another important step toward reality today. The state Senate voted unanimously to accept state House language in the bill that calls for the proposal to be on the ballot for voters to decide this fall.

First, we can’t thank all of you enough for submitting testimony, meeting with lawmakers and testifying in person in favor of our proposal.

We also are very thankful to one of our champions, State Senator Michelle Kidani, the Senate Education chair, who made the motion on the floor today for the state Senate to agree with House language that was broader than previous versions of our proposal, helping to allow the broader language needed when adding anything to the Hawaii Constitution.

If a majority of the state Senate votes to approve the proposal Monday during a session that begins at 11:30 a.m., our Constitutional Amendment will go on the ballot before voters in November. We have our fingers and toes crossed that this will happen!

The Senate and the House want to assure that the surcharge is levied only on residential investment properties in the state, second homes worth $1 million or more. The legislators stressed their intent in their committee reports that those with a home-owner exemption would not have an additional surcharge. If the voters approve of the amendment allowing the state to add a state surcharge to property, it will be lawmakers, with public input, who will decide the details of the surcharge during next year’s legislative session. Their intent again, is to only add this surcharge to residential investment property over $1 million in value. Those types of specific details, including any exemptions, will be decided next legislative session with enabling legislation.

This bill addresses two problems at once. First, Hawai’i’s schools are chronically underfunded, with our state ranking last in the nation in the percentage of state and local revenue spent on education. Persistent underfunding has led to a chronic teacher shortage, higher class sizes, cutbacks to arts, vocational and Native Hawaiian courses, unequal access to preschool programming and more.

Second, we are the only state that doesn’t use property taxes to help pay for public education, leaving us with the lowest property tax rates in the country. Real estate speculators have taken advantage of our low property tax rates to use Hawai’i as their own private Monopoly board, driving up our cost of living by purchasing investment homes at prices residents cannot afford to pay. Last year, for example, 60 percent of all condos on Maui were owned by nonresidents. We must increase funding for our schools and stop wealthy investors from distorting our housing market. Our ConAm will do just that.

Again, many thanks to the thousands of you who helped this important legislation move forward. Your collective action has paid off so far and we will ask for more help from you later this year to help us assure a majority of Hawaii general election voters vote “yes” to bring in the money to give our keiki the schools they deserve.

Keep thinking good thoughts and we’ll send you an update on Monday.

Aloha,
Corey Rosenlee
HSTA President