Editorial: Hawaii Tourism Authority Retirement and Replacement Bill

First, a vocabulary lesson. It is not often that one comes across the word “adscititious”: it means “forming an addition or a supplement; not integral or intrinsic.

This is obviously how state lawmakers view the Hawaii Tourism Authority – which, in the 11th hour, finally received its $60 million annual operating budget, via Bill 1147. The version final bill, relating to the state budget, self-proclaims that it “shall be known and may be cited as the Advertising Supplementary Appropriations Act of 2022”.

HB 1147 was originally intended to fund a host of non-HTA capital improvement projects. But the revised bill, passed by the Legislature on Thursday, was gutted to provide HTA’s budget primarily from general state revenue, plus $28.5 million from the company’s special fund. of the convention center, for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Despite relieving its purpose of funding the HTA, HB 1147 is a blatant example of “empty and replace,” a dubious maneuver used by lawmakers that replaces the original content and intent of a bill with a unrelated legislation. This non-transparency and circumvention of public participation was legally challenged by the Supreme Court of Hawaii in a decision handed down just six months ago.

So, second lesson: the legally fragile process of gutting and replacing should not be used as a funding mechanism for such a key entity as the ETS. It is the focal agency responsible for guiding tourism, Hawaii’s main economic industry. While it is true that the HTA in the past lived big with too little accountability, today’s HTA is evolving with a better balance between tourism marketing and destination management/sustainability. This is a dual-purpose reset that HTA CEO John De Fries seems to have taken to heart – a reset that should be supported by lawmakers, not undermined by political pressure.

Just 10 days ago, HTA’s $60 million budget was on hold, with its fate reserved for either House Bill 1785 or Senate Bill 775. SB 775 itself was a hollowed-out, replaced creature, going from a hotel room tax bill to a funding vehicle for HTA operations, plus a proposal for a new Natural Resources Management Commission to distribute 30 million dollars in grants.

One final lesson: Hawaii is now recovering from more than two years of a pandemic. HTA, as part of its enlightened two-pronged mission, is needed as tourism competition intensifies globally. The dump and replace allowance is a poor way to budget for an agency whose success or failure could have disastrous consequences for Hawaii’s overall economy.