New Year, New Variance

by Tom Yamachika, President, Tax Foundation Hawaii

Budget hearings already have begun at our Legislature.  Our legislators make sure that the tax money we entrust to them is being spent wisely and efficiently.  Or at least that’s what they are supposed to do.

To help them do this, our state law, HRS section 37-75, requires agencies to come up a “variance report” that is supposed to list how much they were budgeted, how much was spent, and a narrative explanation for any significant difference.  Agencies are also tasked with selecting some metrics that will help the legislators and the public see how they did, and with posting those metrics.  These reports are due 30 days before the start of the legislative session.  They are collected by the Department of Budget and Finance, and are posted here.

Three years ago, we examined some of the variance reports and complained that some agencies weren’t with the program, leaving blanks — shown on the report as “NO DATA” — where their metrics are supposed to be.

We are happy to report that the airports, which we singled out for shaming last time, seem to have gotten back on track.  They have some different metrics.  They aren’t reporting on the number of bathroom closures any more, for example.  But they are reporting.  See, for example, page 6 of this report.  Some metrics are a little concerning, such as where the airport is reporting only 50% of capital improvement projects completed within scheduled timetable, but that means that the metric is meaningful and shows room for improvement.

Then we have this year’s concerns.

From page 71 of this report comes this table from the Office of Health Status Monitoring at the Department of Health:

These folks keep our vital statistics.  Births, deaths, marriages.  But apparently they can’t or won’t keep their own statistics.  And there is something I am not getting here.  Mortality rate per thousand normally means the number of people dying in a year per 1,000 population.  A mortality rate of 620 per thousand is something you might get with an atomic bomb.  In 2023, the reported mortality rate per 1,000 was 8.  Maybe they meant 6.20 per thousand, but that’s not what the report says.

And on page 39 of this report, we see some statistics from the Department of Taxation regarding revenue collection.  One of their metrics is “Number of days from date of vacancy to fill date,” and the reported actual value is 365.  It takes a year to fill a vacant job in revenue collection?  I get that the job is not something one normally brags about at dinner parties so it might be tougher to fill, but a year is a very long time for a vacant position to be unfilled.  Worse, the planned and estimated values for the near future are also 365.  Is it really that hard to fill the position, or are we just not trying?

We encourage our agencies to continue striving for improvement in their service to Hawaii’s people, and for our legislators to facilitate that improvement.  I also encourage people interested in our government operations to flip through these variance reports.  Maybe you also will find some interesting tidbits to share with legislators and the public.