Hawaii’s four counties fund community services such as police, fire, water and sewer in annual operating budgets that start July 1 of each year.
So how much is each county planning to spend in this new fiscal year?
Honolulu has the largest budget, at nearly $4 billion. Next is Maui at around $1.6 billion, followed by Hawaii Island at just shy of $976 million and Kauai inching toward $365 million.
All of those budgets add up to more than $6.9 billion, on top of the state’s $20 billion operating budget for the current year.
The graph below shows how each current county budget compares to last fiscal year.
Hawaii’s four counties are primarily funded by revenues from property taxes, transient accommodations taxes and the county surcharge on the state general excise tax.
Counties also receive money from the federal government, although most are not overly reliant on federal funding. Kauai, for example, received only $23,000 in federal grants for its highway fund.
Honolulu, by comparison, received $43.6 million from the federal government, which is about 3.85% of its operating budget. That funding includes more than $40 million in federal grants and $106 million for housing and community development purposes, but it does not include funding for the Skyline rail, which has its own budget.
Three of the county government budgets grew slightly more this fiscal year than the state’s real personal income, which the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization has predicted will grow at 1% in 2026. Honolulu’s budget clocks in at just under that threshold.
Grassroot Institute president Keli‘i Akina wrote in his “President’s Corner” column earlier this year that “smart government budgeting is when spending does not exceed the rate of personal income growth.
“Some economists have recommended instead that budget increases should not exceed the rate of inflation. But in either case, the bottom line is that the government should not spend more than it will bring in.”
Akina also pointed out in that column that “Overspending leads to tax hikes that increase cost of living — something no one in Hawaii needs.”
