Council Chair Tommy Waters’ new measure—Bill 76, which he introduced in November with Council member Val Okimoto — states “transparency and openness in government are fundamental principles of good governance that help drive and sustain civic accountability and promote public trust.”
“Nowhere are these principles more critical than in the management of the public treasury, a vital responsibility of government, where open access to information is essential to ensure that government spending aligns with important public priorities,” Bill 76 asserts.
“Each year, the city collects and expends more than a billion dollars for various programs and services, such as the maintenance of public roadways and the development of affordable housing, and the citizens of Oahu have a right to know how the city is spending its funds,” the bill states.
To gain more information about the city’s spending habits, “the Council finds that the creation of new, user-friendly digital tools that expand public access to the city’s financial information can help augment public oversight, reduce waste, and improve the overall efficiency of government,” the legislation states.
According to the measure, “open checkbook”-style web-based systems “are easy-to-use, online platforms created by state and local governments for the purpose of making detailed government spending data available to the public.”
The city’s most recent budget — an over-$5.2 billion bills package for fiscal year 2026, which began July 1 — was signed into law by the mayor on June 24.
Bill 76 asserts no later than Jan. 1, 2027, the director of the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services “shall develop, maintain, and make publicly available a searchable, online database of city expenditures that is free, open to the public, updated at least monthly, and accessible through an open checkbook-style, web-based system, termed the “open checkbook.”
The open checkbook system, according to Council staff, is used in other jurisdictions across the U.S. mainland, including in California, Texas, and New York, among other locales.
Bill 76 passed its first of three Council readings on Dec. 3.
Waters could not immediately be reached for comment on his new measure.
But Okimoto, chairperson of the Council’s Budget Committee, said Bill 76 is “a way to pursue a more accessible approach to our city’s finances.”
“The purpose is to ensure every dollar — whether it’s for roads, housing, or parks — is spent wisely, and giving every resident the simple tools they need to hold their government accountable,” she said.
The Mayor’s Office also reacted to Bill 76.
“We are closely examining the bill, and out of respect for the City Council we will be sharing our position with them and the public first through the Council’s committee process,” said Scott Humber, the mayor’s director of communications.
Bill 76 has garnered support among some in the community.
In written testimony for the Council’s Dec. 3 meeting, Ted Kafalas , director of strategic campaigns at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, stated his organization “believes an online, searchable database would go a long way toward making Honolulu’s government more transparent and accountable to island residents.”
“Right now, the public can access budget information through one of several annual and quarterly reports,” Kefalas wrote. “However, there is no simple way to locate specific expenditures across a range of dates. Furthermore, an online database would help the public determine whether funds were being allocated in accordance with their intended purposes.”
In written testimony for the same meeting, Hawaii Kai resident Natalie Iwasa supported Bill 76’s idea for a digital open checkbook, but noted her reservations too.
“When Peter Carlisle was mayor (from 2010 to 2013), the city budget was put online in spreadsheet format,” Iwasa wrote. “As I recall, the public was able to work with it to see how proposed changes would impact the bottom line.”
She added “a lot of work was put into this, but it did not go beyond Carlisle’s term.”
“If not already done, council members should look into this effort to see what was done, how long it took, how much use the public got out of it and why it was not maintained,” Iwasa wrote.
Bill 76 is Waters’ latest move, via successive Council legislation that’s materialized in recent months, to demand more transparency and accountability from Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration.
On Dec. 3, the Council voted to separately approve Bills 64 and 65, specifically requiring the city to offer a greater degree of financial reporting over lapsed, or unspent, funds from past budget cycles.
Introduced in September, the dual bills would mandate the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services to provide the Council this information starting in December, ahead of the city’s public budgeting process that typically runs from March through June.
But city officials — namely, BFS Director Andy Kawano — have argued this new reporting regime will create extra or even repetitive work for city staffers, and is therefore unnecessary.
The Council’s stated concern over lapsed funds relate to negative impacts to city-run services. Notably, Council Vice Chair Andria Tupola has offered her distress over the Honolulu Police Department’s notoriously low staffing levels and its seeming relation to lapsed funding.
In June, Tupola, via a resolution, noted HPD’s dire staffing shortage of 456 uniformed officer vacancies — which despite mitigation efforts had grown 32 % in some four years.
Tupola’s Resolution 160 also asserted part of HPD’s challenge was that the department is not using all of its annual appropriations.
In fiscal year 2024, HPD’s patrol division let approximately $15 million in funding lapse — the largest lapsed amount of any city department, according to the Status of the City’s Finances 2025 report issued by the Office of Council Services.
The report also asserted HPD let $50 million of its overall fiscal year 2024 appropriation lapse. To put that into perspective, in March, HPD submitted a fiscal year 2026 operating budget request of nearly $400 million to fight crime.
In July, Tupola’s resolution led to the creation of an 11-member task force, charged with reducing HPD’s long-standing staffing shortage.
By Dec. 2, the same Council-led task force issued its findings in a 26-page final report, which highlighted more staffing shortfalls at HPD than in prior years.
As of July 1 there were 465 vacancies for uniformed officers and 189 civilian openings at the department, and 228 officers eligible for retirement. Eighteen officers have retired, 16 resigned, two were fired and four others were discharged, the report indicated.
In part, the task force determined that more hiring incentives — such as housing stipends and retention bonuses to new officers — might boost HPD’s staffing levels.
Bills 64 and 65 currently await the mayor’s approving signature or possible veto by a Dec. 22 deadline.
Meantime, Humber asserts that as far as open government is concerned the “Blangiardi administration is transparent.”
“Where we can smartly do better, we welcome ideas, discussion and collaboration with our colleagues in the City Council to do so,” Humber said.
Colin Moore, an associate professor at the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that this back-and-forth debate between the Council and the city administration over the level of transparency found in city government is quite common among municipalities nationwide.
“This push and pull between the legislature and the executive is a familiar dynamic,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s a symptom of a healthy system.
“You want the legislature to push back and demand transparency, and it’s not surprising that often the executive’s response is ‘this is unnecessary, that it makes effective governance harder, that it’s going to lead to some performative auditing that won’t really serve the public’s interest,’” Moore said. “So, I mean, the dynamic that I see here playing out is pretty typical.”
Although intrigued by the possibilities of allowing the public or the press to track city finances in real time, Moore noted the argument “that transparency is very attractive” to the public may be politically motivated as well.
“Sometimes this is an effort by the legislature to gain a little more control over how funds are spent, and the best way to frame that is transparency, which is true, but it’s also a power dynamic as well,” Moore said. “That having more information — having real-time updates potentially — gives (the Council) more control, because often what the legislature lacks is the level of information that the executive has in terms of how funds are spent or reallocated after they’re authorized.”
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