Things heat up over furloughs in light of continued funding for vacant positions

Hilo, Hawaii – Video by David Corrigan

It almost looked like the mayor was going to wrap up his Q&A before the Hawaii County Council without any fireworks, but when Hamakua Councilman Dominic Yagong started up with his second round of questioning, things got a little tense.

Out of the entire council body, Yagong was the most critical of Kenoi’s budget in the last fiscal year. Arguements over the Hamakua land sale, the halt to the 2% land fund, and other issues created a weekly back and forth that played out mostly in the media.

Yagong continued to focus on the mayor’s plan to furlough certain county employees for two days out of the month, despite the continued funding of some vacant positions. The mayor has continually defended his stance on the funding for vacant positions, and is proposing to eliminate funding for 111 such positions in this year’s budget in addition to the 55 vacant positions unfunded last year. The administration says it is the largest number of positions ever to be unfunded in a single County budget.

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