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Committee votes to abolish school impact fee subaccounts and move balances to School Facilities special fund
Summary
The committee advanced HB422 to repeal school impact fees and move held balances (including fair‑share contributions) into the School Facilities special fund for the School Facilities Authority to manage; SFA said spending will require further steps such as legislative ceilings and coordination with BNF.
The House Committee on Housing moved HB422 forward on Wednesday, approving language that would abolish the school impact fee subaccount and the fair‑share contribution balances and lap remaining balances into the School Facilities special fund for potential use by the School Facilities Authority (SFA).
Supporters at the hearing included Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice and the Grassroot Institute, both of which cited unused balances and audit findings that the Department of Education’s prior handling of impact fees relied on outdated data. Arjun Nahaim of Hawaii Appleseed said the DOE has about $20 million in impact fee balances that “has not been spent,” and the fair‑share predecessor account holds roughly $8.9 million that dates back many years. The witnesses urged returning or repurposing those funds for school projects.
SFA testified in support of ending the impact‑fee structure and said it has been given operational authority in recent months; SFA officials told the committee the first step after abolition would be to secure a spending ceiling from the legislature and to coordinate with the Department of Budget and Finance to permit actual expenditures. The SFA noted that, despite collected balances approximating $28 million, DOE had spent $0 of those impact fee totals to date.
Decision: The committee voted to pass HB422 with amendments that abolished both the school impact fee subaccount and the fair‑share contribution balances and laps the funds into the School Facilities special fund. The committee adopted the recommendation and will allow SFA to pursue authority and ceilings to spend the funds.
Next: Committee members and SFA staff said additional legislative or budget action will be needed to establish spending authority and priorities for the transferred balances.
