There’s some confusion about how counties will receive money from a state fund designed to encourage children to safely walk and bicycle to school.
The state's Safe Routes to School Program, which was revamped in 2023 after being dormant for several years, is designed to create safe conditions near school zones that encourage keiki to walk, bike, or roll to school rather than relying on cars.
A Hawaiʻi law passed last year mandated that each vehicle registration would add a $5 fee to fund the program. The Safe Routes to Schools Advisory Committee, under the state’s Department of Transportation, manages those funds and gives portions to each county.
The counties will be able to use the money for infrastructure projects that relate to the program, largely including infrastructure improvements.
But it’s unclear how the committee will decide how much goes to each county. At a Hawaiʻi County Council meeting earlier this week, council member Matt Kaneali'i-Kleinfelder questioned the state’s lack of clarity around the process.
“It's disturbing that the state wants us to collect $5 per vehicle registration, (but) has no criteria about where the funding goes, or how much we actually receive back,” Kaneali'i-Kleinfelder said.
He also expressed concern about which districts within the county will see funds. Officials from Hawaiʻi County's Department of Public Works said any federal funding the project receives will go to school districts that are chosen at the federal level, but it is still unclear how districts will be chosen for funding received through the state’s $5 vehicle surcharge.
“I want to make sure that you folks are building equity into this in the backend, that it’s not just going to be one or two districts that receive the total funding coming in from this new fee that we're going to charge our residents,” Kaneali'i-Kleinfelder said. “That’s what I want to know.”
A measure to update the Hawaiʻi County’s vehicle registration systems to start accepting the fees passed through the county council earlier this week.
