H.B. 2066 Summary

• Establishes a cesspool conversion on-bill financing program administered by the Hawaii Green Infrastructure Authority to provide low-interest loans to eligible low- and moderate-income homeowners for upgrading, converting, or connecting cesspools to director of health-approved wastewater systems or sewerage systems.

• Creates a cesspool conversion loan special fund capitalized by legislative appropriations, federal/state/county/private funding sources, loan repayments, and interest earnings to finance the program.

• Enables counties to implement on-bill repayment by collecting principal and interest payments on real property tax bills and remitting collections to the authority through memorandums of agreement.

• Authorizes the Department of Health to transfer funding available under section 342D-83, Hawaii Revised Statutes, annually to the authority to capitalize the loan program.

• Appropriates funds from general revenues for fiscal year 2024-2025 to capitalize the special fund and cover county billing system reprogramming, loan servicer automation, one full-time program management position, and financial assistance allocation to counties (with $3-to-$1 county matching requirement and $100 million annual cap per county).