In December 2011, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) warned the city of Honolulu that its financial plan "must be further strengthened" prior to the FTA awarding up to $1.55 billion to help pay for the project. In their report, the Federal Transit Administration asked the city to demonstrate that they would have additional sources of revenue in case there were unexpected cost increases of funding shortfalls for the $5.27 billion rail system.
Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle stated that the city's rail funding plan is strong, but has asked the City Council for approval for a "contingency plan" if additional funding would be necessary. Carlisle stated, "(The FTA) have their own methods of making sure before you get the full funding grant agreement that you have other instruments in place that will deal with any contingencies. That's all it is. It is just one more layer of making sure that we are 100 percent capable of doing this project."
Currently, there is a half-percent surcharge on the general excise tax for all Oahu residents and visitors, which will continue until December 31, 2022. One option for Mayor Carlisle and the City Council would be to extend this surcharge for an additional two years, to help pay for any unexpected costs. Carlisle added, "We are now to the point where all of the contingencies have been essentially dealt with. You have to understand, a lot of this is to my mind pretty much kabuki theater because we're already at the point where if under the worst circumstances it ended up costing us much more than they thought it would, it would take exactly five more quarters of the GET to be able to take care of that, which is already written into the program."
