Gov. Josh Green may block the Legislature’s intended deposit into the state’s “rainy day” fund for a third time in four years.

Green announced on Friday that he intends to veto a bill that lawmakers passed in May to put $50 million of state general fund revenue next fiscal year into Hawaii’s Emergency and Budget Reserve Fund.

The legislation to make such a deposit was one of four bills that Green said he may veto from among 267 bills the Legislature passed this year. The governor plans to further analyze some of the four bills before making a final decision, and has until July 15 to veto any of the four bills or they will become law.

Green said in a statement that it would be financially imprudent to sock away $50 million in general fund money when the reserve fund has a record balance over $1.5 billion while other high-priority needs exist.

Priorities cited by the governor were disaster- recovery efforts, affordable- housing development, lowering the cost of living for residents and reducing unfunded state liabilities that include pension obligations.

If Green vetoes the rainy day fund deposit measure, Senate Bill 2600, it would be the only major funding appropriation vetoed this year. The governor on Friday signed the state budget bill, House Bill 1800, without using his line-item veto power to strike any appropriations.

SB 2600 was expected to boost the fund’s estimated balance to about $1.67 billion from around $1.62 billion. But Green has previously opted to keep more state revenue available for future uses by nixing deposits into the reserve fund.

In 2023, Green vetoed a $500 million rainy day fund appropriation after a projection for state revenue growth was reduced shortly after lawmakers passed the budget bill.

Then in 2024, the governor vetoed a $300 million appropriation for the fund, saying that the state should be preserving its cash reserves instead of boosting the reserve fund’s balance beyond $1.5 billion.

Hawaii’s Constitution requires that some amount of revenue be deposited into one or more of three places whenever there is at least a 5% general fund surplus in two successive fiscal years. The options are the rainy day fund, pocketbooks of Hawaii taxpayers and a trust fund to pay for future retirement benefits of Hawaii government workers.

To fulfill the constitutional requirement in 2024, $1 deposits were made into the two funds.

The state’s cash balance is projected to be $1.88 billion at the end of this fiscal year on June 30, down from $2.12 billion a year earlier.

Without any additional deposits, the rainy day fund is projected to grow to $1.93 billion in the 2031 fiscal year from $1.62 billion at the end of this fiscal year, or by $300 million due to interest income.

The other three bills that Green may veto include one to form a commission recommending consolidation or closure of inefficiently operating public schools, one that would affect how the head of a teacher standards board is selected, and one that would affect employment at three state agencies.

HB 2344 would establish the Public School Realignment and Closure Commission modeled after a federal commission that recommended the consolidation or closure of unneeded military bases. Green said the state Board of Education and Department of Education already have authority and responsibility for such a task that may be duplicated by the proposed commission with no benefit.

SB 3262 would require that the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board submit three nominees for its executive director for selection by the BOE subject to advice and consent of the state Senate. Green said additional evaluation is needed to assess, in part, whether such a change creates ambiguity regarding governance and accountability.

SB 2338 would affect employment at the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp., the Hawaii Community Development Authority and the Hawaii Public Housing Authority in part by limiting the salary of the HHFDC and HCDA directors to 99% of the governor’s salary. The bill also would establish conditions for employment contracts at all three agencies. Green said it may be possible to make changes sought under the bill administratively, and that more review is needed to determine that.

“Our assessments are guided by sincere dedication to our community, taking each opinion into consideration, with the goal of making decisions that truly reflect what is best for Hawaii,” Green said.

The governor added that putting four bills on his intent-to-veto warning list followed an extensive legal and fiscal analysis, and reflects collaboration and hard work between the Legislature, his administration and community stakeholders.

Last year, Green vetoed nine bills after vetoing 11 in 2024 and 13 in 2023.

The Legislature can override any vetoes with a two-thirds majority vote if the House and Senate call for a special session. However, Senate President Ron Kouchi (D, Kauai-Niihau) announced on Friday that the Senate does not intend to convene a special override session.

HONOLULU — Photographs of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. adorned with flower lei from Hawaii residents who traveled to Selma, Alabama, to join him on a pivotal Civil Rights march went on public display Tuesday in the state Capitol in Honolulu.

The Selma-to-Montgomery marches galvanized passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which did away with most barriers such as poll taxes and other forms of voter discrimination targeting Black Americans in the Deep South.

A delegation of five people brought dozens of flower lei with them from Hawaii to Alabama in March 1965. Images of King wearing lei, garlands that are synonymous with Hawaiian culture, have been previously published — but most of the photos displayed in Hawaii’s new exhibit have never been seen before. Some photos have subtle variations, while others include figures who may have been deemed unimportant at the time. The exhibit runs through July 7.

One of the lei-bearers was Charles Campbell, a high school teacher and chairman of the Hawaii Civil Rights Conference, who a March 20, 1965 article in The Honolulu Advertiser quoted as saying: “Selma has the capability of becoming a real sore that could affect the entire nation.”

King was photographed wearing lei about two weeks after the event known as Bloody Sunday when state troopers violently attacked Civil Rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965.

The photos were taken by Civil Rights photographer Matt Herron, whose widow donated them to Hawaii’s Department of Accounting and General Services for the state’s archives.

After the photos were unveiled, Steven Springel stared at a photo of his mother, Nona Ferdon, who was a divorced mother of two children and a graduate student when she traveled to Selma.

Springel remembers he was just about to turn 7 and only realized as an adult how important her trip was. Growing up in Hawaii, “we never experienced segregation or racial inequality,” he said of his and his sister’s childhood. Ferdon died in 2021.

The exhibit, part of Hawaii’s programming to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, is a reminder people from the Aloha State participated in an important event in history, said Keith Regan, who oversees the department as the state’s comptroller and presided over the photo unveiling as acting governor while Gov. Josh Green is out of state.

The small delegation traveled thousands of miles “to be a part of the Civil Rights movement, to show ‘aloha’ to the world that Hawaii was there holding hands with our fellow brothers and sisters to ensure equality and justice were heard throughout the nation,” he said.

The Hawaii members also wore lei during first day of the 50-mile (80.46-kilometer) march. Mothers of Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu strung together fragrant plumeria plucked from church grounds to assemble the lei.

Giving lei, a word that is both singular and plural in the Hawaiian language, continues to be a way to share the “aloha” spirit. People in Hawaii give and receive lei for all kinds of reasons, including to celebrate birthdays and promotions, or to show appreciation or recognition.

Tomi Knaefler, who had traveled with the delegation as a reporter with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, planned to attend Tuesday’s news conference. But at 96 years old, she wasn’t feeling up to it, said her daughter, Pamela MacDonald, who did attend.

MacDonald said she was 14 when her mother went on the assignment, “the one that she holds dearest to her heart.”

The exhibit comes at the end of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2026 term, which included a ruling gutting the remaining piece of the Voting Rights Act, setting off a wave of partisan gerrymandering in states in the South and endangering generations of gains in Black political representation.