Judge: State not
By Helen Altonn
meeting obligations to
special-needs children
Star-BulletinU.S. District Judge David Ezra has warned the state he won't accept any excuses if it isn't providing court-ordered educational services for special-needs children in two years.
If the state isn't meeting "every single objective of the law" by then, he said he'll order a special master to see that it's carried out.
"In other words, that portion of the Department of Education and Department of Health will be taken over by the court," he said at a hearing yesterday.
Ezra spoke bluntly, making it clear he's disturbed about state foot-dragging in making improvements under the Felix consent decree.
Lee Grossman and Steve Bowen, parents of children with autism, said they had hoped the judge would demand faster state action to comply with the court order.
"Every day that services are not provided to a child is a day lost in a child's life," Grossman said. The state has been negligent four years in complying with the order, he pointed out. "I don't know what another two years will do."
A class-action lawsuit was filed in 1993 for Jennifer Felix and other children alleging the state had failed to provide adequate mental health, education and other services for disabled children. The state agreed to improvements in a 1994 consent decree.
Ezra said he's also concerned that every Hawaii taxpayer is paying for the case.
He ordered a state report on Felix costs that shows more than $3 million has been spent in four years for the plaintiffs' attorneys and the monitor's office.
Ezra said the fees were reasonable but they would have been unnecessary if the state had promptly met its obligations. The money "could have been better spent to educate children affected by these laws and children who are not," he said.
Attorneys filed a motion in June seeking a special master to oversee mental health services to children in Maui County. They asked last month that the request be withdrawn because improvements were being made.
Although he granted the request yesterday, Ezra said he's dissatisfied with progress in the case and Ivor D. Groves, the court-appointed monitor, "agrees on every point."
Ezra said he understands the state's fiscal restraints and has waited patiently for the departments to take steps to comply with the federal laws.
He ordered new deadlines established within 30 days aimed at closing the case in 24 months.
Alfred K. Suga, interim deputy superintendent of the Department of Education, said the Board of Education has approved substantial funding for the Felix program and the DOE must work with the health department to make it a legislative priority.
Health spokesman Patrick Johnston said his agency believes it is making "significant progress" in implementing the consent decree and the state will be in compliance by the court's deadline.
Linda Colburn, operations manager for the consent decree in the governor's office, said Ezra "raised concerns that are probably shared by all the stakeholders." But she added, "His sense of urgency ought not to compromise the level of attention we give to remedial strategies. Faster is not necessarily less costly.
Colburn said plans have been revised to meet the goals by June 30, 2000.
Eric Seitz, one of the lawyers for the Felix plaintiffs, said they agree with everything Ezra said.
He said the lawyers have done everything possible to hold down their costs but they've met some resistance and encountered problems that took longer to solve than they should have.
He said the state is about one to 11/2 years behind the five-year implementation deadline in the consent decree, "and we don't know that the state is going to make it by June of 2000. They keep telling us they will, and we don't want to dampen their commitment to that, but we are concerned."
Parents whose kids aren't getting adequate services are "absolutely right to be upset," Seitz said. "However, some of the remedies they're talking about are not going to provide solutions."
He said improvements are intended to increase the capacity and capability of a system that's serving almost twice as many special-needs children as it was in 1993.
