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Editorials
Tuesday, January 9, 2001School bus fares
should be raisedThe issue: The school bus program has been running in the red, adding to state education budget problems.
INCREASED costs of operating Hawaii's education system have sent school officials scurrying for ways to reduce expenses. The logical but not necessarily popular strategy is to cut subsidies for student transportation and lunches. Lunch prices will rise in July, and the Board of Education needs to raise the price of bus service.
The Department of Education will need $36 million to $41 million in emergency appropriations from the Legislature and more than $153 million during the next two fiscal years, according to legislative testimony last week. Much of this will be needed to offset the cost of meeting court-ordered obligations such as the Felix Consent Decree to improve special education.
The price for lunch will rise on July 1 from the current 75 cents to one-third of the cost of preparing the meals. Since the cost of a meal is now $2.68 per student, the price will be $1, a modest increase of a quarter per lunch. Lunches will continue to be heavily subsidized.
The one-way price for riding a school bus is 50 cents. At that rate, the school bus program has been operating at a deficit since 1996. A proposal to double the rate faces opposition, since that would amount to more than $20 a month for round trips.
"Doubling to me seems really burdensome," says Karen Knudsen, school board member and former chairwoman. Of course, the burden is apparent only in comparison with the $12.50 monthly student pass for riding city buses, which also are subsidized.
Board member Denise Matsumoto proposes a one-way school bus rate increase to 35 cents -- still more than the monthly city bus rate for students -- and an examination of ways to cut costs by eliminating school bus routes that run alongside city buses in urban Honolulu.
Fares should should be raised enough to put the school bus program into the black. The state's education system is costly enough without being saddled with the rising monetary losses of ancillary programs.
Chavez’s statements
warrant scrutiny
PUBLIC officials often fall from grace not because of their questionable conduct but from their lack of candor regarding those acts. Linda Chavez, President-elect George W. Bush's nominee as labor secretary, faces scrutiny not so much for allegations that she paid an illegal immigrant who did housework but for her denial that she was aware of her illegal status. Those circumstances should give the Senate pause in confirming Chavez's nomination.
Chavez gave housing and financial assistance to a Guatemalan woman, Marta Mercado, who lived in Chavez's Maryland home for two years, beginning in late 1991. Chavez says she helped Mercado as a gesture of compassion. In an interview with the Washington Post, Mercado agreed that she "really was not an employee" of Chavez. She said she considered the occasional $100 or $200 that Chavez gave her to be a way of showing appreciation.
A Bush transition official said Mercado performed chores around the Chavez house "on an irregular basis" and that Chavez "provided her with spending money from time to time." However, while the distinction between employment and providing spending money may be vague, housing an illegal immigrant is against the law, even if the person is not an employee.
The larger problem may be that Chavez, according to several Bush aides, told Bush advisers that she was not aware that Mercado was in the United States illegally until after Mercado had left her home in late 1993. Mercado told the Post that she told Chavez of her illegal status about three months after moving into her home. In addition, Abigail Thernstrom, an author and friend of Chavez, told the New York Times she recalled that Chavez had been aware of Mercado's illegal status while she stayed in her home.
Ari Fleischer, a Bush transition spokesman, said that Chavez "has a history of taking people in. America has a long history of taking people in...the church community often does it and it's looked upon as act of compassion to help people in need."
Chavez's apparent charitable instinct is admirable, even if naive. However, the questions that arise have more to do with the potential labor secretary's appreciation of the law and how forthright she has been about these circumstances.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, Acting Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
