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Honolulu Lite
WITH the possibility of a strike looming, the state and teachers are in a mandatory 60-day "cooling off" period, which is just a fancy term for what most parents would call a "time out." Teachers
will strike,
pigs will flyStrikes are like grizzly bears: first there are rumors that one is in the area, then there are sitings, then the bear looms over the camp, sniffing at the peanut butter sandwiches and then, before he can pounce, he's given a "time out," usually with a tranquilizer dart.
A strike by thousands of public school teachers has reached the looming stage, which means it's now time to seriously consider what's going on. The teachers need a raise, everyone agrees to that. The question is how much? The teachers would like a 22 percent raise. Gov. Ben Cayetano would like to be 6-foot-4. Neither is going to happen. So both sides have been ordered to go to their rooms for a 60-day time out, so that the public can be smacked around enough to finally pay attention to the issue.
Negotiations between the state and public unions are extremely complex because negotiators on both sides are paid with public money and because it's not their money, there's no incentive to be reasonable and speed the process along. The amount of tax money paid to government and union officials and attorneys during the course of this negotiation process would be enough to send the entire student body of a medium-sized high school to college for a year.
These are the kinds of situations that I suspect State Auditor Marian Higa could settle in one afternoon. Higa, as I pointed out before, should be president of Hawaii. As auditor, she has waded into the most complicated and mismanaged government bureaucracies, sorted everything out and saved the state millions of dollars.
She is probably one of the most trusted figures in government; a lone, clear voice of fiscal sanity. Which is why she is not called in at moments like these. Bureaucrats love fiscal insanity. They prosper in fiscal insanity. Fiscal insanity is their back yard. An old battle cry used to be "Confusion to the enemy!" A true bureaucrat's battle cry is "Confusion to the public!" As long as the public is confused, the bureaucrat is able to run amok, spending money any old way.
THE looming public teachers strike would immediately cease looming if Higa were allowed to mediate the dispute. She would look at the state budget the way most people look at their own checkbooks. She'd see how much money is in there and where it's needed. Then, after about 45 minutes of scribbling with a pencil she'd tell the teachers, the state can pay you this much money. Period.
But we won't be seeing "The Higa Solution" to this problem. That would be a dangerous precedent. Why, if she solved this dispute, she'd be called in to solve others. A lot of lawyers and union negotiators would be out of work, the government would run smoothly and efficiently, birds would sing, butterflies float in the garden and, well, we couldn't have any of that.
Just to put your mind at rest, there will be no teachers strike this year. Parents will put up with a garbage strike, a public workers strike and even a sick-out by Honolulu police. Parents can deal with crime running rampant in the streets, a shut down of government services and mountains of garbage in their yards. What they can't handle is having their kids hanging around the house all day, every day, because teachers are on strike. Trust me, this strike ain't gonna happen.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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