Felix plaintiffs State lawmakers were asked yesterday to suspend their probe to scrutinize costs associated with the Felix consent decree.
shoot for delay
State lawmakers are asked to
suspend the official investigationBy Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.comAttorney Eric Seitz wanted them to persuade Gov. Ben Cayetano to settle the state's latest contract dispute with the teachers union to avoid a federal takeover of the state's special-education program.
"The offer was made because it's our hope that everybody will be able to comply (with the consent decree) by Nov. 1," said Seitz, the Felix plaintiffs' attorney who made the offer.
But the chairpersons of the Senate-House investigative committee said they will move ahead with the probe even if the state is found to be in noncompliance with the consent decree and a receiver is appointed.
"I believe the investigative committee will go forward because the questions are still there irrespective of whether we're in a receivership or not. We still have to answer to the taxpayers as to where the money is going," said Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, committee co-chairwoman, at the conclusion of a daylong hearing.
A federal lawsuit filed by special-needs student Jennifer Felix led to the 1994 consent decree, which aims to improve educational and mental health services for children with disabilities and to bring the state into compliance with federal law.
The state has missed the compliance deadlines on a couple of occasions.
U.S. District Judge David Ezra on Thursday said that by Nov. 1, two-thirds of public school complexes must be in compliance and key benchmarks must be completed, or he will start the process for placing the state's special-education system into receivership.
Seitz spoke to Rep. Scott Saiki, committee co-chairman, by phone Saturday with this offer: In exchange for suspending the legislative investigation, the plaintiffs' lawyers would cooperate fully after Nov. 1 and give the committee full access to witnesses and documents connected to the federal court that previously the lawyers successfully blocked.
"So that was our effort to try and cut through some of the things that were most endangering the process at this point, and apparently the offer's not even worthy of discussion," said Seitz, who sat in on part of the hearing. "I'm trying to find ways that all of us can work together as opposed to wasting time working on cross-purposes."
Seitz said daylong investigative hearings are a distraction that take state personnel away from focusing on compliance issues, and the pending teachers contract dispute is a "cloud over everything."
The HSTA and the governor disagree over whether a 3 percent bonus to teachers with master's degrees and professional diplomas should be paid for one year at a cost of $9.7 million or for two years at a total cost of nearly $20 million.
The teachers union has said the pending contract dispute could hinder compliance because of its impact on special-education teachers.
A certain percentage of special-education teachers -- the largest group of teachers with master's degrees -- is needed in the schools to meet compliance. Many are unhappy that the contract remains unsettled.
The committee also pointed out that Seitz received approval from Ezra and the Attorney General's Office to bill the state $9,049 in attorney's fees for work that included successfully fighting the committee, which wanted to subpoena court monitor Ivor Groves and his assistant.
"I think we were surprised to see some of the charges, particularly since we did not initiate some of those activities that were billed for," Saiki said. "I think we just want the Attorney General's Office to scrutinize these kinds of requests more carefully to make sure that the billings are appropriate."
Seitz said he tried to work out a resolution to avoid having to go to court to quash the subpoenas.
"I bill them one-third to one-half of the time I actually spend on Felix-related matters," he said. "I don't bill for all that because it would be enormous."
The committee also heard testimony from state schools Superintendent Paul LeMahieu and state Health Director Bruce Anderson, who were subpoenaed to bring financial records with them.
Both said they needed more time. LeMahieu said he needed 90 more days to retrieve contract information from individual schools, while Anderson said it may take up to Dec. 10 to get the final contract expenditures for vendors providing Felix services.
The delay in getting the information will affect the work of the committee, Hanabusa said. "These are critical issues because what the taxpayers want to know is where the money is going."
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