Lawmakers
to go after Felix
monitor again

The Department of Health
claims it can fulfill the required
special-needs policies

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By Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.com

State lawmakers say they are looking at a possible second attempt at getting Felix court monitor Ivor Groves to appear before their investigative committee.

"We want to re-subpoena Ivor Groves," said Rep. Scott Saiki (D, McCully), co-chairman of the Joint Senate-House Felix Investigative Committee.

U.S. District Judge David Ezra has quashed three subpoenas issued by the committee, which is scrutinizing the state's spending to comply with the consent decree, the federal mandate to improve educational and mental health services to special-needs children.

Besides Groves, subpoenas were also suppressed for Juanita Iwamoto, his administrative assistant, and Judith Schrag, a court-appointed member of a panel that provided technical assistance to the state.

Committee members said they want to focus on challenging the decision on Schrag's subpoena first because they believe they have a more clear-cut case since she has testified in a related lawsuit.

The committee met behind closed doors with two deputy attorneys general, Charles Fell and Elizabeth Fletcher, assigned to represent the committee.

"Now that we have deputies, we can file motions in federal court in this case. So we could file motions to compel compliance with subpoenas we issued," Saiki said.

"The committee wants to mull over all of the options that are available to it before making a final decision on what approach to take."

Sen. Colleen Hanabusa (D, Waianae) said Groves' subpoena may be more tricky because his subpoena was quashed before it was served, and that is one of the issues the lawyers are looking into.

"We don't want to have a technical situation that may sort of permit someone not going to the merits of that argument," she said.

The committee heard from the final two witnesses from the Department of Health including Director Bruce Anderson, who said that his department is right on target in meeting consent decree benchmarks.

"I believe we have the ability to provide mental health services to those with intensive needs to support the Department of Education without a significant increase in funding (to the Department of Health)," he said. "We have a relatively mature program. We're fine tuning it now, but our array of services is largely complete."

The committee also asked Anderson about the so-called "superpowers" given to him and former schools Superintendent Paul LeMahieu by Ezra to bypass state laws and regulations that hamper compliance.

Anderson said he has used his authority to waive procurement requirement in 30 to 40 instances, cutting by months the amount of time it normally takes to issue contracts.

"Without those special authorities, we would not be where we are today," Anderson said.

The committee will hear from acting schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto on Saturday but has not heard back from LeMahieu as to whether he will testify. The panel is giving him the choice of whether to testify.

The committee plans to wrap up testimony next week with state Auditor Marion Higa, whose office has been the investigative legwork for the committee.