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Legacy of a leader When then-Lt. Governor Ben Cayetano ran for governor in 1994, he promised to make education a top priority.
Cayetano reflects on time
spent at helm of HawaiiFinancial crises and clashes
Regrets over ceded lands
with unions and the Legislature
marked his termBy Crystal Kua and Pat Omandam
ckua@starbulletin.com pomandam@starbulletin.comHe chuckled when asked last week if he considers himself the education governor.
He made good on promises to raise starting teachers salaries and he built more new schools than anyone else. But he also presided over a statewide simultaneous strike by public school teachers and University of Hawaii faculty last year.
"I think we tried to do something in education and maybe in some more distant time people will be able to look at those things more objectively," Cayetano said Thursday at a meeting with Star-Bulletin reporters and editors. "Like anything else you've got to let history be the final judge."
As he prepares to give his eighth and final state of the state address this month, Cayetano reflected on how he will be remembered.
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His two terms were marked by financial crisis, battles with public worker unions and fights with the Legislature, which overrode a gubernatorial veto for the first time in state history on a bill to raise the age of sexual consent.He started office when the state was in the midst of a long term economic downturn. The economy improved only to decline again after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Cayetano and others also point out that when the state budget ax fell hard on most state services, the Department of Education and University of Hawaii were virtually unscathed.
"There is no doubt in terms of preserving (kindergarten through grade 12) education from cuts from one of the most serious financial crises, the governor was very careful," said Joan Husted, executive director of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, which represents 13,000 public school teachers. "If we are to be fair, we have to acknowledge that"
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The HSTA was one of the first to join the Cayetano fold by coming out with an early endorsement in the 1994 election. The union took out ads praising Cayetano's dedication to education, calling him the "leader for learning."But the honeymoon between the teachers union and the governor didn't last long.
"What we tried to do when I took office, we put in another element in contract negotiations," Cayetano said. "Is the contract we're negotiating ... is it going to improve education? Not just improve the lot of the teachers but is it going to help improve education?"
Which is why, Cayetano said, he became personally involved and demanded things like a longer school year -- and got it.
Protracted contract negotiations that nearly caused a strike in 1997 left such a bitter taste that many rank-and-file teachers were upset when the union leadership again endorsed Cayetano instead of Republican opponent Linda Lingle in 1998.
Cayetano's same collective bargaining philosophy carried through to his second term and the next round of negotiations with not only the teachers but the university faculty.
Two strikes
Hawaii would make history by having both lower and higher education faculty out on strike at the same time last spring.Cayetano said that the settlement in the end showed that the strike could have been avoided because the final numbers came in closer to the administration's offer than the union's proposals.
The governor said that the strike caused lawmakers to "panic" and put an amount of money close to what teaches were asking in early budget drafts.
"Teachers are calling me liars, 'What do you mean we don't have the money,'" he recalled. "Maybe it's good that this strike happened."
Husted said teachers are still "extremely angry" at Cayetano especially since the contract is not fully implemented. Teachers still have not received bonuses for advanced college degrees and there are other outstanding issues.
"Teachers clearly feel that the governor's action toward them didn't match his rhetoric," Husted said.
"I don't see how anyone can write the legacy of Benjamin J. Cayetano and ignore the depth of that anger and feeling," she said.
But political observer Jim Wang said history may be kinder to Cayetano than his critics.
That's because Cayetano will be judged on the totality of service not just the complaint of the day, said Wang, who describes the governor's reign as being on an "even keel."
"I wouldn't use (the strike) as a way to judge his entire administration. I don't think that's fair," Wang said.
If the three-week strike went on for months, then it might have made a difference on the perception of his leadership, Wang said.
"People will judge him on how he handled crises," Wang said.
Cayetano says he does not really think much about whether he's the education governor. "I came to the conclusion shortly after I became governor that I had to make these changes ... and I know it would make people angry."
Accountability
One of the things Cayetano pushed for is a system of accountability that allows state government to change with the times.The governor said when he first began his term, he was not focused on issues like accountability and performance standards, particularly for education.
Such a system, he said, must reward an employee who performs, weed out those who do not, and have a way to measure what they are doing to be accountable.
"It's necessary to have a system that rewards people who do well," Cayetano said.
Cayetano, however, acknowledged that he did not know a group of public school parents, teachers, community members and union officials has been meeting to design an accountability system for schools. The task force was convened as a result of legislation supported by Cayetano in 2000 and which called for accountability for students, teachers, administrators and schools.
According to Karen Aka, a partner in the Accord Group, the consultant hired by the state to help facilitate the design of a school accountability system, a final report was submitted to Superintendent Pat Hamamoto last week.
Aka said she believes the plan sets out what the governor is looking for: it holds people accountable for measured goals but it is not punitive.
"The system we are trying to create ... it's a system that's going to try to distribute consequences from rewards, recognition, assistance and sanction," she said. "Give them a chance to succeed before the hammer comes down."
It's the economy, stupid
Wang said a governor is also remembered for how he well he has handled the economy.State Budget Director Neal Miyahira said that when investment from Japan went bust in Hawaii in the early 1990s, Hawaii's economy followed suit. "There was no question that government was fat. During the years of the Japanese investment bubble, government grew."
Cayetano said the size of government has been reduced during his tenure if you take out the Education department.
Cayetano has received high marks for cutting taxes and controlling government spending. He said during his tenure the state has passed major tax reforms, like 1998's income tax rate reduction, 1999's de-pyramiding of the general excise tax and last year's tax credit for hotel construction and remodeling.
Cayetano also pointed to his actions to diversify Hawaii's economy to a point where there was potential for success in areas such as bio-tech and health care.
But with the economic fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, not even the Department of Education is being protected from cuts this year, Miyahira said.
Political pit bull
Cayetano's leadership style has been compared to a pit bull, Mafia don and dictator, and he makes no apologies.Cayetano believes if a Republican governor had been elected in 1998, measures such as the privatization of government services and demanding more teacher training and school days in return for pay raises would not have been approved.
He plans to hone in on that message come the next election to prevent the GOP from gaining more political control. "I think my role will be to tell the public that the kinds of things that the other party said the majority party couldn't do, we have done."
Micah Kane, executive director of the Hawaii Republican Party, gives Cayetano credit for being a fiscal conservative but says he is a victim of a one-party system. Cayetano's impact in the election will be to activate "the old boy network" to raise money for Democratic campaigns.
"I think the job of governor is to be a consensus builder," Kane said.
To consensus building, Cayetano says, "Good luck."
Cayetano said his strides have created a lot of bitterness and anger from his longtime Democratic political allies and supporters like public employee unions.
"This is my firm belief, but with a Democratic governor, you got some change, but it's not a good feeling. It hurts a little bit to be seen by people who have supported you all throughout your political year, having disappointed and having some of them feel like they were betrayed."
One of Ben Cayetano's regrets during his two terms as Hawaii governor was his promise to settle the dispute over ceded lands with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Governor admits
failure over OHAHe regrets being unable to settle
the dispute over ceded Hawaiian landsBy Pat Omandam
"This is one of my failures," Cayetano said Thursday. "In one of my State of the State addresses, I pledged to try and resolve it before I left. So, I admit failure. I'm not able to do it."
The governor said it is unlikely that the Legislature will address a Sept. 12 Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that invalidated a state law requiring annual payments to OHA.
"That would be a very hard issue for the Legislature to tackle. I'm not even going to bother because this is an election year and they wouldn't want to do it," he said.
This year, state legislators will likely propose interim revenue payments to OHA but will likely put off any permanent resolution. Past payments have ranged from nearly $2 million in 1990 to $15.7 million in 1995.
"Certainly, a temporary revenue stream is part of the package we're asking for because we need income to continue our programs," said OHA Vice Chairwoman Rowena Akana.
Ceded lands in Hawaii include roughly 1.8 million acres of crown, government and public lands ceded to the U.S. government after the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in 1893 and annexed in 1898. How much of the land, and profits from its use, should be dedicated to native Hawaiians has long been in dispute.
In 1996, then state Circuit Judge Daniel Heely ruled OHA was owed its 20 percent share of revenue from community hospitals, state affordable housing and duty-free concession leases that operate on ceded land.
The state appealed the Heely decision to the Hawaii Supreme Court, who asked the parties to negotiate a settlement. After talks faltered in April 1999, the high court ruled last year Heely's decision was correct. But since that state law, Act 304, contained a severability clause saying it cannot conflict with any federal law, the court ruled it invalid and said the Legislature must come up with a new funding formula.
In April 1999, OHA had a chance to settle with the state for $251.3 million, but a majority of the nine trustees voted instead to end negotiations because the settlement contained language they believe extinguished OHA entitlements and waived the agency's right to litigate on past breaches of the ceded land trust.
Akana and OHA Chairman Clayton Hee say the board should have accepted the offer, which could have brought OHA's native trust close to $1 billion today.
Cayetano says some trustees got greedy then because they felt they had a legal advantage over the state. What is needed now, he said, is for the Legislature to create a new revenue formula that accounts for improvements to ceded lands and for public purposes, such as airports and schools.
And the governor challenges the decision by delegates to the 1978 state Constitutional Convention to pay OHA 20 percent of revenues from ceded lands.
While the betterment of native Hawaiians was one of the five public purposes of these lands under statehood, that does not necessarily mean OHA must get 20 percent, he said.
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