HSTA to endorse
candidates for office
on case-by-case basis

Politicians will be backed based
on their support of education

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By Lisa Asato
lasato@starbulletin.com

The public schools teachers' union will endorse candidates in this year's elections based on commitment to education rather than party affiliation, union president Karen Ginoza said yesterday.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association, which represents about 13,000 public school teachers, has traditionally backed Democratic candidates.

But that has not worked in the past, and has only produced broken promises and "band-aid" solutions, Ginoza told a delegation of 268 teachers at its 2002 convention yesterday.

The union is changing its game plan, she said.

"It does not matter to us if they're members of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Green Party or any other party. It only matters to us that they're willing to be members of the Education Party," she said to applause. "Because education is what we are all about. If they cannot support us, we will not support them."

Ginoza later told reporters a key issue the union is watching is the budget cuts.

"Education is everybody's buzzword right now, and economy," she said. "What we are seeing is proposed cuts to education and we are going to hold the legislators responsible, then, to tell us how they're going to avoid those cuts."

With shortfalls anticipated for this fiscal year and the next, all state departments face up to 5 percent cuts to their budgets for the fiscal year that starts in July. On Friday, the House Finance Committee approved a supplemental state budget bill that imposes 4 percent cuts to all state departments for the current fiscal year that ends June 30.

The union plans to announce its endorsements in mid-May.

Ginoza said the union is using a "full-blown" recommendation process that involves teacher input and preliminary approval by members. The union's board will make the final decision on which candidates to support for governor, lieutenant governor, the state House and Senate and the Board of Education.

The union, which threw its support behind Democrat Ben Cayetano in 1998, was criticized at that time by members who wanted to support Republican candidate Linda Lingle.

Also yesterday, Ginoza told reporters she did not want to predict when the negotiated 2 percent bonuses to teachers with advanced degrees would be paid out. She said the union and state has had one preliminary talk on the second-year of bonuses but no future talks have been set.