Hawaii's public schools would lose about $4 million under a Bush administration proposal to whack federal payments to school districts serving children of military personnel who do not live on bases. Hawaii schools face
losing $4 million in
federal impact aidBy Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.comThe cut would add more financial woes to the public school system. The Lingle administration has already slashed $8 million from the 2003-2005 operating budget for education prepared by former Gov. Ben Cayetano, and recently instructed the Board of Education to pare an additional $3 million.
"Everything is already stripped down to very lean funding, and to reduce funding further gets down to the bone," said Education Department spokesman Greg Knudsen.
The additional shortage would mean assessing where the federal funds have been used in the past and what services or items cannot be continued, Department of Education Budget Director Edwin Koyama said.
Bush's budget also would cut payments for children of civilians working on government property and children living in federally owned low-income housing projects.
The proposed cuts mean a 10 percent reduction of about $40 million in supplemental annual federal funding that Hawaii's public schools receive.
The federal government provides impact aid to school districts with children of military personnel who live on bases to make up for lost local property taxes, which usually fund education. A smaller amount is provided for those who live off base.
While Hawaii's property taxes do not fund education, state income and general excise taxes do. Knudsen noted that when military personnel shop on base, they do not pay the general excise tax and often pay state income tax in other states.
The Department of Education has used impact aid to fund special-education programs, teachers' salaries and equipment.
Of Aikahi Elementary School's 602 students, 120 are military dependents, most of whom live in the community.
"We appreciate all the moneys our schools receive because they all directly affect the programs we can put together for our children," Principal Sue Stock said. "To not have their support would hurt."
At Radford High School, where 75 percent to 80 percent of its enrollment are military dependents, Principal Bob Stevens said, "I don't think that proposal would be fair to anyone who is in the military, that their children get denied funding because they live off base."
U.S. Rep. Ed Case, who sits on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said the proposal would worsen impact aid funding, which already is lacking.
"There is an amount that should be due and owing from the federal government for all military dependents in our schools here wherever they live, and that amount has not been sufficient and this proposal makes it even less sufficient," Case said.
He sees the president's budget as "a concerted effort to pass off legitimate federal government costs onto the states to give the appearance of trying to balance the budget, which is not happening at all."
As for Gov. Linda Lingle's reduced budget, the Board of Education decided Thursday to spread the $3 million cut throughout the school system. An alternate proposal would have concentrated the impact outside the classrooms but hurt programs like A+ more.
"While we're hoping to spread it out, there is still tremendous impact," said board member Karen Knudsen.
Board members Garrett Toguchi and Lex Brodie argued that the board should simply refuse to go along with the latest round of budget trimming.
But ultimately the board decided it would rather determine where to slice than run the risk of an arbitrary cutback by the administration.
Star-Bulletin reporter Susan Essoyan contributed to this report.