State wants
$50 million out
of education budgetCosts for meeting federal
standards would not be funded
State budget officials want to cut 97 percent, or $49.5 million, from the Board of Education's supplementary budget request, which is largely aimed at meeting the high costs associated with new federal education standards.
The state Department of Budget & Finance recommended earlier this week that the governor include only $1.5 million of the board's $51 million request for its fiscal 2005 supplemental budget.
The move comes as Hawaii's public schools struggle to meet the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act, which calls for every public school student to be proficient in English and math by 2014.
The board had requested $24 million for such expenses, which include updating computers to handle reams of test scores and training teachers and administrators on the federal program. The state budget office's proposed change includes no money for costs linked to the mandate.
Georgina Kawamura, director of the Budget & Finance office, said the recommendation is not finalized. But she said the No Child Left Behind law is no excuse for the board to ask for millions.
"I can come up with every department having the same types of mandates to fill," she said, "but it's a matter of the amount of resources we have. There's so many things in the pot to consider."
At a board meeting at Kaunakakai Elementary School yesterday, there was much concern about the cuts expressed by the board members, said Randall Yee, vice chairman of the board's Committee on Budget and Fiscal Accountability.
"We're hopeful that they're going to reconsider some of these items," he said.
The state Department of Education responded to the budget office's proposed cuts on Monday, saying the decrease in funds could raise "serious concerns" about the public school system's ability to meet its program and services needs.
Kawamura said she is reviewing the response.
The budget office's final recommendation will go to Gov. Linda Lingle, who can increase or further decrease the budget. The Legislature will make a final decision on the department's supplementary allocations.
Department spokesman Greg Knudsen said that if the budget office's funding recommendation is approved, "we probably will continue to operate as well as we have: strapped, cutting corners and compromising."
The board originally wanted to ask for $200 million to help beef up programs to move the state closer to meeting the performance demands set in the federal act, Knudsen said.
But by October, board members had pared their supplementary budget to one-fourth of their original line, he said.
"It's not a matter of padding," Knudsen said. The budget "is down to the bottom line."
Yee agreed, saying the budget was the result of months of discussion by the board.
"We also understand that this is the beginning process," he said. "We're going to continue to work with the governor and get something that will help move us forward."
The budget office also proposed massive cuts for other items, including no supplementary funding for the Education Department's Hawaiian Immersion Program. The board had asked for $1.5 million to help fund the program.
The office's proposed cuts also included $4 million in unfunded items from the 2003 fiscal budget, $500,000 in unfunded coaches' salaries, almost $1 million in infrastructure costs and about $1 million in Medicaid reimbursement costs.
Meanwhile, it proposed that $7 million in federal aid that the Education Department uses to offset salary shortfalls be funneled into the state's general fund and that $7 million in regular school funds be transferred to a new budget account for charter schools.
