[ OUR OPINION ]

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Provide funding for
drug, education programs

THE ISSUE The Lingle administration has refused to release education funds to boost parental involvement in schools and track student performance.

FISCAL responsibility is an admirable trait in running government, but Governor Lingle has trouble citing that as a reason for withholding funds for drug and education programs that she opposed in this year's Legislature. Projected tax revenues are higher than had been expected, and programs in need of funding approved by legislators should be accommodated.

In July, Lingle ordered all nonfixed state spending to be reduced by 1 percent to head off what she projected to be $150 million deficit in 2006-2007. However, the state Council on Revenues reported last month that the state would have an additional $140 million to spend in the current fiscal year.

Budget Director Georgina Kawamura said those projections would erase that deficit. Lingle said the additional revenue "puts us in a good position for programs that are achieving results, and for new programs we will have the money." By all indicators, Hawaii is entering a period of prosperity.

After a six-month delay, the administration last week released $7.3 million for substance-abuse treatment and prevention programs and for expansion of the community Weed & Seed programs. Lingle continues to withhold $4 million appropriated by the Legislature for adolescent drug treatment.

Kawamura essentially advised the Board of Education this week to dismiss her earlier comments about the Council on Revenues projections. "They are definitely projections," she said. "I have to be confident that they will be credible. I take my job very seriously."

The Council on Revenues projections are used to give the administration an approximation of funds that will be available. The projections are assumed to be credible for that purpose. Kawamura's comment that she would withhold new spending until she feels that the projections were rooted in reality suggests that she will wait for the tax dollars to be actually collected. Under that process, projections are useless.

Her more candid explanation is that the Department of Education needed to show "clear results that you expect and how you expect to measure those results" of programs before the money would be released to them. The $4.6 million being withheld was included in an $11 million Reinventing Education Act that became law only after legislators overrode Lingle's veto, a clear signal that the governor questions whether such "clear results" are forthcoming.

Most of the withheld education funds are directed at providing computer systems to track student achievement and other data, and at expanding a program -- already present at 69 campuses -- that increases parental involvement. The "clear results" expected by the Legislature are embodied in its override of Lingle's veto.

"The justification is in the legislative process," says Rep. Roy Takumi, chairman of the House Education Committee. "It was all fully debated for months; there were hearings; the administration took part."