Three state Senate committees passed two bills to end budget-cutting closures at public schools and restore instructional days by taking money from the Hurricane Relief Fund.

The committees sent the bills to the Senate Ways and Means Committee yesterday as a conflict about Furlough Fridays that pits the teachers union and the Board of Education against Gov. Linda Lingle continued.

Education Chairman Norman Sakamoto said senators are advancing the bills in anticipation of an agreement between the Lingle administration and the board and the Hawaii State Teachers Association.

SB 2124 would provide $36 million from the Hurricane Relief Fund for the six furlough days remaining in the school year through June after this Friday. SB 2436 would take $75 million from the fund for 24 furlough days through June 2011.

Former teacher Malcolm Kirkpatrick said funds allocated for education were too much and represented about a fourth of the state budget.

“;How much money is enough?”; Kirkpatrick said at the public hearing on the bills. “;The Legislature should look at reducing costs.”;

The Hawaii Government Employees Association said using the relief fund to restore instructional days was too limited.

“;There are many other essential state programs handicapped by furloughs,”; HGEA representative Leiomalama Desha said.

Kathryn Matayoshi, the interim schools superintendent, said the department was continuing talks with the teachers union and supports any viable solution to restoring instructional days.

“;The department encourages the Legislature to explore all funding options available,”; she said.

Jim Williams, the union's interim executive director, said HSTA supports SB 2436.

“;We appreciate your committees taking the initiative and leadership to end Furlough Fridays during the remaining school year,”; he said.

Williams reminded legislators that the teachers accepted a 7.9 percent pay reduction by agreeing to 17 furlough days a year for two years.

HSTA President Wil Okabe acknowledged Lingle could withhold the funding even if the bills passed.

He said his union still supports a tentative agreement reached on Dec. 28 with the school board that adds seven instructional days through June.

Under that proposal the state would have provided an additional $35 million, and the union would have converted two planning days into instructional days.

But the proposal was rejected by the Lingle administration.

  Senators Propose To Raise Taxes To End School Furloughs

 

But social services programs say if the state's raising taxes some of that money should be used to help non-school projects.

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While the union has said restoring instructional days would cost $5 million to $5.5 million a day, the governor wants a scaled-down school operation with mainly teachers in classrooms on furlough days at a cost of $3.3 million daily.

Lingle's senior policy adviser, Linda Smith, said it would take about $44 million to fund 24 Furlough Fridays through June 2011, including the seven this school year.

Smith said only 12 days needed to be funded, and the remaining 12 would be converted from planning days.

“;We're taking the position that it's more important to teach kids than planning to teach kids,”; Smith said.

Okabe said converting 12 planning days would be a problem.

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Appeals court to hear challenges to lost days

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will be in Honolulu next week to hear oral arguments in a legal challenge to school Furlough Fridays.

The hearing before a three-judge panel is scheduled for Feb. 10 in offices at 1132 Bishop St.

Two lawsuits filed in federal court challenged the furloughs, one on behalf of nine disabled children with autism, the other a class-action lawsuit on behalf of regular- and special-education students.

A U.S. district judge denied a request for a temporary restraining order the day before the furloughs were to begin last October. And a visiting judge from the 9th Circuit later denied a request for a preliminary injunction.

The panel also will hear arguments in a challenge to the state Department of Human Services' awarding of the state's $1.5 million Medicaid contract to two mainland health plans in 2008.

The judges will be here next Tuesday to Feb. 11. They will hear oral arguments on other appeals at 1132 Bishop St. on the first two days and at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii.

— Star-Bulletin staff