Proposal is costlier, schools chief says

Advertiser Staff

State schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto said yesterday she believes that locally elected school boards would cost the state more money.

Hamamoto had told The Advertiser earlier this week: "I would imagine that if we are moving into this configuration that there should be a cost savings in the mini-school boards. But I don't know, I haven't seen anything that says this."

The Advertiser paraphrased that comment in a story yesterday about Republican gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle's education plan, which includes the creation of seven locally elected school boards.

Hamamoto asked to clarify her comment yesterday, saying: "I believe that smaller school boards would cost us more money." She declined to elaborate.

Department of Education spokesman Greg Knudsen said the superintendent was trying to make the point that any cost savings should be evident before moving toward local school boards. He said local school boards would cost more because bureaucratic functions would be duplicated, travel costs would escalate and the department would lose the economy of scale it now enjoys with a centralized system.