State's special education contract up for renewal
By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer
The Department of Education is looking to renew a contract with Columbus Educational Services, the headhunting firm that has brought 219 special education teachers to Hawai'i from the Mainland.
The company is paid about $100,000 per year for each teacher it brings to Hawai'i under an agreement worth $63 million that started in September 2000 and ends in August. With that $100,000, Columbus pays the teachers' salaries, benefits and other costs, but is allowed to keep the remainder.
Educators say the contract has helped tremendously in meeting the requirements of the Felix Consent Decree, the federal court agreement that mandates improvement of special education services.
But the contract has come under fire at various times from lawmakers, Board of Education members and the Hawai'i State Teachers Association for its cost and the fact that it was signed without going through the state's competitive bidding procedures.
A legislative investigative committee concluded that a special education teacher hired through Columbus could cost the state as much as $335,000 over three years.
The value of the contract has fluctuated as the DOE has made various amendments regarding the number of teachers required and the areas in which they were needed. It started at $100 million, but is now worth $63.3 million, according to a legislative report.
Rep. Scott Saiki, D-20th (Kapahulu, Mo'ili'ili), serves as co-chairman of the legislative committee investigating state spending in the Felix consent decree. He said the Columbus contract has long been a concern for lawmakers because of its high cost and because of lawmakers' lingering questions about how the agreement was formed.
A federal judge has quashed the committee's subpoena of Judith Schrag, a member of the Felix monitoring panel who recommended Columbus to the DOE. Saiki said the committee will stay in a "holding pattern" until they can talk to Schrag.
"The Columbus contract was always meant to be a temporary situation," Saiki said. "Any extension would make us focus on whether that really is the case."
Columbus Educational Services has recruited teachers for hard-to-serve rural areas such as Ka'u, Hawai'i; Moloka'i, Lana'i, Hana, Maui; and Kohala, Hawai'i.
"We couldn't recruit for those areas," said Debra Farmer, education specialist at the DOE. "I guess the downside is that it's costly. That's the downside we pay for living in the middle of the ocean."
Recruiting and retaining qualified teachers has become one of the biggest issues facing the DOE.
Recruiters search for about 1,500 new teachers each year, although they say they do not know how many of those vacancies typically occur in special education. But burnout is considered to be particularly high in the special education field, and during the time of a national teachers shortage, positions on the Neighbor Islands are the most difficult to fill.
Plaintiffs attorney Eric Seitz said the state would not have met the requirements of the consent decree without the Columbus contract. "They staffed the most difficult areas to help people in those communities," Seitz said.
But Joan Husted, executive director of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association, calls the Columbus arrangement a short-term solution at best.
"We are not enthusiastic about this at all," Husted said. "We would like the state to take the necessary steps to recruit and keep special-education teachers in the system. Instead of concentrating their efforts on improving recruiting and retention, they are doing two things. They are giving Columbus teachers rights that regular special-education teachers do not have such as the right to pick and choose their school. And they are giving regular teachers the sense that they don't care about their own system."
Columbus teachers, because they all have different contracts, in some cases have negotiated higher salaries, the right to skip faculty meetings or the right to forgo lunchroom duty and other responsibilities that regular teachers cannot ignore, Husted said. Columbus teachers also have received $10,000 in moving costs.
At one point, Husted said the DOE put out a memo saying that regular DOE teachers could not quit and be rehired by Columbus.
"It appears if you're a good teacher negotiator you make more money than somebody who isn't good at that," Husted said. "Some teachers were offered different salaries or benefits. It's to the company's advantage to not get overly generous."
DOE officials say that Columbus teachers and the company do not make that much on the contract.
But Columbus Educational Services is allowed to keep the remainder of the $100,000 after it pays the teacher's salary, benefits and incentives such as travel allowances or retention bonuses. The legislative investigative committee estimated the remainder could reach as much as $20,000 per year, per teacher.
Columbus is not required to give the DOE a breakdown of its costs, but DOE officials have testified to lawmakers that they were told the Columbus teachers would earn between $33,000 and $42,000 per year before benefits. Starting teachers at the DOE earn $33,295 while the most experienced teachers can earn $62,333 per year.
Emiko Sugino, who heads the Felix Monitoring Project, said the rumors of $100,000 teachers salaries and the profit that Columbus makes have been exaggerated. "There's no way the teachers make that much," Sugino said.
Farmer said that even if Columbus teachers earned slightly more than regular DOE teachers, they don't have the same kind of job security or pension.
"Let's face it," Farmer said. "We're an expensive state. Our salary is decent, but with our high cost of living it's a real culture shock for people coming from the Mainland. Sept. 11 didn't help. Many people are reluctant to be far from home."
The contract was granted by former Superintendent Paul LeMahieu using the powers given to him by federal district Judge David Ezra. Those so-called "superpowers" allowed him to cut through procurement laws and bypass the Board of Education.
LeMahieu, the DOE and the Department of Health were under pressure because the federal court had set a benchmark that not less than 85 percent of Hawai'i's special-education classrooms would be staffed by licensed or trained special education teachers by September 2000.
Hawai'i's school system has been under the federal court's oversight since the state signed the Felix consent decree in 1994, agreeing to improve special-education services, as required by law. Since then, the state has spent more than $1 billion on Felix efforts, with the cost prompting legislators to raise questions about whether taxpayer dollars were reaching special-needs students.
The special legislative committee investigating spending on the Felix consent decree scrutinized the Columbus contract last year and learned that over a three-year period, the state would spend an estimated $2.1 million in Columbus recruitment travel and $3.3 million for staff support so Columbus could set up a Honolulu office with five employees who would accompany candidates on interviews, organize moves and help make hiring decisions.
In testimony before the legislative committee, Board of Education Chairman Herbert Watanabe and former chairman Mitsugi Nakashima said the board had concerns about the contract, but Watanabe said their "hands were tied." They provided the committee with letters from the attorney general's office that Watanabe said advised the board "in a nice way" to "butt out."
Board member Karen Knudsen said the board has not discussed the Columbus contract recently. "Had there been more openness about it there wouldn't have been the suspicions," she said.
Knudsen said she sees the contract as necessary even though the cost is unpleasant. "It would have been better if we wouldn't have had to go outside for a contract like that," Knudsen said. "But we have made a lot of progress and the Columbus contract helped us meet our goals."
Claudia Chun, personnel director at the DOE, said the terms and cost of the renewed contract have not been decided. "The terms are being negotiated right now," Chun said. "It's hard to talk about it because we're still negotiating."
Some say the new contract will likely be a one-year extension to try to get the department through the rest of its federal court oversight.
"There's a mutual understanding we will extend the contract for one year," Sugino said. "Hopefully we won't need to hire many more people."
Columbus officials did not returns calls for comment.
Looking beyond the immediate pressures of the consent decree, Knudsen, Husted and others say the state needs to focus on its own recruiting and retention efforts and cannot rely forever on outside companies to bring teachers to Hawai'i.
"We need to attract people to the system on our own," Knudsen said. "We need to improve working conditions."
With a declining number of education graduates from local universities, though, the task could prove difficult.
Sugino said the DOE offers incentives to improve recruitment and retention in special education, but still finds it hard to compete with what some wealthier Mainland school districts can afford.
Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8084.
