DOE budget axed by $24 million
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Department of Education's budget for 2002-03 was slashed by more than $24 million by the Legislature, forcing education officials to find ways to make up for shortfalls in areas such as A-Plus, charter schools and bus transportation.
The cut amounts to a 2 percent reduction to the $1.3 billion DOE operating budget that lawmakers approved last year. DOE officials who briefed the Board of Education yesterday said some of the more notable cuts include $4 million for charter schools, $3.5 million for the A-Plus after-school program, $3.6 million for computer education, $157,000 to hire more teachers in the English-as-a-second-language programs, and $845,191 for tuition waivers for summer-school students.
These cuts are in addition to a projected $4 million deficit in bus transportation revenues. The DOE is considering fee increases to make up the deficit.
Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said it was too early to say how the department will deal with the shortfalls in the other programs.
"I don't have the answers right now on how we're going to be making that up," she said. "We just want to get this school year off and running and take a look at what resources we do have."
Hamamoto acknowledged that some employees will have to be laid off for budget reasons, but she did not know how many people or positions will be eliminated.
The Hawai'i State Teachers Association had estimated that a 2 percent budget cut would result in about 130 teaching positions being eliminated.
Hamamoto said it's also difficult to say how individual schools will be affected because each is able to shift its use of money.
"It doesn't help them to have the budget cut. But with lump-sum budgeting there is some degree of flexibility for the schools to maintain their priorities," she said.
Board of Education chairman Herbert Watanabe said that the cuts could have been worse; at one time, all state departments were facing 5 percent reductions.
The news out of the Legislature wasn't all bad for the DOE. Included in the construction budget is $5.1 million to finish Mililani Mauka II Elementary and $20 million to complete Kapolei High. There also were no reductions in money for special-education programs, Hamamoto said.
CORRECTION: The Department of Education faces a $4 million shortfall for charter schools but officials say the department is committed to payiing for the program. In addition, the department is facing a $3.6 million shortfall for the A-Plus after-school program and is doing what it can to maintain all of that program. An earlier version of this story did not contain this information.
