Lingle's cuts target adult education
| • | Recommended pay raises for legislators called fair |
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday laid out her plan for trimming the state's budget by an additional $133 million, a proposal that would include cutting half of the Department of Education's $5.5 million adult education program.
The need for the additional budget reductions was triggered by the Council on Revenues, which announced earlier this month that it was revising its forecast downward to a growth rate of 4.3 percent from its earlier projection of 6.1 percent.
Yesterday was day 40 of the 60-day session.
The revised forecast means a loss of anticipated revenues of about $119 million spread over the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, and the next two years.
Lingle said $14 million in savings from her cutbacks will go toward paying for anticipated increases in collective bargaining costs for police officers, firefighters and other first-responders, as well as covering an expected rise in health insurance costs for state employees and retirees.
Lingle gave a broad outline of the cuts last week, but provided more details yesterday. The administration, she said, hopes to generate $55.5 million by tightening eligibility requirements for high-technology tax credits, $50.8 million by restructuring debt, and $24 million by transferring unused special funds to the general fund and $2.7 million from the DOE's adult education program.
While the education cuts represent only a small segment of the budget trims, DOE officials said the reductions would have a devastating impact on tens of thousands who use the Adult and Community Education Program.
Lingle told reporters that a number of adult education classes benefit people seeking lessons in leisure topics such as guitar playing or backyard gardening. "We feel very strongly that adult education in teaching karaoke and country line dancing is not a core function of the Department of Education," she said.
Only half the budget is being cut, Lingle said, so classes can continue for essential topics such as English as a second language. Such classes, however, would only be provided for those who could not afford to take them privately.
But DOE Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said community or special-interest programs such as those mentioned by Lingle are nearly entirely self-sustaining and most of the $5.5 million budget goes toward critical areas such as adult literacy and high school diplomas, citizenship training for recent immigrants and English for second-language learner classes.
She also disputed Lingle's claim that special-interest programs are not part of the core function, pointing to a statute requiring the DOE to provide "adult and community education that will meet the interests and desires of those people who wish to enrich and broaden their cultural, recreational and social interests."
Hamamoto said she will ask the Board of Education to request that the cut be taken "lump sum" so that it can be absorbed throughout the department, lessening the impact on adult education.
As for revenue, Lingle said she hopes to close loopholes in the rules of eligibility for tax credits given for research-and-technology investment.
She said she wants to make the state's research tax credits conform to the federal standard, which allows the credit to apply only to new investments made in a given year, an adjustment that would bring the state an estimated $46 million more in revenue.
Currently, the credit is applied on all previous investments as well, she said. On the technology investment side, Lingle wants the Legislature to delete the words "liberally construed" from the language of the eligibility criteria and set up an audit program to ensure that claims qualify for credits. The change is estimated to net $9.5 million.
Restructuring debt, Lingle said, would free about $50.8 million for the general fund by spreading out the payments on those bonds. It can be done without increasing the amount owed by the state because it will be borrowing at ever-decreasing interest rates.
The cuts do not address the impacts that the war on Iraq will have on the state's revenue. And, it appears, any such impacts won't be dealt with during the regular session of the Legislature, which is scheduled to end May 1.
Lingle said the Council on Revenues has scheduled a meeting for May 9. She said it is too early to determine what the economic impact of war will be.
If the council does decide to lower its revenue forecast further, she said, the Legislature will have to reconvene in emergency session or the administration will have to deal with the shortfall internally during the upcoming year through belt-tightening. "It would depend on the size of the impact," she said.
