EDITORIAL
School projects no place for pork barrel

When you have a school system that has hundreds of millions of dollars in backlogged repair and maintenance and construction projects, it only makes sense to have a priority list of what can and should be done.

And that is what the state Department of Education, working with the Department of Accounting and General Services, has put together.

It has a list of badly needed construction projects, from No. 1 (systemwide reconstruction of temporary facilities) to No. 110 ( new library for Haaheo Elementary School).

The list may not be perfect, but it does reflect a statewide perspective as well as an emphasis on the priorities that the state Board of Education has set for the school system statewide.

Unhappily, that list has been largely ignored by legislators who are more concerned with satisfying the concerns of their particular constituents than they are dealing with the needs of the school system as a whole.

This is completely understandable. Legislators know their re-election hopes rest on making the folks in their home district happy. And nothing works better than getting the money for a new covered walkway, a gym or whatever else is needed at the local school.

Within that district, those needs are paramount. But statewide, they may fall far short of what is needed elsewhere for basic health and safety improvement or sheer expansion to meet the pressure of growing enrollment.

Advertiser education writer Jennifer Hiller reports that that just 11 of the high-priority construction jobs identified by the Department of Education and Department of Accounting ended up on the specific list of school projects identified by name during the recent 2003 legislative session. Some 77 projects did not make the list.

Education officials are in a quandary, since most of the projects identified by legislators are worthwhile, in and of themselves. No one wants to turn down help.

But the point is that there is not enough money to go around, so there must be a consensus priority list.

Lawmakers argue they are close to their constituents and thus may know more about district needs than the Department of Education. That might be so. In such cases, their job is to make sure the district needs are made known to the DOE, not to bypass it.

Slipping school projects into the budget may win votes and the hearts and minds of constituents, but it is a disservice to the state system as a whole.