Schools feel political clout

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

Politics remains more than just a civics lesson in Hawai'i public schools.

Instrument cases have been chewed up by rats in the music room at Kawananakoa Middle School. The renovation project was not on the DOE list, but it got $350,000. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

The lawmakers most successful in winning nonpriority projects were Sen. Lorraine Inouye, D-1st (Hamakua, S. Hilo), Sen. Willie Espero, D-20th ('Ewa Beach, Waipahu) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Tamayo, D-42nd (Waipahu, Honouliuli, 'Ewa), each securing between $3.2 million and $4.8 million in projects that do not appear on the priority list of what the Department of Education would like done between now and 2009.

Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, D-14th (Halawa, Moanalua, Kamehameha Hts.), vice president of the Senate, secured the most non-DOE priority projects for schools — four in her district — worth $775,000.

The state's construction budget for the next two years shows not only that lawmakers — not the Department of Education — dictated where much of the money will be spent at individual schools across Hawai'i, but that in nearly every situation a school project ended up on the state's construction list only if it was in an area represented by someone serving as a House or Senate committee head.

Of the 41 individual school projects listed in the state budget, 33, or 80 percent, are being done at schools in areas represented by House or Senate committee leaders.

"People are calling it a legislative initiative," said Herbert Watanabe, chairman of the state Board of Education. "In the old days it was called pork barrel."

It's been a longstanding practice for Hawai'i politicians to try to secure money for capital improvement projects in their district. But this year lawmakers initiated more school-related projects than usual, passing over dozens of schools that were on the DOE's to-do list in favor of projects in their district.

The governor has the authority to veto specific projects or reduce or withhold for them. Although she has said she will consider restrictions, Lingle has not said she will do so. Although Lingle said yesterday she has not reviewed all of the school projects yet, she plans to go over the construction list with officials from the DOE and the Department of Accounting and General Services, the state agency that oversees school construction.

Chances are very good, Lingle said, that she will restrict at least some of the money and ask lawmakers next session to redistribute the construction dollars. "It just seems to me they've crossed the line in what is fair," Lingle said. "Their only concern is the people in their district. My responsibility as governor is to look at the entire state."

If the DOE ignores a health or safety issue, Lingle said, it is a legislator's responsibility to try to correct the problem. She said she would be inclined to keep those projects but eliminate others that don't rise to that level.

"I have not seen anything on the list that is a bad idea," Lingle said.

Of the 41 school projects individually specified in the state budget, 11 appear on the DOE's plan for construction jobs it most wants to see accomplished between 2003 and 2009; 30 were initiated by lawmakers. Legislators bypassed dozens of schools on the DOE's priority list — 77 projects in all — including plans for new classrooms everywhere from Mountain View Elementary on the Big Island to Lana'i High & Elementary.

In all, lawmakers approved $22.9 million for the 30 school construction projects that are not on the DOE's six-year priority list. They approved $56.1 million for 11 projects on the priority list, the bulk of which will go to build new schools in rapidly growing areas of the state: $25 million for the construction of Maui Lani Elementary and $13 million for the first part of Ocean Pointe Elementary in Leeward O'ahu.

Now that the budget is before the governor, both Republicans and Democrats are accusing the other of playing politics with the construction projects.

While Republicans hold 20 of 76 seats in the Legislature, just two Republican representatives managed to get projects for schools in their districts: Rep. Brian Blundell, R-10th (W. Maui) for Lahainaluna High and Rep. Lynn Finnegan, R-32nd (Aliamanu, Airport, Mapunapuna) for Moanalua Elementary.

Both of those schools are also represented by Democratic senators who serve as committee heads: Sen. Roz Baker, D-5th (W. & S. Maui), chairwoman of the Senate Health Committee; and Sen. Norman Sakamoto, D-15th (Waimalu, Airport, Salt Lake), chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Sen. Fred Hemmings, R-25th (Kailua, Waimanalo, Hawai'i Kai), last week asked the governor to restrict all projects not on the DOE's priority list. "The real message is that politics have been played. I'm asking the governor to stop this abusive practice. We should set the funding based on priorities," Hemmings said. "I know the governor will rise above the petty politics."

But House Majority Leader Scott Saiki, D-22nd (McCully, Pawa'a), said that although Republicans were largely unsuccessful, they requested about $179 million in school projects not on the DOE priority list. Saiki is concerned the governor will cherry pick when she considers whether to restrict money for certain projects, choosing to restrict it for projects that fall in heavily Democratic districts.

"What she accused us of doing as far as pork barrel politics is the same thing the Republicans do," Saiki said. "These projects are common. Democrats and Republicans do them. I request a list from the principals every year of what they want done at their school. Most people do this."

Ira Rohter, a political science professor at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, said lawmakers feel they have to show they've brought home construction projects to win re-election. "I think for them not to do that would be the unusual thing," Rohter said. "They can have all of these great ideological thoughts, but they have to show that they're able to do the job."

At Kawananakoa Middle School, parents of band and orchestra students are circulating a petition asking Lingle to keep their project alive. The school received $350,000 to renovate the band hall and orchestra room, where there is a lack of storage space and where rats have entered through the building's old plumbing system and chewed up instrument cases. But the project is not on the DOE priority list.

"This request came from the community and the principal," said Rep. Sylvia Luke, D-26th (Punchbowl, Pacific Hts., Nu'uanu Valley), "It's my responsibility as a legislator to bring this forward."

Rep. Scott Nishimoto, D-21st (Kapahulu, Diamond Head), said his top legislative priority was getting the science labs at Kaimuki High School repaired. He said they have unstable tables, termite damage and safety problems.

"I worked really hard to try to get them this money," Nishimoto said. "It's really frustrating. It's a very worthy project."

For his part, Saiki was able to secure $170,000 for the replacement of the bell system at Washington Middle School in his district. The bells don't work consistently across campus, which Saiki said is a health and safety issue even if it's not on the DOE's list. Most of the nonpriority projects are basic needs, he said. "It's fixing stuff," he said. "It's nuts-and-bolts stuff."

Lawmakers have complained that the DOE's priority system makes it impossible for some older schools to get projects on the list.

Watanabe said that's because the DOE list favors health and safety issues and the most rapidly growing areas of the state where schools have become too crowded. Most of the new construction needs are in the Maui and Leeward O'ahu districts because that's where the population is growing, but Watanabe said that years ago the Neighbor Islands complained because of the growth in the Radford and Moanalua high school areas where new schools were being built at the time.

Watanabe worked as one of the DOE administrators in the 1960s who helped develop the first priority list for school construction. He said it was done at the request of lawmakers to try to prevent the sort of argument that is happening now. "They've always had a problem about who gets what," he said. "It's a battle of one legislator against the other."

Watanabe said school principals have gotten involved in the process, bypassing the DOE's system in favor of asking their lawmakers for projects. "When you have these pork items and you knock off the priority projects that's the sad thing," Watanabe said. "It will hurt the schools that were left out."

But the nonpriority projects have put Watanabe and other education officials in an awkward position because the dollars still represent money for public education.

Even though he doesn't like it, Watanabe said he would defend the nonpriority projects from a line-item veto simply because they are being spent on public schools.

"From a selfish point of view I would defend it because it's one of mine," he said.

At the end of the day, Greg Knudsen, DOE spokesman, said no education officials want to see the money instead go to, for example, the Department of Transportation, the other big recipient of construction dollars.