Lawmakers bypass most DOE priorities

By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Education Writer

Marion Muller, the principal at Lokelani Intermediate School on Maui, thought this might be the year.

The school, straining under Kihei's population growth, has students in about a dozen temporary and portable classrooms. Money for a new six-classroom building was 10th on the state Department of Education's school construction priority list.

"I don't have enough space," Muller said. "It keeps coming up and coming up, and it keeps being rejected."

State lawmakers approved $134 million in school construction in the budget sent to Gov. Linda Lingle, but Lokelani Intermediate failed again to make the cut.

Of the DOE's top 15 projects, seven received money for the next fiscal year, including the top four projects on the department's list.

But lawmakers looking out for schools in their districts also recommended spending $46 million on other school projects, according to the DOE, including 23 that are not in the department's long-term school construction plan.

Karen Knudsen, chairwoman of the state Board of Education's budget committee, said she is grateful lawmakers backed so many school construction projects, but she wishes they had supported the department's priorities.

Herbert Watanabe, a school board member who represents the Big Island, was more direct. "These are all pork barrel," he said of the projects added by lawmakers.

State legislators routinely deviate from the DOE's priorities for school construction. Last session, for example, 30 of the 41 projects approved were not on the department's long-term construction plan. But this session, many lawmakers also have talked about the need to resist micromanagement and give the department more autonomy.

"Those were, we felt, very good projects," said Ray Minami, facilities director at the DOE, of the proposals rejected this session.

State Sen. Majority Leader Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), said lawmakers have an obligation to respond to school administrators and constituents in their districts. "Simply because it's not on their list does not necessarily mean the projects are not important," she said.

Lingle has not announced yet whether she will veto the budget, but she was critical last year of the influence lawmakers exercised over school construction funding, and she has the authority to restrict or withhold spending.

Minami said some of the school projects in the capital improvement budget could be restricted because they should be classified as repair and maintenance. Lawmakers approved a separate $100 million to attack a backlog of repair and maintenance that has frustrated many schools.

State Sen. Brian Taniguchi, D-10th (Manoa, McCully), chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said lawmakers sometimes add school projects to the construction budget to ensure that the DOE knows they are needed. Taniguchi said the DOE tends to favor new schools and classrooms, so many of the projects requested by lawmakers involve such things as electrical upgrades, roofing projects and athletic facilities.

"We get input from parents and school officials," he said.

Lawmakers did fund the department's top four construction projects: an administration/library building at Kealakehe Intermediate School on the Big Island, a six-classroom building at Hana High and Elementary School on Maui, the new Ocean Pointe Elementary School in 'Ewa Beach, and a six-classroom building at 'Ewa Beach Elementary School.

Projects at the top of the list that were not funded were primarily new classroom buildings for schools on Maui and the Big Island. At Mountain View Elementary School on the Big Island, for instance, school administrators had hoped to replace aging buildings with a new 12-classroom facility. "We've been waiting for years, and things just don't happen," said Myrna Watanabe, the school's reading coordinator.

Minami said schools have learned to make do with the space available. "They are using portable classrooms, teachers' lounges, any nook and cranny they can find," he said.

Many lawmakers argue that projects at schools in their districts are just as worthy and often just as overdue as the department's priorities.

At Kawananakoa Middle School, lawmakers added money to help renovate the school auditorium. There is money toward new bathroom facilities at Honoka'a High and Intermediate School on the Big Island, an electrical upgrade at 'Aiea Intermediate School, and a library expansion at Moanalua Elementary School.

On the Leeward Coast, in Hanabusa's district, there is money to widen campus walkways at Wai'anae Elementary School and replace concrete bleachers and build permanent visitors' bleachers at Wai'anae High School.

"The priorities for our schools may not necessarily add up to the priorities of the DOE," Hanabusa said.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.