Posted on: Thursday, December 9, 2004

ISLAND VOICES

By Ruth Tschumy

The Reinventing Education Act of 2004 (Act 51) requires the Department of Education to de-link from the Department of Accounting and General Services (DAGS) and other state agencies.

The purpose is to improve the delivery of services to schools. It gives the DOE authority over services currently being provided to schools by other agencies, and holds it accountable for results.

In her "State of Education" address to the legislature last January, Superintendent Pat Hamamoto asked for the money and authority to do school capital projects and repair and maintenance.

She said Hawai'i's schools were "at the mercy of the Department of Accounting and General Services and Budget and Finance" and "our kids wait too long for decent basic facilities."

All stakeholders want Hawai'i's children to attend well-maintained schools. Yet, the physical condition of our schools is worsening, and the backlog of school repairs is estimated to be between $460 million and $600 million. Reducing the backlog is difficult because each year brings an estimated $50 million in new problems as aging schools continue to deteriorate.

During Hawai'i's lean years, the legislature struggled to find money for R&M, with the earmarked cash amount (as opposed to capital improvement bonds) shrinking.

Because regular cycle maintenance is not funded, repairs to toilets, etc. are put on hold until they fall under major R&M that can be bond funded.

The DOE believes the system for accomplishing R&M is obsolete and cumbersome. It begins with the DOE prioritizing projects, then passing the project on to DAGS to request the release of money from the Department of Budget and Finance (B&F). DAGS contracts with a consultant for the design phase, and later if the bid comes in high, the project goes back to the DOE to obtain more funds or cancel the project.

The principal whose school needs the project ends up discussing the scope of work with DOE personnel, DAGS personnel, and the consultant's personnel.

The culprit, then, is not DAGS, the DOE, the legislature, or the governor, but rather a snail-paced delivery system, with inter-department paper shuffling a time-consuming reality.

The transfer of R&M and capital improvement projects from DAGS to the DOE is effective July 1, 2005, although two other accounts were transferred July 1, 2004.

Nearly five months of difficult but productive discussions between DOE and DAGS have taken place, with the sticking points being whether or not and how many DAGS staff will transfer to the DOE to provide for transferred functions and how to ensure that the rights and benefits of transferred personnel are retained. The negotiations seemed to be moving toward a smooth transfer of responsibilities.

Among several options, DAGS and the DOE were discussing a plan that would create a Service Bureau within the DOE, a "one stop shop," to receive R&M requests from principals/schools.

In lieu of transferring a large number of DAGS personnel to DOE, the DOE would contract with DAGS to perform the services. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) would establish a client-vendor relationship between the schools and the DOE Service Bureau and between the DOE and DAGS.

However, at the Nov. 15 meeting of the Interagency Working Group, it was announced that the governor had made a policy decision that all functions, resources and positions must be transferred from DAGS to the DOE by July 1, 2005, the date specified in The Reinventing Education Act, and SLAs that altered in any way the complete transfer by that date might be illegal.

The governor's position is that the R&M backlog is the result of the way projects are "processed within the bureaucracy," presumably the DOE bureaucracy.

"You wanted it, now you have it" seems to be her message to the DOE, and to further hold the DOE's feet to the fire, she released $100 million for school R&M, of which $50 million will be the immediate responsibility of the DOE, despite the fact that none of the approximately 300 employees of DAGS who work on school R&M have yet to be transferred to the DOE.

So an orderly process begun five months ago to de-link the DOE and DAGS has now become less orderly and more rushed — not the ingredients for a smooth transition. All stakeholders must resist pointing fingers, show respect for others' reform efforts, and truly want the DOE to be successful. When this happens, Hawaii's children will see a better day educationally.

Ruth Tschumy is a consultant for the Hawaiian Educational Policy Center, a non-partisan and independent research organization, to observe and write about the implementation of Act 51.