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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Sunday, June 5, 2005

Democrats control most school-repair money, critics say

 •  Politicians pick which schools to fix, not DOE
 •  Public school projects funded by state Legislature
 •  Projects on DOE priority list that were not funded
 •  Locations of legislative districts

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Education Writer

The annual fight over money for school construction projects is blatantly politicized, and Democrats who dominate the House and Senate are in the best position to win, some lawmakers say.

"It's not based on need, it's based on political chicanery as far as I'm concerned," said Sen. Fred Hemmings, R-25th (Kailua, Waimanalo, Hawai'i Kai). "Even within the Democrat Party, the Democrat power brokers end up with all the gravy."

He said Windward O'ahu has been fortunate to receive money for important road and safety improvements. "But when it comes to school repairs, there's a lot of games played, and it's unfortunate," Hemmings said. "It speaks of petty politics at its worst. ... It's basically taking care of the good old majority party network."

But some key Democrats say it's not that simple. The bottom line is there simply isn't enough money available to pay for every project that's wanted or needed, said Sen. Brian Taniguchi, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

"Whenever you have to make a decision on different requests and you can't fund all of them, it becomes a political thing," said Taniguchi, D-10th (Manoa, McCully).

It's not explicitly clear that projects in areas represented by Republicans were frozen out, because Republican Senate districts overlap with House districts held by Democrats, and vice versa.

But in general, districts held by Republicans clearly fared poorly this year. Ten projects on the Board of Education's construction priority list were located in Republican Senate districts, but none made the Legislature's final cut. The projects totaled nearly $82 million.

Fourteen more priority projects worth $165 million were in Republican House districts, but only four worth $14 million were financed.

Many schools serve students from more than one district. Since Democrats have solid majorities in both chambers, their sheer numbers mean that any project is more likely to be in an area their party represents. Forty-one of the state's 51 House seats are held by Democrats, as are 20 of the 25 Senate seats.

And some schools simply have greater needs than others, because of aging facilities, population growth or other factors, Taniguchi said.

The Legislature added two projects worth $1 million in Republican Senate districts, and eight more worth $7.2 million in Republican House districts. Those districts all overlap with ones held by Democrats in the other chamber.

Reach Johnny Brannon at 525-8084 or jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com.