Pay raises promised to Hawai'i's 13,500 public school teachers cannot go into effect if the state Board of Education and Department of Education do not come up with $400,000 to $500,000 for a teacher drug-testing program that Gov. Linda Lingle insisted on, Lingle's spokesman said yesterday.

"If parts of the contract are not implemented, then the contract cannot take effect," Russell Pang said. "The drug-testing provision is part of the contract."

Hawai'i teachers last year ratified a two-year contract that calls for 4 percent raises at the start of the current school year, and a salary-scale step movement and another 4 percent raise at the start of the second semester this year.

In the final week of contract talks last year, union negotiators said Lingle inserted the random drug-testing provision into the contract, which split members of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association.

Thursday night, the state Board of Education voted unanimously to not fund the program.

"It's a matter of where the money's going to come from," BOE chairwoman Donna Ikeda said yesterday. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm not taking it from the kids."

Ikeda also said that teachers have already received their pay increases.

In their budget request, education officials asked Lingle to pay for the drug-testing program "but none of our requests were honored," Ikeda said. "They were all cut. She claims we have surplus funds but it's not just sitting around. Sometimes it's earmarked. Sometimes it's for big purchases, for computers and there isn't enough, so it's like savings. But it's strictly for each school."

Pang countered that each year the DOE has $30 million left from its operating budget "that's not used. They can find $500,000 for drug testing."

Roger Takabayashi, president of the HSTA, believes the DOE and union are complying with the provisions of the contract.

"The contract states that we will have procedures and protocols in place ready for implementation by June 30, 2008," Takabayashi said. "We have been working with the DOE and are in compliance trying to design procedures and protocols for implementation by July 1. We are fulfilling the agreement and we are ready for implementation."

State Rep. Roy Takumi, D-36th (Pearl City, Momilani, Pacific Palisades), chairman of the House education committee, said, "I'm just scratching my head over this."

"I think the governor has a legal and a moral obligation to fund that contract, which includes drug testing," Takumi said. "The governor said the board has to find the money. I am mystified as to why the governor expects the department to carry out provisions of the contract and not provide the resources to do so."

State Rep. Lyla Berg, D-18th (Kuli'ou'ou, Niu Valley, 'Aina Haina), the House education committee vice chairwoman, said, "The governor insisted that this be included. The leadership for this has to come from the governor's office."

Berg called the drug testing issue "an unfunded and unguided mandate that's a repeat of the Hawai'i Superferry."

The Lingle administration decided to waive an environmental review of the Superferry's impact on harbor improvements "and here was a provision to include drug testing in the teacher contract," Berg said. "With those decisions come consequences. The responsibility to fulfill those consequences is a mark of leadership."

Board members will take up the issue again in February and Pang said, "hopefully they will reconsider and approve the funding."

Daniel Gluck, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai'i, said the Board of Education "has done Hawai'i's students a tremendous service in recognizing that our precious school dollars should be devoted to the classroom, not diverted toward an ineffective, unconstitutional teacher drug testing scheme. Gov. Lingle should be ashamed of her attempt to score political points at the expense of teachers' livelihoods and students' well-being."

Existing policies already allow the DOE to take action against any educator "who arouses suspicion of drug use, rendering the random drug testing proposal almost entirely symbolic," said the ACLU, which last September sent a letter to Lingle demanding the state halt plans to randomly drug-test public school teachers.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.