DOE again forced
to cut its budget

It looks for ways to trim the
proposal by $20.7 million

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

The Department of Education is hunting ways to cut $20.7 million from its proposed supplemental budget request for fiscal year 1999.

And though the state's newest library under construction -- at North Shore Kauai -- will be staffed and running soon after its completion in late 1998, the library system's budget request will get pared by $1.2 million.

For libraries statewide, those funds would've meant more books, janitors and library assistants, and replacing aging equipment and library vans.

In a Nov. 7 memo to all state departments, Budget Director Earl Anzai released his own recommendations, saying that the state is unable to accommodate most general fund supplemental requests "without seriously jeopardizing the financial integrity of the state."

State tax collections for the first four months of the fiscal year were significantly less than projected and could worsen, he said.

The Board of Education is expected to review the revised requests from both the Education Department and library system today.

Education budget director Evelyn Horiuchi late yesterday was having difficulty deciding where to cut.

"We're still working on it," she said. "It's really hard."

She said some areas can't be touched, such as funds to pay teachers for the additional seven days negotiated in the new teachers' contracts.

The governor already has approved $709 million for the Department of Education's operating budget, and $18.4 million to the Hawaii State Public Library System for 1998-99.

Last month, the Board of Education approved the department's proposed $45.7 million supplemental budget, after it got a $15.2 million shave. The board also OK'd the library's proposed $2.2 million supplemental budget request.

But now, state Budget & Finance is giving the Department of Education a $25 million supplemental budget ceiling and recommending instruction programs get top priority.

Included in the $45.7 million supplemental request and 488 positions sought by the department were:

Collective bargaining agreements for seven instructional days and substitute teachers for added leave days: $3.9 million.

Felix v. Waihee consent decree mandates such as preservice training, recruitment incentives and mentor programs for special education teachers and speech pathologists; contract services for residential treatment; diagnostic teams; staffing for Hawaii Center for the Deaf and Blind; resource teachers for early intervention and care coordination: $12.7 million.

Implementing the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards to measure student achievement: $1.6 million.

Workload supplies and instruction equipment at new schools: $12.2 million.

Second-year funding for regular and special education enrollment: $5.9 million

Classroom cleaners, $2.3 million; and school security attendants, $749,260.

Some $20 million of the supplemental request was based on projected increases in enrollment, a point that bothered Anzai. He told the department to use actual enrollment figures to prepare the 1999 budget request.

The department's fiscal 1998 budget was based on projected enrollment increase of 3,200. The actual increase in enrollment in September 1997 was 800 students.

"The high priority we give to funding instruction programs means that other departments will have to defer requests that may be equally critical," Anzai wrote. "It would be tragic to deny other programs additional funding when lower enrollment should have resulted in reduced DOE needs."

The library system had initially requested $2.2 million and 16 full-time positions.

Budget & Finance approved $950,950 and seven full-time positions.

The library system has asked for a reconsideration of nine full-time janitor and library assistant positions that were left out, said Keith Fujio, library administrative services officer.

The library system was also hoping to replace aging terminals and equipment at branches, as well as six aging vans used daily to collect and deliver books.