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The Hawaii State Board of Education voted unanimously Monday at a board meeting to redistribute about $15.3 million in budget cuts for the 2010-11 school year. Board members originally approved in February a $15.3 million cut to special education in regular schools but decided other programs should share the cuts, which will affect as many as 318 full-time positions at the school, central office and complex area levels. Many of those positions vacant right now anyway, due to hiring freezes.

The initial cut to special education came in response to a February request from the Hawaii State Legislature that the board specify what departments would be cut to meet a $142.7 million budget shortfall.

The board had to respond quickly to the Legislature’s request — within two or three days, said Board of Education Chairman Garrett Toguchi — so members tentatively identified the special ed program as the one that would take the full hit.

“We knew we were going to have to take another look at it later, because it was going to cost special education positions at the schools,” Toguchi told Civil Beat.

In a memo dated today, Interim Superintendent¹ Kathryn Matayoshi asked the board to consider spreading the cuts among other areas of the department’s budget “in order to minimize the negative impact that this reduction will have at the schools.”

According to the Hawaii Department of Education‘s calculations, 296 of those cut positions may still come from the special education program, including:

• 231 special education positions in regular schools
• 30 positions dedicated to mainstreaming special education students
• 8 positions at the autism center
• 11 positions dealing with school-based behavioral health
• 1 occupational therapist
• 11 positions with district diagnostic services

Other programs that will likely be affected by positions cut at the state and complex area levels include administrative services for adult education, school community councils, teleschool, systems accountability and school library services. (View the full chart on what education positions were cut from which programs .)

Toguchi said he won’t know until next week exactly how many of the 318 affected positions are already vacant, but that no matter what, principals are still expected to comply with mandated by the state.

Many board members said taking money from the special education budget was a necessary evil. The cuts get deeper every year, and special education can no longer be insulated from the squeeze all areas of education are feeling, they said.

“I do think at this point we don’t have much choice,” said board member Karen Knudsen. “On the surface, it does look like some of our most vulnerable populations are being affected, but we have already affected cuts that have affected our whole system and all of our students.”

Matayoshi said she and department leaders looked for areas where they could cut deeper than they already had in order to mitigate the impact on special education.

“The budget has been reduced so significantly over the last few years that there were not really any other places where we were able to get a reduction in such a large amount,” she told the board. “We have gone through the entire budget and looked for reductions throughout the department. This reflects reductions not only at special education programs, but additional reductions in our other offices, including the office of information technology and facilities.”

The education department is running out of areas where it can save money. What happens next year if the budget squeeze continues to tighten? Will the department continue to be able to deliver educational services fairly? Share your thoughts in our ongoing education funding discussion.