Hawaii Schools Face $16 Million Cut, Possibly More
The Hawaii Department of Education‘s budget cuts for next year are smaller than Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi originally feared.
The department will lose $16.4 million per year from the state — less than one-third the $55 million annual cut Matayoshi anticipated in March. And about 1 percent of its $1.7 billion budget.
But more cuts are on the horizon: The department faces an almost inevitable further downsizing1 from Gov. Neil Abercrombie this year and an additional $20 million cut to its bus transportation allocation in the 2013 fiscal year.
“While we did have to cut the (Department of Education) a bit, it was not as drastic as it could have been,” Senate Education Chairwoman Jill Tokuda told Civil Beat. “I think that, as we have during past legislative sessions, we really wanted to preserve those core services and programs that are a priority for the state. While they all provide much needed and critical services, we understand importance of keeping the (Department of Education) as whole as possible.”
Lately it has been a question of not whether, but by how much the school system’s budget would be downsized, because it accounts for about one-quarter of the state’s total budget. The department’s annual general funds have shrunk by nearly $115 million since the recession began in 2008.
House Education Chairman Roy Takumi said the final state budget for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 reflects a greater concern for education among lawmakers. This year saw the Legislature attempt to recover from the embarrassment of Furlough Fridays.
“I think it shows that both sides have realized that perhaps it’s penny wise and pound foolish to make drastic cuts to the Department of Education,” he said.
But he cautioned that the school system’s budget book has not yet been closed, because the governor still must find $50 million to cut from the state’s overall budget.
“Now the is looking across the landscape to determine where those cuts will take place, and since the Department of Education is a decent chunk of the total state budget, they may have to take $15 million or so more out of that budget,” Takumi said.
The transportation cut in 2013 are designed to encourage the department to get its “exorbitant” busing costs under control. The current contracts cost about $1,000 per student — compared with a total per-pupil allocation of $5,500 from the state’s general fund.
“Even with continued requests from the Legislature to the department to address the exorbitant contract costs, the department has allowed the student transportation program to run at a significant deficit, simply utilizing funds from other sources rather than make concerted efforts to bring down costs,” the Legislature’s conference committee states in its on the budget.
Takumi predicted that the amount cut from transportation will change during the next legislative session, depending on how much money the department is able to conserve in that area this coming year.
Although lawmakers passed the state budget more than a week ago, the worksheets outlining exact amounts each department receives from the state have not been posted online yet, and the Department of Education has not completed its analysis of the numbers.
“At this time, the department is facing a $16.4 million general fund cut in each year of the biennium,” department spokeswoman Sandy Goya told Civil Beat by email. “Where those cuts will come from is yet to be determined.”
Even though a $16 million cut to a $1.7 billion budget doesn’t sound significant, the department is going to have to make some difficult decisions, Tokuda said.
Both she and her House counterpart predicted that the department will absorb most of the cuts in the the Weighted Student Formula fund. Weighted Student Formula is the method used to grant schools much-coveted discretionary dollars.
“The (Department of Education) does have the ability to move some dollars around, but I have a feeling that would be the fairest way to allocate the cuts, because it’s formula-based,” Takumi said. “Those are the sexy dollars in the system, because they go directly to schools to use in ways they see fit. Any time you nibble away at that, you’re giving principals less flexibility.”
