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It was a year ago that we began looking into skyrocketing school bus costs.

Our investigative series, Taken For A Ride, was based on the review of hundreds of contracts the Department of Education had awarded over an 11-year period. To understand why transportation costs had tripled in just a few years, we compiled and analyzed a database of bids and awards. That led to the surprising discovery that in 2005, bus companies suddenly stopped bidding against each other and costs rapidly escalated as the school district paid bus companies whatever they asked.

Over the past year we have written dozens of stories about the situation, including trying to figure out why school officials — who knew the competitive bidding had stopped — did little about it. We interviewed bus company owners in Hawaii and on the mainland in an effort to understand their costs. And we followed legislative attempts to force the district to get a grip on out-of-control spending by cutting its budget.

Yes, I’m tooting the Civil Beat horn here but that’s because on Friday, the State Auditor issued a report of her own that reached the same conclusions and then some. The very critical audit revealed some other troubling issues, like the fact that the DOE has paid at least $2 million in general excise taxes for some of these companies on top of huge fees to take kids to and from school.

You can read our coverage of the audit here. But the audit itself is eye-opening and we highly recommend you . It’s particularly interesting when you consider the millions of dollars that have been taken away from kids and programs in order to pay bus companies by a department that, as the audit found, seriously mismanaged transportation spending and may have risked the safety of children riding the school buses.

It’s certainly not the end of covering this important issue for us; there’s much more to come as the Board of Education reviews the audit, as a consultant comes back in a few months with suggested solutions, as the Legislature takes it up again next session.

So stay tuned, but meanwhile here are some of the other stories we reported this past week that you can catch up on over this long Labor Day weekend: (We’re off on Monday, too.)

• Surf and Turf: An Analogy Between Hawaii Superferry and Honolulu Rail

• African-American Groups in Hawaii Angered by Latest Birther Request

• No Cost Estimates for Delays in Honolulu Rail Construction

• Honolulu’s Most Dangerous Intersections: Guess Where?

• Oahu Shows No Love for Hawaii’s Public Land Corp.

• It’s Your Money: HPD’s Free Ride

• ‘Stunning’ Opposition Plagues Hawaiian Home Lands Director

• Meet Kawika Crowley, Candidate for Congress

• Local Vs. Haole: Kauai Settles Discrimination Cases Involving Prosecutor

• Rail Ruling Another Black Eye For Hawaii’s Historic Preservation Division