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The Hawaii State Board of Education is scheduled to meet Tuesday and we’ll be watching is the discussion of the recent State Auditor’s scathing indictment of the Department of Education and its management of the school bus transportation program.

Of course, for the last year Civil Beat has been writing a lot about the burgeoning costs of taking kids to and from school in our Taken For A Ride investigative series. We’ve been documenting how costs got out of control, what effect that is having on other school programs and what the school district and lawmakers have been doing about the whole situation. I’ve read every story and edited most of them, so the state audit was like reading a favorite book for the second time.

I have to say I’ve been wondering why the department has done so little to get the rising costs under control. Especially because key legislators have been scrutinizing the bus service and usually when that happens state officials tend to work harder to fix things.

It seems like there’s been a lot of talk — and the Board of Education is certainly doing its share of the talking — and really very little action. Meanwhile kids and parents are taking the hit while bus contractors continue to collect lots of taxpayer dollars.

But Auditor Marion Higa lays out such deep-rooted problems in her 46-page report it strikes me that the department is going to have a tough time unraveling the threads — some administrative, some financial, some political, some historical — that seem to be tangling up the department executives who failed to come up with a plan last fall when the Legislature threatened to cut off money for buses if they didn’t come up with a plan.

They didn’t come up with a plan and the Legislature didn’t zero out funding but it did restrict the budget to the extent that the department had to cut dozens of bus routes, leaving about 2,000 kids without a ride to school this year.

Now, the school board and district officials are pinning their hopes on a consultant — allegedly an accomplished firm from the mainland — to figure out how to basically tell private school bus contractors no. In the last few years, the district has paid the bus companies whatever they’ve asked for without question, a situation Higa and staff found astounding. The lack of competition even prompted an FBI investigation into collusion and price-fixing that the department assisted with and yet … nothing was done.

So if you’re a parent or a teacher or an interested taxpayer or even a school board member who hasn’t had time to read the fascinating state audit, here’s a layman’s guide to help you understand Tuesday’s school board discussion:

• The state’s budget for school bus costs has grown from $25 million a year to nearly $74 million in just the last six years.

• The staff who do the day-to-day management of the transportation program and the $74 million in contracts aren’t qualified to be doing the kind of work they are being asked to do. “Transportation officers” who oversee and monitor bus routes, enforce contracts and prepare spending plans aren’t required to have any sort of business or accounting background and are inadequately trained to boot. They need only have a high school diploma and get paid between $36,000 and $55,000 a year. The audit says it’s “unrealistic” to expect them to be able to handle the workload and the requirements. They are at the mercy of the bus contractors.

• Every year, contractors are supposed to submit rosters with drivers’ names so the department can check their driving and criminal records. The contractors routinely don’t submit the rosters and when they do the department doesn’t check them and doesn’t notice when information is missing or inaccurate. This job is among the many that fall to those transportation officers who are under-trained, over-worked and not paid very well.

• Just a bit more on the transportation officers although the audit devotes many pages to them: They don’t monitor the contracts as they are supposed to, and when they do it’s through some sort of annual report submitted by the bus company. They keep complaint files but those are missing much information. They rarely make on-site visits even though field inspections are supposed to be conducted eight times a week. None of the files reviewed by the auditor contained a single inspection report. Transportation officers told the auditor there is no time to do field inspections.

• More than 800 buses are operating but the department doesn’t have a system to figure out which routes are necessary and which ones aren’t. The routes change when the contractors change them and the companies get paid even when the buses sit idle. For route planning purposes, student addresses — there are tens of thousands — have to be manually entered into the computer system because the department doesn’t have the software to automatically import student addresses. District officials told the auditor they are “considering” getting that software.

• The department has no process to figure out where to place bus stops. That’s important because studies show kids are at higher risk of injury at bus stops than on the bus. Yet convenience — not safety — is what decides where a bus stop goes. “Contractors and school children often decide where to place bus stops.”

• A typical school bus can carry 72 passengers — 60 if they’re in middle school or high school. Some routes identify as many as 100 kids per bus. Ridership data is “inaccurate, inconsistent and not based on actual riders.” District officials don’t know whether the buses are too full or not full enough. That’s costing the taxpayers money.

• A lack of coordination between the department’s procurement and transportation divisions allowed bus contractors to basically run the show. Because each branch “works in a silo and abdicates responsibility,” they “fostered an environment where school bus providers garner contracts with virtually no competition.” Again, these state workers are at the mercy of the contractors.

• The department routinely finds offers from sole bidders to be “fair and reasonable.” Officials can’t explain why, even though they’re supposed to justify a sole bid in writing. No meaningful analysis is ever conducted. This has been going on for at least six years. The head of the transportation department told the auditor he is “only a conduit” and that the superintendent of education — that would be Kathryn Matayoshi — ultimately decides whether a bid is fair and reasonable. That means Matayoshi and her predecessors have been signing off on bids no questions asked.

• The department has known for years that the lack of competition has been driving up costs. But it didn’t raise a red flag about “highly suspicious” practices and still doesn’t have a system in place to draw attention to it when it happens. The state’s own rules require them to speak up when they suspect something’s going on that’s wrong. The department is doing a bad job protecting the taxpayers’ financial interests.

• Even the state auditor was stunned to discover that the department is paying the general excise tax for some bus contractors. That added up to more than $2 million this year. “It is illogical for the state to pay itself taxes,” the auditor said, and yet the department — that would be Kathryn Matayoshi — signed off on the deals.

The auditor’s conclusion?

“The Department of Education has lost control of its student transportation program.” That would be Kathryn Matayoshi.

Clearly, it’s time for a change in management.