(Editor’s Note: The following excerpt is from an upcoming Grassroot education policy brief, which will kick off our new education transparency initiative. Look for the full paper later this month!)

Every year in Hawaii, without fail, the Department of Education (DOE) announces to the media that it will have to make drastic cuts to sports, school bus transportation or even school lunches if forced to enact budget cuts as directed by the Governor. This year, the DOE threatened to cut Junior Varsity Sports to help make up for a $9.2 million state-mandated cut to the $2.5 billion budget. A reportedly emotional, four-hour board meeting ensued, with the mayor and other state representatives testifying against such a cut. Meanwhile, the DOE’s Chief Financial Officer admitted a $41 million carryover in unencumbered funds at the end of the 2007-08 fiscal year, but a review of unspent, unencumbered funds in May 2008 revealed a balance of well over $200 million.

Every year these DOE "cry wolf" tactics dupe the public into believing that Hawaii’s public education is under funded, but this time the Governor simultaneously released news that 651 DOE personnel recently attended a conference at a Disneyland Resort in Orlando, Florida at a cost of at least $1.2 million. In response, a flood of skeptical comments from the public filled the commentary sections of the daily newspapers.

How can the Board of Education (BOE) believe that it must cut programs while the DOE carries over hundreds of millions of dollars? How can the Legislature annually appropriate millions in emergency funds not knowing that the DOE has more than enough money in the bank? A past superintendent testified before a Ways & Means committee that the DOE Budget Office does not communicate with the Accounting Office. In other words, there may be a budget “shortfall” on paper, but expenditures are consistently less than budgeted.

If order to capitalize on recent media events, the public’s perception that government education is underfunded must be replaced with an understanding of how the DOE receives and spends its resources—and the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii looks forward to taking on this task.

-GIR-

Grassroot member Laura Brown is an education writer and researcher who writes for Grassroot in Review, Hawaii Reporter, and other publications.