When Hawaii’s Democrat Caucus proposed and passed Act 51, The Reinventing Education Act of 2004, as a counterproposal to Gov. Lingle’s local school board initiative, the overall intent was to get more money out of the DOE bureaucracy and into the classrooms. The laws states that not less than seventy per cent of appropriations for the total budget of the department, excluding debt service and capital improvement programs, shall be expended by principals.
The total operating budget for the department for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2006 is approx. $2 Billion, not including capital improvement projects. That equates to approx. $11,000 per student, nearly $7,700 per pupil to be spent directly by principals at the school level.
However, the pilot schools under Act 51 have only received half of that amount. Where is the other 35 percent? How can the DOE get away with breaking the law?
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