HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.C.R. NO.

216

TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2007

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 

 

 

 

 

HOUSE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

 

urging a comprehensive management review of the department of education's operations.

 

 

 


     WHEREAS, there have been numerous discussions and various legislation passed in order to help improve Hawai`i's failing public school system; and

 

     WHEREAS, a child enrolled in Hawai`i's public school system is just as capable of achieving educational success as any other child enrolled in any other public school in this nation; and

 

     WHEREAS, Hawai`i's public school teachers are just as proficient and capable as other public school teachers in the nation; and

 

     WHEREAS, the superintendent of the department of education, requests more funding each legislative session to carryout and implement educational programs; and

 

     WHEREAS, the department of education receives nearly a quarter of the State's entire operating budget, the largest of any State agency. The department's appropriations, in fiscal years 2002 through 2007, increased nearly fifty-five percent from $1.4 billion to $2.2 billion; and

 

     WHEREAS, Hawai`i's public school enrollment decreased by more than four-thousand students from 183,629 students to 179,234 students. However, while public school student enrollment decreased, per student cost continued to increase from approximately $7,800 per student to $12,400 per student, a fifty-nine percent increase; and

 

     WHEREAS, Hawaii's public schools' test scores repeatedly rank among the lowest in the nation despite increased funding and decreased enrollment.  The department of education's standards-based test confirms that many Hawai'i public school students generally score below fifty percent in reading and mathematics; and

 

     WHEREAS, Hawai`i's public school students in grades three, five, eight, and ten took the 2005 Hawaii statewide assessment test. Of all the students tested, the 2005 Hawai'i statewide assessment test found that forty-four to forty-eight percent of Hawai`i's students are not proficient in reading and mathematics; and,

 

     WHEREAS, the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 established a program that requires states to ensure that by school year 2014, all students will meet or exceed each state's proficiency level of academic achievement in mathematics, reading and science; and,

 

     WHEREAS, the January 2007 department of budget and finance report on the adequacy of federal funding for implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act states that, "although, in the school years 2005 through 2006 approximately 85 percent of the public schools do not meet various NCLB performance standards the department of education spent less than half the federal school improvement grant money it received;" and,

 

     WHEREAS, the available federal funds allotted by the No Child Left Behind Act,  not spent by the department of education over a four year period resulted in a substantial carryover balance ($42 million in FY 03, $50 million in FY 04, $60.6 million in FY 05, and $53.8 million in FY 06) of $168.4 million; and,

 

     WHEREAS, PricewaterhouseCoopers, an independent accounting firm, said in a recent audit, "the lack of transparency made it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to determine whether many public-school programs were achieving their objectives and whether taxpayer dollars were being spent wisely". PricewaterhouseCoopers went on to say, "roughly one-third of the department's 278 state-funded programs had inadequate systems in place to monitor their effectiveness and at least one in five suffered from insufficient oversight of program spending and many programs completely lacked either;" and,

 

     WHEREAS, PricewaterhouseCoopers further noted that "though the department's budget has grown steadily in recent years to the current $1.78 billion, much of the increase has been due to the mounting cost of employee benefits and to court-mandated spending on special education;" and,

 

     WHEREAS, the PricewaterhouseCoopers audit's results concluded that it was often impossible to tell whether spending aligned with each program's purpose, noting that funds were often instead used to address urgent school needs such as classroom supply shortages; and,

    

     WHEREAS, the 2006 Hawaii state legislature appropriated an additional $300 million to address the backlog of school repair and maintenance called the "Fix Our Schools Act;" and,

 

     WHEREAS, the state auditor, in 2006, made its first audit of the management practices and controls of the department of education at Kailua High School, which uncovered numerous managerial and financial problems; and

 

     WHEREAS, the audit concluded that the department of education had not provided adequate support to Hawai`i's public school system, including Kailua High School, in the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, and in the management of school programs and assets; and

 

     WHEREAS, the state auditor determined that the department of education has not provided Hawai`i's public school system with the support and resources needed to achieve the goals of No Child Left Behind Act; and

 

     WHEREAS, the state auditor stated "the measures that the department of education uses to determine the effectiveness of its budget are irrelevant, inaccurate and ambiguous...and are based on assumptions, estimates, and unverified data". Further, the state auditor concluded that "as a result, legislators are denied potentially valuable information, and some may be basing their fiscal decisions on flawed data"; and,

 

     WHEREAS, the department of education's last comprehensive audit of the entire organization, management processes, and personnel administration happened more than thirty-four years ago, in 1973; and,

 

     WHEREAS, the department of education's spending practices need to be reviewed and resolved before an increase in funding from the legislature is warranted; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Hawai'i, Regular Session of 2007, the Senate concurring, that the office of the auditor perform a comprehensive review of the department of education's operations to determine if, as now structured, it can effectively carry out its responsibilities under the Federal No Child Left Behind Act and the State's Reinventing Education Act; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the results of the office of the auditor's review of the department of education's operations be reported to the Legislature by the beginning of the 2008 legislative session; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the office of the auditor, the department of education and the board of education.

 

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

_____________________________

 

 

Report Title: 

Department of Education management review