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The Department of Education can plug multimillion-dollar shortfalls in its school lunch and bus programs now that Gov. David Ige has lifted a spending restriction and freed up $19 million in the department’s budget.
General fund appropriations for state departments for the current fiscal year were restricted by 10 percent in the fall. The DOE’s $1.4 billion budget was restricted to approximately $1.3 billion.
DOE Chief Financial Officer Amy Kunz told the Board of Education’s Finance Committee on Tuesday that substantial shortfalls had been expected in the food and transportation areas. “So we went to the governor to request release of this restriction so that we could handle the shortfalls without needing an emergency appropriation through the Legislature,” Kunz said.
Ige said in a memo to the DOE that he was releasing the funding to clear the deficit areas.
The BOE on Tuesday approved putting $8.3 million toward the food services program and $10.8 million toward the bus transportation program.
The food services branch serves about 100,000 lunches a day at a cost of $95 million a year. The bus program — expected to cost $64 million this year — serves about 34,000 general-education students and provides free service for about 2,800 special-education students.