The state Department of Education is seeking $70 million in budget add-ons for school operations next fiscal year and $30 million in bond financing for so-called heat abatement efforts that include air conditioning classrooms.
The requests are part of a supplemental budget approved Tuesday by the Board of Education for consideration in Gov. David Ige’s budget proposal to the Legislature. It would add to the $1.4 billion lawmakers approved for DOE operations last session for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Record-high temperatures over the summer prompted an outcry from students, parents, teachers and community members who complained the sweltering heat posed a health hazard. Amid growing public pressure, the DOE has been installing portable air-conditioning units in the state’s hottest classrooms as an interim solution.
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The department last year received $15 million out of a $90 million request for “equity” capital improvement funds that includes money for air conditioning. The new request also would come from that equity bucket.
“Another $30 million for next year would allow us to get further down our heat abatement priority list,” Dann Carlson, assistant superintendent for school facilities and support services, said in an interview. “There’s this perception out there that we can just go into all schools and do it all at once. We don’t have the capacity to do that. Thirty million is a good number for us to be able to make much bigger steps than we have in years past.”
Fewer than 10 percent of public schools — 22 out of 256 schools statewide — have campus-wide central air conditioning, and the DOE has estimated it would cost $1.7 billion to install central air in all schools.
Record-high temperatures over the summer prompted an outcry from students, parents, teachers and community members who complained the sweltering heat posed a health hazard. Amid growing public pressure, the DOE has been installing portable air-conditioning units in the state’s hottest classrooms as an interim solution.
Carlson said energy use across schools in August increased by 13 percent compared with August 2014. “That’s a significant number when we have an electric utility budget of $48 million, $46 million (a year). When you extrapolate that out, that’s an extra $5 million we could be up against,” he said.
He noted that air conditioning is just one piece of the department’s heat abatement initiatives at schools, which also include installing ceiling fans, solar-powered vents to draw out hot air, and heat-reflective roof systems.
“We acknowledge that will not bring us into a thermally comfortable environment in all cases, and from there, we’ll look at it on a case-by-case basis to determine which classrooms we want to install mechanical cooling in,” Carlson said. “And that begs the question: How do we go about putting AC in classrooms without increasing our utility bills? We’re trying to approach that in the most efficient manner.”
Using “scientifically gathered campus temperatures,” the department has an AC priority list that includes eight schools. Six schools have moved off the list over 13 years.
The heat abatement funds are part of a $455.5 million request for bond-funded capital improvement projects for next year. The request also includes $35 million for a new classroom building to alleviate overcrowding at Campbell High, which has the highest enrollment in the state; $50 million for a new East Kapolei middle school; and $75 million for the long-planned Kihei High School on Maui.
On the operations side, the approximately $70 million in general fund requests includes:
» Per pupil funds: $16.5 million for per pupil funding known as Weighted Student Formula “to help maintain and/or improve capacity for all schools receiving WSF funds.” Principals have discretion over the funds, which are mainly used for payroll.
» Laptops: $12.8 million for devices and teacher training for schools that are “ready, willing and able” to implement a so-called 1-to-1 device program as part of the DOE’s Future-Ready Learning program.
» Utilities: $10.8 million for utility costs.
» Buses: $6.9 million “to maintain home-to-school-to-home student transportation services.”
» Nurses: $3.5 million for skilled nursing services for special-needs students requiring nursing support.
» Teachers: $1.8 million for sabbaticals, bonuses that go to teachers taking on difficult-to-fill posts, and license renewal fees for tenured teachers, all agreed to in the teachers union contract.
