Classrooms due for a significant boost, Ige says

Gov. David Ige says he again wants to invest a large portion of next year’s state budget in public education through funding that would be dispersed at the school level.

Education also takes priority when it comes to facilities in the governor’s proposed budget, which will include money for new schools and classroom-cooling efforts.

“It’s very clear to me that public education drives our economy, and so clearly the investment in education will be the biggest part of this budget … in terms of additional appropriations,” Ige said last week in an interview at the state Capitol.

The governor’s executive budget to fund operations for the next two fiscal years is scheduled to be released Monday. He discussed his education priorities ahead of the announcement without disclosing detailed figures. He did, however, call his proposed investments sizable and “transformative.”

“This will be the largest investment in instruction — you know, trying to get money into the classrooms — in at least the last decade,” Ige said, referring to the per-pupil funding mechanism known as the weighted student formula. “That’s where I’m going to be focusing any additional funds. It’s our effort to get money into the schools instead of the bureaucracy.”

Lawmakers created the funding method in 2004 as a means to ensure that funds go to schools with the greatest needs, acknowledging that some students cost more to educate. The formula assigns “weights” to various student characteristics such as economic disadvantage, special education, English-language learners.

Principals have discretion over the spending.

The Department of Education received approximately $868 million for the current fiscal year to allocate through the weighted student formula, representing about 55 percent of the department’s overall operating budget. (Ninety-four percent of the department’s expenses last year was spent on “school-related activities,” according to an independent financial audit.)

It’s unclear how much Ige will be proposing, but the Board of Education submitted a budget request for next year that seeks a $50 million boost in per-pupil funds aimed at helping schools narrow achievement gaps between high-needs students and their peers. Ige a year ago included in his budget the BOE’s full request for an additional $26.5 million in weighted student formula funds.

Ige said on Friday that his education priorities were shaped in part by public input received at various community forums hosted by a group of volunteers he tasked with creating a “blueprint” to reform the public school system.

“It’s about being a future-focused education system that encourages innovation and creative thinking. It really is about transformation, not about making incremental changes,” Ige said.

For example, the governor’s budget will include a proposal for an innovation fund that public schools would be able to tap to fund out-of-the-box ideas and approaches to improve student outcomes.

“A portion of the budget that will end up at the school level is about innovation,” Ige said. “So it’s not about one-size-fits-all. It’s about encouraging the schools to be able to meet the needs of their community. It’s recognizing that Waimea High School is different than Mililani, is different than Keaau, and giving the schools the flexibility and ultimately the resources to really be able to do that.”

The innovation pool would be designed to provide schools with startup money for projects and help reduce the need for seeking time-consuming grants from outside sources.

“This innovation program is focused on how can we support schools that have innovative ideas but would take additional resources beyond the weighted student formula to get started,” Ige said. “If you want to do something different, there usually are startup costs. So how can we support innovation at the school level in a direct way? … I think this is a great starting point.”

On the facilities side, Ige said his capital improvement program, or CIP, budget will include more than $800 million in bond funding for the DOE and the University of Hawaii system combined.

“The biggest appropriation for facilities will be for education — by a lot,” he said. “It will be more than $800 million in CIP. A bunch of that is supporting new schools. We will continue to invest in repair and maintenance of facilities at both the university as well as the Department of Education.”

The Board of Education’s CIP budget request for next year seeks funding for new classroom buildings to help alleviate crowding in West Oahu and new schools for the growing Kakaako and South Maui communities.

Ige said the capital budget also will include a request to further his “cool schools” initiative that has been slowly installing air conditioners in public school classrooms.

The governor in January initially pledged to cool 1,000 classrooms by the end of the year, and lawmakers provided $100 million for the effort. But as of last count, fewer than 50 classrooms so far have been cooled.

“I certainly have been frustrated. It’s always a challenge dealing with the procurement law,” Ige said. “I think that we’ll begin to make more awards and ultimately the work will get done. It’s about creating a good learning environment for our children.”

The Governor’s Office plans to live-stream the budget announcement at 1 p.m. at governor.hawaii.gov.