HONOLULU — The Hawai’i State Board of Education (BOE) has pre-approved allocations of federal funds before the COVID-19 federal relief package is approved by Congress.
The money, which will be allocated to the Department of Education and towards charter schools, is part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill which will likely pass next month, according to Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) President Corey Rosenlee.
“Knowing the exact amount and the stipulations in combination with the previous stimulus bills will give the board and the legislature a better picture of how to decide how to use all the funding,” Rosenlee said in last week’s discussion of the allocations.
According to Rosenlee, the third stimulus bill contains $350 billion for state and local governments. In addition to school aid, $1 billion in relief funds will be given to the State of Hawai‘i.
Rosenlee added that the DOE is requesting $20 million for unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation. Governor David Ige previously gave the DOE $14 million to meet those needs.
Sarah Tochiki, band director of Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School (CKMS) and vice-president of HSTA’s Kaua‘i Chapter gave her testimony over the phone on the subject last week.
“Let us all be clear, adequate funding is not a conversation that arose from the economic crisis of this pandemic,” Tochiki said. “Schools are perpetually underfunded. Help me to understand why it is so hard to justify routing federal education funding directly to schools and educators? Our schools service 100% of the population regardless of whether someone has a family member in the school system, somewhere in our classrooms are the next doctors who will heal us the mechanics that will fix our vehicles.”
Before the board had given a unanimous vote to approve the funding, HIDOE’s CFO Brian Hallet said there were critical needs that needed to be taken care of first. He said the top priority is to get approval for funds that will cover the DOE’s current food expenses and teacher’s differentials that includes unemployment insurance and worker’s compensation.
Christina Kishimoto, superintendent of HIDOE said the DOE on Jan. 5, welcomed the news of receiving the 183.6 million federal Elementary and Secondary School emergency relief or ESSER II funds and she reported how they recently used funds from the governor.
“You heard me make a reference to the 123 million that the governor reinstated into our budget, those are permanent funds. And what we have done at this point is allocated those back to schools. And this will allow us now to bring down our special education deficit from that shortfall down to zero. And so that’s fully funded again, and so we’re making progress and reinstating funds to schools. Principals now have to go through the task of revisiting their financial plans based on their overall academic plan.”
According to the BOE, the federal Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act included authorization for a second round of allocations to states through the Education Stabilization Fund’s Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) II program. The allocation of ESSER II funds to the DOE is $183,595,211. These funds are available for expenditure through September 30, 2023.
The BOE voted unanimously and approved the ESSER funds to be used to help pay DOE’s immediate expenses for the current year and for FY2022.
“The board authorizes the department to spend as much of the ESSER two funds as necessary to allocate the required amount to the charter schools to close the gaps in the current fiscal year in the differentials and foodservice and to cover differentials,” BOE Chair Catherine Payne said.
Payne said DOE is further directed to return to the board for further discussion once the new federal funds are allocated and the state legislature has finalized the budget for the DOE’s FY2022.
For more information go to https://boe.hawaii.gov.
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Stephanie Shinno, education, business, and community reporter can be reached at 245-0424 or sshinno@thegardenisland.com.
