DRUG TEST LINKED TO TEACHERS' PAY RAISE

Pay raises promised to Hawai'i's 13,500 public school teachers cannot
go into effect if the state Board of Education and Department of
Education do not come up with $400,000 to $500,000 for a teacher
drug-testing program that Gov. Linda Lingle insisted on, Lingle's
spokesman said yesterday.

"If parts of the contract are not implemented, then the contract
cannot take effect," Russell Pang said. "The drug-testing provision is
part of the contract."

Hawai'i teachers last year ratified a two-year contract that calls for
4 percent raises at the start of the current school year, and a
salary-scale step movement and another 4 percent raise at the start of
the second semester this year.

In the final week of contract talks last year, union negotiators said
Lingle inserted the random drug-testing provision into the contract,
which split members of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association.

Thursday night, the state Board of Education voted unanimously to not
fund the program.

"It's a matter of where the money's going to come from," BOE
chairwoman Donna Ikeda said yesterday. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm
not taking it from the kids."

Ikeda also said that teachers have already received their pay
increases.

In their budget request, education officials asked Lingle to pay for
the drug-testing program "but none of our requests were honored,"
Ikeda said. "They were all cut. She claims we have surplus funds but
it's not just sitting around. Sometimes it's earmarked. Sometimes it's
for big purchases, for computers and there isn't enough, so it's like
savings. But it's strictly for each school."

Pang countered that each year the DOE has $30 million left from its
operating budget "that's not used. They can find $500,000 for drug
testing."

Roger Takabayashi, president of the HSTA, believes the DOE and union
are complying with the provisions of the contract.

"The contract states that we will have procedures and protocols in
place ready for implementation by June 30, 2008," Takabayashi said.
"We have been working with the DOE and are in compliance trying to
design procedures and protocols for implementation by July 1. We are
fulfilling the agreement and we are ready for implementation."

State Rep. Roy Takumi, D-36th (Pearl City, Momilani, Pacific
Palisades), chairman of the House education committee, said, "I'm just
scratching my head over this."

"I think the governor has a legal and a moral obligation to fund that
contract, which includes drug testing," Takumi said. "The governor
said the board has to find the money. I am mystified as to why the
governor expects the department to carry out provisions of the
contract and not provide the resources to do so."

State Rep. Lyla Berg, D-18th (Kuli'ou'ou, Niu Valley, 'Aina Haina),
the House education committee vice chairwoman, said, "The governor
insisted that this be included. The leadership for this has to come
from the governor's office."

Berg called the drug testing issue "an unfunded and unguided mandate
that's a repeat of the Hawai'i Superferry."

The Lingle administration decided to waive an environmental review of
the Superferry's impact on harbor improvements "and here was a
provision to include drug testing in the teacher contract," Berg said.
"With those decisions come consequences. The responsibility to fulfill
those consequences is a mark of leadership."

Board members will take up the issue again in February and Pang said,
"hopefully they will reconsider and approve the funding."

Daniel Gluck, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties
Union of Hawai'i, said the Board of Education "has done Hawai'i's
students a tremendous service in recognizing that our precious school
dollars should be devoted to the classroom, not diverted toward an
ineffective, unconstitutional teacher drug testing scheme. Gov. Lingle
should be ashamed of her attempt to score political points at the
expense of teachers' livelihoods and students' well-being."

Existing policies already allow the DOE to take action against any
educator "who arouses suspicion of drug use, rendering the random drug
testing proposal almost entirely symbolic," said the ACLU, which last
September sent a letter to Lingle demanding the state halt plans to
randomly drug-test public school teachers.