 Welcome back to Think Tank. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Talking Tax with Tom Yamachika, who joins us today to discuss getting the kids to school in Ieya. And I would like to open the show with a resounding aloha, because this is the study of the new aloha in Hawaii. Welcome to the show, Tom. Aloha. What's going on in Ieya? Well, we are focusing our attention this week on Ieya because a new high school is going to be open there. It's called Kulani Hakoi High School. I hope I got the pronunciation right. And it cost $245 billion. Problem is, for a long time, it couldn't open. And we're going to talk about why. Let's talk about schools in general for a minute. Ieya must be a fast-growing place, or they had another school that was not up to snuff, but they had to build a new one for $245 million. That's a lot of bread. And I just wonder what the track these days is on building new schools. There's just a lot of schools that are underpopulated. I'm not sure why in Ieya they had to build a school for $245 million. Would you comment on that? Well, previous to this new school being built, the students who lived in Ieya were being serviced by other high schools and other parts of the island. And they had to be bused there. So the kids had to endure long bus rides going both directions for a very long time. And ultimately, lawmakers had enough of that. And they said, all right, I'll go on it. So DOE, please build a new school there. And it's now built. Is it built up to standard? And we had a show a week or two ago about air conditioning in the schools. Oh, yeah, that's no problem. It's brand new, lives up to all those standards, but there is one issue. And let me kind of show you what it is. Can you put up that map there? Okay, see, the red pin on the right is the location of the high school. I'm not sure how much it's built up since this photo was taken. But as you can see, the high school's on the right, all the houses are on the left. And there is this highway. This is P'Ilani Highway in the middle, separating the two. So the concern has been, and has been for a very long time now, how you get the kids across the highway to the school. Back in 2013, which as you know, is 10 years ago, the state land use commission said, well, as a condition to building the school over here, what you've got to do is provide a grade separated crossing, which means either an overpass or an underpass. And those were the rules of the game since 2013. And over the years, DOE was, you know, planning along those lines when it approached Maui County for permits. This was in 2020. I mean, I don't know why it took seven years, but it took seven years. It said the design of the petition overpass was already started and projected for it to be built either in 2020 or 2023. But did that happen? No, not at all. What happened in 2021 was that DOE kind of had a change of heart. And they decided, hey, let's go back to the land use commission and try to get them change, get the change in their mind. About one about opening the school without a pedestrian crossing. So the kids would cross the highway without the without the cross? Without an overpass or an underpass? So you would have traffic lights or you have a crosswalk? And DOE said that, you know, these, the overpass or underpass really isn't necessary. And the attached to their request studies, guess who paid for those studies, presumably showing that the pedestrian crossing wasn't needed. The community, the folks in Kihei and that neighborhood that we showed you, they wouldn't stand for it. That attracted objections and demonstrations from the public. And ultimately what happened was that the land use commission denied DOE's request. Okay. So eight years have passed. DOE knew that it had to build an overpass or an underpass. They didn't do it. And they tried to get the land use commission to change their mind. And land use commission said no. So now we have a school built? There's more. There's more. At the same time, they were kind of talking to the department of transportation because they have a jurisdiction over the road. Peelani Highway. And the department of transportation spent $16 million on a four lane roundabout with flashing lights in front of the school to slow traffic down. And so in DOE's mind, that's how we need, you know, we don't need, we don't need to do overpass, we don't need the underpass. What is the cost of the underpass or overpass? Is it more or less than $16 million? We'll get to that. It's going to be more now. Now it's going to be more. Okay. So when they did this, the county officials were skeptical. And in late August 2022, they said, okay, let's have a meeting with the community. So they showed up. Council members showed up. Other community members showed up. And they invited the DOE. Nobody from the DOE showed up. Nobody. They said they weren't invited, which is kind of hard to believe. But nobody showed up. Fast forward to February of this year. DOE seemed to be reading the handwriting on the wall. And they presented some rough sketches to the community about what an overpass would look like. And DOE said that it would last the legislature for emergency funding. And at that point, Senator Agnes McKelvie, who was senatorial district encompasses that area, he did, in fact, ask the legislature for $15 million to cover the cost of the overpass. That's less than $16 million. $15 million. That's less than $16 million. It is. But it got reduced to zero in the budget negotiations. So apparently, the House didn't like it for some reason. And maybe the answer was, and we have to speculate about this, but maybe the answer was that the construction would cost more. Because at about the same time, the governor's office issued a release saying that the construction of the overpass would cost about $25 million plus. Okay. So this, of course, did not satisfy the county. I don't blame them. And they were asked to issue a permit allowing the school to open, at least conditionally, and they said no. We don't want to have the blood of roadkill students on their hands. Is this election of the county council or just some administrative body? I think it wasn't the building department side, but lots of people were involved in the county's decision because Mayor Bissen did come out and speak about that. What's his position? Well, he doesn't want dead kids. But man. Yeah. All right. So at that point, high-level negotiations started happening spearheaded, well, either spearheaded or participated in by Governor Green, and they were trying to reach a deal to allow the school to open. And in March of this year, they did in fact reach a deal. So under the terms of the deal, the U.E. is going to implement a temporary pedestrian safety plan, including shuttles for students who are walking to and from school. And they said that the state is going to hold the county harmless for anything, you know, bad that happens under the temporary pedestrian safety plan. And of course, then the county's obligation under the deal was to let the school open. So the school is going to open. It's going to open next month in August, under those conditions. But let's kind of look at where we are. We're 10 years down the pike, the overpass slash underpass will then build. We have a four-lane roundabout with flashing lights, which probably antagonizes everybody. Because, you know, the cars going on Peelani Highway, they're zippin' by, and they don't want to break to 25 or whatever to go through the overpass. The kids are still afraid, and they're worried about being road killed just like everybody else. Parents are anxious, and it's an inconvenience to go on the shuttle, especially if you've got to wait a long time for it, you know, with driver shortages and what have you. And it's kind of really a sad situation. I mean, the good news is that the school's opening. But the bad news is that you've had all this in-fighting between difference to agencies, DOE, Department of Transportation, the In-Use Commission, the Maui County, and guess who pays for all the fighting? We do. We taxpayers do. Back in the day, there were street monitors who had little stop signs, you know, red and white stop signs, and if there were some kids crossing the street or a crosswalk, what have you that holds a stop sign up, and the traffic would all stop? What about that? You know, if you had like maybe a 25 or 30-mile-per-hour road, you know, you got to peel on the highway, it's probably not going to work. I mean, those road monitors would probably fear for their lives, too, and I wouldn't blame them. So what happens, you know, I mean, are parents going to send their kids to this school? This is really such a downer for the DOE, I mean, because they haven't been able to get to the school. And they won't come. But what kind of a school is that? You know, that's the sad part. You know, you expect government to provide services for people. You expect government to solve problems, get things done. Instead, what happened here is everybody spent a lot of time and a lot of money fighting amongst themselves, and stuff didn't get done. Well, you think that some political official will emerge and say, damn it, we have to solve this problem. The school is opening, I want it to open, there has to be an overpass, I want it to be built, you guys work for, you know, the chief executive of the county over the state. I want this done. Is there anybody doing that? Sadly, nobody right now. I mean, we don't even know whether DOE is finally consenting to have that overpass built. So let's look to a sign-blame, I don't know if it's a sign-blame, but it's a sign-blame. And you can't say, oh, everyone's to blame, this is a systemic blame. Now, who's at the top of the list? To me, top of the list is DOE. They had their marching orders 10 years ago. Oh, I didn't think they'd build a dam overpass if they were told point blank, you got to do it. Well, that's an executive issue, isn't it? You can say, well, you can pop that off on some board of directors somewhere, but as the executive that has to stand and explain. Well, with the DOE, it's kind of a little bit different because the superintendent of education doesn't report to the governor, he reports to the board of education. And their elected officials. Yeah, that's kind of technical though, because at the end of the day, where's the media been on this? I know, you know, the story that you just recited, you know, had been in the media recently. But what about the last 10 years, you think the media would be shrieking about, has it? Well, not, I mean, there's been media coverage, I think, since 2020. When a lot of this was going on, but before then, not so much. I mean, what happened to the seven years between 2013 and 2020? I don't know, I guess they were going out getting RFPs or whatever, that they were building the school. I mean, things seem to be going okay. The school was being built, so probably wasn't viewed as new or worthy at the time. What about the legislature? You know, and the chairs of the committees on education, both the house and the Senate, going to say, we want it built, build it, here's some money. Anything like that happened? Well, again, that's what Senator McKelvie tried to do. And he got $25 million in the budget from the Senate side, the house took it out. Why they took it out? Well, that's what Senator McKelvie tried to do, and he got $25 million in the budget from the Senate side. Why they took it out? I don't know. And Yamashita's not saying. Embarrassing. It kind of falls on him to explain, but he doesn't explain. That's the way the ledge works, isn't it? So, okay, so there are a couple of things that have come out of this. One is deciding the blame. And it sounds like there's plenty to go around, but you know, you could focus on individuals and institutional ruptures here, like the DOE. But at the end of the day, this is bigger than that high school in T.A. This is the statement of how the government works, right? I think what we're seeing and what we have seen is a lot of systemic issues in DOE. DOE is very, very big. It's one of the biggest state agencies. It has one of the biggest budgets. But it's got all kinds of problems. It's got deferred maintenance issues. It's got the issues that we talked about last time. It's got the, you know, we can't get new schools open kind of issues, at least here. And, you know, who knows what else is out there. One of the problems is and always has been that they keep their own records very, very close to the chest. So as to evade scrutiny by, you know, other watched out groups like us who have been trying to get behind the so-called iron curtain for decades. So it sounds to me like we need reform. And I'll take your point. We need reform at DOE. Where would you start? We don't know. The problem is that there's this, you know, iron veil that nobody seems to be able to pierce. So maybe we start by getting rid of that, making sure that the, you know, DOE's fiscal systems are more transparent and that can be scrutinized by, you know, watched out groups like us, the education associations, you know, there's other non-profits that profess to be able to analyze budgets and that kind of thing. One of the things that you always worry about, or at least I always worry about, is that the bigger the organization is, the easier it is to hide stuff. So that has to change. That has to change. I mean, what the law, you know, allows for, you know, citizens to request information and they have a right to get it, the FOIA law. Why is it so troublesome? Why can't you, the tax foundation of Hawaii, or other organizations or interested individuals, a parent, for example, make a FOIA request and expect to get it? One, and we were about this before, one education association, it was a non-profit headed by a gentleman named Ray LaRue. They asked for financial records from DOE, didn't get them, sued, and ultimately got some records for, you know, I think it was the 2016 year, but they got them in 2018 or 2019. So the information had limited value once it popped out. Why was it delayed? Because that's how long the litigation took. Well, that doesn't speak about a system where you can get things done. And we, as you have said, we as taxpayers pay to get things done. In this case, nothing was done. So it seems to me that some, you know, strong steps sort of take place. For example, if that board that the superintendent is responding to hasn't provided information, hasn't explained what happened, or failing that, you know, it can't explain what happened, then maybe some of them ought to go. Maybe the superintendent ought to go. You know, what about an impeachment? What about getting rid of them? And where is the governor on this? Well, it was an organization that's that big and that complex. It's unclear where to go to start. I mean, certainly you can get rid of the chief executive, but it may be beyond the chief executive's ability to handle anyway, because some of the subordinates there may be entrenched, and just not listen to what people above them are telling them. I mean, I've experienced this myself in large organizations. Well, maybe as an iconic maneuver, a token, where you say, look, we don't know what happened here, but you're the chief executive. This is on your watch as far as we're concerned. Don't give us excuses. You're gone. You're out of here. We are teaching you. Maybe the next guy will study what happened and not do the same thing. What about that? Well, you've got to find somebody who's willing to take that kind of abuse, who's the successor going to be, and there's always the worry that is the successor going to be worse than the predecessor. Can't worry about it. You've got to move on, so I think. And I don't know how do you identify entrenched members of the board so as to do something about it? Well, it may not be the board. It may be the civil servants that are kind of like one or two levels below it, like at the assistant superintendent at the deputy superintendent level. You really, there's no easy way to figure out where the problem, you know, where it's. The responsibility of the chief executive and you know that. Yeah. To make sure these people are not making mistakes like. Yeah, that's definitely true. I mean, it kind of brings to mind even a few weeks ago, there was news coverage around like federal funds that were being made available to the schools to to buy certain kinds of equipment. And the at that point, the facilities had kind of wrote a memo to all the schools and say, well, don't take this. It's got to go through us. And at that point, you know, the media was kind of wondering, and we're kind of wondering. All right. So, so what's going to happen? Are you are you just going to like have the schools with or on the fine here? Or are we going to have some, you know, centralized attention that's going to be you know, paid and resources given to the schools since it's coming in from the feds and you know, with with little or no impact to the state budget. You know, what's going to happen? We never really heard anything about the follow up, or at least Dr. Hamilton. Well, it sounds like the, you know, the whole education system in the state had to be reformed. It sounds like the house has to be cleaned. There are systems and levels of bureaucracy. Everybody talks about it that are really impossible. This will happen again. And it is probably happening right now and nobody's doing anything. Nobody can do anything. You know, they're all very comfortable in their layered bureaucracy. And so if I made you the legislature and I always wanted to do that, what kind of reform would you do? What would that bill say? That's a very, very good question. I mean, certainly you want transparency and accountability. Maybe you just get rid of the board of education. There's an idea, because that sounds like it's the rotten part. And they're only too happy to be there and do nothing. And then maybe other things will flow. For example, these layers of bureaucracy will go away. Is it a budget issue? I mean, I know they're spending more than any other state agency variance and variance. So the question is, can the legislature control this in some way by reforming their funding? Well, if they want to get you further into the weeds, which I think they should, yes. I mean, they exercise a lot of control over other agencies by putting in budget provisors, saying like, okay, you can spend this money only in this or you can spend this money if X, Y, and Z happens. So maybe there should be more of that going on. The intersection is with the rules about exempt and non-exempt management decisions. Hard to get rid of them. Hard to decommission a management position in an organization like this. They all say, I've been here forever. I know this more. I'm comfortable, comfortable in what I do. You can't touch me. And I find interesting that the union plays a role in this. I knew we'd have to get to that in this discussion, Tom. Where is the union? Which union? There's more than one. The state, I don't know, teachers, the state education union. What is it? How many are there? Well, there are at least three. There's HSC for the teachers. And I don't think they're a part of this. Actually, you think they'd be screaming about it, but never mind. Yeah. You think they'd be screaming about all this stuff that doesn't go on, which should. Then there's HGEA, which is covering the principles and the administrators. So maybe that's closer to the root of the problem. And then, of course, there's the UPW, which is covering the custodians and such. There may be others. But maybe we'll look at HGEA and what they can or will do about it. Well, that was a state auditor. We've talked about him before. Well, the state auditor has their own problems. Well, in terms of being seriously taken by the legislature leadership. Yeah. Yeah, they're still running their competition with him. And the governor, I asked you about the governor. What can the governor do? I mean, this is a serious state problem. And we're never going to have decent government until this and things like this are cleared up. Yeah. Maybe what the governor's going to do is put another emergency proclamation in this to the one about housing to get the schools under control and cut through some of the bureaucracy and the red tape and get some money to the places where it's more urgently needed. I mean, you told me yourself about times when you were on a neighborhood board and the school officials came to you and asked for pencils. I mean, I think that's disgraceful. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. Well, I give you a scenario time. I'm in my gubernatorial office and I asked the superintendent to come and talk to me. And I say, look, you're the superintendent. You work for the people and government is a service to the people. And you can't distance yourself from that and you have no excuses here. This is a real screw up. So I want that thing built and I want it built now. Give me a date by which you can get it built this summer. Good. Now, build it. And if you don't agree, if you can't manage this, you're useless. And I want your letter of resignation of my desk in the morning. What about that? Well, the first thing he's going to say is that they don't have funding for this. As you know, the legislature took up this matter in the last session and they deleted all funding. So I can't really go ahead without defying the legislature. And my line as governor is, I'm sorry, that perhaps you did not hear what I said. Yet it does. You know, we give you a trillion dollars a year to run the schools. Truly, you can find a way to find a way or find a door. Well, I hope that kind of conversation is being held somewhere because it needs to happen. Yeah, that's very interesting. And I think this is a systemic problem that's enormously important. And I think we are going to be tested. We're going to be tested in our fiscal policy. We're going to be tested in every area of public policy to see whether we can handle it. Why? Because I think there'll be stresses and challenges in the years to come. All the issues you and I have talked about, plus climate change, extreme weather, failure of community systems and services, they're all on the doorstep. And what I worry about is these things will fail at the worst possible time. For example, in the event of extreme weather. And the people who made the mistakes and failed to plan, failed to organize, failed to create systems and infrastructure, as they should have done, won't be in office anymore. And you can't call them on the phone, they're gone. And who are we going to blame then? Ourselves. So this is the time to act. This is the time to clean it up now. Absolutely. Yeah, again, what we can do is try to spotlight on problems and then hope that the powers that be can fight it into their hearts to fix this stuff. Yeah, and the media. The media has to focus on the important things that affect all our lives and the lives of our children, our communities, and they can't just go for raw meat news stories. They have to follow up on this. It's really critical that the flame of governmental activity and reform is kept earning for all of us. And it is the media that has to do that. Okay, we're about done, Tom. Sorry to tell you, but what message would you leave with the public? Well, what we need to do, like you mentioned, is we need to have a real hard look at some of these agencies, especially the bigger ones, who spend a lot of our money and do non-productive things like fight with each other. We need to have a realization that, you know, they all work for the people and they got to focus on getting things done. Not, you know, whose turf is it or whose turf it isn't. Your hire I can hide from responsibility. Another approach. Let's get things done. I'm Yamashika, president of the tax foundation of Hawaii, taking a careful look at how our government works, how our various governmental policies work. Tom, there's only one word that I can say to you at this point in time at the end of our show. Are you ready? I'm ready. Hello. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.