Taken For a Ride: Senate Education Chair Blasts School Bus Report

Katherine Poythress/Civil Beat

The Hawaii Department of Education's long-awaited report on how to reduce student transportation costs leaves a lot to be desired, says Senate Education Chairwoman Jill Tokuda.

While the report released earlier this week offers some "a la carte" options for reducing costs, and even recommends saving millions by eliminating regular bus service on Oahu, Tokuda told Civil Beat Wednesday, it fails to address how school bus costs got out of control in the first place.

"I think, given all of the public discussion around that issue, it's a bit of an obvious omission," she said.

But school officials say they delivered what was asked and they have questions of their own for policy makers.

Civil Beat, in its Taken for a Ride series, has documented how a sudden and mysterious lack of competition among contractors contributed to school bus costs more than doubling over the last six years. The situation has attracted scrutiny by both state policymakers and federal investigators.

Tokuda took the lead last year in communicating the Legislature's disapproval of the runaway costs. Lawmakers zeroed out the school district's transportation budget for next year, promising not to restore it until they've received some satisfactory answers. Legislators ordered district officials to submit a report that addressed the reasons for rising costs and how the department planned to get those under control.

But not only was the department's legislative report late, Tokuda says it lacked substance.

"When I read through a report like this, it tells me the Department of Education has a lot of homework to do," she said.

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