A cap on the salary Hawaii pays its schools superintendent would get a boost for the first time in 13 years under a bill — initially presumed dead for this session — lawmakers advanced out of conference committee Monday afternoon.
House Bill 2257 would raise the potential salary for the Department of Education’s top position to $250,000 from $150,000. The $150,000 statutory cap — set by lawmakers in 2001 — has kept Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi’s salary at that level the past three years, while at least two school principals earn more than she does.
The bill next heads for final floor votes before the Legislature adjourns Thursday.
The Board of Education, which proposed the higher cap, has stressed that the increase isn’t tied to Matayoshi, whose contract ends June 30, but is needed to recruit and retain a quality leader in the future.
Among superintendent salaries for the nation’s 15 largest public school districts, Hawaii, the ninth largest with 180,000 students, ranks lowest with its $150,000 cap. The next lowest-paying district is Palm Beach County, Fla., which pays its superintendent $225,000 and ranks as the 12th-largest district.
"She really is woefully underpaid," state Rep. Roy Takumi (D, Pearl City-Waipio-Pearl Harbor), chairman of the House Education Committee, said of Matayoshi. "You could argue a lot of people in Hawaii are underpaid, but in the national context, and considering we are the ninth-largest school district, this is needed."
Takumi, the lead House negotiator on the bill, added that with the recent arbitration decision awarding unionized principals annual 4.5 percent raises for four years through 2017, even more school principals will be earning salaries above the existing cap.
A final version of the bill includes a 10-year sunset, meaning the salary cap will revert back to $150,000 if lawmakers don’t repeal the sunset before then.
"Any contracts entered during this period would be honored for the duration of the contract," said Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Jill Tokuda (D, Kailua-Kaneohe), the lead negotiator for the Senate. "And nothing would preclude the Board of Education from conditioning a portion of pay to performance."
The bill was one of more than a dozen education-related bills that died in conference committee Friday night after missing an internal deadline for action.
But House and Senate leadership agreed Monday to hold conference committee votes on four bills that missed the deadline — three of them education bills.
House Bill 1796, dealing with the use of restraints and seclusion in public schools, also was revived and passed out of conference committee Monday.
The bill would prohibit the use of seclusion, chemical restraint (drugs or medications) or mechanical restraint in public schools, and ban the use of physical restraints in most circumstances.
"It’s important that we set these legal parameters," Takumi said, acknowledging that the bill was partly a response to litigation from parents of special-education students.
The bill requires that any school employees using restraints be trained and certified at least annually, and provides $250,000 for training and data accountability.
The third education bill to be advanced Monday, HB 1745, would revise the state’s charter school law.
"We continue to improve the charter system in lots of ways both big and small, and this bill has a lot in it, most of it small and technical," said Tom Hutton, executive director of the Hawaii State Public Charter School Commission.
For example, the bill would clarify how Hutton’s office is funded, resulting in more dollars per pupil going directly to charter schools. It also would allow the commission, in "exigent circumstances," to reconstitute a school’s governing board. (Charter schools use public funds and offer a free education but report to their own governing boards rather than the Board of Education.)
"We’re really thankful for this last-minute opportunity," Lynn Finnegan, executive director of the Hawaii Public Charter Schools Network, said of the Monday vote.
