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1 SENATE/HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2 THE 21ST LEGISLATURE
3 INTERIM OF 2001
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5
6
7 JOINT SENATE-HOUSE INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE HEARING
8 November 10, 2001
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12 Taken at the State Capitol, 415 South Beretania,
13 Conference Room 325, Honolulu, Hawaii, commencing at
14 9:06 a.m. on Saturday, November 10, 2001.
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19 BEFORE: JESSICA R. PERRY, CSR No. 404
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1 APPEARANCES:
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3 Senate-House Investigative Committee:
4 Co-Chair Senator Colleen Hanabusa
5 Co-Chair Representative Scott Saiki
6 Vice-Chair Senator Russell Kokubun
7 Vice-Chair Representative Blake Oshiro
8 Senator Jan Yagi Buen
9 Representative Ken Ito
10 Representative Bertha Kawakami
11 Representative Bertha Leong
12 Representative Barbara Marumoto
13 Senator Norman Sakamoto
14 Senator Sam Slom
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17 Also Present:
18 Special Counsel James Kawashima
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1 I N D E X
2 WITNESS: PATRICIA HAMAMOTO
3 EXAMINATION BY: PAGE
4 SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA.............. 5, 116
5 VICE-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE OSHIRO....... 67, 125
6 VICE-CHAIR SENATOR KOKUBUN............. 71, 123
7 REPRESENTATIVE ITO..................... 76, 130
8 SENATOR BUEN........................... 79, 127
9 REPRESENTATIVE KAWAKAMI................ 83, 132
10 SENATOR SLOM........................... 89, 129
11 REPRESENTATIVE LEONG................... 94, 137
12 SENATOR SAKAMOTO....................... 97, 124
13 REPRESENTATIVE MARUMOTO................ 101
14 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA.............. 106, 133
15 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI.......... 112, 138
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Good morning.
3 We'd like to convene our joint investigative committee to
4 investigate the state's efforts to comply with the Felix
5 consent decree. We'll begin with roll call.
6 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Co-Chair Saiki?
7 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Present.
8 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Vice-Chair
9 Kokubun?
10 VICE-CHAIR SENATOR KOKUBUN: Here.
11 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Vice-Chair Oshiro?
12 VICE-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE OSHIRO: Here.
13 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Senator Buen?
14 SENATOR BUEN: Here.
15 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Representative
16 Ito?
17 REPRESENTATIVE ITO: Here.
18 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Representative
19 Kawakami?
20 REPRESENTATIVE KAWAKAMI: Here.
21 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Representative
22 Leong?
23 REPRESENTATIVE LEONG: Here.
24 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Representative
25 Marumoto?
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1 REPRESENTATIVE MARUMOTO: Here.
2 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Senator Matsuura
3 is excused. Senator Sakamoto?
4 SENATOR SAKAMOTO: Yes, ma'am.
5 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Senator Slom?
6 SENATOR SLOM: Here.
7 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: We have quorum.
8 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Members, our
9 first witness is Ms. Patricia Hamamoto, who is already seated
10 at the witness table. We'll administer the oath at this
11 time.
12 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Ms. Hamamoto, do
13 you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about
14 to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
15 the truth?
16 MS. HAMAMOTO: Yes, I do.
17 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Thank you very
18 much.
19 Members, we'll follow our usual procedure. We'll
20 begin with Mr. Kawashima.
21 SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA: Thank you, Madam
22 Chair.
23 EXAMINATION
24 BY SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA:
25 Q. Please state your name and business address.
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1 A. Patricia Hamamoto, 1309 Miller Street, Honolulu,
2 96804 -- 13.
3 Q. Ms. Hamamoto, I noticed just before you started you
4 wanted to say something. Please go ahead.
5 A. Yes, I would. I'd like to share with the
6 committee -- and good morning, first and foremost, but I'd
7 like to share with the representatives and the senators my
8 position in relationship to a contextual understanding of
9 where we are. Prior to two weeks ago or three weeks ago, I
10 was the deputy superintendent, and as we all know due to
11 circumstances that I am now the superintendent. While I
12 realize that I was part of the previous administration and
13 there were concerns and problems that may have arose, I
14 understand when I literally get up to base or I get up to the
15 top position right now, the buck not only stops with me but I
16 also understand that in so doing my job is also to fix the
17 problems that may have occurred in previous administration,
18 and that is not a problem about fixing it, and perhaps being
19 part of the past administration allows me to understand how
20 those problems arose and what needs to be done.
21 I would also like to share with you at this time my
22 personal philosophy regarding my position as a -- first and
23 foremost an educator and now in this particular job that I
24 do, but more importantly the trust that the public has put in
25 me not only to take charge for the care and for the welfare
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1 as well as the future of the state of Hawaii is very
2 important to me, and I take my job very seriously. If
3 there's one hallmark that I would like this administration to
4 be known with is, number one, that we are first and foremost
5 an administration that not only believes and practices
6 integrity but we do all we can to ensure that what we have
7 for the future of Hawaii is what you, the legislature, the
8 governor, and the policymakers, including the Board of
9 Education, wants for Hawaii.
10 In that sense, whatever we do under my
11 administration and anything that I have to be responsible
12 for, very simply put, is subject to audit. In other words,
13 it is open. If you have questions, we will be able to answer
14 it, we should be, and if we are unable to, then it is our
15 obligation to find out why and to correct anything that we
16 see that is wrong. And with that, thank you very much for
17 allowing me this time to express a part of me. Thank you.
18 Q. Thank you, Ms. Hamamoto. You are currently the
19 interim superintendent of education --
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. -- for the Department of Education, state of
22 Hawaii, are you not?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Now, perhaps you can recount for us briefly,
25 Ms. Hamamoto, your educational background after secondary
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1 level.
2 A. University -- well, at the time it was State
3 College -- State College California, State University now,
4 Long Beach. I got my professional diploma there and began
5 working on my master's there. Got involved in teaching, then
6 moved back to Hawaii as a single parent. Could not get into
7 education for a couple years at that time so did various and
8 sundry jobs primarily in hotel, hospitality, and travel
9 industry. Then federal funds became available through the
10 department at which time I entered as a teacher and have
11 been. Again, when federal funds started to get goofy and
12 your positions are temporary, I began to look at
13 administration and started to work on my master's there.
14 So I have my professional diploma as well as my
15 professional administrative certificate from the Department
16 of Education vis-a-vis the University of Hawaii. I've been
17 in administration since 1982. I have been at -- vice
18 principal at Maui High School, Nanakuli High and
19 Intermediate. Principalship was at Pearl City Highlands
20 Elementary. I did about two and a half years as a personnel
21 specialist with labor relations in the Department of
22 Education, and then my -- before becoming deputy, at McKinley
23 High School for nine years, principal of McKinley High School
24 for nine years.
25 Q. Thank you. Now, your master's at Long Beach State,
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1 what was it in?
2 A. No, I didn't finish it, sir. I began it. It was
3 going to be in content area, history major.
4 Q. So when you received your master's at the
5 University of Hawaii, then, what was that in?
6 A. That would have been in geography, also a content
7 area. I have the thesis on Chinatown and the identification
8 and the sense of place in Chinatown, and as I began working
9 on my final thesis, I got into administration and got
10 side-tracked by being an administrator.
11 Q. All right. How many years did you teach, then?
12 A. A total teaching time in California and Hawaii,
13 approximately -- close to 15 years, just about 15 years.
14 Q. And you say you got into administration in 1982,
15 about, almost 20 years ago?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And you were, though, the principal at McKinley
18 for, you say, nine years?
19 A. From '91 to '99, eight years.
20 Q. And did you go from McKinley directly to become
21 deputy superintendent?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Now, if I may, as deputy superintendent for almost
24 two years, what types of duties did you have?
25 A. When I assumed the responsibility, I realized that
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1 it's -- the job description requires me to deal mainly with
2 day-to-day operations should they become a problem. I dealt
3 primarily with student discipline from the schools. That
4 would be the implementation of our Chapter 19 for due process
5 for students that were suspended for more than ten days.
6 That would be the most -- that was one of my priorities, and
7 I found out very quickly when I assumed the position that
8 Felix and the Felix consent decree and compliance to the
9 Felix consent decree was going to be the first and foremost
10 duty that I was responsible for.
11 For the first -- from '99, March or February,
12 through the contempt order, which was in June of 2000, the
13 department had its team of specialists and Dr. Houck who took
14 care of what happened on a day-to-day basis, and the
15 decision-making in relationship to myself would be only if
16 and when there were problems that arose that needed someone
17 of a higher level that sat in the deputy's position, but for
18 the most part the programs were flowing, the meetings were
19 occurring, and the department was, quote, rolling along.
20 In the 2000 -- 2000, June, when we went back to the
21 court and the contempt order came upon us, the department
22 took a position that if we were going to meet the contempt
23 order and continue to move and to become compliant, we would
24 need to step up our efforts, and at that point many of the
25 duties and responsibilities for the response to the Felix
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1 contempt order became my responsibility.
2 Q. I see. Now, initially, when you gave us some of
3 your comments, you mentioned the fact that you would support
4 audits?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. In fact, you have already proved that by the audit
7 that you -- I understand that you ordered that Mr. Koyama
8 perform earlier this year. Is that a correct statement, that
9 it was your decision?
10 A. Yes, it was my decision.
11 Q. And I assume that you got the concurrence of the
12 superintendent, but primarily it was your decision to have
13 the audit run of the Felix response plan?
14 A. Yes, it was.
15 Q. So that Mr. Koyama, as far as his instructions were
16 concerned, took instructions from you in that regard?
17 A. Yes. Mr. Koyama is attached to the
18 superintendent's office, and those individuals attached to
19 the superintendent's office are primarily responsible for me,
20 and let me qualify when I say primarily, while I -- they
21 report to me and we do their everyday operations, it does not
22 preclude the superintendent from meeting with them and/or
23 directing them in whichever program he feels is important at
24 the time.
25 Q. Now, from his report I could not tell necessarily
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1 when you asked Mr. Koyama to conduct this financial audit.
2 When was that about, if you recall?
3 A. I want -- I want to start thinking end of February,
4 March.
5 Q. And why was it in the end of February or early
6 March that you believe that such an audit was necessary?
7 A. There were several issues that bore -- well, came
8 to mind for consideration. Every two weeks I was receiving a
9 document from our accounting office of the monies that were
10 allocated, that I was approving, allocated, and what was
11 being expended, and the expenditures weren't keeping up with
12 what was being allocated.
13 So in my mind people were getting paid, programs
14 were being run, but something wasn't coming out on paper, and
15 because it didn't click I needed to find out what was going
16 on, where was that money going, and if they were being -- the
17 result would be, first of all, find out where was that money
18 going, because it was specifically designed for the contempt
19 order. It was not designed for other Felix issues, it was
20 not designed for other programs, and because this -- we would
21 be asking -- it was the emergency appropriation. I wanted to
22 be sure that we would be able to track that money very
23 diligently so when it wasn't coming out, I wasn't going to
24 wait until June when the fiscal year ended and find out.
25 I wanted to, first of all, find out what was going
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1 on, and, number two, that if they weren't being charged to
2 the correct program, then we needed to ensure that they were.
3 We also needed to take corrective action, and then what kinds
4 of things could we do in the future that would not allow this
5 to happen again. So I had very specific purposes under
6 consideration in what was going on and why.
7 Q. By the way, before the financial audit was actually
8 ordered by you for Mr. Koyama to complete, did you discuss
9 the matter with the superintendent?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And he concurred in your decision to go forward
12 with that audit?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Let me ask you, during the last legislative session
15 there were a number of questions raised about Felix-type
16 expenditures, about segregating out those type of
17 expenditures, and whether it could be done or not. Would
18 that have been, perhaps, one of the reasons why you also
19 needed to know the things that came out of this audit?
20 A. Yes, because I realized that -- one of the end
21 results is that we would need to answer to the legislature on
22 how the money was spent, and we needed to ensure that it was
23 spent properly. So yes, and I've gone through three
24 legislative sessions and it seems that, you know, we -- when
25 we're asked what did we spend, the department puts forth what
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1 we budgeted or what we allocated, but what I think is being
2 asked is I know what you budgeted, but what did you spend,
3 and so we need to take a look at how we explain out what we
4 do.
5 Q. Sure. I think you've noticed that one of the goals
6 of the committee, as the questions have been asked of the
7 various witnesses, was exactly what you point out here. I
8 think you share that concern, do you not?
9 A. I do.
10 Q. Now, were you surprised by the findings of
11 Mr. Koyama's audit?
12 A. Not surprised. I'm glad that he was able to
13 pinpoint. I think these are -- they -- through the course of
14 time and observing what happens in the processes that go on
15 and the procedures, you have an idea that this is happening.
16 What you don't know is exactly for sure and you don't have
17 the data that specifically says here, here, and here. So
18 what Mr. Koyama did is he validated what we thought and he
19 ensured that these were areas that needed more attention.
20 Q. And as far as the various recommendations -- I
21 should say findings, there were a number of findings, am I to
22 understand, then, that you as the -- since you are head of
23 the department are working on those findings?
24 A. Yes. Those that we found that needed to be
25 corrected that we could do, we did. There were funds that
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1 were returned to the program. That's one finding that we
2 had. The journal vouchers to ensure that they were charged
3 to the correct accounts were also taken care of, and those
4 that we were unable -- because at the end of the -- two
5 things were occurring when it ended. We were closing out the
6 fiscal year, so we had to do that for the department,
7 vis-a-vis the individual schools in the district, as well as
8 we were trying to correct those areas from the audit. So
9 many things were going on at that time, so a lot of the
10 things we corrected, a lot of the things we were working on,
11 and we were also working on the process by which we could
12 have a check. We need checkpoints or how to monitor and
13 check to see that what we're spending is being spent in the
14 proper program ID.
15 Q. Good. I believe you would agree that Mr. Koyama
16 did an actually very good -- excellent job in completing the
17 audit. It looks like he needs help, though?
18 A. He has, and his frustration was the fragmentation
19 that everything is separated out, and that's what we also
20 share. And what we're looking at is in the process of giving
21 or making us user friendly so people know what it is we're
22 doing and we know what we're doing, the process of the
23 dialogue and how do we ensure that the process are integrated
24 and yet at the same time how do we track separately is more
25 than just a dialogue, but it's actually a work in progress
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1 right now.
2 Q. Actually, I was referring to his staff of one that
3 he has.
4 A. Yes, that too. We have to do a lot of juggling
5 or --
6 Q. Sure.
7 A. -- working at his priorities.
8 Q. Ms. Hamamoto, one of Mr. Koyama's findings was,
9 quote, There are concerns about the performance of Columbus
10 Educational Services and about the quantity of candidates
11 being presented to the DOE for hire, end quotes.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Were you involved with the -- retention may be the
14 word or the contracting with Columbus?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. To what extent?
17 A. When we came out of the contempt order -- well,
18 that court and we looked at our new benchmarks, we realized
19 that there were some stringent expectations and court
20 mandates that required the department to take measures that
21 it had not considered before. While it had been discussed in
22 the presence of the court monitor and the court master and
23 the plaintiffs and it had been brought up in court about the
24 department's recruitment and retention efforts, the
25 department has always looked at, you know, finding our own
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1 and hiring our own employees, and so we've been putting
2 things of that nature -- those discussions off to the side,
3 and it finally ended up in a court order because the
4 department was -- perhaps reluctant would be the proper word,
5 to go outside to hire a recruiting firm.
6 So in that process, when it came out, I don't
7 believe there was a choice at that time. I think benchmark
8 number, what is it, 8 clearly stated that we were to retain a
9 recruitment -- national recruitment firm by August 15th and
10 by September 1st a contract had to be in place. And so
11 that -- with that coming out, there was two things we were --
12 happening at one time. Number one, time, and number two, the
13 court order that says you will.
14 We came off of a contempt order -- I think at that
15 time the department's thinking and their actions was how do
16 we, quote, get -- you have a contempt order, what do you do
17 to get yourself out of the contempt order, and it's not about
18 not doing what you're expected to do. So since recruitment
19 and retention comes out of administrative services, which is
20 personnel, assistant superintendent at that time was Paula
21 Yoshioka, so I asked her to start looking into what kind of
22 national recruitment firms were out there, what -- well,
23 what's out there, first of all.
24 Number two, does any company have the scope to be
25 able to handle what we're asking, and I, in my mind, was
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1 thinking were there referral services like an employment
2 agency that could refer and then, you know, we would hire
3 them. As she started to look through that, the first
4 place --
5 Well, let me step back and share with you that
6 special-needs population in the United States, while it may
7 be large and growing in numbers, the people who are the
8 leaders and the people who are most knowledgeable about this
9 particular population run a very close-knit networking
10 system, and they have a clearinghouse for special needs
11 throughout the United States. So what we did is we went
12 through the national clearinghouse for special-needs
13 population. I think it's in Maryland and -- or Virginia, and
14 we asked, do you have -- first of all, can you refer us to
15 find if there were any recruiting firms that did this, are
16 there any agencies that would do this, are there any
17 colleges, so is there any kind of an agency that would be
18 able to fill our need or our court order, and the answer we
19 got back was no, they don't do a referral, but, you know, you
20 can contact people on their board of directors who may be
21 able to give you leads.
22 And at that point we also asked the monitor, do you
23 have any leads because we're not able to find what we're
24 looking for and we have an August 15th, and yes, we were very
25 concerned, and with that popped up Columbus Educational
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1 Services, and so when we heard about Columbus Educational
2 Services, we did the initial contact with them, we asked them
3 for what do they do, what can they do, what was their track
4 record, how do they operate. So we did -- you know, we did
5 various conversations on the phone. Paula did most of it
6 through email, and when it came to me for the conference
7 calls with them. It was -- my particular concern was, number
8 one, can you deliver what we want, number two, do you have
9 the capability and if you don't, can you bring it up so that
10 I am not in contempt, and I was also concerned about would
11 they be -- I wanted a referral service, an employment agency
12 kind of relationship or contract, and Columbus's mission and
13 their statement of incorporation, they are an employment
14 agency that hires and employs people with companies,
15 institutions, clinics, whichever, and they do the hiring,
16 they do all the Social Security, medical benefits, workman's
17 comp, they cut the checks, they do vacation, they do those
18 annuities, retirement, they do everything. They are the
19 company. So we hired a company to provide a service, and the
20 service that they were to provide for us would be special ed
21 licensed teachers who would meet the benchmark for
22 compliance.
23 In that process, we found out that we wanted to do
24 it for a year, and through the negotiations it would be for
25 three years. We began to do the contract, and we looked at
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1 the number of teacher vacancies that we had, and low and
2 behold after they gave us their proposal and what it was, the
3 amount was rather large, to say the least, which is an
4 understatement. At that point we think of, okay, what do we
5 do now and we have compliance looking at us, a benchmark, a
6 court date, time, and we need -- and, you know, above all, we
7 do want teachers that are trained and we do want teachers
8 working with our kids, and we found that the neighbor islands
9 are the hardest hit because people don't -- they come and
10 they go. Oahu is probably not the easiest but it may be a
11 lot easier to fill and we did it.
12 So as we started to get down into the finer points
13 of the negotiation, we took a look at where would -- oh, and
14 standing off to the side is HSTA, which is also another
15 consideration and the impact of bringing in a non-bargaining
16 -- or bringing in Columbus teachers, and we looked at all
17 these various factors. We took them into consideration. We
18 looked at the consequences that were occurring, and then I go
19 back to, you know, August 2nd stipulation, benchmark,
20 contempt order, and what the consequences there would be, and
21 doing all that then we move into looking at how do we put
22 together the contract so that the Department of Education and
23 the state of Hawaii are able to manage and have some input --
24 not only some input, but it's our contract. We should be
25 able to manage it. So how do we give ourselves the
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1 flexibility to do this.
2 One of the things that we opt for in our discussion
3 is that three year -- while it may be three years, it's in
4 the contract that it's subject to year-to-year funding, and
5 that is where the legislature has an active part in the
6 funding process, because our contracts are funded -- our
7 budget is funded by the legislature. So it clearly states
8 that it is on a year-to-year funding.
9 The second thing that we ensured is that we wanted
10 to limit where they would provide the services of the
11 teachers, and we limited them to the neighbor islands,
12 particularly beginning with those areas that the court had
13 declared were the hardest to fill, Ka'u, Kohala, Hana,
14 Molokai, yeah, the five. So those were the first -- that
15 first. There was a lot of discussion. I will share with you
16 that there was a lot of disagreement between Columbus and the
17 department, but we held firm that it would be neighbor island
18 and it would be the hard-to-fill area first. That was it.
19 And the process that we had agreed to was that if we were
20 going to be paying for these services, then we wanted to
21 ensure that the teachers that came to Hawaii that we
22 interviewed -- because we would have the final decision --
23 the principals would, should be at least 90 percent hireable.
24 Don't bring us someone who is a 50/50. I want the
25 probability to be in my favor.
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1 So what Columbus did is they did their national
2 advertisement throughout the nation. They ended up with
3 4,000 applicants who submitted interest and applications to
4 work in the state of Hawaii. They do their first screening,
5 which is a paper screening, an office screening of the 4,000.
6 They whittled that down to those that they feel meet the
7 criteria that we're looking for, special ed, licensable,
8 credentials, college -- I mean, you know, their transcripts
9 are in, they have experience, or if not they've been out of
10 college and they've passed those necessary requirements to be
11 a certified teacher and then other -- background check, they
12 do the background check for us, and then they do those other
13 questioning and answering that we would do if we were
14 screening someone.
15 Then after they did their first screening and they
16 got down to those numbers that they thought would be, you
17 know, manageable, they thought could be hired, they did a
18 face-to-face. They met each candidate, and by this time I
19 think it's probably down to about maybe 2,000 is what the
20 odds would be. So they do a face-to-face. They either go to
21 that person's city or career center or their center, because
22 they have centers throughout the United States in which they
23 have -- they had at any one time a minimum of six full-time
24 recruiters on staff that they staff throughout, so they are
25 constantly recruiting. So they have recruiting regions or
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1 centers. So they had face-to-face, and from there they did
2 the second cut, and what came from that second face-to-face.
3 Then they did the next one, which would be the people who
4 were the point people here in Hawaii, that would be Diane
5 Sydoriak and Virginia Clemons, so then it comes down to what
6 it is.
7 In the meantime, the people that are located in
8 Hawaii have a very specific task, and their task is to meet
9 the schools, principals, know what it is that the school
10 principal wants, they need to find out about the school
11 community, about the culture, they need to find out about
12 housing, transportation, what are the services that teachers
13 would be able to -- how do we support, how do we network, how
14 do we ensure that the teacher that comes, stays.
15 So there were two things going on in this process
16 of recruiting, and when the Hawaii office met with the
17 mainland office on those that had passed the face-to-face.
18 That's when they did that real mashing of who do they think
19 would be able to get hired here, and then, finally, when they
20 came down to those numbers, then they flew the person to
21 Hawaii and they set up like two or three interviews. So it
22 wasn't one on one. It was like one candidate would have
23 three or four school principals that they would interview
24 while they were here for the day -- or three days. Usually
25 we tried to do it around a weekend so that the principal
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1 would be available Thursday, Friday, or maybe a Monday,
2 Tuesday, and then from there the selection was made.
3 We found that because we started after September,
4 that was the quantity that Mr. Koyama -- the production
5 wasn't coming in on what was projected because we had started
6 after the school year began. Many of the teachers on the
7 mainland were unable to break their contract on the mainland,
8 so we realized that timing was not appropriate -- was not the
9 best, also that a lot of people want -- for the people in
10 Columbus if they were young and single and out of college
11 chances are better that they would be here, but if they had
12 families and they had children in school and they had lives,
13 then it was much more difficult for them and it would be a
14 commitment, because it was a three-year commitment. It
15 wasn't just for a year, or come, if you don't like it, leave.
16 The expectation is it's for three years. So that took --
17 factored into the production numbers.
18 And just before the teacher's strike we realized
19 that this one on one was just not as -- you know, may I just
20 stop for a second, Mr. Kawashima?
21 Q. Yes.
22 A. I'm getting lengthy here and people are such good
23 listeners, but I would like to pass this out. And what I did
24 is I did a chronology, and I apologize I didn't start that
25 off as I began, but I did a chronology of Columbus and maybe
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1 that will help put it together about the numbers and what
2 occurred and then I'll add the in betweens.
3 Q. Okay. Let me ask you some questions about what you
4 just testified to, Ms. Hamamoto. Am I to understand -- well,
5 strike that.
6 First of all, the initial contract with Columbus
7 was for the amount of $100 million or so. Now, I understand,
8 though, that -- having looked into the matter, that it
9 appears that the $100 million or so would have been expended
10 had Columbus performed under the contract totally but over a
11 period of three years; is that a fair statement or not?
12 A. That would be a fair statement.
13 Q. And as it turned out, you had to modify the
14 contract because, unfortunately, the results of Columbus's
15 efforts were not as they had anticipated, right?
16 A. Mr. Kawashima, can you repeat that statement --
17 question again, please?
18 Q. Do you agree that one of the reasons you had to
19 modify the agreement -- to revise downward the contract
20 amount was because Columbus could not perform under contract
21 as had been anticipated, albeit optimistically, but had not
22 performed as had been expected in finding the numbers of
23 teachers that they were looking for; is that a fair
24 statement?
25 A. No, and the reason why is -- that I would like to
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1 explain is that the two impacters were time and the court
2 order, and so that was our first concern. Once we had
3 fulfilled that, we knew -- and we had talked with Columbus
4 that the contract would always be subject to revision, and
5 the revision would be based upon the department's need and we
6 would only pay for teachers that we hired. We weren't going
7 to pay for a number. So it was no teacher, no pay, and it
8 was always designed that way. So up front when we worked
9 with Columbus, while this was their proposal and we accepted
10 the proposal, in light of the time element and the court
11 order, both Columbus and the department knew that this was
12 subject to revision and most likely it would be going down.
13 This would be the maximum. It would not exceed what we put
14 here, and chances were, in all likelihood, that we would
15 start to move into our need.
16 Q. I see.
17 A. We also told Columbus when we began that the
18 department would not stop its own recruiting efforts. Not
19 only would we continue and beef up our recruiting efforts,
20 but part of the contract is Columbus would be working with us
21 to build our own capacity in recruitment and retention. So
22 from the get-go it was always understood that we would be
23 looking to revise it and we would be building our own
24 capacity in consonant with implementing parts of this
25 contract.
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1 Q. You have actually revised it significantly, have
2 you not?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And Columbus has not complained or objected to
5 that, have they?
6 A. No.
7 Q. And though -- one aspect of it, though, I just want
8 to clarify to be sure I understand it, is that your -- well,
9 first of all, the amount of $100 million was at one time an
10 amount requested for appropriation, right?
11 A. It was requested -- you know, I --
12 Q. The item was there in that amount in an
13 appropriation request at one time? Not correct?
14 A. No. And the reason I'm thinking about it is
15 because if I think of how we do the budget process and how we
16 ask or we request our appropriation on a yearly basis, we
17 would not be asking for the 100 million. We would be asking
18 for what we would need for that year to implement that part
19 of the contract. So while it may have appeared to look as
20 100 million, we would not be asking the legislature for the
21 100 million, but we would be asking for each year what we
22 would need to implement.
23 Q. I see. I have not looked at that item very
24 closely, Ms. Hamamoto. You may be correct. So that in your
25 mind, as far as you're concerned, the Department of Education
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1 never requested an appropriation item for Columbus in the
2 amount of $100 million?
3 A. No, sir.
4 Q. But your understanding is, though, that any amounts
5 that are paid to Columbus, they -- Columbus understands that
6 it is subject to funding by the legislature, is it not?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. So that if the legislature, for whatever reason,
9 decides it cannot fund it, then Columbus cannot be paid, they
10 understand that?
11 A. Correct.
12 Q. Now, Columbus, though, as you've already explained
13 the atmosphere in the country with special education, there
14 really was no employment agency that specializes in special
15 education at the time, was there?
16 A. No.
17 Q. So Columbus, albeit a large national company,
18 itself had not specialized in special education, had it? And
19 I use the word specialized -- I stress that word.
20 A. Their whole -- their entire mission and their
21 company is based on specialized for the special-needs
22 population, so --
23 Q. It is? Columbus is?
24 A. Columbus Educational Services specifically looks
25 for the special-need population. They've done institutions
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1 for people who are trained to help -- or to work with the
2 mentally retarded, the severe, the autistic. So they have on
3 their board of directors these individuals throughout the
4 nation that are highly qualified in the special-needs
5 population area and they have on their staff working with
6 their people people who are versed in ADA as well as IDEA.
7 So they are very in tune with those kinds of special needs.
8 While it may not be special education teachers, but it is
9 special-needs population.
10 Q. Were you aware of Columbus Educational Services
11 before you went on this rather, as you described it, frantic
12 search for a search firm?
13 A. No, Mr. Kawashima, I had no idea such an agency
14 existed.
15 Q. Knowing about it as you do now, to your knowledge,
16 is there anyone who is on Columbus's board of directors or
17 employed by Columbus now or in the recent past that have
18 performed any services here in Hawaii or related to any of
19 the Felix matters in Hawaii?
20 A. Not to my knowledge.
21 Q. Now, you mentioned, though, going to the court
22 monitor and asking if he had any suggestions about who might
23 be able to assist you and the name Columbus came up?
24 A. What he -- when I -- when we went to ask him -- and
25 I'm in my mind thinking of that, you know, it was like,
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1 Dr. Groves, we're having a hard time, have you got any
2 suggestions, because we need to do a court order here, and he
3 said that -- let him check and he would talk with Ms. Schrag,
4 Judy Schrag, and Dr. Schrag, I think -- I can't remember who
5 exactly gave us the name Columbus, but it was referred
6 through either the monitor or Dr. Schrag.
7 Q. I see. And did Columbus, by the way, prior to your
8 entering into the contract with Columbus, send
9 representatives here to Hawaii to discuss the matter with you
10 or to look at what we had here and what type of task they
11 were going to embark upon?
12 A. The sequence of events -- let's see, this starts in
13 October. The sequence of events was that we got the name,
14 Columbus Educational Services, we initiated the phone call,
15 and then we started some email. Then they sent over the
16 president and their chief fiscal officer to talk with us so
17 that they could develop the scope of what their proposal
18 would be and know exactly what it is that we were looking
19 for. They came over for about two to three days, talked with
20 us, talked a lot with personnel understand how we do
21 recruiting, what it is, what is our island like, what our
22 process, procedures, then they went back and they submitted
23 their proposal.
24 Q. Who are individuals, the president and the chief
25 fiscal officer?
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1 A. Richard Rounder and Don Mooney, or maybe he's chief
2 operations officer.
3 Q. I saw the name Kukic, K-U-K-I-C, somewhere that may
4 have been related to Columbus. Does that found familiar to
5 you?
6 A. No, sir.
7 Q. Steven Kukic, K-U-K-I-C?
8 A. No, sir.
9 Q. And no one from Columbus has come down with a name
10 like that?
11 A. Not that I'm aware of.
12 Q. Are you aware of anyone such as the court monitor,
13 Dr. Groves, or Ms. Schrag being in any way affiliated with
14 Columbus?
15 A. No, sir.
16 Q. Nothing was revealed to you? I'm not suggesting
17 that there is something, but nothing was revealed to you by
18 Ms. Schrag or Dr. Groves as to their respective relationships
19 with Columbus, if any? Nothing was revealed to you, was it?
20 A. No, sir.
21 Q. You mentioned the urgency -- time urgency you were
22 under, and I think roughly the time frame was order -- the
23 benchmark relating to this area was contained within a
24 stipulated order; is that correct?
25 A. Yes.
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1 Q. Dated on or about August 2nd of this year?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And also -- not this year, last year.
4 A. 2000.
5 Q. Correct, last year. And then, though, this
6 specific benchmark -- I'm paraphrasing, but required that a
7 firm -- national recruiting firm be retained by August 15th,
8 13 days hence, and that a contract be entered into by
9 September 1st; is that correct?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And that was all in the stipulated order, was it
12 not?
13 A. Yes, it was.
14 Q. Do you know why -- well, strike that.
15 You certainly would not have agreed with such a
16 time frame, would you?
17 A. No, sir.
18 Q. Do you know why anyone -- whoever it was entered
19 into a stipulation that would place such strict and very
20 rigid time constraints on the department?
21 A. Back in January of 2000, maybe December of 2000,
22 the plaintiffs' attorney had been pushing on the department
23 to get more special education licensed teachers and we were
24 not meeting that 85 percent benchmark. It was 85 percent
25 licensed teachers that was part of the original benchmark
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1 that came out in 1994, 1995, and we weren't meeting that.
2 Our monitoring and our -- excuse me. Our self-monitoring and
3 our reporting to the courts were not as sophisticated as they
4 currently are because we've since set up the systems, but we
5 were giving them reports and they were very dissatisfied.
6 They were not adequate for their purpose, which was to ensure
7 that the department was working towards compliance.
8 And I remember from around December, January that
9 there were many conversations about the department should
10 hire from outside, and the retort from the part of the
11 department was, well, you know, this is a -- we do have a
12 union here. It's not about bringing in people who will come
13 and then leave. It's about retention. It's not about
14 bringing in people who will stay two years and go, and it's
15 not about someone thinking they know what we want. It's
16 about what we want.
17 So the discussion with the plaintiffs' attorneys
18 had been going on since December, January '99, 2000, and
19 their comment and their position was that the department is
20 not able to fulfill its requirement to get specialized
21 teachers or licensed teachers, and licensed teachers in the
22 classroom meant that kids would be adequately, properly
23 serviced. They would know what they were able to do, and
24 they would be able to deliver the quality of service through
25 the system of care. So it's very important that when you
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1 help the students and you deliver the system of care, that
2 you have trained professionals who not only know what they
3 are supposed to do, but are able to do what they are supposed
4 to do, so that special education licensed teacher was one of
5 the high benchmarks -- high watermarks in the eyes of the
6 plaintiffs, and the department was just unable to put
7 together -- we had been doing what we've always done.
8 We had our own certification program with RISE, we
9 sent out our principals and our recruiting staff, but we were
10 not bringing in the numbers, and every year it appeared,
11 based on what was licensed, qualified, and trained, we either
12 were just slowly putting our head above -- we weren't even
13 above water. We were just going to the surface or not at
14 all, and with the yearly retirements and with people leaving,
15 it was almost like going down, trying to get up to where we
16 were before they left and then moving above, and it was
17 just -- it just was very difficult. At times it seemed like
18 an impossible task, and the plaintiffs kept saying, well,
19 then go to an employment agency, go find a recruitment --
20 Q. No, but let me --
21 A. So with that, they put it in a court order, and I
22 was surprised.
23 Q. You didn't agree with that, did you, that -- such a
24 short time frame?
25 A. Absolutely not.
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1 Q. Of course. And if you were asked whether or not
2 you would agree to such a short time frame, you would not
3 have agreed with that, would you?
4 A. No, Mr. Kawashima.
5 Q. Do you know if the department's position was well
6 stated in terms of the amount of time you might have needed
7 to do this job? Understanding all the background, we don't
8 need to go into that, but understanding all of the
9 background, for the court to order that on August 2nd that
10 you need to retain someone by August 15th for such a large
11 task and enter into a contract by September 1st, now, that
12 type of time frame, do you feel the department's position was
13 well stated, that they did not agree with that? Because you
14 did enter into a stipulation, you know?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Do you think the department's position was well
17 stated there?
18 A. No, sir.
19 Q. All right. Now, though, even the September 1 date
20 to enter into a contract, to make it a public matter, in
21 other words, to put it in a public document that was filed
22 and open to the public so that whoever negotiated with the
23 state of Hawaii knew that you had to enter into a contract by
24 court order on September 1, that would place you at a
25 tremendous disadvantage in negotiating, wouldn't it?
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1 A. Yes, it does.
2 Q. So was that made clear so that perhaps that one
3 date would not be contained within the stipulated order that
4 was actually filed and issued?
5 A. Mr. Kawashima, at the time that the final
6 stipulations were agreed to, I was not part of many of those
7 conversations. While I may have been in regards to what was
8 doable and what was operational, some of those decisions were
9 made that I wasn't --
10 Q. I understand.
11 A. -- part of.
12 Q. I understand that the superintendent delegated much
13 of the responsibility to Ms. Yoshioka.
14 A. Yes, sir.
15 Q. Now, nonetheless, even considering all of these
16 concerns, the contract that you believe the department
17 entered into had a moral commitment on the people who were
18 hired to stay here at least three years; was that what you
19 said earlier?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. We don't need to go into it in detail, ma'am, but
22 you agree, though -- and again, I understand the urgencies
23 and the reasons why it may have happened, but that the
24 contract that you were, you feel, forced to enter into and
25 that you did enter into was highly advantageous to Columbus
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1 from the terms of the contract? And I may give you an
2 example first. The contract doesn't require Columbus
3 actually to do anything but make good faith effort to find
4 teachers for you; is that a fair statement?
5 A. I --
6 Q. And that may be a legal question, so if you --
7 A. No, I'm thinking because it was never about good
8 faith effort. It was about production.
9 Q. Sure.
10 A. So if they did not give us the -- if we didn't
11 hire, we wouldn't pay.
12 Q. Right. I understand that. That's a good aspect of
13 the contract that you have, that if they didn't produce a
14 person who started working, other than the expenses for
15 travel and all, you wouldn't have to pay that person as a
16 teacher, right? You wouldn't have to pay Columbus who would
17 pay that person as a teacher; is that correct?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. But nonetheless, even before they hired their very
20 first teacher, a substantial amount was expended in setting
21 up offices, hiring personnel, dedicating these personnel to
22 these offices, substantial amounts. I hesitate to estimate
23 how much that was, but if for -- and I'm not suggesting it
24 would happen, but if it didn't happen that Columbus didn't
25 hire one person, all of those expenses would have been lost,
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1 that's how the agreement was structured, was it not? Was
2 that too long a question?
3 A. No, no, and I would like to include in the answer
4 that it -- while the simple or the short answer is yes,
5 there -- when a person enters into a contract of this nature
6 and this size, this amount, and this scope, I believe that as
7 I stated when I first -- in my opening statement, the public
8 trust and the funds that I am expected to expend properly
9 weighs very heavily in my decision-making, and through that
10 decision-making and our consideration of Columbus, we were
11 comfortable that the company was a solid company, that the
12 company if it was going to -- it had been around in since
13 1984, that if it was going to continue to do well or to
14 continue to exist as a company, then they would -- it would
15 be to their advantage to also produce the numbers so that we
16 would be able to hire.
17 Q. Sure. I understand what you're saying, and I don't
18 disagree with that, but it appears from the agreement itself,
19 though, that's not a requirement of the agreement, that they
20 produce one or 200 teachers. They will make their best
21 effort. If for whatever reason they could not find that
22 person or persons, they suffered no consequences because all
23 the expenses up to that point, hiring personnel, opening
24 offices in the mainland, here in Hawaii were all to be paid
25 by the state of Hawaii and the state of Hawaii only?
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1 A. Administrative costs, yes.
2 Q. Now, has -- the name Judy Schrag has come up. Has
3 she, as far as you're concerned, provided any consulting
4 services to the state of Hawaii?
5 A. Through the court monitor's office, yes.
6 Q. And what type of services has she performed?
7 A. Judy Schrag was -- in 1994 when the technical
8 assist panel came about, Judy Schrag was the department's
9 person. Lenore Behar was for the Department of Health
10 representative, and the court monitor was agreed to by the
11 then deputy attorney general and the plaintiffs' attorneys,
12 and that's the decision-maker.
13 Q. Who was agreed upon by the plaintiffs' attorneys
14 and the deputy AG?
15 A. The two names that pop up that I'm aware of is
16 Charlene Aina and Shelby Floyd.
17 Q. No, I'm sorry, I'm talking about --
18 A. Oh, Ivor Groves. I'm sorry, Ivor Groves.
19 Q. But he had come to Hawaii even before that, though,
20 as a retained expert witness for the plaintiffs in that class
21 action litigation, had he not? Do you know that?
22 A. Yes, I do, and at one time I asked Dr. Groves how
23 did he get involved in all of this, you know, being a history
24 major, how did you get involved in all of this, and he very
25 briefly was asked to come prior by an advocacy group to speak
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1 at a conference on special needs, and when he got off the
2 plane he was then asked to start looking at what is going on
3 in this state and started to look behind the provision of
4 services, the delivery of services, and I guess they moved --
5 I don't know the details, and the next thing we were in court
6 and they decide on a monitor and he's the chosen person.
7 Q. Who asked him to look at the situation?
8 A. It was a name that I'm not familiar with. It was
9 an advocacy group that was around in 1992, '93. I don't know
10 even know if that advocacy group is still around today.
11 Q. Do you know any of the individuals that were
12 involved with that advocacy group?
13 A. No. In my conversation with Dr. Groves at that
14 time I wasn't asking, you know, those questions, just how did
15 you get into this.
16 Q. But you do know that at one time he was named as an
17 expert witness for the plaintiffs' side in the class action
18 litigation?
19 A. No, but -- I didn't.
20 Q. All right. And do you know whether or not the
21 state of Hawaii, either the Department of Health or the
22 Department of Education, had obtained Lenore Behar as an
23 expert witness?
24 A. What I -- what I was -- what was told to me was
25 that Lenore Behar worked for the Department of Health as a
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1 consultant and I don't know for how long.
2 Q. All right. Do you know whether or not -- strike
3 that.
4 As far as you know, Lenore Behar is not providing
5 services to either the Department of Health or the Department
6 of Education as of the present time?
7 A. No, sir.
8 Q. Do you know when she ceased her -- providing
9 services to the state?
10 A. When the technical assistance panel was disbanded,
11 and I believe that was 2000, with that last court -- when the
12 contempt order came out they disbanded the technical
13 assistance panel.
14 Q. What was your understanding as to why the technical
15 assistance panel was disbanded?
16 A. My understanding is the department had moved to a
17 level of compliance and we had been working on that
18 infrastructure, and many of the things -- or infrastructure
19 items had been identified. It was being put in place. So
20 much of the technical assistance that they we were providing,
21 we had reached a level where we were able to not only sustain
22 but we were able to know what we needed to do.
23 Q. Now, the technical assistance panel, though, is it
24 your understanding that the individuals that constituted the
25 panel were paid through the Felix monitoring project?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Let me digress a bit. The service testing
3 instrument that was ultimately used by the state was an
4 instrument that had a copyright on it by a company that was
5 at least partly owned by Dr. Groves; are you aware of that?
6 A. No, I didn't know it was copyrighted.
7 Q. Oh, okay. I believe there was testimony. I'm not
8 saying -- representing that it was at this point, but there
9 was sworn testimony in one of these proceedings that it was
10 copyrighted.
11 A. All right.
12 Q. But did you know, though, that when the service
13 testing instrument was recommended and then started to be
14 utilized by the state, did you know that the instrument was
15 an instrument owned by a company in Florida, one of the
16 stockholders of which would be Dr. Groves?
17 A. No, I didn't know that the instrument was owned. I
18 know of service testing and how it came about and the genesis
19 of it, but I didn't realize that it was a -- you know, that
20 it was copyrighted. I know that's what the monitor,
21 Dr. Groves, and the state agreed to would be the tool or by
22 which we would determine compliance.
23 Q. The tool by which you would determine compliance
24 was recommended by Dr. Groves?
25 A. The case review process I believe was -- it was a
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1 current state of the art methodology and strategy in
2 determining compliance.
3 Q. Understanding the state of the art at the time,
4 Ms. Hamamoto, and I understand the situation may have been
5 difficult at that time to find a tested instrument, something
6 that had gone through various uses and various states, but
7 nonetheless, it was Dr. Groves who recommended the use of
8 this instrument that was ultimately used, right?
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. Yes?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And when he recommended it, did he inform you, at
13 least, that the instrument was own by a company of his?
14 A. No. When I became deputy, service testing was
15 already in progress.
16 Q. I see. Do you know historically, going back in
17 serving as deputy superintendent from 1999 onwards, did you
18 learn, though, at some point in time that this instrument had
19 been owned by Dr. Groves's company?
20 A. I guess, Mr. Kawashima, I don't look at it as being
21 owned, and the reason is because I know that since 1981 case
22 review for -- as a method of determining whether outcomes
23 were being achieved had been in use. I do know that what was
24 created for Hawaii was unique to Hawaii because it's
25 customized. So the process is generic throughout the nation,
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1 but what happened in Hawaii -- and if you -- then it would
2 stand to resume what you shared with me, that it's copyright
3 for him because he crafted it or he customized it for
4 Hawaii's use.
5 Q. Well, I would imagine an instrument like that would
6 be customized in every jurisdiction in which it would be
7 used, right?
8 A. That's true, it is.
9 Q. But the basic type of instrument, if a person
10 copyrights it, obviously that person believes that it has
11 some special aspects to it that they wanted to maintain
12 ownership interest in, right?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Now, my understanding is that the state was not
15 charged any fee for the use of that instrument in and of
16 itself directly; is that correct?
17 A. To my knowledge, yes.
18 Q. However, the state of Hawaii did have to pay for
19 the expenses and fees to various consultants to come to
20 Hawaii to teach the people how to use the instrument, though?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Including Ray Foster, Dr. Groves's partner; is that
23 correct?
24 A. I don't know if he's his partner, but yes, Dr. --
25 Q. Partner may be a loose term. Who is also a
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1 shareholder in that same company, you were aware of that,
2 weren't you?
3 A. No.
4 Q. My understanding is he's also a shareholder in the
5 company that owns the copyright, if there is one, that owns
6 the ownership interest in this service testing instrument.
7 You were not aware of this?
8 A. No, sir.
9 Q. Now, are you aware as to whether or not this
10 service testing instrument, albeit modified, of course, for
11 another state or district or division, has been used in any
12 other state of the union?
13 A. I know it's being used in Alabama. I also know
14 it's being used in Iowa, and they are called quality case
15 reviews.
16 Q. But it meaning that instrument?
17 A. The process.
18 Q. The process, all right. Do you know if the use in
19 Alabama and Iowa was initiated after the instrument was being
20 used in Hawaii already or not?
21 A. No, I do not.
22 Q. Do you know whether or not the state of Iowa or the
23 state of Alabama paid a fee for the use of that instrument?
24 A. No, sir.
25 Q. As far as Ms. Schrag -- let me get back to
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1 Ms. Schrag. I digressed there. As far as Ms. Schrag is
2 concerned, though, do you have any knowledge that she was
3 involved in any way with the service testing instrument?
4 A. No.
5 Q. I'm not suggesting she was.
6 A. No.
7 Q. So that any payments made to Ms. Schrag, to your
8 knowledge, would have been from the monitoring project, not
9 the state?
10 A. To my knowledge, it would be through the monitoring
11 project.
12 Q. The types of services that she performed, some of
13 them were related to state matters, educational matters,
14 though, not necessarily the monitoring project matters,
15 weren't they? Let me ask it this way. What types of
16 consulting did she provide, to your knowledge?
17 A. The ones that I'm aware of: She's done a
18 management study for the department I think in 1998, along
19 with other members. She has worked with our special
20 education department on the monitoring of the continuous
21 improvement process. She's helped us -- worked with us as a
22 consultant on our integrated training plan. She's been
23 involved in the IEP process.
24 Q. I see. Well, let me stop you there. We're going
25 to take a break shortly. Let me finish this line, ma'am.
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1 The management study that Ms. Schrag did in 1998, was that a
2 study of the infrastructure, the organizational structure of
3 the Department of Education?
4 A. Specific to the compliance efforts in Felix.
5 Q. When you say specific to the compliance efforts,
6 what do you mean?
7 A. What the department -- how the management or the
8 structure of the department lent itself to compliance
9 efforts.
10 Q. And to your knowledge -- you weren't here then, but
11 to your knowledge, did the department decide that this needed
12 to be done or was this something that was either recommended
13 or ordered by the court monitor?
14 A. I don't know if it was ordered or recommended, but
15 it was done.
16 Q. And it was done, though, specific to the Felix
17 response plan or the Felix compliance efforts?
18 A. Yes.
19 SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA: Take a break?
20 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Members, we've
21 hit the one-hour mark, so let's give our court reporter a
22 break. Five-minute recess.
23 (Recess taken.)
24 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Members, we'd
25 like to reconvene our hearing, and we'll continue with
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1 questioning by Special Counsel.
2 SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA: Thank you, Chair
3 Saiki.
4 Q. Ms. Hamamoto, I was asking you some questions about
5 some individuals before we took a break. I had also asked
6 you a few questions about the technical assistance panel as
7 it existed. During the time that you were deputy
8 superintendent, you must have had some dealings with the
9 panel as a panel, the technical assistance panel?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. During the time -- well, would you recall what
12 types of dealings you might have had with them?
13 A. Primarily my dealings with them were at meetings in
14 which the monitor generally -- well, the monitor chaired the
15 meetings and it was a status report. When the monitor came
16 to town at his regular -- whenever he comes to town, he'd
17 have a meeting of the parties, and at that time it would be
18 the Department of Education, Dr. LeMahieu, myself, Dr. Houck,
19 and various programs people if he asked for them, and then on
20 the other side it was the Department of Health, it was Bruce
21 Anderson, Anita Swanson, Tina Donkervoet, and it would be the
22 plaintiffs' attorneys, generally it was Eric Seitz and Shelby
23 Floyd, and we would have those.
24 We also had meetings whenever Mr. Portnoy called,
25 the master, in his office, and again, it would be the
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1 superintendent, myself, and Dr. Houck, Bruce Anderson, Anita
2 Swanson, and then the plaintiffs' attorneys, and then we
3 would be asked questions about the status. So other than
4 that, I have not worked with them unless Dr. Schrag would be
5 the one that would be giving me an update. She's the only
6 one of the technical --
7 Q. Why would she be giving you an update, as opposed
8 to anyone else on that panel?
9 A. She would be calling me to let me know her progress
10 on particular issues that she had been working with with the
11 department, as I mentioned earlier, the IEP, the training
12 plan, did I have thoughts about what it should look like, how
13 it should role out, did I have any concerns that I wanted to
14 address with her so that she would be sure that when she
15 worked with our staff that these issues would be
16 incorporated.
17 Q. I see. Now, was it your understanding, if you had
18 any, about the technical assistance panel, that the way it
19 was constructed with three people in it, constituting the
20 panel, that each one of those three individuals represented
21 different interests or were they supposed to, once they came
22 together as a panel, represent the state of Hawaii in trying
23 to achieve compliance?
24 A. That they would represent the overall state of
25 Hawaii's compliance efforts, but each one was specific -- had
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1 specific skills and knowledge that would help those areas or
2 agencies that would be closest to what they are able to do.
3 Q. Which -- so Ms. Schrag was the one that was, in
4 your mind, early on designated as the Department of
5 Education's person or not?
6 A. Yes, she was. My first encounter with Judy Schrag
7 was when I was a principal at McKinley High School and we
8 were first looking at a pilot demonstration for CSSS back in
9 '95, maybe '7, and we were looking at that -- a continuum of
10 services for students, it would be Kaiulani, Central, and
11 McKinley as one of the demonstration complexes, or those
12 three schools. There were several -- I think Kaiser High
13 School was one, Mokihana on Kauai was another, so they had
14 designated different kinds of pilots.
15 Q. When you dealt with Ms. Schrag back then was that,
16 to your understanding, by virtue of her position on the panel
17 or by virtue of her position as a consultant?
18 A. Mr. Kawashima, I don't know. At that time, back
19 until the mid-'90s or when she first came to us, I did not
20 even connect it up to the Felix consent decree.
21 Q. Drawing back, though, now that you know what you
22 know, can you give me your opinion, if you have one, based on
23 what you knew then and what you know now whether she was
24 functioning as a consultant on the one hand or as a member of
25 the technical assistance panel on the other?
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1 A. I believe it would be for the technical -- I would
2 imagine for the technical assistance panel.
3 Q. But did she in fact -- she or her company provide
4 services to the state of Hawaii?
5 A. Not that I'm aware of, other than through the
6 monitor's office.
7 Q. How about to McKinley, though?
8 A. No, sir.
9 Q. Now, the meetings, then, that -- where you met with
10 the technical assistance panel, including the other
11 individuals as you've already enumerated for us, the meetings
12 were -- the purpose of the meetings, I should say, was to see
13 how well you were doing towards compliance?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And that panel was to be providing assistance,
16 then, to the other members of the state of Hawaii that were
17 there to, I guess, give them advice as to how to achieve
18 compliance?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Did it appear to you that these meetings, as far as
21 the types of information that was imparted from them to you,
22 was very technical information or did it appear to be
23 practical stuff or what?
24 A. A combination of both, and when I say a combination
25 of both, they were looking at it with a different set of
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1 eyes, looked -- outside looking in but having the technical
2 kinds of body of knowledge or skills that we would need or
3 that perhaps we have but we were never -- we didn't use it to
4 the level that we were capable of.
5 Q. All right. Now, let me ask it this way, maybe it
6 might shorten the process. To your knowledge, Ms. Hamamoto,
7 and based upon your personal involvement with the panel
8 during the time it was in existence and that you were
9 involved with it, did it appear that anything that the panel
10 was doing was something that might be considered proprietary
11 or that ought to be kept in confidence, anything like that?
12 A. Not that I'm aware of.
13 Q. Essentially, the panel was functioning to help the
14 state achieve compliance?
15 A. To the best of my knowledge, yes.
16 Q. Using their particular special skills and knowledge
17 that they had, in other words, to give advice to the state as
18 to how to achieve compliance, a very public matter, right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Now, I was going to ask you a question about this.
21 Have you met a Mr. Howard Schrag?
22 A. No, sir.
23 Q. Do you know whether or not Mr. Howard Schrag is the
24 husband of Judy Schrag?
25 A. I believe that is her husband.
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1 Q. Just based on what you have heard in the course of
2 your work, you believe that is to be correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Ms. Schrag, as far as we know, works under the -- a
5 company name, Education and Human Systems Group. Are you
6 aware of that?
7 A. No, sir.
8 Q. You have not seen letterhead with that name on it
9 coming from Ms. Schrag?
10 A. No, sir.
11 Q. Do you know -- and I think I know the answer, but I
12 need to ask you. Do you know whether or not Howard Schrag is
13 a co-principal in that company?
14 A. No.
15 Q. You don't know?
16 A. No, I don't know, sir.
17 Q. Do you know why -- I had pointed it out to you
18 during the break so you would have a little time to look at
19 it, Ms. Hamamoto. We have what has been provided by your
20 department what is entitled encumbrance listing for EDN 150,
21 and my understanding is that it is an encumbrance -- list of
22 encumbrances for the fiscal year that ended June 30th, 2001.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. This past fiscal year. And I see where one of the
25 items on page 28 -- 382 or 383, I'm not sure. 383 it looks
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1 like -- has an item that was encumbered, I believe, on March
2 13th and the vendor name is Howard Schrag and the amount is
3 $15,350 even. Do you have an idea what that might be for?
4 A. No, sir.
5 Q. You're not aware that Howard Schrag had ever
6 provided services to the state of Hawaii?
7 A. Not to my knowledge.
8 Q. This would suggest, though -- what I just showed
9 you and what we're looking at would suggest that, in fact,
10 Howard Schrag provided services to the state of Hawaii for
11 which he was paid $15,350?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Would you do the committee a favor by researching
14 that to see why that encumbrance was made? In other words,
15 what types of services and whether in fact it was performed
16 and if in fact that amount was paid.
17 A. Yes, I will.
18 Q. Thank you. I think from your prior testimony,
19 Ms. Hamamoto, you weren't sure but it may be that Ms. Schrag
20 was the one who recommended Columbus?
21 A. I believe, yes.
22 Q. Not Dr. Groves?
23 A. I can't recall who it was. It came through the
24 monitor and Judy Schrag, and he could have asked her and she
25 could have told us, you know, but it came through them.
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1 Q. But you have a distinct recollection that
2 Ms. Schrag was somehow involved with that process --
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. -- out of which came the name Columbus Educational
5 Service?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Again, I'm not sure whether it's correct or not,
8 but are you aware as to whether or not Ms. Schrag had any
9 time of familial or professional relationship with anyone
10 that was, on the other hand, related to Columbus?
11 A. My understanding is that the board -- a board of
12 director, I believe it's Martha Fields --
13 Q. I'm sorry, what was the name?
14 A. Her name is Martha Fields who sits on their board.
15 I don't know if she's still on their board of directors now,
16 and Ms. Schrag know each other. I don't know -- in a
17 professional -- I don't know the depth or extent of their
18 relationship, but these were members of the -- many of them
19 were former state directors of special education and
20 they -- I do believe Judy Schrag at one time was under
21 secretary for special education, Department of Education.
22 Q. I see.
23 A. So, you know --
24 Q. And to your knowledge, Ms. Schrag doesn't have any
25 business relationship with Columbus, does she?
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1 A. Not that I'm aware of.
2 Q. Again, let me ask the question this way. If in
3 fact Ms. Schrag had some relationship with Columbus or had
4 some familial relationship with someone that was affiliated
5 with Columbus, that would have been something that you
6 believe she should have told you at that point in time?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And again, I'm not saying it's fact, but she did
9 not tell you anything of that nature, did she?
10 A. No. Only that she -- when the name came and after
11 we started to talk with them and we asked about their
12 credentials and how solid were they, she said yes, they had
13 good people who sat on the board so that these people would
14 be able to ensure that whoever Columbus hires or how they set
15 up their infrastructure met the needs of special education or
16 special needs.
17 Q. All right. Who is the person who Columbus had come
18 down here and man the Columbus Educational Services office in
19 Honolulu?
20 A. Her name is Diane Sydoriak.
21 Q. And she is an employee, to your knowledge, an
22 employee of Columbus?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And are you aware as to whether Ms. Sydoriak had
25 any relationship, business or otherwise, with Ms. Schrag?
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1 A. Relationship, yes, because Diane Sydoriak retired
2 as the state director of special education for the state of
3 Arkansas, and as I mentioned a few minutes ago, the state
4 directors have their own association. In fact, they are
5 having their national association conference now, and it's a
6 very tight group, knowledgeable group. It's very few members
7 of it. So that relationship exists.
8 Q. I see. No other relationship of which you're
9 aware?
10 A. None that I -- I know they've worked together
11 because they've worked as a -- consultants to us in helping
12 us with our IEP processing, so --
13 Q. Who is that?
14 A. Diane Sydoriak and Judy Schrag and others.
15 Q. Diane has also worked as a consultant?
16 A. I don't know if she -- I don't know if she has
17 worked as a consultant for pay or she has discussed in
18 dialogue the ideas. So I don't know if it was an informal
19 let's talk story or it was a formal you're under contract.
20 Q. I see. And of course you don't know if the
21 monitoring project may have retained her to provide
22 consulting services?
23 A. I do not know that, sir.
24 Q. I saw a term or phrase in-kind services, and I
25 think it may have been related to Columbus. Do you know what
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1 that might be?
2 A. No.
3 Q. To provide in-kind services?
4 A. No. I would have to take a look. The only in-kind
5 that I could -- no. Because if -- they were helping us to
6 bring up our capacity for recruitment and retention, but we
7 are paying for that, so it's not in-kind. They need to
8 provide that -- they will provide that -- they are providing
9 that service to us.
10 Q. Okay. I asked you a few questions about Mr. Ray
11 Foster. You know Mr. Foster, do you not?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. How did you become acquainted with him?
14 A. I had met him when he conducted the conference on
15 training. The three times I met him it was in relationship
16 to a training conference or a training meeting. That was my
17 only dialogue with him.
18 Q. Was that a training meeting related specifically to
19 the use of the service testing instrument we've referred to?
20 A. Yes, as they prepare the reviewers for service
21 testing.
22 Q. And was Mr. Foster, then, in the lead capacity of
23 that training session with the services testing instrument?
24 A. I believe he was.
25 Q. And was it your understanding that Mr. Foster had
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1 either developed or in some fashion owned this service
2 testing instrument for which he was giving training?
3 A. No, I -- my understanding was that he was most
4 knowledgeable and he worked with Dr. Groves and Dr. Groves
5 had employed him, is my understanding, to be the trainer for
6 the service testing. He had the most knowledge of it.
7 Q. You just said something that I wanted to ask you
8 more questions about. The process, then, where Ray Foster
9 came to Hawaii to provide services was one in which, to your
10 understanding, Dr. Groves and the Felix monitoring project
11 retained Mr. Foster?
12 A. To my knowledge, yes.
13 Q. And it was through the Felix monitoring project,
14 headed by Dr. Groves, that Mr. Foster was paid for his fees,
15 for his time?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And you have no idea what that was?
18 A. For the training, sometimes he did the reviews, he
19 went along to ensure the quality control that the reviewers
20 were doing, what they should be doing, ought to be doing, so
21 that I knew he came. I don't know the specific dates when he
22 was here. The times that I have met him have been at the
23 conference or the training, but I know he has been here other
24 than the times that I know of.
25 Q. And you don't know how much he was paid for his
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1 fees? I'm not suggesting he shouldn't have been paid, but
2 you don't now how much?
3 A. No, I don't, sir.
4 Q. Now, though, am I to understand, though, based on
5 your prior testimony, Ms. Hamamoto, that you were not aware
6 that Mr. Foster had any business relationship with
7 Dr. Groves?
8 A. Other than that -- no. I think you asked me if I
9 knew he was an owner in the company, that I don't know, but I
10 do know that the relationship -- my understanding is that he
11 provided the service testing reviewers the training and he
12 went along for quality assurance for the training, and that's
13 the relationship that I've known him with Dr. Groves and the
14 state.
15 Q. So that it appears to be a relationship, though,
16 where Dr. Groves retained Mr. Foster to provide you services?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. But it does not appear, though, from your
19 recollection and your knowledge that Mr. Foster and
20 Mr. Groves were co-shareholders in a corporation, for
21 example?
22 A. No, sir, I didn't know of that.
23 Q. And I asked you this before. I just want to
24 clarify. Did you know if anyone had ownership rights to that
25 service testing instrument, who it was that had ownership
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1 interest, whether it be a person or persons or a company?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Now, we had received testimony from Dr. Houck, the
4 former director of program support and development. It was
5 his opinion when viewed as a state-wide system -- as Hawaii
6 is a state-wide system, unique to the country -- had met 85
7 percent compliance, the 85 percent scope of compliance
8 standard set by the court monitor. If we were to look at the
9 system as it is a state-wide system, not in the various
10 complexes, would you agree with Dr. Houck that as of when
11 Dr. Houck testified a month or two ago that the state had
12 achieved 85 percent compliance?
13 A. You know, Mr. Kawashima, I'll make this one short
14 because I thought about what Dr. Houck said at the time, and
15 at the time if you take a look at the complexes that were
16 tested and those that failed and those that passed, yes, that
17 85 percent would be accurate at that instant in time.
18 Q. But you seem to qualify that answer.
19 A. Because there were still a lot of complexes that
20 hadn't gone through the compliance efforts yet, and I mean
21 the compliance presentations and they have been. So for
22 myself right now, as we are passing service testing on a
23 weekly basis and the compliance presentations are being done
24 and they are receiving their full compliance, I feel a lot
25 better because I know that we've had time. It's an issue of
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1 time, and the longer we go, the stronger the scores are, the
2 more solid they are. I feel a lot better now.
3 Q. All right. We've been using the term compliance.
4 I understand that the process through which the state has
5 gone to achieve compliance was sort of a two-step process
6 where you -- a complex received provisional compliance; is
7 that the right term?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And then full compliance?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And the full compliance really was what you had to
12 do is put on this presentation, right?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Now, were you making a distinction in your mind
15 when you thought about what Dr. Houck said as to whether or
16 not the state was in compliance as to whether we were using
17 the phrase provisional compliance or full compliance?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. We were provisionally in compliance 85 percent as
20 of when Dr. Houck testified?
21 A. For those complexes that were tested, because there
22 were many that hadn't been tested yet.
23 Q. I see. So as far as being in full compliance, you
24 would not agree, 85 percent when Dr. Houck testified?
25 A. Full compliance?
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1 Q. Uh-huh.
2 A. Can you repeat that question again?
3 Q. If we were to look at full compliance, obviously,
4 we did not have 85 percent full compliance?
5 A. (Witness nods.)
6 Q. Now, whose decision was it -- are you familiar with
7 the matter of someone making a decision that in a state-wide
8 system such as Hawaii that the compliance efforts ought to be
9 looked at from a complex-by-complex standpoint as opposed to
10 a state-wide?
11 A. The question is was I aware?
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. That it was going to be complex by complex?
14 Q. No. My question is: Are you familiar with the
15 fact that this decision was made at some point in time?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Do you know when it was made?
18 A. I believe it was made after the -- when they first
19 began the service testing, I think they were looking at
20 districts. And when they did it by districts they realized
21 that it was too -- the districts in Hawaii are much too large
22 and you would not be able to understand or be able to see
23 that system of care or whether they were doing it. So to
24 make it so that it had meaning and the people who were
25 working at it, it was decided that complexes would be a
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1 better indicator or a reflection of whether we were making
2 compliance so we could track students from K through 12
3 through complex.
4 Q. And do you know when that decision was made?
5 A. I want to say it was made probably just about the
6 time or prior to my coming on board in March of '99, because
7 I remember going to a service testing in-servicing in
8 February and it was talking about how we were now looking at
9 complexes because the districts, it would be -- the
10 variation, if you took Honolulu from Kaiser to Farrington,
11 would be almost impossible, very difficult.
12 Q. What knowledge do you have, then, Ms. Hamamoto, as
13 to whether or not the court monitor had anything to do with
14 that decision being made, to look at the system on a
15 complex-by-complex basis?
16 A. I have no knowledge of that.
17 Q. I believe that it would be your opinion that it
18 would not be possible to look at the state -- or not be
19 practical to look at the state on a state-wide basis if you
20 wanted to look at compliance, because it is a state-wide
21 system?
22 A. If I walk through what you've just asked me, I
23 believe we can do it on state-wide basis, but we would have
24 to break down the components of what goes into that
25 state-wide basis and the basis, then, would be the complexes.
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1 Q. Anyway?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. You're saying it would be the complexes anyway?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. A few more areas, Ms. Hamamoto. Dr. Houck
6 testified that he believed that the legislature had always
7 provided what was required by the Department of Education.
8 Do you agree with that statement? In the time that, of
9 course, you were involved with that aspect of the department.
10 A. Mr. Kawashima, I would ask that you qualify always
11 provided because I don't know in what context Dr. Houck was
12 referring to that.
13 Q. That's a good point. He was responding to
14 questions that we had asked him relating to Felix and the
15 Felix consent decree. All right, so to the extent that you
16 have knowledge about it because you were here or perhaps you
17 may not have been here but learned of it subsequently in
18 looking historically at the department, would you agree that
19 the legislature has always provided what was required by the
20 Department of Education in its attempts to comply with the
21 Felix consent decree?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And as far as this committee's investigation, I
24 trust from your statement previously -- your testimony
25 previously, you, of course, have no quarrels with what the
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1 committee is doing?
2 A. No, sir.
3 Q. And as far as the committee's efforts and the work
4 it has done thus far, based on your knowledge of the
5 compliance efforts by the state, that the committee and its
6 efforts and its work has not in any way negatively affected
7 the compliance efforts by the state of Hawaii?
8 A. No, sir. In fact, if I had to say, this is a data
9 decision or a data-supported answer, since the investigative
10 committee has started, we're still coming into compliance,
11 our complexes are still passing, they are moving along. In
12 addition, the committee has an unanticipated result, which is
13 a plus for us, it's forced us to talk to each other within
14 the department. It's also forced us to take a good look at
15 our records and what we do. So the answer is it has not
16 hampered what we've been doing.
17 SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA: Thank you very
18 much, Ms. Hamamoto. I have no further questions.
19 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you.
20 Members, we'll proceed with questions by the committee
21 members. We'll begin with Vice-Chair Oshiro, followed by
22 Vice-Chair Kokubun.
23 VICE-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE OSHIRO: Thank you
24 Co-Chair Saiki.
25 EXAMINATION
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1 BY VICE-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE OSHIRO:
2 Q. Good morning, Ms. Hamamoto.
3 A. Good morning.
4 Q. I just wanted to get clarification in a little bit
5 different area, that being the Na Laukoa contract. We've
6 heard previous information regarding, I guess, a presentation
7 that was done by them in July of 2000 where they were trying
8 to be a provider of targeted technical assistance. Were you
9 present at that July 7th presentation?
10 A. Representative Blake Oshiro, no, I was not at that
11 presentation, and I should also qualify that the technical
12 assistance contract with PREL and vis-a-vis Na Laukoa was the
13 responsibility and under the authority of Dr. LeMahieu.
14 Q. Okay. Can I just get a little bit more
15 clarification, though, because I just wanted to find out what
16 the current status of it is. We were looking at some of the
17 previous information issued by a Robert Golden, and he said
18 there was a meeting in about May of this year where targeted
19 technical assistance as an overall concept was looked at
20 again and it was deemed to be a failure. You were present at
21 that meeting along with Deb Farmer and some other people who
22 had sort of come up with this assessment; do you recall
23 anything to that effect?
24 A. In May of this year?
25 Q. Yes.
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1 A. Okay. No, I don't remember the specifics as far as
2 it being -- how it was listed out as being a failure.
3 Q. Okay. Do you happen to remember anything about, I
4 think, a meeting being held with Mr. Golden and a Deb Farmer
5 and yourself wherein Deb Farmer complained about, I guess,
6 the lack of knowledge or abilities of Na Laukoa and she felt
7 she was being overtaxed in having to train them to actually
8 do their job so that you had recommended that she ask -- to
9 be taken off of this advisory committee; do you recall
10 something that?
11 A. Yes, I do remember that meeting and that the advice
12 that I gave her was to submit a memo or a request to
13 Dr. LeMahieu. As I stated just a few minutes ago, that was
14 under his jurisdiction. So I did not feel that I was able to
15 counter or to make decisions directly affecting the contract
16 and what he may or may not have wanted for it.
17 Q. Okay. But did that in any way surprise you that
18 Ms. Farmer came to you complaining about having to actually
19 train them and it became an overtaxing task for her?
20 A. No, not that she came to me, because in the chain
21 of command it would go to the deputy before it goes to the
22 superintendent. In relationship to her concerns of her work
23 load, I was not able to address that because I did not know
24 the specifics of what was asked her or why they asked her to
25 do any of the work that she had mentioned.
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1 Q. Okay. Moving on to a different area, I just wanted
2 to ask about the Columbus contract. I think Mr. Kawashima
3 was talking about, I guess, how in a lot of ways we see the
4 Columbus contract being highly advantageous to Columbus, and
5 I think one of our main concerns is when we try to break down
6 the numbers, and this was confirmed by Ms. Yoshioka, we
7 didn't really see any sort of, I guess, monitoring or quality
8 controls over the breakdown of how much we were paying them.
9 Specifically, this is as she confirmed to us: We
10 were paying them $112,000 per, I guess, teacher that we would
11 eventually pick up. 10,000 of that would be for relocation
12 costs, so that would be $102,000 per year per teacher. The
13 maximum salary range she gave us was 42,000, so from the
14 100,000, you take off 42,000, then you take off an additional
15 30 percent for whatever employment benefits they may have,
16 and after that you end up with this lump sum of about $47,000
17 that isn't going to the teacher and that is just going to
18 Columbus and it's not going toward any kind of office
19 overhead or travel expenses.
20 The only two things this $47,000 is going for is
21 either for incentives to bring the teacher here or to keep
22 the teacher here or going as profit to Columbus. Now, on one
23 hand we see 42,000 in salary going to the teacher, on the
24 other hand we see 47,000 going to Columbus, and I guess our
25 confusion is we asked her what sort of monitoring or
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1 reassurances you had over this 47,000, and she said she had
2 none. They didn't have to provide any paperwork as to how
3 this 47,000 was put out.
4 Now, all of that I put forth as a context because
5 our concern is that we recently heard that this Columbus
6 contract has been, I guess, renewed and I wanted to know if
7 there's been any sort of further requirements or monitoring
8 that is going to be done as to how this money is broken down?
9 A. Representative Oshiro, maybe I can shed some light
10 on all the questions you've asked me, which is quite a lot.
11 So let me see if I answer them all, and if I don't, will you
12 please ask me after that, okay, but I just passed out the
13 chronology for you. If you will take a look at that, and
14 maybe I can explain, and if you have your copy of the
15 contract, I can explain tracks 1, 2, and 3, and I think that
16 would help.
17 To begin with, there are three tracks. Track 1 is
18 the mainland offices and the management services. Track 2 is
19 the Hawaii offices and the staff support. Track 3 represents
20 the individual teacher's salary as well as the professional
21 services that Columbus offers to us or -- not offers but what
22 they provide for us, and that would be the building capacity
23 within the system, our expectation, and their training of
24 their people, because they hold their own separate trainings
25 for these teachers. During institute week they had their own
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1 training on special education.
2 It also involves that they are to meet with the
3 individual principals on a regular basis, and I'm looking at
4 monthly, to ensure that the services provided by the teachers
5 to the school and the principal are what we expect. They
6 also take care of -- if, let's say, the teacher gets sick,
7 while we provide the sub, we charge them, so we get
8 reimbursement for the sub. All of those services are
9 contained in track 3. It's not just salaries. It's also the
10 professional oversight that we expect from a management
11 company for their employees.
12 Q. Okay. I see that my time is up, but I'll have some
13 follow-up. Thank you very much.
14 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Members, we
15 will adhere to the five-minute rule, and we'll also offer
16 two-minute follow-ups per member.
17 Vice-Chair Kokubun, followed by Representative Ito.
18 VICE-CHAIR SENATOR KOKUBUN: Thank you,
19 Co-Chair Saiki.
20 EXAMINATION
21 BY VICE-CHAIR SENATOR KOKUBUN:
22 Q. Ms. Hamamoto, I wanted to ask a little bit about
23 within the context of the Columbus contract the
24 sustainability issue which has been raised, particularly by
25 the plaintiff attorneys most recently, but how can the state
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1 improve its recruitment, you know, and retention? Seeing
2 what Columbus has done, is there something that we can do to
3 improve our efforts?
4 A. Yes, and we have begun efforts -- we engage
5 currently in efforts not only in our recruiting out of state,
6 we're looking at international, specifically Canada, and the
7 Canadians have some good special education schools, colleges
8 that we're looking at. We also revamped our current
9 recruitment efforts on the mainland on what we're doing and
10 how we're setting up for our spring fair -- our spring
11 recruitment.
12 We also do mass interviews now locally and on the
13 mainland, and we're also doing our higher education
14 certification, how to get more teachers there, but as we're
15 allowing individuals to go through the certification and the
16 training -- or the process to become a teacher, what do we do
17 now? We also have beefed up -- when we have people come to
18 the state now, we have our own, quote, welcome wagon where
19 we're going to not only just -- before it was come here,
20 here's your ticket, here's your school, get there. So what
21 we've done is we've set up a unit which will now meet them,
22 help them climatize to Hawaii, transportation, help them get
23 to the schools, work with them, help them find lodgings.
24 So what we want to do is what Columbus does,
25 really. Columbus does this when they bring a person over and
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1 the transition, so we're learning from them the kinds of
2 things that we can do on our own so that we can help people
3 to transition to Hawaii as teachers with the intent of
4 remaining in Hawaii as teachers.
5 Q. Has there been an issue about retention?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. In terms of -- I'm talking specifically about the
8 teachers that have been recruited by Columbus.
9 A. What we've looked at is a few of the teachers --
10 and that handout that I gave you on the back lists exactly
11 how many teachers have left, for various reasons. Some of
12 them has been because of September 11th, others have personal
13 problems that they just had to go back for, but we've talked
14 about retention, and I know that Dr. LeMahieu had asked
15 Columbus -- we haven't worked out the details because we are
16 not there yet. We will be in about a year, but when it's
17 time for their contract to be ended, what kind of -- what can
18 we do with the teachers that will no longer be in Columbus
19 working for Columbus but may want to transition to be Hawaii
20 DOE teachers, and what would we look like, and at that time
21 the dialogue would be including HSTA. So we know -- well,
22 they are our partners in all this, yeah, so we have to take
23 them into mind as we go down that road. So it would be based
24 on our current salary structure for teachers, so it's clearly
25 understood that what they are making now, should they
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1 transition into Hawaii later on, will not look like what they
2 currently have.
3 Q. So you have assessed and analyzed what that
4 transition is going to look like, what kind of impact that
5 they may have fiscally in terms of the collective bargaining
6 agreement that will be coming up again?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Representative Oshiro was asking about the
9 extension of the contract. I'm not sure how you're phrasing
10 it. Is it an amendment to the contract?
11 A. Yes. If you take a look at that handout that I
12 gave you --
13 Q. Yes.
14 A. Item number one, that was the original contract for
15 three years.
16 Q. Right.
17 A. Item number five, when we looked at what we had,
18 our contract was amended down to 40 million, and we've done
19 amendments every time we've changed the numbers so they
20 reflect currently what is going on, and if you take a look at
21 the last page on item number 15, this is exactly how we've
22 broken it down and what we've -- well, fiscal year '01, that
23 would have been '01, yeah, '01, we actually -- well, we
24 allocated $7 million. Actual expenditures was 4.8 million.
25 For fiscal year 2, which is what we're currently in, we
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1 expect to spend 25 million. Fiscal year 3, we will be 28,
2 and because the contract is from September 1st to August
3 31st, it moves two months into fiscal year '04. So there is
4 no extension of the contract. It is the original three
5 years, but the contract life goes from September through
6 August, and based upon our fiscal year, which is July through
7 August -- June, we have -- we put in the proper or the
8 correct fiscal year notation. The contract should cost us no
9 more than 63 million.
10 Q. That's your projected cost?
11 A. For three years, and that includes last year as
12 well.
13 Q. My time is up, but just for my own clarification,
14 so you're saying that in items one and two, the years 1, 2
15 and 3 align with, what, fiscal year '01, '02, '03?
16 A. And part of '04, and the reason why we cleared it
17 up this time is because our last contract that we did -- I
18 spent -- I was -- I had to do the nitty-gritty, so I wanted
19 it to be reflected on what we do. It's just me.
20 Q. This is clarification. And in terms of meeting the
21 final benchmark for the recruitment and hiring of licensed
22 teachers in March, how does it look from your perspective?
23 A. It looks good because we have also -- have been in
24 discussions with the court that the benchmark for March
25 should also take into account where we will be in September
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1 rather than where we are currently, because it has to do with
2 retirements and where we expect to be.
3 Q. That would be September of 2002, then?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. I see. Thank you very much.
6 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Representative
7 Ito, followed by Senator Buen.
8 REPRESENTATIVE ITO: Thank you very much,
9 Co-Chair Saiki.
10 EXAMINATION
11 BY REPRESENTATIVE ITO:
12 Q. Good morning, Ms. Hamamoto. I just wanted to
13 follow up on Senator Kokubun. You know, you mentioned HSTA
14 was involved with the contract. You know, what was the
15 position of HSTA at that time?
16 A. HSTA does not agree, does not condone, they are not
17 support -- well, they are not supportive of Columbus
18 contract, and rightly so. They are aware of it. They were
19 informed that we would be limiting it to the neighbor
20 islands, and we have extended to Oahu this last time because
21 of the shortage. They are aware of it, but they are aware --
22 their awareness is not an indication of agreement or support,
23 and I do believe their knowledge includes the court order and
24 what we were required by the court to do.
25 Q. So what are they doing to help the situation?
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1 A. I don't know, Representative Ito.
2 Q. Okay. You know, we have a lot of certified special
3 ed teachers in the DOE but they are not in special ed?
4 A. Correct.
5 Q. And what are -- what is the department doing to try
6 to encourage them or try to, you know, tempt them to come
7 back into special ed?
8 A. Well, we have the incentive bonus of $10,000 should
9 they choose to, but as you know, being a former teacher,
10 teachers get very committed to the position and what they are
11 doing. However, the dual certified teachers that we have,
12 have helped us to meet the benchmark of the 85 percent or
13 those schools that have less than 50 percent teachers,
14 because those dual certified teachers in regular education
15 have special education teachers, and the court has agreed
16 during this round of talk that they will allow us to consider
17 them, those teachers, as supports for those schools that have
18 not met the benchmark. So at this point in time those dual
19 certified teachers are helping us meet compliance efforts.
20 Q. You know, I just had this fax come into my office
21 two days ago, and this is about medical monitoring,
22 medication monitoring.
23 A. Oh, meds monitoring for school-based behavioral
24 health, yes.
25 Q. Do you know about that?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. You know, the medical monitoring or treatment
3 services, it says over here medical monitoring or treatment
4 services are not -- are not, according to IDEA, not
5 appropriate, yet we're doing this, you know, like the
6 Windward district right now has spent $80,000 to provide
7 medication monitoring services during the period of July to
8 November 2001, and what happened is the DOE is paying
9 physicians a minimum of one hour at the rate of $120 per hour
10 for these services. In contrast, Mediquest and Medicaid pays
11 physicians 15 minutes to provide medication monitoring. So
12 now the physicians are asking to switch to DOE payment since
13 the DOE pays at a higher rate. Can you comment on that?
14 A. I can give you some insights. I don't know the
15 specifics of all that you mentioned. My understanding is
16 that with the reauthorization of IDEA, if meds monitoring is
17 part of the related services so that the child can benefit
18 from education, then the federal government through their
19 regulations have deemed that it would be an appropriate
20 related service and that meds monitoring by a psychiatrist,
21 because it's not about giving medication, it's about
22 prescribing medication that the student would need so they
23 would be able to manage themselves to benefit from education,
24 if that link is clearly stated, then education in this
25 particular case would be responsible. And it is a change
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1 from what the practice was prior, but it has come out in case
2 law that education agencies can pay for this kind of service.
3 Q. So right now --
4 A. And I believe that's what we're dealing with.
5 Q. So right now districts are paying for those Felix
6 class students with state funds, not federal funds?
7 A. Unless -- well, we're -- I don't know, and the
8 reason I don't know is because the districts have IDEA funds
9 which are federal funds that they can use for this purpose,
10 so there is federal funds available for this.
11 Q. Okay. Well, I have over here we are not allowed to
12 use federal IDEA monies for this purpose because it would be
13 a misuse of federal funding?
14 A. I think we need to talk to them.
15 Q. Okay. My time is up. Thank you very much.
16 REPRESENTATIVE ITO: Thank you very much,
17 Co-Chair.
18 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Senator Buen,
19 followed by Representative Kawakami.
20 SENATOR BUEN: Thank you, Co-Chair Saiki.
21 EXAMINATION
22 BY SENATOR BUEN:
23 Q. Ms. Hamamoto, thank you for being here. Can you
24 tell me with the special education teachers that are already
25 teaching, talk about retention? Can you tell me what is the
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1 DOE doing to help these teachers stay on their jobs? Because
2 I've heard some -- from other witnesses who have testified
3 that they do have a lot of challenges going through the IEP
4 process and they are having a lot of difficulty from maybe
5 the principal or maybe from others and it's very difficult
6 for these teachers. So what is the DOE doing to help these
7 special education teachers?
8 A. Senator Buen, let me begin my answer with the
9 statement that that is probably one of the most difficult
10 challenges we have because what the teachers are saying at
11 the bottom of this is how are you going to change working
12 conditions so that I will stay, and as you really know,
13 changing working conditions is not only looking at your
14 resources and allocating them in a manner which benefits, it
15 also means that there's a change in the training, and it's a
16 multi -- it's a multi-faceted task in changing working
17 conditions.
18 The department is currently engaged in that task.
19 We have tried to -- not tried to but probably the first one
20 that hits my mind when you talk about special education is
21 ISPED. It has been a very long journey. It has been a very
22 frustrating journey for many of us. Fortunately, there is
23 light at the end of the tunnel and it's getting better. We
24 will probably encounter other concerns that come up. The
25 department's commitment is to address them as they come up
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1 and to fix them so we are able to utilize them and help our
2 teachers.
3 In regards to many of the requirements for a
4 special education teacher, the reality is that it is governed
5 and it is directed by IDEA, which is the federal law, so
6 there are many compliance issues that we have no choices in
7 that must be dealt with, and then department's commitment is
8 how do we work with our teachers so that as we do our
9 compliance efforts, we can affect their conditions of work,
10 and conditions of work is not only the teacher allocation
11 methodology, which we're looking at for students to teachers,
12 which we've started our second round of how to work it to
13 make it better. It also includes facilities. Do we have
14 enough room for these facilities, do we have proper people
15 who can change, are we coaching our people.
16 So there are many issues, but it comes down to
17 working conditions and once the department -- and I believe
18 improving working conditions is a constant for an employer,
19 in this case the Department of Education. It's not something
20 that you achieve and you put on the shelf, but it's
21 constantly what are we doing every day to improve working
22 conditions. So I don't have an answer that says this is what
23 it is, but I know the areas that need to be addressed, need
24 to be fixed, and through time we expect that it will get
25 better. So one year from now I expect it to be better, but I
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1 also expect that there will be other concerns that I got to
2 address. So it's a matter of every year making -- fixing
3 what we have, making it better, and as new issues come up,
4 how are we addressing those.
5 Q. I'm sure that you will be working on that very
6 closely, because we all are concerned about retention. You
7 know, we can be hiring from the mainland and from Canada and
8 other places but to have these teachers -- you know, to
9 retain them and giving them the conditions -- the work
10 conditions that -- you know, I think we need to look at that
11 very closely because I've been hearing that there are a lot
12 of problems out there that the teachers are facing.
13 You know, you mentioned that we are hiring locally
14 as well. So is this through the RISE program? Is that the
15 only way other than graduating from the university and these
16 teachers applying for positions? Is RISE the only program
17 that you're looking at?
18 A. RISE is a certification program that the department
19 runs to certify teachers to teach special ed. It's similar
20 to Chaminade, Phoenix, but for certification purposes, that
21 would be the program that the department has, yes.
22 Q. How many years does it take for a teacher to be
23 certified?
24 A. Through the RISE program?
25 Q. Through the RISE program.
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1 A. If you have a degree in teaching but you're not
2 special education trained, it takes one school year or one
3 year. If you have a college degree but you are not teacher
4 trained, it takes two years. Part of the two years means we
5 need to give you the basic skills in teacher education,
6 pre-service.
7 Q. I see. My time's up. Thank you, Ms. Hamamoto.
8 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Representative
9 Kawakami, followed by Senator Slom.
10 REPRESENTATIVE KAWAKAMI: Thank you, Co-Chair
11 Saiki.
12 EXAMINATION
13 BY REPRESENTATIVE KAWAKAMI:
14 Q. Hi, Ms. Hamamoto. I wanted to ask about the other
15 two contracts, the Sun Belt and the EPS contract?
16 A. Okay. Let me begin with Sun Belt. Prior to the
17 state doing a -- one contract with Sun Belt, the individual
18 districts in the state had contracted with Sun Belt. Sun
19 Belt, like Columbus, is an employment agency and they provide
20 the OT, which is occupational therapy, physical therapy, and
21 speech language professionals in our system. Occasionally
22 when the department has been unable to fill the speech
23 language or the OT, PT numbers and Department of Health
24 weren't, we're still required by law to deliver these
25 services and we have contracted Sun Belt. We realize that as
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1 we move into the -- you know, after the contempt order that
2 having all these districts having all these individual
3 contracts wouldn't necessarily be the best use of resources,
4 so on a state-wide basis we contracted Sun Belt again to fill
5 these hard-to-fill areas.
6 EPS is another agency that is a referral system.
7 What EPS does is they refer -- they refer a name to us of a
8 teacher who may be interested in special education teaching
9 in Hawaii. The department then must take in the application,
10 clear the application, screen it if they have the
11 credentials, and then do the interview, and if we hire, then
12 we will pay EPS. But EPS just refers the name. They do no
13 other service than a referral.
14 Q. I see.
15 A. To date we have one that we've been able to hire
16 through EPS.
17 Q. What about the psychologists?
18 A. The school psychologists, if we contract, we
19 would -- you mean a contract for school psychologists, I'm
20 sorry?
21 Q. Because for a while we were not having enough, so
22 did you look at -- you know, outside for such clinical
23 psychologists, et cetera?
24 A. Yes. One of the models or one of the strategies we
25 use is what Mokihana does on Kauai in which what we've done
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1 is we have a master's level psychologist or a master's level
2 therapist or social worker who is under the supervision of a
3 doctor's level to give them the coaching and the mentoring
4 because we are unable to get that level of school
5 psychologists into the system. So we've looked at different
6 models with proper monitoring so we can assure the quality.
7 Q. So if we looked at those areas other than teachers,
8 regular classroom teachers, we have enough? I mean, we're
9 not running into trouble?
10 A. No, we don't have enough, but we've been able
11 through aggressive recruitment, we've been managing to do --
12 we've been managing to hold our own because we're also able
13 to contract for those services. So in those areas, for those
14 that either work for us as employees or we have service
15 contracts with them.
16 Q. Okay. The other question is on the Columbia. You
17 had two -- there were two people hired from Columbus and they
18 worked here with the teachers that were hired.
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. How long -- we paid that contract. What was it
21 like?
22 A. That's part of that track 2 for the Columbus
23 contract. Their salary and their services here in Hawaii
24 are -- comes to us in track 2 of the invoice.
25 Q. So that's from Columbus to you?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. So what would that amount be?
3 A. Let's see.
4 Q. Roughly.
5 A. I would have to look at the current contract, track
6 2.
7 Q. You can give it to us later. Now, we paid airfare,
8 we paid for their salaries, et cetera while they were here,
9 and how long did they stay, go back, come back, et cetera?
10 A. Representative Kawakami, I don't know the specifics
11 of how long, but those two individuals are the office or the
12 staff in Hawaii that meet the teachers and these are the two
13 ladies that will go to each school or are going to each
14 school to visit the teachers, so they are on site. They have
15 relocated to Hawaii for the duration of this contract.
16 That's part of track 2. That's the Oahu services.
17 Q. Okay. The next question has to do with the
18 benchmark on reading, which came in very late.
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. As far as that, when did it start, actually, a
21 couple years now?
22 A. Yes. Like the recruitment, the discussion on
23 reading had been going on for a while. It was -- the
24 plaintiffs had requested that we have a reading test that
25 would be a grade equivalency, and if the student or the child
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1 was reading below grade level, then what interventions would
2 the department be able to provide to bring that child up to
3 grade level. Included in that would be the monitoring and
4 the training of teachers to be able to provide intervention,
5 and that's where you see it moving into ISPED so that we have
6 to be able to record what the scores are and the progress of
7 the student.
8 Q. So you're tracking it, the teachers track it daily?
9 A. They are able to --
10 Q. How are they doing that?
11 A. They are able to track the progress -- every year
12 we put in the scores of the child to see if they are making
13 progress. We are also -- it's part of the IEP, and in the
14 ISPED system, because it's a process driven, they would
15 record what these individuals are. So every child would have
16 a set of scores under the evaluation and suggested
17 strategies. If these strategies don't work, then some place
18 in the IEP would be the specifics of what kind of
19 interventions we need for this child and then a score of how
20 they are doing.
21 Q. I see. I just want to round that up. Parents have
22 been calling -- I got several calls. Now, they are very
23 upset. Their kids are seniors this year, they will graduate,
24 and they find out that the kid is reading at fifth or fourth
25 grade level. So their complaint is that they are not reading
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1 so satisfactorily that they can't even go to maybe community
2 college. I just wanted to now how are we going to handle
3 something like that?
4 A. I don't --
5 Q. It's till age 20, right, is our commitment or
6 obligation? I didn't know how to answer them.
7 A. Refer them to us and let's -- we'll work with the
8 parent, and just a little digression, but I would want to go
9 into the assessment of the child for the specifics and then
10 see how we could add the additional supports to help them, so
11 it may be one period of reading and it may be a very specific
12 reading so that they could be able to -- if not caught up, at
13 least be able to be at a competency level, but we can work
14 with that, so have them call their district office.
15 Q. And I wondered because of the youngsters who have
16 graduated, moved on, do we track and see how many go to
17 community college, et cetera?
18 A. No. We only track -- we only have their -- what
19 they expect to do after they leave high school, but at this
20 time we're working on -- because of a resolution that came
21 out of the Senate last year, we're looking at how to track
22 them after they leave us to community schools, so that's
23 being done now.
24 Q. I just was looking in terms of what we can do to
25 integrate, let's say, those youngsters who can and want to
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1 get into some community college courses, et cetera. So it
2 might be something that we need to look at --
3 A. That's good.
4 Q. -- with the large numbers of kids now that are
5 coming out of special ed. Thank you very much, Ms. Hamamoto?
6 REPRESENTATIVE KAWAKAMI: Thank you, Chair.
7 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Members, we've
8 been going for an hour, so we'd like to take a short
9 five-minute break to give the reporter a recess. Thank you.
10 (Recess taken.)
11 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: We'd like to
12 reconvene our hearing. We'll proceed with Senator Slom,
13 followed by Representative Leong.
14 SENATOR SLOM: Thank you, Co-Chair Saiki.
15 EXAMINATION
16 BY SENATOR SLOM:
17 Q. Good morning, Ms. Hamamoto.
18 A. Good morning.
19 Q. You found it necessary and important to make an
20 opening statement, and in your opening statement you talked
21 about integrity, public trust, the need to audit, and
22 openness. Was that statement made as a comparison with the
23 previous administration or some of your frustrations or what?
24 A. No, Senator Slom. It was made because I've always
25 believed it and practiced it from the time I was a teacher
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1 through my administration as a principal. I've also shared
2 this with my faculty and I've also shared it with the people
3 in the department, the district superintendents, and any
4 principal group that I work with, and it's an understanding
5 of where I am and what I believe in and that openness and
6 trust that I would like to establish with those that I work
7 with.
8 Q. Well, Mr. Koyama, in his internal audit, had
9 brought up, his number one finding, a problem with
10 communication, and that would signify openness also. I'm
11 just wondering whether you had any problems in your position
12 as deputy with the previous administration?
13 A. No, I -- and the reason I'm having a difficult time
14 answering your question is because you put it in light of
15 Mr. Koyama, and when Mr. Koyama talked about -- and we
16 discussed this about communication. I don't believe it's the
17 unwillingness to share information. I believe the
18 communication that we're talking about is that we're all
19 working in our individual offices, that we never communicate
20 across the agency. So we have vertical communication, but
21 not often do we truly create the opportunities to talk across
22 the agency. So a lot of times I tell you stuff but you -- I
23 don't know if you know what I meant, and so that's one. In
24 relationship to the previous administration, I believe the
25 communication that was necessary for both of us to do the
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1 work that we did, that the superintendent chose to share with
2 me and I in turn with him, was as best as we could do under
3 the circumstances of being supervisor and employee.
4 Q. And about that internal audit, you indicated
5 earlier to Mr. Kawashima that that was your call to ask for
6 that?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And that you did discuss it with the former
9 superintendent?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Did he have any comments about that, since he had
12 not asked for an audit prior to that?
13 A. No, and I had -- because I looked at those
14 printouts every two weeks and I was tracking the money, it
15 bothered me that it wasn't balancing out, and I brought it to
16 his attention and I brought him not just the problem but a
17 resolution that I would like to work on and he agreed that,
18 yes, go ahead.
19 Q. Yeah, you had mentioned that previously, that you
20 had looked at the numbers and the disbursements and all and
21 it bothered you. Had the superintendent at any time told you
22 or anyone else that he was bothered by the same things?
23 A. He may not have informed me of his -- no, not in
24 that sense of the word, but he was aware that I had these
25 concerns because I was bringing some of these up to him.
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1 Q. I'm talking about if he had any of the same
2 concerns. He was privy to the same information and probably
3 more information.
4 A. I would not be able to give you an answer on that.
5 Q. You mentioned the HSTA, and initially you referred
6 to them as partners, but then later on in questioning you
7 mentioned that they were opposed to the Columbus contract,
8 and in a specific question as to what they are doing to help
9 either the teachers or the DOE or the situation right now you
10 were not aware of what they were doing. The HSTA has been
11 very critical of the legislature, and so I'm kind of
12 wondering, was there any kind of agreement made with the HSTA
13 at the onset of the Columbus contract, any kind of promises
14 or any kind of ideas that were advanced to them to allay
15 their objections?
16 A. Other than that we would -- from my part and the
17 area that I was involved in and responsible for when we
18 discussed with Columbus the agreement and the understanding
19 is that we would -- we would limit the Columbus teachers to
20 the hard-to-fill and neighbor island areas.
21 Q. But there were no other agreements or promises made
22 to HSTA?
23 A. Not from my -- not by me.
24 Q. Did HSTA make any requests or demands?
25 A. Other than that we don't hire Columbus teachers,
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1 I'm not aware of any other.
2 Q. Yesterday I asked Ms. Johnston if the DOE was
3 planning on coming into the 2002 legislative session and
4 asking for emergency appropriation. She punted to you.
5 A. That was a good punt. Before I -- I'm unable to
6 give you a yes or a no, and the reason why is because I
7 believe that at the time we -- should we make that decision,
8 that I would like to know that we have truly expended our
9 resources in the manner in which they were designed to do,
10 and I wanted to make sure that we do have an emergency that
11 we're looking at before we ask for it and stay within the
12 process by which emergency appropriations are requested.
13 Q. Okay. And finally, my time is up, you had
14 discussed various players, the consultants and the court
15 monitor and so forth, the personality, were you aware of
16 discussions or rumors or possibilities before the eminent --
17 I guess the absence of the superintendent or his quitting his
18 position that, in fact, he was under consideration for one of
19 these federal Felix positions?
20 A. There was that discussion with the Department of
21 Health as well. If the department -- the plaintiffs were
22 looking at if we did not make compliance, then it had always
23 been talked about what would be the next level of
24 consequence, and I believe the next level of consequence
25 would then be a receiver, what would this receiver look like,
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1 speculation comes about, names were tossed about, one would
2 have been would it be the superintendent, and we dialogued
3 the pluses and the minuses if the superintendent -- any
4 superintendent of education came -- became also a receiver.
5 So in that context, I don't know if it was specific to the
6 person so much as it was the dialogue was specific to the
7 superintendency.
8 Q. Thank you, Ms. Hamamoto.
9 SENATOR SLOM: Thank you, Co-Chair.
10 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you.
11 Representative Leong, followed by Senator Sakamoto.
12 REPRESENTATIVE LEONG: Thank you, Chair Saiki.
13 EXAMINATION
14 BY REPRESENTATIVE LEONG:
15 Q. Good morning again. In this morning's discussion
16 you mentioned that just about December, January of 2000 we
17 weren't meeting the benchmarks and that it seemed like the
18 reports were not adequate to the courts. I wonder if you
19 could elaborate on that?
20 A. The court felt that we were not -- we were not
21 producing the data in a timely manner on a monthly basis
22 which indicated school by school positions that were not
23 filled and positions that were filled by special education
24 teachers or substitutes. What we gave them was a composite
25 number, a numerical value, and they wanted more definitive,
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1 or as the monitor says, fine grain detailing, so what we had
2 had to develop was a fine grain detailing of the data which
3 I've submitted to the investigative -- to the committee.
4 Q. I see.
5 A. So that was the issue. They could never -- the
6 court could never look at what we had and say with -- what's
7 the right word -- with the assurance that what we gave them
8 was in fact what was happening.
9 Q. Because in the same breath you almost said that you
10 weren't -- you didn't agree with the court order, but then
11 you had to comply by it; is that correct?
12 A. With the national recruitment firm? Yes.
13 Q. So there wasn't anyone you could turn to. It was
14 something you and your organization, DOE, had to do; is that
15 correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And my next question had to do with Mr. Yoshie came
18 in some time ago and I'm not sure that you were here, but he
19 did state that when Na Laukoa came up for contract, he went
20 into some detail of how he felt that it wasn't -- they
21 weren't adequate to handle this, and then when the contract
22 was agreed to he wanted to go to the attorney general and he
23 went to you and asked you if he should go to the attorney
24 general and you suggested not, that he not go, and a few days
25 after that he lost his job. Could you discuss that, please?
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1 A. Representative Leong, I was here for that
2 testimony.
3 Q. Yes.
4 A. I believe it was regarding the Columbus contract,
5 not the Na Laukoa -- not the PREL contract.
6 Q. That kind of led to it?
7 A. No, because I don't remember Mr. Yoshie being
8 involved in the -- to my knowledge, the PREL contract. On
9 the Columbus contract, he brought up to me his concerns
10 regarding the legality of the superintendent's super powers.
11 Q. Yes.
12 A. And I shared with him that I am not a legal person,
13 so I don't know whether it's constitutional, it's legal, it's
14 not. I don't know, because we've never done this before and
15 his questions were legitimate. There were concerns, and I
16 told him that I would share it with the attorney general and
17 I told him that I would get back to him. So if he felt
18 uncomfortable doing the implementation or the administration
19 of the contract because he had these problems, that it would
20 be best if he stopped until we got some answers that he felt
21 comfortable with, but I would not be able to give him the
22 interpretation of the super powers. That I punt to the
23 attorney general. So I asked him to wait until I could get
24 him better information.
25 Q. I guess at that point the question that surfaced
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1 was why couldn't he have gone and, you know, sought an
2 answer?
3 A. He could and he had -- we -- many -- and in his
4 position as director of personnel, he has in the past picked
5 up the phone and called the attorney general, both the labor
6 and the administration sections, so for the level of job that
7 he sat at or the level of leadership, it was perfectly
8 acceptable, it was a common practice that he could pick up
9 the phone and call the attorney general on his own.
10 Q. Thank you.
11 REPRESENTATIVE LEONG: Thank you.
12 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Senator
13 Sakamoto, followed by Representative Marumoto.
14 SENATOR SAKAMOTO: Thank you, Chair.
15 EXAMINATION
16 BY SENATOR SAKAMOTO:
17 Q. Good morning.
18 A. Good morning.
19 Q. As always in our hearings, please, concise answers.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Even if sometimes there may be more to explain.
22 First, just to clear up the audit. Based on the 38 or so
23 recommendations, is the -- has the department already or will
24 the department soon address each of those issues that
25 Mr. Koyama has brought up and bring them to some resolution?
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1 A. Yes, many of them have been addressed, the
2 corrective action have been taken under the last fiscal year
3 umbrella. There are other issues that are process involved
4 that require more. It has to go into the structure and how
5 we do things, and those are being worked on currently.
6 Q. Related to that, many of the recommendations seem
7 to be related to budget on one hand, expenditures on the
8 other hand, and one of those reasons is why you wanted to do
9 the audit. Is there something organizationally that you may
10 propose so that the left hand and the right hand can work
11 together better?
12 A. Yes. And the proposal that we finally choose to
13 move toward on will take into account how it will affect or
14 if it will affect what goes on at school level. I don't want
15 the schools to have to make changes to address the state. I
16 would prefer that the state wrap itself around the schools
17 and provide the services for the schools.
18 Q. So you have a preliminary plan that you're working
19 on?
20 A. Yes, we've been talking with the assistant
21 superintendent.
22 Q. I'm glad you provided the Columbus numbers, you
23 know, and explained that maybe 4,000 people expressed
24 interest and according to your listing there were 354
25 applicants, or about 9 percent of the 4,000 actually applied,
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1 and of those 9 percent weren't hired, 20 percent declined
2 jobs, and the rest, say about 60 percent, ultimately were
3 hired. How does that compare to the department's own
4 efforts? Are the percentage about the same?
5 A. Senator, I did not do that comparison.
6 Q. Okay. As a former personnel person, maybe that's a
7 good comparison to do, and we can determine where we're weak
8 and where we can strengthen. Related to the 63 million on
9 your current proposal, assuming it goes per what's
10 anticipated, and I know it's a hypothetical question, if the
11 department learning from Columbus in terms of welcome wagon,
12 in terms of hand-holding, in terms of many, many different
13 points, travel, travel allowance, in spite of the union's
14 objections, if the department were to with their own forces
15 use resources less than 63 million, could we accomplish that
16 parallel with our own effort and save money compared to the
17 63 million?
18 A. That is the goal. That's what we intend to do. So
19 I am going to view that our experiences with Columbus, while
20 it's to meet an immediate need, it's also learning on what we
21 can do to better our recruitment and retention efforts.
22 Q. So we could offer incentives that maybe we weren't
23 offering before and such. That's good. I guess on the issue
24 of meeting the benchmarks, and you and others have testified
25 that the department many times felt intimidated, under the
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1 gun, pressured into, did not agree with but complied no
2 matter what. In hearing the Department of Health, it seemed
3 it was a little different. They didn't seem to be
4 intimidated. They seemed to say, well, they adopted our
5 benchmark, it was our plan and somehow got into the
6 benchmarks. So many times do the department people feel they
7 are in a war, they are in a fox hole or in a cave and doing
8 the best they can under the circumstances? Not to relate
9 them to the Afghanistan situation, but certainly lack of
10 resources and fighting to do the best they can? Why is it
11 that the Department of Health seemed to have things, well,
12 they accepted our benchmarks, they accepted our targets, and
13 we're meeting most of them, but the department was sort of on
14 the run in the other direction?
15 A. Well, perhaps it goes back to the basics of the
16 mission of each department. I believe the Department of
17 Health provides a related service and right now it's only to
18 the Felix class children, and for the Department of Education
19 our -- we have -- we reject no one in education. We take all
20 the children, and our obligation is to educate all. In that
21 sense, I believe that our resources and how we use them are
22 quite different. We do not pick and choose those areas in
23 which we will choose to fund, but we fund all. So it goes
24 back to -- for me, it goes back to the basic mission of the
25 Department of Health and the Department of Education.
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1 Q. So balancing resources?
2 A. That's -- yes.
3 Q. As opposed to singular purpose?
4 A. 183,000 kids as opposed to 8,000 or 11,000 is quite
5 a difference.
6 SENATOR SAKAMOTO: Thank you.
7 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you.
8 Representative Marumoto, followed by Co-Chair Hanabusa.
9 EXAMINATION
10 BY REPRESENTATIVE MARUMOTO:
11 Q. Hi, Superintendent Hamamoto. We welcome you --
12 A. Thank you.
13 Q. -- you know, to the hot seat. You have a real
14 tough job, and we all wish you well. Education is our number
15 one issue, and we want it seen right, done right, and
16 especially for special ed kids and regular ed, but what we
17 have seen is really disturbing. We've seen a financial
18 hemorrhage, and it wouldn't be so bad if it was just
19 financial, but, you know, if we get quality for the quantity,
20 you know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. There's several
21 incidents. There just doesn't seem to be really great budget
22 controls and loosely drafted contracts, people who are not
23 qualified, lack of reporting, no really good evaluation of
24 outcomes, at least one questionable research project, so it's
25 been very disappointing from here.
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1 I guess the Columbus one really stands out because
2 it's a hundred -- originally $100 million. I think in the
3 initial talking stage it was about over $120 million. But my
4 understanding is that it was ratcheted down to $40 million
5 after the original amount.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. And also at the beginning you had said that there
8 is a provision that requires that if -- money must be
9 available before you could pay the contract, so in other
10 words, you're saying the legislature must appropriate the
11 money before you can spend any, but, you know, I would
12 contend that those words are almost meaningless because you
13 have a lump sum budget. You know, we give you the money,
14 right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And then so you have the money, therefore, you have
17 to pay it out?
18 A. In the allocation process within the department,
19 and yes, we do have a lump sum, so what you -- what the
20 legislature does is it gives us the budget and it's approved
21 upstairs.
22 Q. So if the contract provisions are met, you have to
23 pay the provider?
24 A. In all likelihood, yes.
25 Q. Probably yes?
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1 A. Probably yes.
2 Q. And then recently you renegotiated an extension of
3 this contract to 2004 and you're -- the total contract is now
4 $63 million?
5 A. It is not an extension. It is the -- part of the
6 original contract that was reduced to 63.
7 Q. I'm sorry. You went from 100 to 40 and back up to
8 63; is that correct?
9 A. Right.
10 Q. So it is more money, and I'm wondering whether any
11 of the terms and conditions of the contract changed?
12 A. In respect to?
13 Q. The contract for 63 million.
14 A. Yes, what changed is the number of teachers we have
15 hired, the number of teachers we expect to hire at the end of
16 this contract, have on board.
17 Q. Okay. Did anything else change, any other terms?
18 Is there any percentage cap on the profits that Columbus
19 could make per teacher? For instance, Representative Oshiro
20 pointed out that if you pay a teacher $42,000 salary, then
21 Columbus is allowed to keep the rest of the money. You know,
22 it could be a huge percentage profit.
23 A. Well, I believe that included in that number that
24 Representative Oshiro asked me, besides the salaries,
25 Columbus pays for their medical, they pay for their workers'
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1 comp, they pay their FICA, they pay all the benefits that we
2 don't pay or we would have to pay if they were employees. So
3 if I take a look at what's contained in that salary package,
4 it's just not the salary, everything that goes along, the
5 fringe benefit as well, and I don't know if they cap. I
6 don't know if Columbus caps and I don't know what their
7 profit margin is as well.
8 Q. But you did not change any requirements for the
9 profit that Columbus could make, whether they pay a teacher
10 40,000 or 60,000, you know, plus benefits?
11 A. I have no idea on their profit.
12 Q. Did you negotiate the contract or this recent
13 renegotiation?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And who assisted you in this?
16 A. Russell Suzuki helped me with the final language,
17 our attorney general, and our staff people based on what has
18 been coming in.
19 Q. Is there any penalty if a teacher works less than
20 three years, penalty for the teacher or for Columbus?
21 A. I don't know if there's a penalty for the teacher
22 because that's a Columbus contract employee. For us, what it
23 means is that if the teacher leaves before that, we do not
24 pay whatever the salary would have been, so there's no
25 charge. We are charged on a monthly basis the teacher's
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1 salary.
2 Q. Well, but yet, you know, sometimes if you expect
3 performance of three years and it falls short, sometimes you
4 could assess a penalty of some type. I'm just wondering if
5 anything of that type was negotiated in the extension? I
6 mean, if you're giving them more money, I think you could
7 request more -- request changes and different terms and
8 conditions.
9 A. Yes, we could and we have been.
10 Q. Is there a requirement that Columbus perform on,
11 hire so many teachers per year?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Nor any penalty if they do not, of course. I would
14 hope that there would be some changes made in the future, and
15 you're getting more professional help in negotiating these
16 contracts. As far as I can see, the contract negotiations
17 are not as tight as they could be, and so in the future I
18 hope that we will see a shift in attitude and practice.
19 A. Yes, you will. In addition, I don't want to do
20 another Columbus contract. I expect that when it ends in
21 August of '04, it will be the end of our experience with the
22 Columbus contract of this nature and that we will be able to
23 hire not only our own but we will have enough resources to
24 allow a steady stream or a dedicated stream of teachers from
25 the state of Hawaii internally as well as externally.
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1 Q. Thank you.
2 A. Thank you.
3 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you.
4 Co-Chair Hanabusa.
5 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Thank you.
6 EXAMINATION
7 BY CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA:
8 Q. Thank you, Ms. Hamamoto. Let me ask you the buzz
9 word of this session. Do you have the super powers now?
10 A. I believe the super powers are conferred to the
11 superintendent's position, yes.
12 Q. Have you had any opportunity to exercise it since
13 you've assumed this position?
14 A. No.
15 Q. I've got a series of questions, and I know I'm
16 going to use up my five minutes very quickly, so let me begin
17 first with something that's left over from yesterday. I
18 asked Ms. Johnston who was here about the cell phone policy
19 of the Department of Education, and she said to ask you
20 because she doesn't have one. So let me begin by first
21 asking you the fundamental question of whether you have a
22 cellular phone that's paid for by the Department of
23 Education, state of Hawaii?
24 A. Yes, I do.
25 Q. And did you have this as a deputy or before
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1 becoming a superintendent?
2 A. I received this cell phone when I became deputy as
3 part of my 24/7 job responsibilities.
4 Q. Now, what is your understanding, if any, about the
5 use of the cellular phone which the state is paying for for
6 personal calls?
7 A. My understanding as a state employee is that
8 whenever I'm issued any equipment that is in the line of my
9 job responsibilities, it is to be used for that job, and
10 should I use it for personal, then I would reimburse the
11 state for that personal use.
12 Q. Is that something that you have come to understand
13 or was it a policy that's written within the Department of
14 Education?
15 A. I don't know if it's written in the department's
16 policy, but I believe it's a policy for the state of Hawaii
17 when we get employed as a state employee.
18 Q. Do you know if there's anyone who reviewed your
19 cell phone bills or is it an honor system?
20 A. I don't know if -- I don't know if anyone reviewed
21 my bills. I don't -- I don't know.
22 Q. Do you know -- do you recall in the time -- so when
23 you became deputy superintendent it was, when, about 1998
24 sometime?
25 A. '99.
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1 Q. '99?
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. So at that time did you -- have you paid back for
4 anything that you remember?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Did you have $100 a month plan, do you know?
7 A. No, I don't know what plan I'm on.
8 Q. You don't know. Have you ever heard of any
9 discussions regarding the cell phone bills of the
10 superintendent -- then Superintendent LeMahieu?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Let me ask you this, then. The superintendent's
13 cell phone bills were produced to us, and it was produced by
14 Ms. Johnston who said she got it from you or your office. Do
15 you know anything about that?
16 A. If it was from our office, then it probably -- it
17 must -- it came from Mr. Stafford Nagatani, who is our
18 executive assistant.
19 Q. So if Mr. Stafford Nagatani confirmed someone's
20 cell phone number for us, then he probably would be the one
21 who would know?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And would he also be the one who would review these
24 bills for the department?
25 A. The payment, yes.
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1 Q. He would. Okay. Let me ask you this, and the
2 reason why I'm so curious about it is because it is a large
3 number of minutes. The superintendent's bills, he had a $100
4 a month plan, and I've asked my colleagues and that's a
5 pretty expensive plan. Most of them are on 39.95 a month,
6 and they all represent to me that they don't use up all the
7 minutes, but the superintendent had $100 a month, and
8 beginning somehow in May, which reflects April, he had excess
9 air time charges of about $329. Then in June, $100 a month,
10 $490. Then in July for June he had $100 with $386 extra air
11 time. Then in August for July he had a $100 a month bill --
12 I mean plan with $500 extra in air time. Then in September
13 the bill goes to $200 a month base, which increases the
14 number of minutes, and the DOE still paid an additional $701,
15 and in October the increase goes to the 200 and they still
16 pay 338. November, 200, with $253 extra, and December they
17 up him to $300 a month -- a month, now, that's your base cell
18 phone rate, and after that it seems to slow down in terms of
19 excess amounts. These amounts seem pretty substantial for
20 cell phone bills given the base that we're beginning with,
21 and you say that you don't know anything about it?
22 A. No.
23 Q. As superintendent, now that we've brought it to
24 your attention, is this something that you will look into and
25 do some kind of follow-up on?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Let me also give you some other information to make
3 it easier for you, since we've broken this down. There is a
4 cell phone number which Mr. Nagatani has confirmed to the
5 auditor's office that belongs to Ms. Stocksdale that totaled
6 for the period of time August 11, 2000 to October 4, 2001 a
7 total of 6,554 minutes to that one number for a total of
8 2,035 calls. What's interesting to me, of course, is August
9 11, 2000, which is for the month of July, is 1,023 minutes
10 and September 11, 2000 is 1,148 minutes. In addition, there
11 are calls to her residence at 4,007 total minutes for that
12 period of time for a total of 122 calls and to Na Laukoa
13 itself for 1,140 minutes for 140 calls.
14 Let me ask you, as you were primarily responsible
15 for Felix under the superintendent at that time, do you in
16 your experience remember placing as many calls to one vendor
17 or one provider?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Does this seem like a lot of calls and a lot of
20 minutes to one provider? I can also tell you that for some
21 months it's like half the number of calls or half the number
22 of minutes billed. I mean, is that something that if you
23 were looking at it as superintendent and you came across
24 someone's cell phone bill like that that it would cause you
25 to wonder about it?
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1 A. Wonder, ask questions, and get an explanation of
2 why this was happening and what was the business about.
3 Q. And if these calls are in fact personal in nature,
4 you would ask that the monies be reimbursed, would you not?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Do you believe that simply because the
7 superintendent has left that we are not -- we the state are
8 not entitled to ask for any reimbursement for any of these
9 sums?
10 A. No, I -- no.
11 Q. So my time is up, and I will be asking you other
12 questions, but I will leave this in your hands, and if you
13 would report back to the committee and let us know what the
14 department or the board, whoever makes that decision, intends
15 to do about this, and I don't even know -- and you might want
16 to check whether these calls, because they relate to a Felix
17 provider, whether somehow they are charged to the Felix
18 account for any reason. You know, I don't know how creative
19 your accounting staff can be, but if that's the case, we'd
20 also like to know from what fund this is being paid off of,
21 because we do have the excess, and just out of curiosity, can
22 you tell us what your basic plan is when you give us this
23 information? We're kind of interested to know whether you're
24 going to have a $300 a month flat rate. That's almost
25 unlimited, you know.
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1 A. I think I'd like to stay to the 39.95.
2 Q. You can join the ranks. Thank you.
3 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: I'll pass now to
4 someone else, and I'll have follow-up questions.
5 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you,
6 Co-Chair Hanabusa. I have a $30 plan, but I won't ask any
7 questions about that.
8 EXAMINATION
9 BY CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI:
10 Q. I just have a few macro questions, Superintendent.
11 First, does the department -- your department plan to seek
12 emergency funding requests next year?
13 A. I believe I answered Senator Slom that I'm not able
14 to give an answer at this time until I take a look at all the
15 resources and ensure that we've used what we have, and should
16 that happen, then at that time -- but at this point in time I
17 would not be able to say a yes or no.
18 Q. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that response. I had a
19 couple of questions on the monitor's quarterly report that
20 was just issued for the months August 2001 to November 2001.
21 Did you have a chance to review that?
22 A. The August?
23 Q. It was August 2001 to November 2001.
24 A. This is --
25 Q. The monitor's quarterly status report.
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1 A. Yes, I've read all of them.
2 Q. This is the most recent one that was just issued a
3 few days ago, but there are a couple of statements in here
4 that I wanted to get clarification on. When was -- on page
5 11 of the report where the monitor stated that he has
6 received examples of persons resisting some aspect of
7 implementation because of the erroneous and distorted
8 information that has been presented to the Felix
9 investigative committee. Do you kind of recall reading that
10 statement?
11 A. Yes, I did.
12 Q. Do you know -- have you received examples of
13 individuals who have resisted implementation efforts because
14 of the work of this investigative committee?
15 A. Not to my knowledge.
16 Q. Are you aware of what kind of calls the monitor may
17 have received?
18 A. No, I'm not. There were no specifics and very --
19 and at times the information that you see before you may have
20 specific details that are not shared with the department, so
21 I don't know if it's a case -- individual case, that is, you
22 know, just an individual -- I don't know if it's case
23 specific or if it's the case that truly represents the
24 system. Until I go back and ask specifically what it is,
25 then I can determine what action I need to take.
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1 Q. But prior to issuing this report, the monitor never
2 relayed these kinds of examples to you?
3 A. Not -- not specific, or if he had relayed and he
4 has relayed, then we've discussed perhaps the rationale of
5 why and what -- and what we can do.
6 Q. I guess for me that kind of relates to kind of like
7 the morale of the department personnel, and that's a question
8 that Senator Sakamoto had asked earlier, but I wanted to ask
9 a question about morale, because that was also mentioned in
10 the quarterly report, where the monitor had stated that at
11 this point that the department and the state should be
12 working together to develop more workable solutions for
13 problem solving and ongoing refinement of the implementation
14 plans and that this should be accomplished without the
15 prodding or intervention of the plaintiffs' attorneys or the
16 monitor. Do you kind of recall that statement?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You know, to that extent, do you believe that the
19 prodding -- that the plaintiffs' attorneys or the monitor
20 have prodded or intervened unnecessarily in the past?
21 A. You know, Representative Saiki, you asked me -- you
22 began by saying that you'd do it on a macro level, and I need
23 to take it in perspective that the individual person in the
24 classroom may feel that this is an intrusion on what they
25 have to do because we are now doing things differently from
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1 the way we've always done it, and then where I sit at this --
2 in this particular chair I need to think about what is going
3 to be not only something that the teacher can do but what is
4 it that we need to do for the system as we move forward, and
5 then it becomes a tipping or how do we put everything in
6 perspective.
7 For the system, the prodding that we do, I can look
8 at it two ways, I can look at it as it's an interference and
9 become deadlocked and then I get into a head-butting battle
10 with them and I don't know if anyone wins so much as I think
11 maybe we all lose, or I can take a look at what they have and
12 see what is doable and then work within the system to make
13 these things so that we can accomplish something that's good.
14 I don't know if butting heads would get us anywhere, except,
15 you know, I believe we're going to be spending resources
16 unnecessarily fighting it and then I've got a federal court
17 in the end that's going to say do it, so how do I do it, and
18 I believe that many of the complaints and the concerns that
19 are brought up to the plaintiffs are those people who are not
20 satisfied who are -- it's just not working out, but I want to
21 look at it in a broader perspective than on that individual.
22 Q. Let me kind of rephrase my question a little bit.
23 Have you received information or reports from people within
24 the department, principals, teachers, staff members, who
25 believe that the prodding or the intervention of the
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1 plaintiffs' attorneys or the court monitor have affected
2 morale to the point where it has actually impeded
3 implementation of the consent decree terms?
4 A. Yes, I have. However, I believe that as we pass
5 our service testing and it's coming into compliance and as
6 the working conditions that Senator Buen asked what are we
7 doing about get better, that these opinions, perhaps, and
8 these experiences will start to -- will start to take on a
9 different light, but yes, I have received them and we have
10 addressed them as they have come up.
11 Q. Thank you. My time is up.
12 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: We'll take
13 follow-up questions at this point. First, from Special
14 Counsel.
15 SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA: Yes, thank you,
16 Chair Saiki.
17 EXAMINATION
18 BY SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA:
19 Q. A few areas I have, Ms. Hamamoto. I'm looking at a
20 document that was provided to us, I believe, through your
21 office, through the department, that's called -- it's
22 entitled improvement of the individual education program/
23 coordinated services plan/individual modification plan
24 process. Do you know -- do you recall this document?
25 A. No, sir.
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1 Q. And under the background portion of it, it explains
2 that the plan to retain experts and I guess have sessions to
3 improve upon the IEP process, IEP, IMP, ITP processes, do you
4 recall that? Let me ask you this, in the interest of time,
5 this process I think was implemented such that there was a
6 proposed budget and there was also plans as to what to do
7 during the fall of 2000 after which there would be more
8 decisions made as to whether to continue that process. And I
9 will tell you that under the proposed budget, I'm looking at
10 some items and there was an item that was estimated at
11 $85,000 for the employment of a state level IEP expert. That
12 was lined out. Then they have the mainland IEP expert team
13 headed by Dr. Judy Schrag, and a number of people in that
14 group. Now, was this plan ever implemented?
15 A. Now I remember. I didn't remember the title
16 because it was quite drawn out, but I do remember parts -- I
17 remember parts of it. When we came out of the contempt -- or
18 the court zero, zero, zero, there were five experts that the
19 court felt the department should employ to ratchet up our
20 standard and our delivery of services as well as our
21 expertise which they felt that we did -- there was an absence
22 of. One of them was an IEP person. We were unable to find
23 an expert in IEP. It was not clear to us exactly what this
24 person would be doing, and we had continually questioned what
25 is this person to do. We couldn't find one. We didn't know
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1 what to advertise for. We didn't know how to create the job
2 description for the IEP person.
3 As the dialogue continued, in the meantime there
4 was concern that the IEP process was not getting the results.
5 So the plan was then in the interim, while we were looking,
6 we would have a group of consultants to work with the special
7 education department to come up with a process for IEP, and
8 that's what you see that line out. So the plan as you see
9 there, parts of it had been implemented through the training
10 process in IEPs, but as it stands there, I believe no.
11 Q. And when was this plan implemented?
12 A. Or parts of it?
13 Q. Parts of it.
14 A. It has been ongoing since '00.
15 Q. What part of '00, do you recall?
16 A. Fall is when it came out. They started the
17 dialogue through fall and spring and --
18 Q. Okay. Was it your understanding that this program
19 was, I guess, implemented using the super powers that the
20 court accorded the superintendent?
21 A. No.
22 Q. So that these experts, were they hired in a certain
23 fashion?
24 A. My understanding is that the experts are part of
25 the technical assist because Dr. Schrag was the -- what do I
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1 want to say -- the lead person in putting together the team
2 and offering consultants.
3 Q. Is it your understanding that then the payments to
4 these experts were made through the Felix monitoring project?
5 A. That's my understanding.
6 Q. And as to who constituted this group of people, do
7 you know who that was?
8 A. I can see two faces in front of me, three with Judy
9 Schrag, and I don't remember their -- Jean, Jeannie, there's
10 two Jeans, I think.
11 Q. Vauwens, V-A-U-W-E-N-S?
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 Q. She was another one of those people?
14 A. Yes, and, Mr. Kawashima, that plan has evolved into
15 what the monitor now has asked for, which is that integrated
16 training plan for the department. So that's evolved from
17 that specific to something much more large.
18 Q. And this is where I saw that term and was reminded
19 to ask you earlier. There also within this mainland IEP
20 expert team was a Dr. Diane Sydoriak, generalist -- in
21 parentheses, general expertise in IEP process hyphen in-kind
22 support from the Columbus group, in parentheses.
23 A. Okay. Now I understand, all right, and I didn't at
24 the time. Remember I said earlier that Diane Sydoriak was
25 part of that team for that training and how they would work
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1 together and I didn't know whether she was being paid or
2 whether she was just being there as a dialogue, from what
3 you've read to me, then that means she was working there, and
4 it's not part of the Columbus retention contract and we're
5 not paying for that through the teachers contract. So I
6 would -- when she was in my meeting -- office there, that was
7 the first time I saw her and I didn't know how she was
8 connected, and she said Columbus was nice enough to let her
9 do this in addition to what they were doing, and that would
10 be, I would suspect --
11 Q. Do you know if she was paid for this expert
12 consultant work?
13 A. No, I don't.
14 Q. The fact that it says in-kind support, does it
15 suggest that she probably wasn't paid because she was already
16 being paid by Columbus?
17 A. My understanding of in-kind is that the person
18 would -- there's no money exchanged, I would suspect.
19 Q. So it would surprise you if in fact Ms. Sydoriak
20 was being paid her regular pay from Columbus and received a
21 stipend or some payment from the project?
22 A. It would concern me deeply.
23 Q. And the last person on that list of mainland IEP
24 expert team, though, is a Dr. Morina Piscolish
25 P-I-S-C-O-L-I-S-H. Do you know who that is?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Who is that?
3 A. That is Dr. LeMahieu's wife.
4 Q. Did you know she was on this team?
5 A. No, I did not, sir.
6 Q. Now, I'm not sure if she performed the services
7 that is suggested in this proposed budget, but if she did all
8 or part it, it appears that she would have been paid $1,000 a
9 day for one week per month of four days for eight months, in
10 other words, $32,000, $1,000 a day 32 times in 32 days. Do
11 you know if she ever performed any services for which she
12 received pay?
13 A. No, I don't.
14 Q. And in fact if you knew she was on this panel you
15 would have raised an issue about it?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Now, also, one last area, this -- we also received
18 a copy of a review report, and it is -- was completed by a
19 CPA, Allen Arakaki, CPA, Inc. Are you aware of that review
20 report of the monitoring project?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. You received copies of that, of course?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And my understanding is that this review report was
25 some type of either statutory or regulatory requirement that
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1 the project, by virtue of its being the type of organization
2 it is, had to have done on a yearly basis; is that correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And I see one of the -- the very last page under
5 note 6, which is related party transactions, let me read to
6 you what it says, and then I'll ask you a question, "The
7 Organization," and that's capitalized because I think the
8 organization refers to the Felix monitoring project.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. "The Organization expended approximately $224,400
11 during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2000 for professional
12 fees and related expenses for monitoring and national experts
13 retained by the court-appointed monitor through a company of
14 which he is a director." This suggests to me that these
15 expenses and the hiring of these national experts retained by
16 the monitor were then hired through his company. Does that
17 sound right to you?
18 A. I --
19 Q. His company meaning a company in which he's a
20 director. Are you aware of this?
21 A. No. I have seen the report. I read it over.
22 Perhaps not with as much attention that you've just brought
23 up now. And looking at it is something that they do on a
24 yearly basis as part of the consent decree, but no, I'm not
25 aware of the specifics.
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1 Q. I just point out, ma'am, that I was not sure as to
2 whether or not they were saying that he was a member of the
3 board of the project in reference to that, but then the next
4 sentence says, "The court-appointed monitor is also a board
5 member of the organization," meaning Felix monitoring
6 project, so it does seem, doesn't it, that this report by
7 this independent CPA suggests that these people were hired
8 through a company of which Ivor Groves was a director?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Rather than directly by the monitoring project?
11 A. (Witness nods.)
12 Q. Yes, it appears so?
13 A. From what it sounds like, yes.
14 SPECIAL COUNSEL KAWASHIMA: Thank you. No
15 further questions.
16 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Members, any
17 follow-up questions? Vice-Chair Kokubun, followed by Senator
18 Sakamoto.
19 EXAMINATION
20 BY VICE-CHAIR KOKUBUN:
21 Q. I actually don't have a question, Ms. Hamamoto. I
22 had a request. Is it possible for you to set up a practical
23 demonstration of ISPED for committee members?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Just so we could see exactly what's involved in
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1 that and how it's formed?
2 A. I'll work through your office.
3 Q. Or work through the chair's or auditor's office.
4 That's fine. Thank you.
5 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Senator
6 Sakamoto, followed by Vice-Chair Oshiro.
7 EXAMINATION
8 BY SENATOR SAKAMOTO:
9 Q. Following up on the resolution that Representative
10 Kawakami talked about and what happens to these children as
11 they transition out of the system, related to ISPED, I had
12 the opportunity to talk to some people from the National
13 Institute of Health that have been in town, and their
14 projects are research projects needing data, et cetera, and I
15 realized ISPED wasn't created to do data and research, but
16 because we're a state-wide system and because some of the
17 research that they are interested in deals with minority
18 populations, underserved populations, I guess I'm hopeful
19 that if some proposal were to come forward that, you know,
20 keeping confidentiality to what it needs to be that the
21 department would be willing to cooperate with the university
22 or Queen's or whatever entity that could possibly put some
23 research element together to develop tools to help equip our
24 teachers and preschool people with simple ways to identify
25 and do early intervention.
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1 A. Assessment, yes.
2 Q. Early so you would be at least receptive to moving
3 forward if something like that were to develop?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Good, thank you.
6 SENATOR SAKAMOTO: Thank you, Chair.
7 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Vice-Chair
8 Oshiro.
9 VICE-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE OSHIRO: Thank you,
10 Co-Chair Saiki.
11 EXAMINATION
12 BY VICE-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE OSHIRO:
13 Q. I'd just like to follow up on I think the
14 question I guess regarding the emergency appropriations asked
15 by I guess Co-Chair Saiki and Senator Slom. You had stated
16 that you won't really have an idea about it until you
17 actually get a better assessment to what you've actually used
18 and what you already have; is that correct?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. One of the issues I had brought up when
21 Ms. Johnston was here yesterday had to do, I guess, with the
22 left over emergency appropriations from the last session,
23 being that we've confirmed that there was about $17 million
24 in -- I guess that was unused for the emergency
25 appropriations. She attributed parts of it to, I guess, the
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1 strike, nonpayment of strike. She estimated that would be
2 about 5 million, and she also estimated that a part of that
3 may be due to I guess vacant positions, but in asking her if
4 she could provide justification or information about that,
5 she said it was very difficult to obtain that kind of
6 information to give us any sort of estimate. She gave us a
7 number of reasons, and I think I'm just bringing it to your
8 attention because that is something that we would be very
9 interested in in terms of being able to have that kind of
10 assurances. Because from our perspective, $12 million in
11 excess for an emergency appropriation is quite concerning.
12 So I do hope we can follow up on that issue.
13 A. I'd like to respond to that particular issue. The
14 emergency appropriation for the Felix response plan, the one
15 that we had the audit for, we spent down to 600,000. The
16 other -- the other dollars that you're referring to I believe
17 were from EDNs --
18 Q. 150?
19 A. Right. No. 150 was 8 million, and then 2, 3 and
20 4 -- EDNs 200, 300, 400, and 500 had excess, and that's the
21 combined 12 or 14 million that you're talking about that
22 lapsed back into the system. We asked the governor if he
23 would allow us to transfer those excess funds into EDN 100
24 and 150 so that we could use it to pay funding in there and
25 we were denied that request. So the Felix response plan
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1 emergency appropriation that we asked for, we spent that one
2 down to 600,000, and I'd like to clear that up for the
3 record.
4 Q. Thank you very much.
5 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you
6 Co-Chair -- I'm sorry, Senator Buen, followed by Senator
7 Slom.
8 EXAMINATION
9 BY SENATOR BUEN:
10 Q. Thank you, Ms. Hamamoto. You know, it continues to
11 bother me about the special education teachers, some of them
12 have come to me, I guess they found out that I'm on this
13 committee, and they've asked me or talked to me about when
14 they applied for positions here. These are local teachers
15 who have special education degrees, and they have applied to
16 the department and they had a hard time getting hired. Are
17 you aware of this kind of problem? Are you aware of this,
18 that they have applied and were not able to be hired?
19 A. Yes, we have had telephone calls from people who
20 have not been -- who are saying that they have special
21 education degrees and they have not been hired, and when we
22 go back and we do our investigation of why, we find at times
23 it may be several reasons, one is that the licensure may
24 not -- so you may be a special education teacher trained, but
25 you need to be licensed to be a teacher, and they may not
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1 have passed licensure, which is the PRAXIS, so that may be
2 one.
3 Another one may be people that are employed by the
4 Department of Health as a special education teacher for their
5 programs run through the health department, but while they
6 may be special education teachers for the Department of
7 Health, they don't qualify under the Department of
8 Education's requirements in our system, and you also need to
9 be licensed in the our system. You do not need to be
10 licensed in the Department of Health to be a teacher there.
11 So as we go through the investigation of why, there are those
12 that we found that we have been in error and we need to
13 correct and we need to bring onto the system, and there are
14 those that we have to explain that there are other mandates
15 that while they may have worked as a special education
16 teacher or have degrees, does not necessarily mean that they
17 can just be brought into the department. So we'd have to go
18 and look at what's behind each request, but we are addressing
19 it, and yes, I am aware of these concerns.
20 Q. Thank you.
21 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Senator Slom,
22 followed by Representative Ito.
23 SENATOR SLOM: Thank you, Co-Chair Saiki.
24 EXAMINATION
25 BY SENATOR SLOM:
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1 Q. Ms. Hamamoto, I was reviewing my notes and I'm not
2 clear on one thing. We were talking mostly about the
3 Columbus contract, although we did talk about Na Laukoa
4 before. Were you on the committee that actually reviewed Na
5 Laukoa's ability to perform the technical assistance?
6 A. No, sir.
7 Q. Because there was testimony that in fact you were
8 involved, but you were not involved in that?
9 A. No, sir, and I believe if we go back to the records
10 of those people who were there, my name is absent, but I
11 remember that was Dr. Nakashima, I think, who said that I may
12 have been there.
13 Q. Yes.
14 A. Dr. Nakashima sees me a lot, so I think he thinks
15 I'm in a lot of the meetings, but no, I was not in that
16 particular meeting and I was not involved in either the PREL
17 contract or Na Laukoa's relationship with the department.
18 Q. In any way?
19 A. Until the last month or so.
20 Q. Okay, thank you.
21 SENATOR SLOM: Thank you, Co-Chair.
22 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Representative
23 Ito.
24 REPRESENTATIVE ITO: Thank you, Co-Chair Saiki.
25 EXAMINATION
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1 BY REPRESENTATIVE ITO:
2 Q. Superintendent, you know, hearing the testimony of
3 Mr. Koyama and yesterday we had Assistant Superintendent
4 Laurel Johnston, and you mentioned a system this morning that
5 you wanted to, you know, somehow get out of that Columbia
6 contract and get our own system going. Does that mean we'll
7 look forward to reorganization or restructuring or overhaul
8 of the DOE?
9 A. Yes, yes.
10 Q. Is there a plan being drafted right now?
11 A. There -- this -- we will share this, and the reason
12 I'm hesitant because I realize we're on the record and should
13 I -- I don't want to put out anything that will cause undue
14 anxiety because many questions will come up and there haven't
15 been answers, and most importantly I don't want the teachers
16 and the principals to believe that we're going through
17 restructuring, what's going to happen, where are we going,
18 are there going to be changes, because it's about how do we
19 support them and allow them to do the best that they can do.
20 So we have begun the discussion. In fact, we've talked about
21 what we would look like so we can align our resources so that
22 both personnel, curriculum, as well as funding will go to
23 support complexes so that we can have outcomes and what are
24 the outcomes that we're looking at.
25 The plan that I shared with HGEA and with the
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1 assistant superintendents is that we will do our session by
2 coming up with the different kinds of configurations that may
3 or may not work and what we choose to do we should be able to
4 support it with the data that this is the best possible
5 option. At that time we will present it publicly to the
6 legislature, to the board, get input, and we also need to
7 present it to the principals to get input from the field. I
8 believe that if we're looking at an alignment of the
9 Department of Education to produce outcomes that we want,
10 that everyone has to buy in and everyone has to agree that
11 this is what we need to do to move forward. Without that
12 kind of ownership or buy-in, no matter what structure we
13 imposed upon the Department of Education, I believe it will
14 not be as productive or as successful as we would like it to
15 be.
16 So if we're looking at doing things differently, I
17 want to ensure that when we do it differently, the bottom
18 line and the action is based on will this improve student
19 achievement, and if the action does not result in better
20 student achievement, then I question what is the purpose of
21 the move, and that's what we have in place and that's what
22 we'll be moving on with the district superintendents already
23 this week we've begun the dialogue.
24 Q. I remember the conference with all the principals
25 at Hawaii Village and you had General Senseki there and he
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1 said that he went to transform the Army and he used the words
2 lean, mean, and lethal, so is that going to be part of the
3 DOE?
4 A. Yes, you have do the hook.
5 Q. Okay. I look forward to working with you,
6 Superintendent. Thank you.
7 REPRESENTATIVE ITO: Thank you, Co-Chair.
8 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Representative
9 Kawakami.
10 EXAMINATION
11 BY REPRESENTATIVE KAWAKAMI:
12 Q. Just a couple of questions. Following up on the
13 service testing.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. How were the testers selected?
16 A. The service testers are a combination of the
17 Department of Health people who have been trained, Department
18 of Education, and a third group that represents the monitor's
19 office, and the monitor selects these people. Well, not the
20 monitor, but the monitoring office. The three groups come
21 together. They were trained. The names of the students or
22 cases are randomly selected through a program run by the
23 university, UHRC, who also has the contract regarding service
24 testing. They get the results. They send the people out.
25 They do the case review. They send it back to the
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1 university, who does the final write-up to us.
2 Q. Okay, so it differs from island to island, am I
3 correct?
4 A. No. The reviewers --
5 Q. You use the same team?
6 A. No. The teams are always reconstituted, but they
7 are the same pool, but the combinations are reconstituted,
8 and sometimes Department of Health leads the team, the
9 Department of Education, and the monitor's office, so there
10 is a pool of qualified individuals that have been trained and
11 then they are put together based upon who can make the dates.
12 Q. So in the scoring or, et cetera --
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. -- is there consistency in what you see between the
15 testing?
16 A. Yes, I do. There is rater reliability. I believe
17 that's part of that training that Ray Foster comes down to
18 do, so we have rater reliability.
19 Q. Thank you very much.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KAWAKAMI: Thank you.
21 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you.
22 Members, any other follow-up questions? If not, Co-Chair
23 Hanabusa.
24 EXAMINATION
25 BY CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA:
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1 Q. Ms. Hamamoto, there's another area that bothers me,
2 and I'd ask you to look into it too. This is the use of
3 federal impact aid, and I don't know if you were here when I
4 asked Ms. Johnston. As you know, in 2000 legislative session
5 we enacted what is called Act 2, 3, 4, which gave the
6 department basically the right to retain all surplus, for
7 lack of a better description, on the federal impact aid which
8 you receive.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And I think the department and the budget and
11 finance agreed to 24.9 or something as the threshold.
12 Anything above that that you received -- the department
13 receives you're able to retain?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. However, as part of that law, the legislature was
16 very specific as to the use of the money in terms of a
17 proportionate use. When we went through how the PREL and Na
18 Laukoa contract came to be and also when we looked at the --
19 what I think Chris Ito identified as EDN 100 expenditures,
20 you have a lot of EDN 150 in there as well. My concern is as
21 follows: One -- first of all, let me just ask you, are you
22 familiar with the use of the federal impact aid and how those
23 particular contracts came to be funded through the use of the
24 federal impact aid process?
25 A. Some knowledge perhaps, yes.
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1 Q. Oh, you are. Then let me ask you, what is your
2 understanding as to when -- and it was I believe Dr. LeMahieu
3 who requested of the governor for the right to use these
4 funds for EDN 100, and the governor approved the use of the
5 funds for EDN 100. Is it your understanding, then, that the
6 funds had to be used for EDN 100 purposes?
7 A. I believe I -- was EDN 100 and I think the
8 reimbursement -- and I'm saying I think because this is my
9 recollection. I was not in many of the meetings regarding
10 the expenditure or how the funds would be allocated out or
11 designated. My understanding is it comes in 100 and now 150
12 and they are put in there. The surplus, then, because it is
13 surplus is to be proportionately divided, and we had some
14 concerns -- we had various interpretations, is
15 proportionately proportionate across all the EDNs or
16 proportionate between what we spend in EDN 100 and 150, and
17 we need clarification and we need to seek clarification on
18 that, what does that proportionate mean. I do believe that
19 the EDN -- when the governor approved or released the funds,
20 he released it to 100, but because we thought about
21 proportionate, then we took that 100 and it was
22 proportionately spread over 100 and 150. So I believe there
23 may not have been that clarity of the intent of that
24 proportion and what it was meant to do.
25 Q. But there's no question, right, when you requested
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1 the funds from the governor you told him that it would be
2 used in EDN -- when I say you, I mean the department -- it
3 would be used in EDN 100?
4 A. Yes. I'm wondering if at the time the request was
5 made the law was not enacted and -- because the law begins in
6 July, the request would have gone to the governor
7 sometime prior --
8 Q. In June?
9 A. Right. So it would have been the only mechanism we
10 would have had would be to ask for it in 100, and that was --
11 we know that in the transition year it came in 100, we put it
12 in 100, and it should have been coming in the next year and
13 it should have been proportionately disbursed.
14 Q. The other question is the Board of Education, then,
15 would have had to approve that appropriation -- quote/unquote
16 appropriation in terms of for what amounts you could use that
17 excess over the allotted amount?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. You would agree with that?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What I'd like to also request that you do is that
22 you go back to the expenditure. It's troubling to me if you
23 add the categories, it is more than the proportionate share
24 that went to EDN 150, and I read the law to say proportionate
25 over the ID programs of the department, and that goes from
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1 EDN 100, 150, all the way to 500. I believe there's six
2 categories, and proportionate by the amounts that are
3 appropriated. I think you've got to take the total
4 appropriation and get a percentage of what each amount -- so
5 EDN 100 is about 800 million out of 1 billion, so in that,
6 and provide us with your analysis, because I personally
7 happen to believe that the department's violated the law in
8 that expenditure category.
9 A. All right.
10 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you.
11 Members, any other follow-up questions? Representative
12 Leong.
13 REPRESENTATIVE LEONG: Thank you, Co-Chair
14 Saiki.
15 EXAMINATION
16 BY REPRESENTATIVE LEONG:
17 Q. I just wanted to hear it again, who pays for the
18 service testing instrument owned by Dr. Groves and Foster?
19 A. Who pays for the instrument?
20 Q. Yeah, that's used.
21 A. I don't believe that we pay for the instrument. We
22 pay for the service --
23 Q. The service, exactly.
24 A. Of service testing. We pay the monitor's office
25 for the service testing service.
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1 Q. Is this the same instrument that was initiated here
2 in Hawaii and now used on the mainland?
3 A. I believe it's customized for Hawaii. I don't know
4 if it's used on the mainland, what is used in Hawaii.
5 Q. I was wondering if it was the one that was
6 initiated here through our schools and then -- certain
7 schools and then copyrighted under his name?
8 A. I don't know.
9 Q. Thank you, Ms. Hamamoto.
10 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Thank you.
11 Members, any other follow-up questions.
12 If not, I just have a short one, Ms. Hamamoto.
13 EXAMINATION
14 BY CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI:
15 Q. When Paula Yoshioka testified last week she had
16 stated that at least with year one of the Columbus contract
17 the amount of approximately $112,000 was allocated per
18 recruited teacher, and she also explained that if in fact the
19 actual expense of bringing that teacher over here and
20 retaining -- hiring the teacher fell below the $112,000 mark,
21 then Columbus would keep the difference. Do you -- were you
22 here that day when she --
23 A. Yes, yes, sir, and let me offer some clarity there.
24 The hiring -- recruiting the teacher, the up -- recruiting
25 the teacher, flying them over to get recruited were charged
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1 in track 2 of that. Track 3, which is the salaries, includes
2 the administrative services for the professional development,
3 the salaries, the fringe benefits, and, you know, whatever is
4 included to continue to maintain the teacher here. So it's
5 just not the salaries in that particular track. It's -- the
6 other parts of that makes up a person's employment services.
7 Q. Basically it's a package?
8 A. It's a package.
9 Q. So does the DOE keep an accounting, though, of the
10 cases where the actual cost of the package falls below
11 112,000?
12 A. Every month we're -- a bill is submitted. We're
13 invoiced on a monthly basis, and I -- it's by track 1, 2, and
14 3. They also give us the back-up documentation of each
15 teacher and how much they pay the teacher salary for that
16 month, so we're charged that amount, and I don't know -- and
17 they've never given us -- we've requested a detailing of, you
18 know, how -- what is that breakdown so that we know maybe
19 what their profit margin is, but we've never -- they have not
20 complied and they have never given it to us. They will give
21 us what they are paying the teacher or how much we're paying
22 for that teacher per month. That's what we're able to get.
23 Q. So the department relies on Columbus to provide
24 that information on profit margin? We have no idea what the
25 profit margin is?
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1 A. I have no idea. We're invoiced by the track and
2 how much they -- what their cost is to us and we pay off of
3 that, so I don't know.
4 Q. Can you continue your efforts to secure that
5 information from Columbus and then share it with the
6 committee?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Thank you very much.
9 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Members, any
10 other follow-up questions?
11 If not, Ms. Hamamoto, thank you very much for your
12 testimony today.
13 MS. HAMAMOTO: Thank you.
14 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Members, we
15 just have a housekeeping matter we wanted to go over with --
16 go over right now.
17 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: We have received
18 some inquiries about Dr. LeMahieu, and at this time the
19 co-chairs would like to put on the record and give to the
20 public an idea of what has occurred. The committee made the
21 decision to give Dr. LeMahieu the option as to whether or not
22 he would appear before the committee, and I have shared with
23 the committee my conversations with Dr. LeMahieu in the
24 executive session, and some members of this committee have
25 also had conversations with Dr. LeMahieu. Where my
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1 conversation ended with Dr. LeMahieu, and I believe it was on
2 Wednesday of this week, was that it was the committee's
3 feeling that the decision should be made by him as to whether
4 he wanted to come forward and give testimony, and
5 Dr. LeMahieu had informed me that by the end of that day he
6 would either let Co-Chair Saiki or me know if he would be
7 appearing. We have not heard from him, so we are assuming
8 that he has chosen not to appear before the committee, and as
9 the committee is very well aware, and we'd like the public to
10 know, that though Dr. LeMahieu was identified in our original
11 subpoena request, we did not issue a subpoena of
12 Dr. LeMahieu, so he is not compelled to be here. We asked
13 that if he wished to come, that he come voluntarily. So with
14 that, we hope that that addresses some of the questions that
15 people may have, and I believe that it was a gesture of
16 sensitivity by the committee to have left the option to the
17 doctor himself to make that decision. So is there any
18 comments that any other members would like to make at this
19 time regarding that?
20 Members, the co-chairs would like to make a motion
21 at this time in that we will convene in -- we'll move to
22 executive session. We will not reconvene this hearing. At
23 the end of executive session, this hearing will be over, and
24 our next scheduled hearing will be next week Friday at 9:00
25 o'clock, so members, the purpose of this executive session is
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1 to further discuss with our attorneys the status of the
2 remaining witnesses and what action the committee will
3 authorize the attorneys to take. So is there any questions
4 or discussion at this moment? If not, Co-Chair Saiki.
5 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Co-Chair
6 Hanabusa?
7 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Aye.
8 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Vice-Chair
9 Kokubun?
10 VICE-CHAIR SENATOR KOKUBUN: Aye.
11 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Vice-Chair
12 Oshiro?
13 VICE-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE OSHIRO: Aye.
14 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Senator Buen?
15 SENATOR BUEN: Aye.
16 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Representative
17 Ito?
18 REPRESENTATIVE ITO: Aye.
19 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Representative
20 Kawakami?
21 REPRESENTATIVE KAWAKAMI: Aye.
22 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Representative
23 Leong?
24 REPRESENTATIVE LEONG: Aye.
25 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Representative
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1 Marumoto?
2 REPRESENTATIVE MARUMOTO: Aye.
3 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Senator
4 Matsuura is excused. Senator Sakamoto?
5 SENATOR SAKAMOTO: Yes, sir.
6 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Senator Slom?
7 SENATOR SLOM: Aye.
8 CO-CHAIR REPRESENTATIVE SAIKI: Eleven ayes
9 and one excused.
10 CO-CHAIR SENATOR HANABUSA: Thank you.
11 Members, we will convene in executive session in the next
12 room, and members of the public, thank you very much. Thank
13 you, Superintendent Hamamoto. And next week Friday will be
14 our next hearing, 9:00 here. Thank you very much.
15 (Hearing adjourned at 12:47 p.m.)
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1 STATE OF HAWAII )
2 ) ss:
3 CITY & COUNTY OF HONOLULU )
4
5 I, JESSICA R. PERRY, do hereby certify:
6 That on November 10, 2001, at 9:06 a.m. the
7 foregoing proceedings were taken down by me in machine
8 shorthand and was thereafter reduced to typewritten form by
9 computer-aided transcription; that the foregoing represents,
10 to the best of my ability, a full, true and correct
11 transcript of the proceedings had in the foregoing matter.
12 I further certify that I am not attorney for
13 any of the parties hereto, nor in any way concerned with the
14 cause.
15
16 DATED this 18th day of November 2001, in
17 Honolulu, Hawaii.
18
19
20
21
22
23 Jessica R. Perry, CSR 404
Notary Public, State of Hawaii
24 My commission expires: 5/11/03
25
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