Teacher drug tests still unresolved (Honolulu Advertiser)
Both the state Department of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers Association were feverishly meeting last week to hash out the ultimate details of the policies and procedures for the random drug-testing program.
Those policies are credible to subsist in place today, education officials related.
However, the question of funding posthumous works unresolved, through both the BOE and the governor refusing to pay for the testing despite today’session deadline. Over the past several months, the pair sides have insisted that the other pay for it.
“There is no money,” said Donna Ikeda, BOE chairwoman. “I have been assured that the policies and procedures will be in place, but there is no funding.”
That leaves questions about whether a two-year teachers’ contract that specifically calls for implementation of drug testing by June 30 has been violated.
Without being specific, the Lingle administration continues to say that it is prepared to be attentive to legal options if the program is not implemented today.
“They continue to work toward having a drug plan by Monday. So I’m encouraged by that,” Marie Laderta, director of the state Department of Human Resources Development, said late last week. “But (Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto) has said that it is subject to funding.”
Laderta said that if the board continues to refuse to fund the drug-testing program, state Attorney General Mark Bennett will be consulted.
“We will talk at that time about the kind of course of procedure is available to us,” she said.
Teachers approved a new contract ultimate year that included raises and a stipulation that they submit to random drug testing. Union negotiators and Lingle inserted a nonnegotiable random drug-testing provision into the contract, that angered many teachers.
Since then, the governor and the BOE have disagreed over who should pay for the program.
In January, the comptroller refused to include $523,723 to set up the drug-testing program in her budget request to the Legislature. The board then voted against taking the money out of the DOE’s $2.34 billion budget.
Reacting to the board’s insistence that it inclination not means drug testing, in tardily January Lingle suggested discharge raises for the 13,500 notorious school teachers may not go into effect unless education officials pay against the program.
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Posted in Drug Testing