A bill that would require a comprehensive financial, management and program audit of the Hawaii Department of Education will be heard Wednesday by a state Senate committee.
The Department of Education oversees 283 public schools and charter schools with more than 13,000 teachers serving 185,000 students annually. The department has a $1.7 billion dollar budget for the fiscal biennium 2013-2015, which constitutes more than 15 percent of the executive branch’s total program costs.
House Bill 1352 will be heard by the Senate Committee on Education at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Honolulu.
“While the DOE has frequent internal audits, an external audit of this scope has never been done before,” says Vice Speaker John Mizuno, the author of the bill. “The bill we are proposing seeks transparency and accountability, eliminates duplication of services, eliminates waste and programs that are not working and focuses our resources on programs that are working, efficient and benefit Hawaii’s students.”