Hawaii's remote location makes it inherently expensive to travel to and from, and government employers often encounter criticism when they travel to Hawaii on taxpayer dollars. However, Hawaiian taxpayers are funding the government employers with money from the Department of Education (DOE), according to KHON 2 News.
KHON 2 obtained spending reports through an open-filing that showed between one and two million dollars a year was spent on out-of-state travel by the DOE, coming to a total of $7 million since fiscal year 2010.
"I think that's ridiculous, because why should the money be spent out of state?" Dolly Phillips, a retired teacher, told KHON. "It should be spent on the children, maybe new books?"
The travel is for standard educational issues, such as school turnaround meetings, Race to the Top and common-core standards, according to the DOE.
"We can learn the best practices right here," Phillips said. "You get your own group together and you share knowledge back and forth with each other.
"I just don't think it's right," she continued.
Dolly Phillips is not the only person upset by the spending on out-of0state travel.
"I think we have qualified teachers here, and they can do a good job just as well as in the mainland," Moses Andres, who is the grandfather of a teacher, said.
Among the DOE employees who have used taxpayer money for out-of-state travel include a special needs supervisor and a child nutrition program director.
"I don't like when they take the arts funds away," Alice Booth, who has children that attended public schools and grandchildren that currently do, said. "Could they have spent this on that?"
Federal funds make up approximately $4.6 million of the travel coasts, according to the DOE.
"I love that, I love that," Greta Hegerfeldt, a hula teacher, said. "Whenever there's an opportunity to do anything and the federal funds will come along, you want to bring that into the state.
"I think that's good," Hegerfeldt continued.
The DOE said that online conferencing has cut down on travel costs.
However, hundreds of thousands of dollars are being paid to various travel agencies. Panda Travel has received nearly a million dollars and said they used to have an exclusive but that the DOE has moved away from that.
"When you go with the big mega-agencies online, you're dealing with restrictive tickets, it's penalties ad stuff for changes," Mike Brown, of Panda Travel, said. "These guys always have to make changes because meetings get moved, things like that happen."
The DOE said it does it's best to keep costs down.
"We get multiple quotes to find the best prices, base approval on what specific strategic plan goals the travel will help us achieve," the DOE said. "We will continue to keep a tight focus on travel and costs."
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