Summary
Hawaii lawmakers criticized the state Department of Education for failing to provide clear, complete records about employee travel in 2025, focusing on the gap between what the Legislature requested and what the department supplied. In interviews and a recent hearing, education leaders said the reporting they received did not give lawmakers enough information to assess the travel’s purpose, participants, or funding sources as the state grapples with budget pressures.
For the third straight year, lawmakers said the Department of Education did not deliver straightforward documentation on how it spent almost $4 million on more than 8,000 trips in 2025. The department submitted more than 200 pages of travel records dating from January through November, but lawmakers said it filled out only five of 13 pieces of information they required for each trip—such as the general programs associated with travel, start and end dates, and the total cost.
Lawmakers said the DOE records did not include attendees’ position numbers or job titles, the department’s justification for travel, or whether trips involved meetings or training sessions. They also said DOE did not indicate whether the trips were covered by state dollars or other funding sources, limiting what legislators could determine from the submission.
DOE employee travel expenses ranged from $2 for a single day of travel to $10,000 for a trip spanning eight days in May, according to the reporting. But lawmakers said the records did not specify what expenses covered or where employees and students went, and DOE Assistant Superintendent Brian Hallett told Civil Beat that some expenses reflected per diem rates for neighbor island travel.
Sen. Donna Kim, the Senate Education Chair, said lawmakers’ concern grew after the Legislature requested the same type of records from other state agencies preparing for budget committees and found those agencies provided more detail. “They don’t have the information at their fingertips, they’re not keeping records,” Kim said, adding that she viewed the shortfalls as part of a broader pattern.
Hallett told Civil Beat that DOE requires administrators to track and approve employee trips but said the department did not have an easy way to compile travel records in the format requested by the Legislature. He said different supervisors and superintendents are responsible for travel requests, and trip agendas and receipts are submitted in lengthy documents rather than spreadsheets—making it harder to pull the needed details quickly.
The department said the late development of the request affected what it could produce. Hallett said that ahead of January budget briefings DOE had not anticipated lawmakers would ask for agencies’ travel documents and had less than two weeks to assemble the records, though he also said the Legislature had requested travel reports from state agencies every year since the 2024 session. Hallett said agencies’ reasons for travel can range from maintenance requests at neighbor island schools to professional development and learning opportunities for students and staff on the mainland, and he said some expenses used federal Covid-relief funds rather than state dollars.
Despite DOE’s explanation, lawmakers said the department’s submission still did not provide enough information for them to evaluate where the money went and what it achieved. During a hearing last month, Sen. Samantha DeCorte said, “When the work-related travel accumulates to almost $4 million, it’s important,” and she said lawmakers “We’re going to take it serious.”
Kim and other lawmakers also pointed to broader accountability concerns beyond the travel reports. Lawmakers and transparency advocates said DOE has faced previous scrutiny from the state auditor’s office over other costly initiatives, including efforts to cool school campuses, and they said DOE struggled to justify rising school meal costs in earlier testimony. Camron Hurt, director of Common Cause Hawaiʻi, said low public trust can worsen when large agencies such as DOE do not provide diligent transparency, while Joe Kent, executive vice president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaiʻi, said a lack of transparency is a sign that an agency is taking public money for granted.
In response to the criticism, lawmakers said they are pursuing measures to restrict travel spending and require more detailed reporting. Kim said one bill introduced last week would set a two-year moratorium on state-funded employee travel, with exceptions for court appearances, federal compliance, and administrative meetings. She said the proposal would still allow travel for professional development and training but require agencies to confirm that a virtual option is not feasible before approving trips, and it would require annual reporting to the Legislature on trip purposes and locations, total costs, and how travel benefited the state.
Kim said she expects the reporting requirements in the bill to increase clarity on how agencies track and calculate trip costs. She said the Legislature has also questioned travel-related discrepancies, including DOE’s reporting about costs for some South Korea trips, and she said the department later corrected figures after her office raised questions about airfare costs and inconsistencies in how trip cost estimates were presented. DOE Communications Director Nanea Ching said in an emailed statement that the department mixed estimated costs per traveler with airfare costs across four South Korea trips in its report to Kim and corrected the numbers later the same day, adding that DOE said the trips supported career preparation programs focused on agriculture and food production and helped teachers incorporate farming methods into classes.