Only weeks after ending Furlough Fridays, which became a lightning-rod issue resulting from dramatic education budget cuts, Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a legislative attempt to raise salary caps for education department leaders.

Senate Bill 2434 would have increased the maximum salary levels for the superintendent and could have influenced what candidates the Hawaii State Board of Education is able to attract for the position vacated earlier this year by former superintendent Patricia Hamamoto. The superintendent’s salary was capped 10 years ago at $150,000. (Visit our education accountability topic page to learn more about current salaries and the proposed bill).

The bill also proposed raising caps on the salaries of the deputy superintendent, assistant superintendents and complex area superintendents.

Lingle stated her reason for considering a veto was that it “allows hefty salary increases, including bonuses, for certain education staff including the Superintendent and Complex Area Superintendents, that could provide up to a maximum compensation of $250,000 per year without statutorily specific performance obligations.”

Hawaii State Board of Education Chairman Garrett Toguchi said last month that the board hopes to hire a new superintendent before the end of the summer.

“Our concern is that we’re trying to bring the superintendent’s pay up to par with other school districts of similar size,” board spokesman Alex Da Silva told Civil Beat a few weeks ago when Lingle announced the bill was on her potential veto list. “We want to make sure we’re attracting the kind of candidates we want here.”

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