DRUG TESTS
Deadline for start of drug tests is up
By Loren Moreno
Advertiser Staff Writer
Gov. Linda Lingle said yesterday that education officials want to renege on the terms of their contract by avoiding random drug testing of public school teachers.
The deadline for implementing the drug testing was yesterday, and no testing took place.
Teachers approved a contract on June 25, 2007, that included raises and a stipulation that they submit to random drug testing.
Most of the pay raises that were promised in the new contract — a 4 percent increase in July and a 3 percent increase in January — have already taken effect.
Donna Ikeda, chairwoman of the state Board of Education, said that over the weekend education officials tried to get the drug testing deadline extended by 30 days. Lingle denied that request, Ikeda said.
Yesterday, Lingle said the education officials were seeking to "renegotiate" the contract's random drug testing clause.
"They came in at the 11th hour after everything had been agreed upon ... and said we want to change the whole scheme here. It was just not right. What they wanted to do really was just avoid random drug testing," Lingle said.
"They wanted to go back to the beginning and renegotiate what's already been negotiated," she said.
"We are prepared to immediately seek all appropriate remedies at our disposal," said Marie Laderta, director of the state Department of Human Resources Development and Lingle's chief negotiator with the teachers.
"Despite consistent verbal assurances by Department of Education that random drug and alcohol testing would move forward as agreed, we now find out at the end of business on the deadline date of June 30, 2008, implementation has not occurred," Laderta said in a written statement.
Two things need to be in place for drug testing to take effect:
Last night, the Hawaii State Teachers Association and DOE officials were meeting to discuss the procedures for drug testing.
Roger Takabayashi, president of the teachers union, said officials were confident that the policies and procedures would be agreed upon by late evening.
"As we speak, we continue to work on it. We're going to get it done," Takabayashi said.
Even if the teachers and DOE officials reach an agreement on procedures, they were not addressing the issue of how to pay for the random tests.
The Board of Education and the governor have both insisted the other pay for the testing.
In January, Lingle refused to include $523,723 in her budget request to the Legislature to set up the drug-testing program.
The Board of Education then voted against paying for it with money from the Department of Education's $2.34 billion budget.
Lingle responded by suggesting that pay raises for the 13,500 public school teachers may not go into effect unless education officials pay for the program.
Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.
