Education Think Tank Sues The DOE For Financial Data

A local nonprofit led by a former Hawaii Department of Education assistant superintendent is suing to obtain financial records from the DOE in an attempt to build an online tool showing how education dollars are spent in the state.

The Education Institute of Hawaii, a think tank whose chairman and president is Ray L’Heureux, former assistant superintendent in charge of facilities, filed a complaint in First Circuit Court against school superintendent Christina Kishimoto and other unidentified DOE staff members over the alleged withholding of financial records.

EIH has been trying to obtain 12 categories of public records since March 2018 under Hawaii’s open records law, the Uniform Information Practices Act. The requests are for DOE’s general ledger line items; DOE audit reports and budget documents; job position data and actual salaries; pension data; and other items.

Its complaint filed July 11 contends DOE has refused to hand over most of the records and failed to respond in a timely manner to its requests.

Read more: https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/07/education-think-tank-sues-the-doe-for-financial-data/