Board of Education members gave overwhelming support yesterday to slowing implementation of a funding formula based on student need that has brought an outcry from school officials across the state and pitted schools against one another over money.

With just one member of the board missing from the committee, the vote virtually assures the action will be approved by the full board next week.

At the same time, some members called on the Legislature to revisit the Act 51 legislation that created it, with an eye toward amending it.

"We should rethink this matter," said board member Darwin Ching. "It's making a lot of people unhappy. This pause allows us to rethink and go back to the Legislature saying it's a grand experiment, but at what cost?"

Board member Shirley Robinson called it "a mess not a success." She said the Legislature is asking the board to do an "impossible" task and called for lawmakers to give the board sufficient money for implementation.

Board members and others have repeatedly said that schools are already underfunded, and a weighted formula simply takes from one poor school to give to another.

But many committee members said they believed in the concept.

"The weighted student formula is not totally off the wall," said Maggie Cox. "It shows over time we've had some practices that were not fair."

Board members Breene Harimoto and Paul Vierling cautioned that slowing implementation now would just make it that much harder in the final phase-in year when all changes are supposed to be complete.

The Committee on Budget and Fiscal Accountability, headed by Garrett Toguchi, voted to accept a proposal by schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto to increase implementation of the current formula from the 10 percent change this year to 15 percent next year.

But the proposal also asks for an extra $20 million in funding again next year — as the Legislature authorized this year — to cushion schools for another year against big losses and major cuts in support personnel.

The proposal offered two weeks ago by Hamamoto suggests the department analyze the formula, including the weights attached to various student characteristics, but also look at schools with high achievement to evaluate what goes into that and what it costs. Then, rather than basing a formula on simply dividing up money, she suggests starting by costing out the true price of educating proficient students, and beginning there.

Hamamoto said the vote would help give schools some stability over the next two years "and an opportunity to catch our breath so we can take a look at what we've done, what we aren't doing and what we still need to do.

"To ask people every year to make changes to their academic and financial plans because the formula changes every year does not lend itself to best practices, stability, or being able to plan down the road what you want to do with your school," she said. "You can't run the kinds of programs you want not knowing whether you're going to have it (funding) next year or not. There's a lot of ... anxiety by a lot of people."

Hamamoto also raised the possibility the department will ask for changes in the law next year.

"The policy was created to do good things, but if in the implementation there are barriers you never dreamed of, then we need to inform the policymakers because we don't want it to become bad policy," she said.

Hamamoto also said in tandem with an analysis of the weighted student formula this year, the department will develop a policy regarding small schools. The treatment of small schools in the formula has been a particular sticking point.

Before the vote, Shafter Elementary School principal Sam Ko told committee members that the 15 percent implementation of the funding formula would be more palatable than the larger 25 percent implementation that would have hurt his students and meant the loss of one more position.

Afterward, Complex Area Superintendent Ronn Nozoe said the committee's action allows schools to operate but gives time "to focus on what it costs for student achievement" while continuing to move forward on Act 51.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.