If the state Legislature were to go home tomorrow, the Department of Education would be perfectly happy.

The House has approved and sent to the Senate a $350.8 million supplemental education budget that would allow the department to tackle its highest priorities, including repairs for 96 aging campuses considered in dire need of renovation, and help for schools that could lose money and employees under a new funding formula.

The House version of the budget is just a starting point, but key lawmakers say the state's $600 million surplus makes this the time to help a department that has been shortchanged for many years.

"I think it's going to be a pretty good year for education," said Sen. Brian Taniguchi, D-10th (Manoa, McCully), chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. "We're definitely going to do more than the governor (proposed). You'll see some very significant expenditures in education."

In a year of general cooperation between lawmakers and the governor on many issues so far, education is one area of stark difference.

In asking the Legislature for $113.8 million for the DOE this session — less than one-third of what the House proposes — the governor and state Budget Director Georgina Kawamura said the department was top-heavy with money from past years that it had yet to spend.

The DOE responded that most of its capital improvement money was already in the pipeline to be spent — but agreed to push that process faster.

In recent weeks, the DOE and the state budget office have been working together to align projects with funding. Currently they're working to put another $100 million in projects from past years into the pipeline.

Kawamura said she hesitates to release money until the department is ready to move, so the funds are coming out in blocks of about $20 million at a time as the DOE is ready to let planning contracts.

While the DOE's $2.1 billion budget was primarily decided last year — in the first year of the two-year biennium budget process — every state department asks for additional funding in the second year, as new needs arise.

PLAYING CATCH-UP

It's too soon to say what the final dollar figures will be in the DOE's supplemental budget — and it will take a conference committee to complete the numbers.

But Taniguchi said this year's surplus gives the state a chance to catch up on school repairs, trim the $525 million backlog of repair and maintenance projects, add supplemental funding to the weighted student formula and — as the Senate proposes — hire 400 more teachers to improve the classroom student-to-teacher ratio.

Taniguchi also said he thinks the House figures are close to where he'd like to see things end up when the session ends.

"In the operating side, we'll probably do a similar amount for the weighted student formula, maybe a little more," he said. "But that's going to be balanced against the student-teacher ratio."

Taniguchi said he'd also like to provide money to develop an overall air-conditioning plan for the schools — or make money available to provide air-conditioning relief to those schools most prone to hot weather.

"There has to be a way to measure where the hot schools are and set some priorities to take care of the worst places first," he said.

"We have a lot of requests for big money, but for me I'm going to focus as much as I can on the education side."

Senate Education and Military Affairs committee chairman Sen. Norman Sakamoto, D-15th (Waimalu, Moanalua, Salt Lake), agrees this is the year to ratchet up funding for the public schools, which serve 182,000 children.

"In terms of repair and maintenance funds, it's certainly the year to give them a bigger boost than the last several years," Sakamoto said. "From my perspective, I'm happy the House added things like money for the weighted student formula and for fixing the schools."

Sakamoto said there's no question schools need the $160 million in capital improvement funding the House allotted.

"I'm pretty confident they can use even more because of the (repair and maintenance) backlog," he said. "And if the department determines they can't effectively use all the funds this year in light of the construction boom, I think we should give them some leeway to line projects up for several years to come."

To do that, Sakamoto favors increasing the length of time before DOE construction funds lapse from three years to four to help the department in moving big projects from the planning to construction phase.

TEACHER 'DEBIT CARDS'

Rep. Roy Takumi, D-36th (Pearl City, Palisades), who chairs the House Education Committee, said the House budget version recognizes that the DOE has not gotten the money it needs to perform all the tasks expected.

Takumi was one of the authors of Act 51 in 2004, which established the weighted student formula concept to fund schools according to the needs of the student populations they serve.

"The $20 million (for the weighted student formula) is a recognition on the part of the House that the entire system is not adequately funded," Takumi said.

What hasn't been decided yet, he said, is how this would be divided among schools — perhaps based on core needs for every school, regardless of size, or to supplement small schools that don't have the enrollment to guarantee enough money for all the services and positions they need.

Takumi said the "debit card" idea that's included in the House budget and would give the state's 12,000 teachers around $200 each for classroom supplies is a thank you to Hawai'i's educators for their generosity.

"We've heard time and again teachers take out of their own pocket to buy for students," he said. "Teachers have been doing that forever and will continue to do that, but this is an acknowledgement that we know this is happening, so here you go."

The DOE, meanwhile, is happy with the House version of the budget and the Legislature's efforts.

"This is just the first step," DOE budget director Edwin Koyama said. "But we really appreciate the support."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.