The governor's senior policy advisor sat in on a Hot Seat session today to answer questions from the public, and predictably several asked about teacher furloughs.

Smith said the governor had to balance the needs of children with the fiscal reality of the state. They ruled out increasing taxes. Their proposal now being considered by the DOE and teachers union is to convert non-instructional days and use $50 million from the state's Rainy Day fund to return teachers to classrooms.

"Increasing taxes is something the Governor wants to avoid since it will hurt the ability of the State to recover from the recession. GET taxes particularly hurt low income families. There were funds in the Rainy Day account and thus we did not need to increase taxes to restore teaching time."

Read the full discussion on the Hot Seat blog.

Tags: budget, children, education, furloughs, governor, Hawaii, Lingle, students, teachers

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