The Audible Audit

Report 26-08 Audit of the Department of Education’s Efforts to Meet Its Mandate to Incorporate Local Foods in School Meals

In 2021, the Legislature transferred the Farm to School Program from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Education (DOE), created a Farm to School Coordinator position, and set a clear target: By January 1, 2025, 10 percent of the total cost of school meals was to come from locally sourced products. By 2030, that number is required to reach 30 percent. DOE had three school years to meet the 10 percent benchmark. It did not. For School Year 2023–2024 — the year tied to the January 1, 2025 deadline — DOE reported that just 5.4 percent of its $82 million in food spending was on locally sourced products  We initiated this audit to determine why DOE did not meet the 10 percent mandate and how the department intends to meet the 30 percent requirement by 2030.  We found that neither the Farm to School Program nor the mandate to increase the use of local products was treated as a department priority.  The program lacked a strategic plan, written policies and procedures, and reliable data systems to track and verify local food purchases. Cafeteria Managers — who are responsible for ordering food — were not consistently informed of specific targets, and most product lists did not distinguish between local and imported items, limiting their ability to purchase local products intentionally. We also found that DOE’s data on locally sourced purchases was unverified and, at times, inconsistent. The department relied on distributor-reported data and lacked a centralized system capable of accurately tracking local purchases across schools. In Summer 2025, DOE released a plan centered on building regional kitchens as a pathway to reaching 30 percent locally sourced food by 2030. While centralized kitchens may create opportunities to incorporate more local ingredients, the plan lacks key baseline data, cost analyses, and concrete projections demonstrating how those facilities will result in increased local procurement  Without a deliberate strategy, reliable data, and coordinated execution, DOE’s spending on local food has remained largely static — reflecting business as usual rather than a sustained effort to meet the Legislature’s mandate. Learn how: * DOE lacked a structured plan and reliable systems to track and increase locally sourced food purchases. * Cafeteria purchasing practices and procurement processes limited the department’s ability to prioritize local products. * DOE’s proposed regional kitchen strategy may not, on its own, ensure that the 30 percent mandate is met by 2030. * Without sufficient baseline data on what local products are available, in what quantities, during which seasons, and at what cost, the 30 percent mandate risks becoming not only another unmet benchmark, but a costly one. Read the full report here: https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2025/25-09.pdfhttps://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2026/26-08.pdf [https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2026/26-08.pdf] Report summary: https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2026/26-08AuditorSummary.pdf [https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2026/26-08AuditorSummary.pdf] Thanks for listening. You can find this and other reports at: auditor.hawaii.gov [https://auditor.hawaii.gov/]

Report No. 26-05, Audit of the Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation

Audit of the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation In 2019, the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) told the Legislature that it needed help to ensure that vessel owners cover costs the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation (DOBOR) was incurring to salvage grounded vessels, testifying that, since 2002, more than $2.2 million had been expended from the Boating Special Fund to address grounded, abandoned, or derelict vessels. House Bill No. 1033 (HB 1033), which DOBOR’s then-Administrator helped author, would have required all vessel owners to have insurance of not less than $500,000 that included coverage to remove and salvage a grounded vessel. The Legislature enacted an amended version of HB 1033, limiting its application to vessels 26 feet or more in length and smaller vessels whose owner previously grounded a vessel, requiring those owners to obtain at least $100,000 in salvage insurance. Act 94, codified as Section 200-13.5, HRS, took effect on December 31, 2019. We initiated this audit to assess DLNR’s boating program, initially intending to assess DOBOR’s management of the State’s small boat harbors. Following our audit planning, however, we developed an objective focusing on DOBOR’s vessel registration process, specifically, its policy to enforce compliance by boaters of the required insurance to cover salvage of grounded vessels. That objective was selected based on DOBOR’s concern that its primary funding source was being depleted because boaters were not paying the costs to remove their grounded vessels and the legislation that was enacted, at DLNR’s request, to address that concern.  However, we couldn’t assess whether the insurance that DLNR said was necessary has “greatly reduced,” as the department represented it would – or has even reduced – the department’s costs to remove and salvage grounded vessels; we could not determine whether the insurance requirement has helped to ensure that vessel owners are held responsible for the costs that DOBOR incurred to remove and salvage their grounded vessels. We conducted this audit pursuant to Article VII, Section 10 of the Hawai‘i State Constitution and Section 23-4, HRS. Learn how: * DOBOR did not know the amount that it had paid to remove and salvage grounded vessels, net of repayments by responsible boaters, even before seeking legislative help through HB 1033, and for that reason, DOBOR could not determine whether the insurance requirement has effectively reduced the net amount that it has paid to addressing groundings. * It is unclear what risk DLNR wanted the Legislature’s help to address through an insurance mandate. Certain risks noted in the bill as well as DLNR’s testimony were unrelated to groundings. * Before the end of 2022, DOBOR stopped requiring its registration staff to check for salvage insurance after vessel owners said they could not obtain the coverage.  DOBOR also no longer requires salvage insurance as a condition of a mooring permit. * The division did little to collect from vessel owners amounts that it paid to remove and salvage grounded vessels.  Read the full report here: https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2026/26-05.pdf [https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2026/26-05.pdf] Report summary: https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2026/26-05AuditorSummary.pdf [https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2026/26-05AuditorSummary.pdf] Thanks for listening. You can find this and other reports at: auditor.hawaii.gov [https://auditor.hawaii.gov/]

Report No. 25-07, Audit of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority

An AI generated and office reviewed report summary. Report No. 25-07  Audit of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority  In 2020, as it entered its third decade, the Hawai‘i Tourism concluded that it needed a change.  Its continuous drive to increase visitor numbers had taken a toll on Hawai‘i’s people and their natural environment. What was needed was a “re-balancing” of priorities, and for that reason, “destination management” would be the Authority’s focus and at the heart of the new strategic plan. In its 2020 – 2025 Strategic Plan, HTA defined destination management as: “attracting and educating responsible visitors; advocating for solutions to overcrowded attractions, overtaxed infrastructure, and other tourism-related problems; and working with other responsible agencies to improve natural and cultural assets valued by both Hawai‘i residents and visitors.”  As part of this emphasis on destination management, HTA developed three-year Destination Management Action Plans for six islands. Actions and sub-actions vary in the individual DMAPs, such as protecting and preserving culturally significant places and tourist “hotspots”; as well as increasing communication, engagement, and outreach efforts with the community among other initiatives. In Report No. 25-07, Audit of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, we assessed HTA’s achievement of its 2016 and 2020 – 2025 strategic plans’ destination management goals. We also evaluated the effectiveness of the agency’s DMAPs.  Learn how: * HTA’s new emphasis on destination management is not materially different from its prior efforts; largely a reshuffling of past and continuing programs.  * The effort doesn’t seem to have involved any increased financial commitment; overall spending on destination management efforts remained generally level. * The Authority’s DMAP effort was largely ineffective, with most actions not addressing hotspots, predated the effort, or had already completed. * Many DMAP actions were impractical or unrelated to destinations and their management.  Read the full report here: https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2025/25-07.pdf [https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2025/25-07.pdf] Report summary: https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2025/25-07AuditorSummary.pdf [https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2025/25-07AuditorSummary.pdf] Thanks for listening. You can find this and other reports at: auditor.hawaii.gov [https://auditor.hawaii.gov/]

Report No. 25-09, An Update on the Department of Education’s Heat Abatement Efforts

An AI generated and office reviewed report summary. In January 2016, Governor David Ige announced in his State of the State speech that he was working to cool 1,000 classrooms by the end of the year.  That May, the Hawai‘i Legislature approved $100 million in general funds to cool 1,000 public school classrooms by the end of that calendar year.  The department’s plan would later be referred to as the “Cool Classrooms Initiative.”  Three years later, the State’s heat abatement efforts changed course with the Department of Education’s (DOE) introduction of its School Directed AC program, which unlike the Cool Classrooms Initiative, gave schools the authority to air condition classrooms themselves, with minimal DOE involvement.   Report No. 25-09, An Update on the Department of Education’s Heat Abatement Efforts is an extensive review and assessment of the legislative and funding history of this initiative to account for the $100 million.  We also reviewed DOE’s subsequent heat abatement effort, the School Directed AC program.   Learn how: ·       The Cool Classrooms Initiative’s rushed planning and poor decisions early on contributed to DOE moving forward with expensive and complex solar-powered air conditioning systems that ultimately didn’t work very well. ·       DOE was unable to provide an accounting of the $100 million, requiring the Office to estimate the amount spent through contract documents and other records, some of which were incomplete and missing.  ·       The Office was able to estimate that the Cool Classrooms Initiative cooled 838 classrooms at a cost of about $105 million, an average of more than $120,000 per classroom. ·       DOE provided minimal structure and oversight over its School Directed AC program, which followed the Cool Classrooms Initiative.  The department’s knowledge of and involvement in the program to be so incomplete and limited that the Office was unable to assess it. Read the full report here: https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2025/25-09.pdf [https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2025/25-09.pdf] Report summary: https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2025/25-09AuditorSummary.pdf [https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2025/25-09AuditorSummary.pdf] Thanks for listening. You can find this and other reports at: auditor.hawaii.gov [https://auditor.hawaii.gov/]