Hawaii missed its school-food mandate. Then rescinded it.
Summary
Hawaii law required public schools to buy 10% of their food locally by January 1, 2025. The Department of Education hit 5.4% of an $82 million budget -- and the Legislature's fix was to erase the deadline, five months after DOE had already missed it. The next year's reported improvement, to 6.5%, came from a $5 million drop in total food spending the department's own report never explains.
A mandate the department didn't run
In 2021, the Legislature transferred the Farm to School Program⧉ from the Department of Agriculture to , along with a Farm to School Coordinator position and two targets: 10% of school-meal spending locally sourced by January 1, 2025, and 30% by 2030. The Office of the Auditor's central finding is that 's effort to hit the first number was 'without structure, direction, or consequential actions' -- no strategic plan or written policies for the program, a Superintendent whose emphasis on local sourcing was never put in writing, and -approved purchasing lists that don't even distinguish local from imported products. Cafeteria Managers, who do the actual buying at each school, had no way to act on the goal even when they knew about it.
Missed, then erased
's own four-year reporting to the Legislature shows the local-food share moving the wrong direction for three straight years: 9.8% in SY2020-21, down to 6.2%, then 6.1%, then 5.4% by the SY2023-24 deadline year -- even as total food spending nearly quadrupled, from $21.46 million to $82.02 million. Rather than enforce the missed deadline⧉, the Legislature rescinded it: Act 137 (SLH 2025) eliminated the 10%-by-2025 requirement, but the act didn't take effect until May 30, 2025 -- five months after 's own deadline had already passed and been missed.
View data as table
| SY2020-21 | 9.8% | $21.46M total food cost; $2.10M spent locally |
|---|---|---|
| SY2021-22 | 6.2% | $50.52M total food cost; $3.13M spent locally -- the auditor's source note flags that DOE's underlying report to the 2023 Legislature covering this year was based on a 10-month period, not 12, so this year's totals aren't strictly comparable to the other full-year figures |
| SY2022-23 | 6.1% | $64.11M total food cost; $3.94M spent locally |
| SY2023-24 (10% deadline year) | 5.4% | $82.02M total food cost; $4.45M spent locally -- deadline year, mandate was 10% |
| SY2024-25 (post-deadline) | 6.5% | ~$77M total food cost (down ~$5M, unexplained); ~$5M spent locally |
The year it 'improved'
's next report, covering SY2024-25, showed the local share ticking up to about 6.5% -- still far short of 10%, but movement in the right direction. The auditor's own analysis undercuts that read⧉, headlined 'Down Is Up': total food spending fell by nearly $5 million (more than 6%) from the prior year, a decrease 's report never explains, while local-food spending itself grew only about $600,000. The percentage rose because the denominator shrank, not because the department bought more locally.
Numbers built on numbers nobody checks
has no system to verify the accuracy of the locally-sourced spending data its food distributors supply, and its own internal figures don't agree with each other: the auditor found⧉ the SY2022-23 total food cost reported to the Legislature ($64.1 million) differed from the department's own Fiscal Office system figure for the same year ($75.3 million) by $11.2 million -- more than the entire amount claimed to spend on local food that year. The SY2022-23 report had also omitted dairy purchases entirely (roughly $8.8 million, by the auditor's estimate from internal data); has still not corrected that year's published percentage.
The next test is 2030
The auditor's second finding questions whether 's longer-term 30%-by-2030 target is any more achievable: a summer 2025 plan for regional kitchens is 'more aspirational than operational,' lacks baseline data on what individual meal ingredients even cost, and a University of Hawai'i agriculture extension agent told auditors the state likely lacks the land and equipment to profitably grow some of the 'novel' local crops -- rice, buckwheat, arrowroot -- the plan is counting on. Superintendent Keith Hayashi's March 2026 written response said the department is 'in general agreement with the majority of the findings and recommendations' and raised no formal disagreement with any of them. The auditor's office plans to independently recheck 's progress around late 2029, ahead of the 2030 deadline.
The takeaway
- The share moved away from the mandate, not toward it. In the three school years had to reach 10% by law, the locally-sourced share fell every year -- 9.8% to 6.2% to 6.1% to 5.4% -- while the total food budget nearly quadrupled.
- The Legislature's fix for the miss was to remove the target. Act 137 didn't tighten enforcement or extend a corrective timeline; it rescinded the 10%-by-2025 requirement outright, five months after the deadline had already come and gone unmet.
- The one year that looks better doesn't hold up. SY2024-25's uptick to 6.5% traces to an unexplained $5 million drop in total food spending, not a meaningful increase in local purchasing -- and 's own numbers, on two internal systems, don't agree with each other closely enough to fully trust either one.
Figures for SY2020-21 through SY2023-24 come from the auditor's compiled table of 's Farm to School and Local Meals reports to the Legislature; the SY2024-25 figures (~$77 million total, ~$5 million local, 6.5%) are 's own rounded figures from its December 2025 report, cited by the auditor without independent recomputation. None of these totals include Hawai'i's public charter schools, which 's Farm to School reporting has never covered. The auditor's own source note on the table also flags that 's report to the 2023 Legislature -- covering SY2021-22 -- was based on a 10-month period rather than a full 12 months, so that year's figures aren't strictly comparable to the other full-year totals in the series.
's written response to the draft audit (Superintendent Keith Hayashi, March 2, 2026) is included in full as an appendix to the report and raised no disagreement with any finding; it says the department 'remains fully committed to the 2030 goal' and submitted a Compliance Schedule Matrix with target completion dates for the auditor's recommendations.
Sources(1) ▾
- Office of the Auditor, State of Hawai'i, Audit of the Department of Education's Efforts to Meet Its Mandate to Incorporate Local Foods in School Meals (Report No. 26-08) (2026-03-05) — The State Auditor's performance audit of 's Farm to School Program, covering why missed the legislature's January 1, 2025 mandate that 10% of school-meal spending be locally sourced, and how intends to meet a separate 30%-by-2030 target. Includes Superintendent Keith Hayashi's full written response letter as Appendix A. Fetched directly and converted with pdftotext. files.hawaii.gov · original document
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Hawaii law has required public schools to source 10% of school-meal spending from local producers since January 1, 2025 -- a deadline the Legislature set in 2021, giving the Department of Education three full school years to hit it. The state's own auditor found⧉ reached just 5.4% of an $82.0 million food budget by the deadline. Rather than enforce the target it missed, the Legislature rescinded it five months later.