HONOLULU -- A group of state senators said it wants to borrow tens of millions of dollars from the state's Hurricane Relief Fund to restore 11 public school furlough days in the spring, and they want the Legislature to go into special session to get it done.

The governor and the state House speaker said that would not be a good idea. At least not right away.

The state Senate has named a special committee to look at ways to restore some classroom days because of teacher furloughs. Restoring each furlough day will cost $5 million.

The latest proposal is to borrow $60 million from the state's Hurricane Relief Fund, which has $188 million now. Legislators would use that money to restore 11 teacher furlough days from January to June.

"The biggest pot of money that's available to us immediately is the Hurricane Relief Fund," Sen. Will Espero said.

At public schools, parents said they like the idea.

"I have no problem if they took that from the hurricane relief, or wherever else. They should cut other things, but not education," parent Mary Krismunando said.

"Most important, let the kids go back to school as early as possible," parent Ying Sim said.

Espero, the vice chairman of the Senate special committee teacher furloughs, said losing 17 days of school a year is unacceptable.

"It puts us at the bottom of the states, of all states in the nation, in terms of classroom days, and we need to save our students' education," Espero said.

"I think it's premature to take any money from the Hurricane Relief Fund now because we just don't know what's going to happen to revenues through the end of this year and then into the first quarter of next year," Gov. Linda Lingle said.

Lingle said she wants to see several more projections from the Council on Revenues before deciding whether to take money out of the hurricane fund.

"I think it wouldn't be a good idea to start getting into any sort of special fund transfers at this time. We'll be able to manage through to the regular session," Lingle said.

Espero said the idea will collapse without support from all sides.

"The unions have to agree, the Board of Education must be on board and the governor must be on board," he said.

Lingle said she is willing to talk to legislators about borrowing money from the Hurricane Relief Fund during their session that begins in January, but it would have to be done in a very "cautious way."

House Speaker Calvin Say said using the hurricane fund would be short sighted, because it has no revenue source to replenish itself.

Lawmakers and the governor are not eager to tap the state's $60 million rainy day fund, because that could adversely affect the state's credit rating.