House Bill 115 is a long overdue and much-needed initiative by the Legislature to require the University of Hawaii to comprehensively address its decaying physical plant.

The bill’s current version proposes to establish a special purpose fund that sets aside 5 percent of UH’s $1.5 billion gross institutional revenues to fund reduction of the university’s maintenance backlog; this would create an ongoing revenue stream of about $75 million yearly. It further proposes to sweep 10 percent of unspent balances from other special funds in fiscal years 2015 and 2016.

UH has a reported maintenance backlog of $461 million, with future needs estimated at $512 million. Over the next 10 years, it will need to spend nearly $1 billion on capital repairs — a low estimate. In 2011, consultants for the Manoa Facilities Management Office (MFMO) concluded that the backlog and future requirements were understated by at least 20 percent, suggesting that costs are much higher than addressed by HB 115.

UH faces a need for more than $1 billion over the next decade to maintain its physical plant without a firm funding plan. How did we get here? State Rep. Issac Choy was right on the mark when he said, "They really dug themselves a hole."

The fact that the UH president and Board of Regents continued to "dig themselves a hole" with new construction, despite not being able to pay for upkeep of existing buildings, is a key reason passage of HB 115 is so important.

The president and board are not unaware of the "hole" they created, though there are probably many on the board who do not possess the expertise to fully grasp its implication. UH has known since 2008 that the maintenance backlog and future capital renewal costs were unsustainable and would require significant increases in funding.

And it’s not just new construction. In 2010, consultants for MFMO reported that the Manoa campus was significantly understaffed in basic maintenance personnel, making it very difficult to cover daily on-call emergency work and perform preventive maintenance.

It is not without cause that the Legislature is suspicious of the university’s policies. For example, it has been UH’s policy to endure shortfalls of state-appropriated maintenance and repair funds, knowing that buildings would fall into backlog rather than employ its own borrowing capacity. This was to avoid giving the Legislature the impression that UH possessed the capacity to use its own funds. This policy has allowed university leadership to divert tuition revenues that it would normally be employed for plant maintenance to other programs of their choosing.

This choice has not been without major long-terms costs. UH’s decision to not adequately fund daily maintenance significantly accelerates the "wear-and-tear" on buildings. This results in the premature replacement of building systems, creating bigger backlogs and higher operating costs.

Without the significant funding increases provided by HB 115 for repairs and maintenance, the future of UH as a state flagship university is questionable. UH faces some of the highest operating costs per square foot in the country. The more square footage the university adds, the greater costs will be. Where does UH expect this money to come from? Student tuition has clearly tapped out our students and their parents’ ability to pay. UH’s dependence on state funding is limited by other pressing public needs. It is not even clear whether the special fund created by this bill will be sufficiently self-sustaining to cover the borrowing costs the fund would incur.

This is a train wreck that has been a long time coming that could have been avoided. The fact that university leadership has intentionally neglected to develop a coherent, long-term, sustainable business plan to avoid these self-made fiascos is an indication of a larger "failure of governance." It is a failure that requires decisive action by the Legislature — such as the critically important HB 115.