Job One in the University of Hawaii athletic department right now, athletic director Ben Jay pledged to a Board of Regents committee Wednesday, is meeting fiscal guidelines imposed by the Manoa Chancellor’s office.

"We’ve got to hit our (budget) target," Jay told members of the Committee on Independent Audit.

After a decade of accumulating mounting net deficits, UH has vowed to toe the fiscal line and rein in deficits to $1 million — or less — for each of the next three years, per Chancellor Tom Apple’s mandate.

Some of the first tests of that resoluteness, now, will be in dealing with pending openings and salaries and contracts.

Salaries and benefits take the biggest bite out of UH’s budget, accounting for about 40 percent of the approximately $34 million it spends on a 21-sport program.

Currently, UH is shopping for a new defensive coordinator for its football team as well as working on contract extensions and raises for several current head coaches in other sports, including men’s basketball coach Gib Arnold.

Last year Arnold ($344,000) and then-defensive coordinator Thom Kaumeyer ($250,000) held down two of the four highest-paying positions in the department. Throw in the approximately $130,000 discharged offensive coordinator Aaron Price was paid to go away and there are some big-money decisions to be made. 

Indications are UH might have to exceed the quarter-million figure to bring on board a new defensive coordinator. If so, Jay said he still hopes to do it within the bounds of the current $1.1 million pool for the nine assistants by reconfiguring some other salaries. Though, Jay said "for the right guy" as defensive coordinator, UH would exceed those confines.

It did not escape notice at UH this week that Boise State has pledged to pay its nine assistants from a $2.2 million pool.

Of course, the problem at UH isn’t the money spent as much as it is the value, or lack thereof, received. Too often, UH has shelled out major moolah for insufficient returns on its investments. 

June Jones at $800,000 was a good deal. Greg McMackin at $1.1 million was not.

Dave Shoji at $190,000 is a bargain. An offensive coordinator who draws six figures and isn’t around long enough to call a play isn’t.

More often than its limited means could afford, the school has had to cut six-figure checks to "buy-out" its mistakes. During the State Senate hearings a year ago calculators could barely keep up totaling the numbers UH had paid to dispatch its errors.

That’s something that should be reflected on every time UH considers tendering a new contract or adding years to an existing one.

If UH can, indeed, find "Mr. Right" as defensive coordinator, someone who can restore the unit to prominence and help the ‘Bows return to a winning season, then the move will pay for itself several times over.

And, wouldn’t that make for a refreshing start to the New Year.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.