Ige budgets $44 million boost to the UH system over 2 years

Gov. David Ige’s call for increased education dollars in his proposed state budget extends to higher education as well with a $44 million boost for operations at the University of Hawaii over the next two years.

The governor cited education as his top priority in the executive budget unveiled earlier this week, and talked at length about significant increases he’s proposing for the Department of Education. But his budget also includes more money for the 10-campus UH system, which has 60,000 students and 10,000 faculty and staff.

The governor is seeking to add approximately $22 million a year to the university’s operating budget — a nearly 5 percent increase. The funding includes $5 million for the cash-strapped UH Cancer Center, $3.5 million for the university’s research and innovation initiative, and a $10 million lump sum allocation for UH to prioritize.

The general fund portion of the university’s budget would increase to $493 million, and to $1.19 billion from all sources for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Ige said the investments are mostly aimed at helping diversify the state’s economy beyond tourism and better prepare students for “jobs of the future.”

“We moved from agriculture to hospitality around the 1950s or just about statehood … and 60 years later the hospitality industry is the No. 1 industry in our economy, creating more than 200,000 jobs,” Ige said at a news conference Monday, where he discussed his two-year budget plan.

“Clearly, we have been thoughtful and successful in migrating from agriculture to hospitality. I think the challenge and question before us is, What’s next? What will be the economic driver of the future of Hawaii?” he added. “We make a strategic investment in the innovation economy because that is where the jobs of the future will come.”

Ige is proposing $3.5 million annually for the Hawaii Innovation Initiative at UH “to strengthen and increase the research enterprise at the University of Hawaii and to support entrepreneurship in the UH community.”

The initiative — identified as a priority in the university’s 2015-21 strategic plan — has a stated goal of “building a thriving research enterprise that will be driven by the growth of new industries including a robust advanced manufacturing community in Hawaii, fueled by UH’s plans to aggressively commercialize its research.” It also aims to create high-quality living-wage jobs.

UH researchers currently secure around $400 million in research contracts and grants annually, and typically file around 50 patents a year for inventions and discoveries.

“If you look at economic development and innovation and entrepreneurship around the country as it’s driven by this technology and information age, it is always anchored by strong universities,” the governor said. “As we know, the innovation economy is definitely driven by high-skilled workers, and we want to make sure that we are making investments in our public schools and our public university in a way to ensure that our residents have access.”

Ige separately wants to support research at the Cancer Center, a unit of the flagship Manoa campus.

The budget proposal adopted by UH’s Board of Regents requested a recurring $5 million appropriation for the center to offset annual drops in the university’s share of the state’s cigarette tax, the research unit’s largest source of income. A similar request last legislative session by both UH and Ige was rejected by lawmakers.

“The UH Cancer Center has the opportunity to lead cancer research,” Ige said. “Hawaii has a strategic advantage in cancer research because of our diversity, and we believe that this investment in the Cancer Center will help us in our efforts to become more prominent in cancer research. And I think as important, investment in the Cancer Center will allow and give our residents access to leading-edge research that can provide the next cure.”

For facilities, the governor is proposing a lump sum $150 million in state-backed bonds. The regents’ budget had requested more than $216 million for various capital improvement projects.