UH’s plan would pay down athletic department’s deficit

University of Hawaii President David Lassner has called for a “systematic paydown” of a $14.7 million net accumulated athletic department deficit with Manoa campus funds.

Under Lassner’s plan, the Manoa campus would pay $700,000 per year from its operating budget for 21 years toward retiring the nearly four-year-old debt.

Lassner is concurrently serving a two-year term as the Manoa Chancellor.

The deficit was accumulated over a 12-year period (2002-13) and in May of 2013 then-Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple announced he was “forgiving” a $11.3 million athletic department debt. But by the time the books had closed the figure had risen to $14.7 million.

At the time Apple said he was “moving this debit from the athletics account to the Manoa Chancellor’s Office using non-academic sources such as interest income and working capital to pay this off over time.”

But Lassner said Thursday “while the term ‘forgiven’ has been bandied about, it (the deficit) still exists” on the Manoa books.

Lassner said the “paydown” would begin with the start of the 2018 fiscal year July 1, but did not say where the funds would come from. “I can’t attribute it to a specific program, it is (from) the entire campus budget. It could be anything. At this point I don’t have a specific area. I’m just going to say it is from the campus operating budget.”

Jeff Portnoy, chairman of the Board of Regents Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics, said “I was happy to hear about the president’s plan, but we didn’t get any details about how it would happen and where (the money) would be coming from.”

Regents were told Thursday that 78 percent of major college athletic programs run at a deficit. California, UH’s 2016 season-opening football opponent, has been grappling with a $21 million annual deficit.

Since 2013 UH, which fields 21 teams and has more than $40 million in annual operating expenses, has accumulated another $9.3 million in net deficits. It projects a $2.2 million annual deficit for the 2017 fiscal year that closes June 30, after deficits of $4.2 million (2015) and $3.2 million (2016) in the two previous years.

Lassner said, “Right now we’re focused on returning the athletic department to an annual operating balance by 2020.”

Athletic director David Matlin told regents last month that a balanced budget was his “target” for 2020.

UH last balanced its budget in 2011, posting a $486,461 surplus. But seven of the past eight years and 13 of the past 15 have resulted in deficits.

UH had operated at a multi-year surplus until 2002.