Lawmakers want college relocated

Lawmakers are trying to prohibit the University of Hawaii from spending any of the nearly $50 million the Legislature has budgeted for the university’s repair and maintenance backlog on the College of Education at UH Manoa — unless the college is relocated.

The stipulation is among more than 50 so-called budget provisos tacked onto the end of House Bill 1700, the $13.7 billion state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Legislators lobby the House and Senate money committees to have various provisos inserted anonymously.

The budget bill was passed by the Legislature and sent to Gov. David Ige for consideration.

The College of Education proviso, which appears near the end of the 175-page legislation, states that the $48.6 million in lump-sum bond funding allocated to the university for deferred maintenance projects “shall not be expended for the College of Education if the College of Education remains at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.”

It also would restrict $3 million of the repair funds “until the university establishes and implements a master plan that seamlessly transitions students and their high school pathway program and community college credits to any four-year state funded postsecondary education institution.”

Unsafe conditions in some of the College of Education’s aging facilities came to light in media reports last fall, and the university’s Board of Regents requested funding from the Legislature to tear down two dilapidated buildings as part of its capital improvements budget request this year.

But some lawmakers say the proviso is not necessarily targeting the College of Education, and is instead part of a larger campaign to get UH to be more strategic with its academic offerings. Others contend it’s part of a push to move the college to the UH-West Oahu campus in Kapolei.

The College of Education at Manoa has some 1,900 students enrolled in its various degree and certificate programs, which include undergraduate and graduate teaching degrees. UH West Oahu, meanwhile, offers three bachelor’s degrees in education.

Donald Young, dean of UH Manoa’s College of Education, referred comment to the UH system, which manages the repairs budget.

“Provisos in the state budget are purely the intent of state legislators,” Kalbert Young, UH’s vice president for budget and finance, said in a statement. “State departments, including the University of Hawaii, are not part of the process of negotiating provisos. The UH leadership team did not work on this proviso or was aware of it.

“However, now that the budget bill has been passed by the legislature, the university will have to explore what avenues exist to fund whatever projects are necessary to fund while adhering to the legal requirements and intents of the Legislature.”

Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, vice chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said the College of Education language came from a list of proposed budget provisos from Senate colleagues.

“More importantly, for me, I think what’s critical is that UH has no academic-focused master plan,” Dela Cruz (D, Wahiawa-Whitmore-Mililani Mauka) said in an interview. “We’re creating all these new programs, and graduates aren’t getting jobs. They should be consolidating so that we can make programs even stronger. Then we could better leverage funds and partnerships. But right now it’s kapakahi, it’s all whatever.”

The Board of Regents in September passed a resolution calling on UH President David Lassner’s administration to do just that.

The resolution tasks the university with developing an “integrated high-level systemwide academic and facilities master plan that creates a strategic vision to align and leverage each campus’ unique mission and resources while reducing unnecessary duplication and increasing collaboration and sharing of academic offerings.”

“Leadership is currently working on what was requested of the university by the regents,” said UH spokesman Dan Meisenzahl.

Rep. Isaac Choy, chairman of the House Education Committee, contends the Manoa campus is the proper home for the College of Education.

“I believe the University of Hawaii at Manoa, being the flagship campus, requires a core program like the College of Education. It’s one of the core programs of any university, and UH Manoa is the flagship campus,” Choy (D, Manoa-Punahou-Moiliili) said in an interview.