UH sports sacked for $2M loss

The University of Hawaii at Manoa athletic program is facing a $2 million deficit — $1 million more than initially pledged last year — when it closes the books on the current fiscal year June 30.

"We’re still looking (at) around the $2 million figure … or close to it," athletic director Ben Jay said Tuesday. "I’m trying to keep it under $2 million, but we’ll see."

In May 2013, in announcing the "forgiving" of a $14.7 million accumulated net deficit that had been built up over 12 years, Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple announced a "runway" to solvency, giving the athletic department three years in which to balance its books while decreeing that the deficit not run beyond $1 million in any of those years.

The deficit for the previous fiscal year, 2013, was $3.4 million, the largest in the 12 years since UH began regularly running a deficit.

But football revenues from a 1-11 season that came in $906,478 lower than projected and rising costs have contributed to making the $1 million target unattainable this year for the $33 million, 21-team department. "I mean, $1 million was always the goal (and) we’re doing our utmost to try and meet that goal, but we’re not going to get there this year," Jay said.

Apple has agreed to "give me flexibility" on the issue, Jay said.

Last year an independent auditor told the regents that department deficits are covered by the Manoa campus.

Following the report on football earnings, Jay told the board of regents in February the department would be focused on attempting to cut expenses.

"I have asked all our coaches to cut where they could," said Jay, who requested 5 percent to 10 percent cuts. "But, in all honesty, there just isn’t much fat on the bones."

Approximately 89 percent of UH’s expenses are in "fixed costs," UH officials said, including salaries, benefits, scholarships and travel.

None of the pending raises for coaches will be paid in the current fiscal year, UH has said.

Only twice in the past decade, 2008 and 2011, has UH managed to post a surplus. In 2008 UH benefited from a $4.4 million Sugar Bowl payout, from which it netted approximately $2.2 million for a $295,243 budget surplus. In 2011 UH was aided by the newly implemented student-paid athletic fees; payouts forfeited by Boise State when it jumped from the Western Athletic Conference to the Mountain West Conference; spikes in ticket revenue for baseball, men’s basketball and football; cost containments; and salary reductions.

In looking toward the upcoming fiscal year that begins July 1, UH officials are projecting their takeover of the RainbowTique properties, which will be re-branded as H-Zone, and product lines will turn at least a $500,000 profit.

In addition, they are counting on a football home schedule that begins with two Pac-12 opponents, Washington (Aug. 30) and Oregon State (Sept. 6), to produce improved ticket revenues.