The University of Hawaii chancellor’s office has an annual operating budget of $14.7 million that state Rep. Mark Takai said could be better spent on student academics.
UH regents created the position of chancellor for the flagship Manoa campus 11 years ago, but the House Higher Education Committee is considering a resolution that would ask UH regents to consider returning responsibilities of the chancellor’s office to the president of the 10-campus UH system, as it was before regents created the Manoa chancellor’s job in January 2001.
But with current Chancellor Virginia S. Hinshaw’s departure coming up in June, Takai says the timing is right for UH regents to decide whether Manoa even needs the office of chancellor — and its costs. Four candidates are scheduled to present their visions of the chancellor’s role next month as they vie for the job.
"That money comes directly from the students’ tuition," said Takai, a former UH student body president. "Now is the perfect time to discuss this important topic."
The House committee Tuesday deferred action on Takai’s nonbinding resolution.
The Board of Regents had no comment on the issue, according to a spokesman for the regents.
Lynne Waters, spokeswoman for UH President M.R.C. Greenwood, said in a statement, "There continues to be plenty of work for both the president of the UH system and the chancellor at UH Manoa to accomplish. The search for a new chancellor for UH Manoa continues as scheduled."
Hinshaw announced in August that she would step down as leader of the state’s public university when her five-year contract ends June 30.
At the time of her announcement, Hinshaw earned $337,672.
In January 2001, when the responsibilities of UH-Manoa chancellor lay with the president, regents promised that the job would incur no additional costs, said Takai, who was chairman of the House Higher Education Committee at the time.
The idea was to shift administrative tasks and positions from the president’s office to the chancellor’s office to focus on issues specific to the Manoa campus, Takai said.
Instead, the expenses for the chancellor’s office quickly mushroomed under former UH President Evan Dobelle and have continued to grow, Takai said.
In addition to the annual $14.7 million annual operating costs, Takai estimates that the chancellor’s office has generated an extra $6.4 million in administrative costs since 2001.
The money would have gone to UH anyway, and administrators could have spent it however they wished, Takai said.
But without the costs to support the chancellor’s office, Takai said, "that money could have been used to support academics for students."
Bob Cooney, chairman of the UH-Manoa faculty senate, questioned the necessity to continue the chancellor’s job after Hinshaw announced her resignation.
But the issue failed to generate a consensus among Cooney’s fellow senators.
"They’re in agreement that it isn’t working right now," Cooney said. "And they’d certainly like to reduce the number of highly paid administrators, because with more administrators there are more hoops for people to jump through to justify those positions. But they (faculty senators) also want to have someone to talk to who is an advocate for the Manoa campus. If you push to eliminate the chancellor, nobody knows where it will go."
The Manoa campus is on spring break this week, but some students on campus Tuesday were unaware of the difference between the offices of UH president and Manoa chancellor.
"To be honest, I don’t know exactly what a chancellor does, so to me I don’t know if that money is well spent if I don’t know exactly what (she) does," said UH sophomore Tyler Blair, 20, who lives on campus. "I don’t know what the difference is if we only had a president versus a president and a chancellor."
Sophomore film major Andrea Gordon, 20, also was unclear about the difference between the two offices.
But Gordon was startled by the cost to run the chancellor’s office.
"It’s a lot of money," she said. "I don’t know if it’s worth that much."
Cooney acknowledged that a UH president who has dual responsibilities for the Manoa campus reinforces the perception among the other UH campuses that Manoa gets preferential treatment.
But having two separate positions also creates problems if the president and chancellor don’t get along, Cooney said.
And if the chancellor is seen as the "lap dog" of the president, then the faculty, administrators and staff "won’t see that office as the real seat of power," Cooney said.
"In theory the faculty would be happy to have an advocate in a chancellor," Cooney said. "In practice it doesn’t seem to work out that way, and the chancellor complains that if groups don’t get what they want, they just do an end run around to the president. … It’s no way to run a university."
A LOOK BACK
Three people have served as University of Hawaii-Manoa chancellor since former President Evan Dobelle separated the jobs of president of the 10-campus UH system and the leader of the main UH-Manoa campus.
