UH should detail how it spends donations

The nonprofit University of Hawaii Foundation raised a huge increase in contributions in the past year to benefit students, faculty, research and programs but, as it has in the past, has chosen not to make public the specifics.

The foundation’s confidential treatment of the expenditures is understand- able, since it is a private organization, but the university itself should be open about how it uses the benefits.

The yearly contributions had dropped during the four years of economic downturn, from $63.3 million in 2007 to $54.2 million in 2008 and less than $50 million in the next three fiscal years.

Now comes the stupendous $66.9 million for the past year, announced on Wednesday.

That is great news for the university, attributed to "the increased community outreach by the foundation staff," said Donna Vuchinich, the foundation president and CEO, and it reflects "strong and viable" benefits for the entire university.

Much of the funding seems fairly straight- forward, such as nearly $17 million for student aid and $10.5 million for property, buildings and equipment.

However, more than $20 million — nearly one-third of this year’s foundation contribution to the university — goes to "faculty and academic support" and research.

More than $10 million is funneled to "special programs" and "program enrichment."

How the money is specifically spent in those broad categories has been unclear in the past. That’s a lot of millions of dollars, and generosity, expended by donors.

The faculty Senate Executive Committee was "stonewalled" last year in trying to obtain that information, professor Amarjit Singh, then president of the engineering college’s Faculty Senate, wrote a year ago.

The Star-Advertiser had found that engineering Dean Peter Crouch, overseer of his department’s account, had used $42,000 in foundation funds over two years to take nearly 30 college-related trips to the mainland, Canada, the United Kingdom, Singapore and the neighbor islands.

Further, Crouch eliminated a long-standing policy allowing professors to use foundation funds to take annual academic trips.

That kind of information on use of funds and oversight policies — or lack thereof — becomes even more necessary after the recent Stevie Wonder concert debacle. The UH is still out $200,000 due to dubious accountability; the athletic director and Sheriff Center manager have been placed on indefinite leave; and a comprehensive audit of the UH athletic department is now under way.

A dozen athletic booster clubs, including Na Koa Football Club, raise money for various UH sports, and the UH Foundation’s funding this year includes $5.6 million in athletic support.

"Deans and directors often respond to individual donors’ requests to know how their donated funds were spent," said UH spokeswoman Lynne Waters on Friday. "There is no centralized system of reporting the expending of donated private funds in detail."

However, she said the foundation funds are not transmitted to the university but "remain in the foundation and the foundation administers them."

The foundation might have reason to keep much of its information from the public, including the names of the 30,000 donors yearly, most of whom want to remain confidential.

Once the money passes over to the university’s 10 campuses, though, the general public should be able to know how it is being used.

The present system needs changing.