State Senate President Donna Mercado Kim criticized the University of Hawaii’s Board of Regents on Tuesday for questionable financial decision-making and a lack of communication with lawmakers.
"We’re at the end of our wits," Kim said during a state Senate Committee on Higher Education hearing Tuesday to review prospective appointments to the board.
Kim said the board has authorized spending $1.2 million for in-house attorneys, $2 million for outside legal services and $60,000 annually to allow the university president to live in Waikiki rather than at the university president’s house in Manoa.
"We have seen a lot of expenditures by the university that I haven’t seen the Board of Regents cut back. … You got so many expenditures, I could go on and on," said Kim (D, Kalihi Valley-Moanalua-Halawa).
Kim said she recently asked for a response about a university expense and received only a one-page email after waiting for months.
While a couple of committee members were critical of past board actions, the committee voted to recommend that the full Senate confirm the appointments of Eugene Bal III and Randolph A. Moore and the reappointment of Barry T. Mizuno.
Board members, who serve as volunteers, are responsible for providing direction for the UH system and selecting the university president.
Mizuno, who began serving as a board member in 2011, fielded most of the questions about the board’s past actions.
Kim, who sat in on the meeting but isn’t a committee member, raised questions about why the board approved raising tuition for students while increasing pay for certain administrators, such as the athletic director.
She also asked why the board failed to respond to numerous queries from her, including the mishandling of a fundraising concert where a promoter lied about his ties to Stevie Wonder.
The university lost more than $200,000 in the fraudulent concert promotion.
Mizuno, a retired certified public accountant from Hawaii island, said the board understands that it needs to be more transparent and public about its meetings.
"The regents do get it. … We did receive the message," Mizuno said. "We need to be more transparent."
Mizuno said while he felt the pain of students who face tuition increases, the board needs to increase revenues to remain a solid financial institution.
"It’s not a bottomless pit. Everyone has budgets, and everyone has to live within their means," he said. "I don’t want to increase the tuition."
He said the university also relied on the revenues from tuition and that the board was scheduled in 2014 to review the decision to increase tuition.
Kim said in reviewing the transcripts of meetings, she’s noticed that Mizuno votes with the majority, including a decision to pay an outside auditing firm to look at the university’s athletic operations.
"I don’t see any of that being questioned by you," she told Mizuno.
She raised questions on why the university authorized paying $260,000 for an outside audit when it has its own auditing department.
"Before you spend $260,000 that comes out of the student tuition … shouldn’t we be questioning the expenditure and whether or not we need to have it?" Kim said.
"I’m just frustrated that … we have these people and you don’t utilize them."
Mizuno said he supported spending the $260,000 for the audit because those at the university are involved in other auditing tasks.
"We’re not experts so we need help from outside," he said.
