KAHULUI » The University of Hawaii will seek $16.2 million in additional state funding for operations next fiscal year under a supplemental budget request approved unanimously Thursday by the university’s Board of Regents.

The request includes $5 million for the financially struggling UH Cancer Center, $3 million for UH-Manoa’s athletics program and $3.5 million for a university initiative to boost research and innovation.

The board’s Budget and Finance Committee earlier this month deadlocked on whether to recommend the $5 million for the Cancer Center to the full board. Some members had wanted to reduce the request to a symbolic $1 place holder as the university awaits a business plan from an external consultant for the research center, which has been overspending revenues by $7.5 million to $9.5 million a year and burning through its reserves. Other regents said they believed the nominal place holder would signal a lack of support from the regents.

Regent Benjamin Kudo, who had proposed the place holder as a legislative strategy, asked his fellow regents Tuesday to support the $5 million request.

The center’s money troubles stem in part from a flawed business plan that assumed the university’s share of the state cigarette tax would remain steady at nearly $20 million a year to fund operations for the foreseeable future. But as fewer people smoke, the revenue has dropped sharply.

UH President David Lassner said that while the request is for state general funds, some legislators have indicated the possibility of direct tax support for the Cancer Center.

“That’s the only tool we have available to request support,” Lassner said of general funds. “But in our discussions with legislators who support the Cancer Center, it’s actually our expectation that financial assistance from the state would more likely come in the form of some other type of funding, perhaps the cigarette tax, perhaps a tax on e-cigarettes.”

Meanwhile, the request for athletics is expected to help subsidize the 21-sport department, which has operated in the red much of the past decade.

Regent Jeff Portnoy, chairman of the board’s Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics, said that while it would be “wonderful” for the Legislature to support the $3 million request for athletics, program officials actually wanted closer to $5 million.

“I think everyone needs to be aware that that is an insufficient sum to allow the Athletic Department to not operate in the red the upcoming fiscal year,” he said of the lower request.

The supplemental requests would add to the $428 million in general funds lawmakers have appropriated for UH next year as part of the state’s biennium budget. The request will be submitted for inclusion in Gov. David Ige’s budget proposal, which lawmakers typically use as a starting point.