Editorial: UH funding cuts poorly coordinated

When money is tight and time is short, one would hope that government spending plans would be well-coordinated and strategic.

This did not appear to be the case in the final configuration of the University of Hawaii budget, which seemed to catch the UH system leadership unawares when it emerged from the Legislature.

Cuts were deep across the 10-campus system, but what surprised administrators most was that for the flagship campus, UH-Manoa, the general-fund appropriations dropped by the largest amount, $35.6 million in fiscal year 2022, or 13.8% below existing levels.

There also were unexpected reductions in capital improvement funds for requested projects, while a Wahiawa education center — not on the priority list — was funded at $42.5 million.

What to do? The Wahiawa resource center is on the agenda for today’s UH Board of Regents meeting, set to start at 8:30 a.m. The link to the livestream is at hawaii.edu/offices/bor.

Kalbert Young, vice president for budget and finance and the chief financial officer, said that UH had prepared for cuts as high as 15% on the Manoa campus, in the event that more federal relief funds did not come through.

The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) did pass, but what funds were allocated to UH meant Manoa will get just 1.2% more than it would have otherwise, Young said. This does seem to be a disproportionate reduction. The UH system’s funding was chopped by 8.8% overall; community colleges suffered the least, with a 2.8% reduction.

ARPA did provide separate funding for the university, Young added. That money was meant to offset losses in non-general-fund revenue sources supporting Manoa-based activities such as student housing, athletics and the bookstore.

The administration is rightly exploring whether some of the university-dedicated ARPA funds — up to $130 million systemwide — could help close the larger gap. There is no definitive guidance, yet, on how freely the funds can be moved around in the UH budget. But with enough flexibility, Manoa could get up to $53 million, Young said.

UH is not the only agency facing cuts, of course, and the regents cannot have expected to get everything they asked for. Furthermore, 11 state agencies did not receive ARPA funds at all, according to figures provided by state Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz. But with this fiscal year nearly over, the Legislature should have better coordinated with UH to avoid this late-in-the-game scrambling.

As for the Wahiawa Resource and Education Center, Dela Cruz underscored that preliminary funding has been a budget item since 2016 and that community colleges have been involved in contracting initial plans.

The facility would house the rebuilt Wahiawa library, as well as Department of Education offices and community-college classrooms, Dela Cruz said. Because it is a multi-agency facility, he added, DOE is drafting a memorandum of agreement in which it would handle the maintenance.

There may nothing wrong with the project itself, which, it should be noted, would be built in Dela Cruz’s district. But the timing, during a budget-busting pandemic when UH faces more cuts in its deferred-maintenance projects, was hardly ideal. At the very least, the plan to fund the project this year demanded a fuller debate.

Such a communications breakdown may not surprise Capitol observers who have seen relations between UH leadership and lawmakers deteriorate in recent years. But this is not how budgeting is supposed to work.

There’s little doubt the Legislature will be presented with supplemental budget requests in 2022. So there’s no time like the present to work toward a more consultative process.