The state Senate’s budget proposal to give the University of Hawaii a $275 million funding increase comes with strings attached, including a $100,000 pay cut for the UH West Oahu chancellor and eliminating the positions of communications director and director of the Office of Equal Employment.
The 24 “provisos” dictating how some of the money for UH can be spent are unprecedented in the modern era, said Kalbert Young, UH’s chief financial affairs officer, who previously served as director of the state Department of Budget and Finance.
“The Senate version would be the most prescriptive and specific I’ve seen,” Young said. “It’s been an evolution that’s been occurring over the last three to five years.”
The Senate version of House Bill 1600 would eliminate more than 90 positions across the entire system of seven community colleges, three four-year campuses and UH Board of Regents.
At the same time, the Senate plan calls for 128 new hires and funding for research that UH never requested, Young said.
“There’s a lot of funding for things that UH didn’t ask for — for UH to do studies on prison reform, cultural heritage, DOE (Department of Education) master planning, highway construction on the Big Island,” he said. “They’ve added positions in certain campuses that we didn’t ask for, primarily in the community colleges: landscapers, security guards, janitors … positions for lecturers, additional personnel for building and ground custodians, administrative support, food sciences faculty.”
In a message to the UH community on Tuesday, Young wrote, “It makes little financial sense to reduce approximately $2.4 million of funding for positions while also adding more than $274 million to the operating budget. Since the position cuts are not for financial reasons, this action can appear to be targeted and punitive in purpose.”
State Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, who chairs the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday night that the Senate’s budget plans for UH are intended to hold the university accountable and accommodate Senate bills introduced this session, such as proposals to hire more nursing instructors and several studies that align with state priorities, such as the effects of so-called sand “burritos” on beach erosion.
The proposed $100,000 pay cut for UH West Oahu Chancellor Maenette K.P. Ah Nee-Benham reflects the time that she actually spends on campus, Dela Cruz said.
Asked about criticisms that the Senate is too involved in UH personnel and operational issues, Dela Cruz said, “The main thing is we want accountability, we want transparency, we want the president and the regents to do their jobs. We want to make UH more relevant in what the state’s trying to accomplish.”
Neal Milner, a political analyst and former UH political science professor who at one time served as the UH ombudsperson, said that even though voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment granting UH autonomy in 2000, state senators, in particular, continue to try to “micromanage” staffing and operations.
He called the relationship between the Senate and UH “terrible.”
“It’s in the state Constitution, but autonomy has always been trench warfare: You fight for a little thing, you lose, you win,” Milner said. “The concept has never been accepted by the Legislature, especially in the Senate where there is personal animosity. This is clearly a kind of outrageous attempt to micromanage the university and totally ignore the sort of autonomy that the university, by constitutional rule, is supposed to have in order to govern itself. … This (budget proposal) is clearly a slap in the face. They’re saying, ‘We’re giving you more money, but you’re going to have to follow the rules as we see them.’”
The House version of the state budget also calls for extra money for UH: an increase of $129.4 million, compared with the Senate’s proposed increase of $274.9 million.
But the House version does not go into the level of detail included in the Senate version, which fails to explain spending priorities, according to Young.
“Why the Senate would want to hire a janitor at Honolulu Community College is not articulated, or why the Senate wants to get rid of Dan (Meisenzahl, UH director of communications) or why the chancellor at UH West Oahu only deserves a salary of $145,000,” Young said.
Both the House and Senate versions will head into conference committee meetings that have a deadline of April 29 to come up with a compromise.
Rep. Sylvia Luke, chair of the House Finance Committee, declined to provide a theory behind the Senate proposal or to describe the relationship between the Senate and UH.
“The budget is a negotiation between the House and the Senate,” she said. “Over the next two weeks we’re heading into conference to work out the differences.”
Asked about UH autonomy, Luke said, “Even with the constitutional provision of the amendment, funding is a statewide concern. Funding still remains within the purview of the governor and the Legislature. Regarding specific dealings within the university, we have tried to honor UH’s goal toward autonomy.”
Last month the UH Manoa Faculty Senate passed a resolution, “Finding Inappropriate Legislative Actions Undermining University Governance and Free Speech,” that was pointedly aimed at state Sen. Donna Kim, chair of the Higher Education Committee, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The Faculty Senate alleged that Kim “has repeatedly introduced legislation to usurp the decision-making authority of the UH Board of Regents, UH administration, and UH faculty”; “pushed the elimination of a tenured faculty member’s position” in the 2021 legislative session; and this year introduced a bill “that attempted to alter tenure and transfer managerial authority over the university from the Board of Regents to the legislature.”
The legislative session began in January with a tense two-hour hearing by the Senate committees led by Dela Cruz and Kim where then-UH football coach Todd Graham, athletic director David Matlin and President David Lassner were grilled about an athletic program that lawmakers perceived to be in disarray after more than a dozen players left.
Current and former players and family members testified about alleged mistreatment under Graham.
“The first thing David Lassner said was, ‘Essentially, you’re pulling a fast one on us. You said there couldn’t be any oral testimony,’ then they called in people with grievances,” Milner said.
During the session, Senate bills directed at UH also would have stripped the UH president of oversight of the community colleges and created a separate community college board of regents; removed the procurement powers of the UH president; required UH regents to approve salaries above $200,000 for UH coaches; and given regents the authority to hire and fire UH athletic directors and coaches.
All the bills appear dead.
No matter what happens with UH’s budget, Milner expects tension to continue between the Senate and UH.
“The Senate has always been more than willing to — in its words — ‘oversee the university,’” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled first name of Kalbert Young, UH’s chief financial affairs officer.
