Amid all the fanfare over the forgiving of the $13 million accumulated deficit and other financial aid for the University of Hawaii athletic departments, another significant change has largely been overlooked.

The moolah, it turns out, comes with not just strings, but a whole committee, attached.

When the UH Board of Regents granted Manoa a reprieve from its decade-long debt and gave its cousin, UH Hilo, flexibility on the value for scholarships Thursday, it also amended board bylaws to establish the first regents standing committee on intercollegiate athletics.

The last time UH had a committee with anywhere near as much responsibility for athletics was 1965, when there was a Board of Athletic Control that basically did the job in the absence of a full-time athletic director.

This group maintains that it doesn’t want to act as an AD, but it is asserting its right to look over the shoulder of the Chancellor and whoever sits in the AD’s chair on major decisions.

The hope is that it will play out that way, too, because as bad as too little oversight has been, we’ve also seen what can happen with too many hands involved.

This board is charging itself with providing oversight, and judging by the language used in its creation — “the moral and financial hazards of intercollegiate athletics are significant for the student-athlete, the team, the campus it represents and the university system as a whole” — the committee isn’t intended to be a mere spectator at sporting events.

Apparently, the Stevie Wonder Blunder and the backdrop of scandals at Rutgers, Penn State and elsewhere has stirred this group of regents to do more than commission reports, which is commendable.

It wants, for example, some review before future high-stakes coaching contracts are signed. Not to name the coach, so much, but to approve the package that binds the school before sticker shock sets in. Previous policy has granted review for contracts “exceeding the salary schedule by more than 25 percent or exceeding $500,000 annually.”

Mostly regents have defined a line of authority from Bachman Hall to the chancellors to the ADs, leaving little doubt that chancellors will be held to answer for the wanderings of the athletic programs once only nominally under their charge.

Their policies note that “while the Board is ultimately accountable, the responsibility for the management of intercollegiate athletic programs rests with the chancellors of UH Manoa and UH Hilo.” It says, “… that the chancellors be evaluated on their management of their respective programs.”

That hasn’t always been the case and, indeed, some chancellors have let athletics pretty much run themselves. Which is part of why the accumulated net deficit has climbed as high as it did, why June Jones’ contract issues were never fully addressed and why we had such an assortment of nicknames for so long.

Athletics has gotten the debt relief and some of the financial flexibility it has sought. But it has come with a reminder of who it now has to answer to for that largesse.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.