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UH Mānoa parking fees to increase

Published: Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Updated: Monday, August 3, 2009 17:08

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Joel Kutaka

The University of Hawai'i Board of Regents will raise the university's parking fees for the next two years, starting in July. The current fee for upper campus parking is a $3.00 flat rate.

The University of Hawai'i Board of Regents has approved a two-year increase in fees for the highly demanded UH Mānoa parking spots beginning next month.

"Let's just take it for two years, see where we are, then come back to it," said Presley Pang, interim executive administrator and secretary of the Board of Regents.

Under the new fees, UH employee parking rates would increase from the current $420 annual rate to $525, and then to $579 next year.

Student parking rates will decrease a little in the 2010 fiscal school year, which begins in July, from the current $134 per semester to $129. Summer rates will be raised from $68 to $129 to match the fall and spring semesters, and starting next July rates will be raised from $129 to $142 per semester for all three semesters.

Under the new parking fees rates for upper campus parking spots will increase to $4 per hour. The daily flat rate for lower campus parking from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. will increase from the current $3 to $4. After 4 p.m. the rate will increase to $5, according to.

Associated Students of the University of Hawai'i President Mark Ing sent an e-mail to the BOR the night before the meeting to request that UH distinguishes UH students from non-UH students for the after 4 p.m. rate.

"I suggest that if Campus Parking differentiates between students and event-goers by another means (such as checking IDs upon payments, or a sticker on the windshield) at no extra cost, they could then raise prices for events while keeping the student rate low - no need to compromise, (they're) still making more revenue," Ing said in the e-mail.

Kathleen Cutshaw, UH Mānoa vice chancellor for administration, finance and operation. said in an e-mail that UH "will work with ASUH to differentiate students from non-students for the after-hour flat rate."

Cutshaw said the last parking rate increase was in 1997 and that one of the reasons for the fee increase is that UH Mānoa "has depleted all of our reserves and are facing over $6 million in deferred maintenance projects as well as other increases in operational expenses."

The parking fee increase is expected to generate an additional $1.5 million in the 2010 fiscal year, and $500,000 in 2011, according to Cutshaw.

Pang said that Gov. Linda Lingle still must approve the parking fee increase before it is implemented. If Lingle approves the fee, the lieutenant governor's office must then publish the new rates, according to Pang.

Pang said that the BOR did not adjourn the last meeting, which took place last Friday at UH Hilo, and that there is a follow-up meeting planned for tomorrow at Bachman Hall.

"We just ran out of time deciding all these matters," Pang said.

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