A campus budget briefing yesterday outlined the budget deficit the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is looking at and what the university is trying to do to climb out of it, but some UH faculty voiced strong disapproval at the way administration has handled the budget cuts.
The University of Hawai‘i is facing a $66 million reduction in general funds for fiscal year 2010, a 25 percent decrease from last year. When offset by the $14.7 million in stimulus funds that hasn’t been released yet, this amounts to about a 19 percent reduction in general funds, according to Kathleen Cutshaw, UHM Vice Chancellor for Administration, Finance and Operations.
Cutshaw discussed the ways UH is adjusting to meet the general funds reductions, which include the non-renewal of 150 lecturers; a 4 to 6 percent reduction in most UHM colleges’ budgets; a 5 percent salary reduction for faculty paid entirely by state funds as stated in the “last best final offer”; the possible reorganization and restructuring of programs; and shifting about $2 million each year of the increased tuition revenue into repairs and maintenance.
Cutshaw said that, despite actions UH Mānoa is taking, the university is still projecting a $11.2 budget deficit in fiscal year 2012.
The UH Mānoa faculty and students who packed into Hemenway Hall Theater had other ideas about what UH should do to close the deficit, none of which included accepting the “last best final offer” UH is offering.
Suggestions included: more advocacy by UH Mānoa administrators; delay of capital improvement projects; cutting UH administrators’ salaries; letting some UH administrators go; reducing electricity costs; raiding other funds; and asking the governor to look at other areas she could save in.
John Goldberg-Hiller, political science associate professor, wondered if the UH administration is taking the guidelines for retrenchment set forth by the American Association of University Professors seriously. Goldberg-Hiller read part of the guidelines the AAUP has mandated for retrenchment, which includes having a faculty body participate in retrenchment decisions and requires that a state of financial exigency exists.
“These guidelines seemed to have been ignored,” Hiller said, adding that he thinks this could be a “grounds for a vote of no confidence” by the faculty of the administration.
Reed Dasenbrock, UHM vice chancellor for academic affairs, replied that former UH President David McClain did declare a state of fiscal exigency and suggested that faculty make a formal proposal of what they think UH should do to go forward.
Robert Perkinson, American studies associate professor, pointed out that UH Mānoa is taking a disproportionate amount of the cuts while the other UH campuses are “devouring” the federal stimulus funds.
Perkinson said he wants to know how UH Mānoa administration plans to advocate for the university more.
“As you can see from the amount of people we have here, which could lead to many more, we have the capacity to do some internal mobilization if necessary,” Perkinson said.
Dasenbrock replied that he understands there are larger political issues and social contexts involved.
“There is a bunch of larger conversations, but in addition to that larger conversation we have to figure out how we operate with $66 million fewer state dollars,” Dasenbrock said.
Nandita Sharma, ethnic studies associate professor, said that in collective bargaining UHPA offered to loan the administration the money that would be saved by cutting faculty pay by 5 percent.
“We offered to loan you that money with the guarantee that once the financial crisis was over we would have it returned,” Sharma said. “I think that is an incredibly generous offer and that was rejected over and over again by the administration.”
Sharma pointed out that in the LBFO UH doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be any retrenchment.
“Why on earth would we go for that?” Sharma asked. “And why are you not acting in good faith and saying, ‘Okay, we’ve got a budgetary crisis, the faculty is willing to load us some money, we’ll take that.’ Why are you demanding that we pay for it through an automatic cut that God knows when it will be paid back - and probably as you say - never.”
Dasenbrock replied that there are some very complex issues with the LBFO. Dasenbrock said the UH budgetary plan assumed that there would be able to save money through labor negotiations, and because those weren’t realized that led to “greater cuts.” Dasenbrock said if those cuts are “in part rescinded operating units would have more money.”
“Is this a situation we’re happy about?” Dasenbrock said. “Absolutely not. But it is a fact now that if there is an agreement on labor then the effect of the most recent round of cuts would be partially mitigated for the operating units.”
David Stannard, chair of the American studies department, said that the LBFO would save the university about $28 million.
“That (would be) our gift to you by voting for that contract,” Stannard said.
Stannard said that there are some who are willing to vote for the LBFO, but there would be a better chance of faculty voting for the LBFO if there is a guarantee that the younger faculty wouldn’t be retrenched.
“The insult of this contract is that after you take $25 million from us you say, ‘By the way, we reserve the right to fire you,’” Stannard said.
Stannard said the “simplest way to get the contract passed … would be to remove retrenchment officially from the contract … As long as that is in the contract I guarantee you the contract will be rejected.”
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