STORY SUMMARY>>>
Outgoing University of Hawaii President David McClain told Board of Regents Thursday he’s recommending a salary cut for the university’s top executives, as UH grapples with budget restrictions totaling $154 million over the next two fiscal years.
“It’s been my belief that executives need to lead the way,” McClain told Khon2.
Details of the plan were not available as the UH president and regents discussed the proposal in executive session. McClain said he would make the plan known after meeting with as many UH executives as possible.
Thursday’s Board of Regents meeting was McClain’s last. He said he was most proud of the 35,000 to 40,000 students who have walked in UH commencements over his five year tenure and the enhanced opportunities afforded native Hawaiians throughout the 10 campus system.
McClain also highlights the university’s fund raising efforts, which has added hundreds of millions of dollars to the institution’s bottom line.
“We've been able to increase our regular funding from various sources by about $250 million a year and we've had a centennial campaign that was off the charts successful.”
Still, the university faces perhaps its most challenging financial crisis since its inception in 1907. Since the start of the year lawmakers and then Gov. Lingle have mandated budget restrictions totaling $198 million over the next two fiscal years. The most dramatic cuts were imposed by the governor in response to the state’s projected budget deficit of $768 million.
Luckily for UH $44 million in federal stimulus funds helped offset some of the shortfall.
Even so, the Board of Regents must make some difficult choices in how to deal with the deficit, including the possibility of furloughs. McClain has said furloughs should be a last resort and he believes the budget deficit can be tackled through a variety of other measures.
“Everything is still in the hopper,” he said. “We're (in) collective bargaining; we're thinking of other programmatic adjustments (and) we're trying to get efficiencies.”
The university and the Lingle administration have been negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly for the past several months.
McClain says UH chancellors are counting on gaining some savings from a new labor contract, which involves simultaneous negotiations with three other public worker unions - HGEA, UPW and HSTA.
UHPA Executive Director J.N. Musto told Khon2 Thursday he’s pessimistic the university’s faculty and staff will come out of the process with their current salaries intact. He said administration officials have foreshadowed more budget restrictions in the near future.
“Some of the representatives of the governor implied that those could still be coming to the Department of Education and the University of Hawaii, even more than the $98 million and $100 million UH has already been restricted.”
The Council on Revenues, which projects the amount of cash the state will receive from taxes, is set to release its next forecast in early September.
INCOMING UH PRESIDENT
M.R.C. Greenwood, the new University of Hawaii president who was chosen by the Board of Regents last month attended Thursday’s meeting, but was reluctant to discuss strategies on how to deal with the $154 million budget gap until she officially begins work on August 24.
However the incoming leader of UH said she was committed to following strategic guidelines developed by her predecessor and regents as the budget process played itself out.
“I think we've really hit the beach hard,” Greenwood said of the university’s financial difficulties. “But there is another wave and we're planning to position ourselves to ride that one into shore safely and in better shape then before.”
Andrew may be reached at ph. 368-7273.
