Public employees in Hawaii are not looking forward to Friday the 13th, when the House Committee on Labor & Public Employment will hold a hearing on several bills introduced by House Speaker Calvin Say that would strip away benefits.

Among the proposals are bills to cut off insurance benefits to employees who retire after July 1 and before they are eligible for Medicare (HB 1719), despite years of service and other circumstances, and to eliminate drug coverage for all employees (HB 1725).

Several more of the bills are scheduled for a public hearing on Tuesday (Feb. 17) by the same House committee, including a bill to cut off dental, vision, and group life insurance benefits coverage, all part of current benefits for state and county workers.

Democrats are puzzled by Say’s bills, which are perceived as anti-labor in a state where public employees are a significant voting block. Although they expect such proposals from the Republican governor, they were surprised when Speaker Say introduced these measures. Union members are already letting legislators know how they feel about the proposals. Clearly, the speaker has not done any favors to members of his majority caucus, who are now open to criticism by state and county workers.

Several letters I’ve seen from union members say benefits are an important part of why people go into public sector jobs, although pay and working conditions aren’t necessarily as good as they are elsewhere. One police officer predicted resignations at HPD if these benefit cuts are implemented, because officers will opt to move to other jurisdictions with lower costs of living.

Other people refer to the commitments made in prior labor contracts that would be violated by taking back benefits that were part of those contract packages.

In any case, Say has stirred up a hornets’ nest.

The American Association of University Professors sent out an email this week concerning the crisis of funding for higher education.

1) You can’t blame faculty salaries for increases in tuition and costs. Faculty salary increases have been well below increases in tuition and well below increases in senior administrators’ salaries, which have increased disproportionately. Adjusted for inflation, tuition increases between 1989 and 2005 averaged about 6 percent a year; between 2002 and 2006, tuition at public universities increased by over 29 percent. From 1999–2000 to 2007–08, the yearly increase in overall average faculty salary ranged from 2.1 to 3.8 percent; adjusted for inflation, faculty salaries either decreased or increased less than 1 percent in six of those years (see table A in the 2007–08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession). Between 1995–96 and 2005–06, presidential salaries increased by 35 percent, adjusted for inflation, compared to 5 percent for average faculty salaries (figure 3, 2006-07 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession from 2005-06 to 2007-08, the two-year increase in senior administrators’ salaries outpaced both inflation and the increase in average salary for full professors (figures 1 and 2, 2007–08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession).

2) You can’t blame increases in faculty numbers for increased tuition and costs. Full-time tenure-track faculty numbers have increased at a far slower rate than have numbers of other professionals and administrators.
Between 1976 and 2005, full-time tenure-track positions in the United States increased by only 17 percent, compared to a 281 percent increase in nonfaculty professionals and a 101 percent increase in administrators (see figure 3 in the 2007–08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession).

3) Spending on instruction has declined in all sectors of higher education, while spending on administrative costs has increased. Between 1995 and 2006, overall spending increased, but the share of instruction was down in all sectors (for example, in public master’s institutions it was down from 53.9 to 50.8 percent; in private master’s institutions it was down from 45.0 to 43.0 percent). The share of student services increased (from 9.9 to 10.9 percent in public master’s institutions and from 13.9 to 15.6 percent in private master’s institutions), as did that of administration and other support (from 36.2 to 38.2 percent and from 41.1 to 41.4 percent, respectively). (See figure 8, Trends in College Spending.)

These trends are certainly visible here at the University of Hawaii, where administrative salaries have soared over the past decade while faculty salaries have seen moderate annual growth.

Legislative watchers will be tuning in as the civil unions bill is up for a final House vote today.

Issue Number 1 The Hawaii Independent, an 8-page print version of a publication that is primarily online, were being distributed at the Capitol yesterday.

I headed out late yesterday intending to catch the bus over to visit my father. It wasn’t destined to happen. First I waited and watched probably a dozen Waikiki-bound buses go by before the first #1 arrived, and it was predictably jammed. So I waited. And waited. It took something over 20 minutes before I got on a bus in the right direction.

Then I noticed a funny noise. At first I thought it was the bus air conditioner acting up. Then I realized it was the sound of rain hitting the roof of the bus. Hard rain. Rain that I would be descending into when I reached my stop, which happened too quickly. Luckily, there was a small overhang with where a number of other bus riders were also huddled. I joined them.

This was a hard rain, a gutter-filling rain that soon created small rivers in both the outside lanes. It was the kind of quick, heavy deluge that I last saw in New Orleans during a visit some years back.

Then, after half an hour or so, it stopped. Another ten minutes and those rivers had subsided into streams, and I crossed King Street to meet up with Meda. The visit with my Dad was washed out. Hopefully I’ll have better luck today.