At the same time the University of Hawaii’s Board of Regents is deciding whether to hit students on the Manoa campus with a new $50 per semester athletic fee, gift disclosures filed with the State Ethics Commission show top university administrators have been getting free season tickets to sports of their choosing.

Here are some of the administrators taking advantage of the free tickets, along with salaries drawn from the university’s annual salary report to the Legislature. The VP for Research (salary: $222,720) got two basketball season tickets, the VP for academic planning & policy (salary: $284,808) got football tickets, the university’s general counsel and VP for legal affairs (salary: $218,784) took a pair of free season tickets for women’s volleyball, football, men’s basketball, men’s volleyball, and baseball.

There are more. The associate VP for CIP (salary: $210,384), accepted free season tickets for football, women’s volleyball, men’s volleyball, baseball, and men’s basketball. The UH VP for budget & finance (salary: $260,208) reported receiving three football season tickets, two season tickets for women’s volleyball.

None of the top administrators from the UH Manoa campus, including Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw and the bevy of assistant chancellors, appeared on the Ethics Commission’s list of those filing gift disclosures as of yesterday.

Meanwhile, the legislature’s decision to cancel traditional festivities on the opening day of the 2010 session, along with the sluggish economy, appear to be reflected in fewer gifts to legislators this year.

A quick look at gift disclosures filed by elected and appointed officials, board and commission members, and state employees shows a general decline in gifts since 2008.

Comparisons are difficult because of a range of reporting standards are used by those filing reports. The law technically only requires disclosure of gifts valued at $200 or more from a single source, whether that’s an individual item or a cumulative total. But a number of legislators report all gifts received regardless of value, providing the public with a more complete picture of gift-giving practices.

Rep. Roy Takumi has been a leader in reporting all gifts received by his office. In 2008, Takumi’s report consisted of six pages and a total of about 100 itemized gifts. Takumi’s 2010 report was just under 4 full pages and listed approximately 60 gifts, including official travel to meetings of the National Conference of State Legislators and the National Governor’s Association.

Reports filed by House Speaker Calvin Say show a similar decline. In 2008, Say’s report ran over 12 pages, with about 12 entries per page, for approximately 140 gifts. In 2010, the number of gifts reported by the Speaker fell to about 90.

Other disclosures raise questions.

Gov. Linda Lingle, for example, reports receiving only 10 gifts during the past year, including a trip to the west coast paid for by Lt. Gov. Aiona’s campaign, and a hotel room paid by Charles Djou’s campaign, apparently on the same trip. Aiona reports a single gift, apparently the entry fee for the Sony Dream Cup Pro Am golf tournament.

There’s no gift disclosure from Lingle’s chief of staff, Barry Fukunaga, on the Ethics Commisison web site.

In addition, some UH officials report expenditures from various protocol accounts (see engineering dean Peter Crouch and UH President MRC Greenwood, for example). Do the governor, lt. governor, or any other officials have similar protocol accounts? I wonder.

It’s too bad that Lingle-Aiona don’t match legislative leaders Say and Colleen Hanabusa in reporting and disclosing more than the legally required minimum.

And that’s if you take these reports at face value and accept that no local lobbyist or interest group, over the course of a full year, provided gifts worth a total of $200 to the governor, lt. gov, or their top staff. That’s lunches, dinners, golfing, benefit tickets, sporting events, UH sports, etc. It’s possible, but I have doubts.

Want to dig around and find your own goodies?

Here’s a link to the annual gift disclosures filed with the State Ethics Commission. As you find interesting items, please return and share them as comments. The more the merrier!