Senator Donna Kim, chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee, attacked the University of Hawaii at Manoa and its faculty this week by unilaterally proposing to cut 121 positions from the Manoa budget.
And Kim made it personal. Apparently the senator, using her own highly questionable methodology, identified 121 specific people who she apparently thinks don’t produce enough to continue as UH faculty members.
Kim’s proposal would cut their jobs and the $13 million currently used to fund them.
The Kim proposal is buried on page 842 of the current budget worksheets. It is not mentioned in the committee report that accompanied the HB2 SD1, the Senate version of the budget bill. The measure was passed by the full Senate on Friday, March 15. It now will head to a budget conference committee, where just about anything can happen.
A memo sent out to UH Manoa deans and directors on Thursday from the office of Michael Bruno, interim vice-chancellor for academic affairs and vice-chancellor for research, expressed alarm at Kim’s attempt to evaluate the performance of individual faculty members.
“Most of this evaluation was incorrect,” the memo said.
Individuals who have retired were included, as were individuals who have been terminated. Likewise individuals who are funded by extramural grants were included. Nevertheless, G funds in the exact amount of each of these individuals’ salaries was removed from Manoa’s budget.
Kim’s proposed cuts are far from trivial.
“Even if we could absorb the budget cut (we cannot), we do not have enough free position counts to make up for the eliminated counts,” Bruno’s memo concluded.
The University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, the faculty union, called Kim’s proposal “an attempt to address her animosity towards the University of Hawaii.”
Kim’s proposals to target specific faculty positions “have been made without understanding the full context of a faculty member’s job duties and responsibilities,” the UHPA email said.
As all faculty know, the number of credit hours is not limited to classroom teaching nor are all faculty members employed to teach. Sen. Mercado Kim has established artificial factors and applied them as a measure of faculty work performance.
Sen. Mercado Kim does not show any appreciation of the research work now underway. UH faculty researchers annually bring in a total of $400 million in grant funds. Many of the faculty members, including principal investigators and their faculty teams are targeted for elimination.
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Bring back Pritchett!!??
Can the public, tax payers know the names etc.?
Senator Kim should leave our teachers alone they deserve better. I remember when news broke of the Dpt of Transportion years of blatantly breaking the law in connection with contractor firms. She huffed and puffed and let DOT off with blatant lawbreaking. Seems like she is looking for an easy target.
Some things never change. Like Kim’s blatant animosity.
Can we say that KIM is a career politician?
Just look at her bio on Wikipedia. Which by the way touts her as a proponent of public education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Mercado_Kim
But to Ian’s point, the micro-managing of UH by state lawmakers has been a long running scandal that I assumed had pretty much ended because everyone agrees it ties the hands of UH leadership.
Now in 2019 Kim creates a hit list of positions that should be eliminated. Isn’t it the job of state lawmakers to provide funding for a budget that UH leadership creates, proposes, and implements?
No doubt state lawmakers deserve a say in the budget process but Kim takes it too far. And Kim should know better because she has been caught trying to micro-manage UH in the past (MRC Greenwood, her son’s law school status, budget hearings, Board of Regents…).
How many times has she unsuccessfully run for congress and other top positions?
Time for Kim to move on from politics.
How about publishing the 121 names….
Shame on Senate leadership for putting Sen. Kim in charge of the Higher Ed Committee.
What is Senator Kim’s beef (“animosity”) against UH Manoa?
Well, Senator Kim did embarrass herself mightily when she attacked the UH Law School for being slow with her son’s application, when in reality her son lied to her mother about applying.
May 2013 Mercado’s son’s application to UH Manoa Law School. Whew she can hold a grudge yeah?!?