When final votes were taken, we suddenly realized that there were winners and losers in the budget that was finally passed and sent to Governor Ige for his signature. One of the losers–the University of Hawaii, especially at its flagship Manoa campus, the center of research and graduate graduate programs often cited as being vital to any reimagining of the state’s economy.

Civil Beat’s Blaze Lovell did a good job recapping the impact of the UH budget cuts in a story published on Thursday (“University Of Hawaii Officials Push Back Against Proposed Budget Cuts“).

The budget that cleared the Legislature would axe $47 million in general funds from the UH budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1. It would also cut $42 million in the fiscal year after that.

All told, UH is looking at a total budget reduction of about 10%. However, UH Manoa is bearing the brunt of those cuts.

In fiscal year 2022, the flagship campus will have its budget reduced about 14%, or $35.6 million, compared to its current budget. Meanwhile, UH Hilo’s budget would drop by $2.2 million, and UH West Oahu by $1 million, budget reductions of 5.9% each. The community colleges would lose $4.6 million, or about 3%.

The overall 14% cut to the UH Manoa budget is about twice the hit that other state departments are facing, at something around 7%.

A message sent out by the University of Hawaii Professional Association, the faculty union, on Friday called it “our Senate’s punch to the gut of UH.” According to UHPA, the House version of the budget used “federal relief funds to fill in the budget gaps to ensure the University of Hawai‘i could continue to operate without interruption. The proposed House budget provided the necessary components to ensure stability in our local economy and ensured faculty could continue to deliver key and vital services and functions — exactly what the federal relief funds were intended to do.”

But then the Senate undid the balance that the House had sought.

The Senate decided to throw a wrench into everyone’s plan by suggesting that the University of Hawai‘i make up the budget shortfall by seeking other sources of funding. Our elected senators decided to instead gut and replace as much as they were allowed under federal guidelines. With no regard for transparency and openness, they offered no rhyme or reason for their changes. Their rationale and modus operandi still remains a mystery.[emphasis added]

But then UHPA pointed to another twist in the tale.

It seems the approximately $43 million in cuts the Senate made to the budgets of the different campuses were made at the same time, and in generally the same amount, as a bit of pure political pork slipped into the Senate’s version of the budget.

UHPA points to “$42.5 million dollars for a Resource and Education Center in Wahiawa that was not requested by…the UH Board of Regents or the UH administration.”

Let’s see. So the university’s own planning and budgeted process was ignored in order to shoe horn this hefty bit of pork into the Senate version of the budget.

Hmmmm. And whose district will this unrequested $42.5 million drop into? Well, Wahiawa is smack dab in the center of the 22nd District, represented by none other than Senator Donovan Dela Cruz, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Yes, the same committee that controls the Senate’s version of the budget.

If I understand that correctly, it appears that if that this unrequested item was removed, the cuts items cut from the UH budge could have been restored.

Of course, reading about it at this late date, after all the votes have been taken, isn’t as helpful as more substantive reporting would have been as the budget was being developed, and as funds requested by the university were being slashed in order to make room for pet projects like this one.