Senate Standing Committee on Higher Education

Okay. Calling to order the Joint Committee on Ways and Means in Higher Education. This afternoon, we will hear from the University of Hawaii who will present their biennial budget requests. Good afternoon. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. Is it on? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So, good morning. Chair Kim, Chair Dela Cruz. Vice Chair Kidani, and Vice Chair Moriwaki. And all the Members of the Senate Higher Education Committee and Ways and Means Committee. My name is Wendy Hensel, and I'm honored to serve as the new President of the University of Hawaii.

Thank you so much for your opportunity today to review our budget request with you. It has only been just two weeks at this point that I've been sitting in this position, but I've been collaborating closely with, UH leadership and also many of you. So thank you for the time that you've spent for the last several months.

And I'm pleased to have here today with me from the Board of Regents, Gabe Lee and Laurie Tochiki. From the System Office, Vice President for Budget and Finance, Kalbert Young. Vice President for Administration, Jan Gouveia. Vice President for Academic Strategy, Deb Halbert. Vice President for Research and Innovation, Vassilis Syrmos. Vice President for Legal Affairs, Carrie Okinaga.

Vice President for Information Technology, Garret Yoshimi. Vice President for Community Colleges, Della Teraoka. And the Director of the University's Institutional Research Office, Claire Kara Plamann Wagoner,. From the campuses, we also have with us today, uh, West Oahu Chancellor Maenette Benham.

UH Hilo Chancellor Bonnie Irwin couldn't be here today, but in her stead is UH Hilo Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance Kalei Rapoza, UH Manoa Provost Michael Bruno, UH Manoa Acting Director Athletic Director Lois Manin.

Leeward Community College Chancellor Carlos Peñaloza, UH Maui College Chancellor Lui Hokoana, Windward Chancellor Ardis Eschenberg and Chancellor for Hawaii Hawaii Community College, Karen Lee.

So, as I shared with the House Finance Committee earlier this week, despite the short time that I've been here, I see amazing, truly transformative opportunities are in front of the University of Hawaii to shape a brighter future for this University, but also for our state as a whole.

The University is committed to collaborating with you, with the community and other stakeholders to turn this vision into a reality. And of course, our budget request is foundational to that collaboration. Your support for our mission is essential and will make a lasting impact.

The UH operating budget reflects the robust public funding that we need to maintain an excellent system of public higher education. And thank you for your support. I have told many people how impressed I am with the level of support that comes from this body in comparison to other states, it is truly at the top of the list.

And I thank you for that. I urge you to consider the significant items detailed in the University of Hawaii's Board of Regents budget and the Governor's Budget request. And I will turn it over now to Vice President Kalbert Young to briefly identify the specific items we'll be talking about today.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairs. Good afternoon. I'd like to go through the individual items that are reflected in the University of Hawaii Budget request also as it compares to what was included in the governors.

No, we're not doing that. We're only going to go over table six.

Right. Okay. So we don't. Yes. So. Okay. So that is what's actually included in the Governor. Yeah. Executive branch.

Yeah.

So within the. I'll go straight down table six.

Yeah. By priority Department. Yeah.

So starting at referring to Table 6, starting with items that reflect current existing funding in the current fiscal year for the University that are non recurring. Some of this funding is actually via various apps from recent years. So for example, for the first item, which is for, uh, Manoa related to athletic funding subsidy for 3.2 million.

This, this is funding that actually currently exists and was appropriated to the Legislature, appropriate by the Legislature, but was identified as non recurring. So the request is let's make recurring. And by the way, this is actually funding that has been appropriated for multiple previous years, but always as non recurring. Similarly. So.

Excuse me, since we're on athletics on next page, the 17 priority is also Manoa athletics. Can we take both of them together? Since questions can.

Then you have a question on.

I'm gonna have a question on number one. Number one and number is on 17. Second page number 17. Asking for four positions.

Correct.

Is that. So is this, this is new money that you're asking for?

Yes. The item 17 reflected on table 6 is for new positions. Yes. For $320,000.

So the 320 cannot be absorbed in the first ask.

The 320,000 represents new, not currently. Doesn't currently exist at the funding level.

Yes. Can it be absorbed into the first ask? Because that's 3.2 million.

Yes, but the 3.2 million. Actually, historically when the Legislature has appropriated this particular athletic funding, it was for rather specific purposes, not personnel. So it was nutrition, for example, assistance, travel, student, athlete, you know, other services. So.

But is the personnel related to all of those activities? I mean, they wouldn't be coordinating any of that.

I don't believe it's related, Senator.

To recruiting.

It would be if that were to happen, it would mean that there would be a reduction in the current services that are provided at athletics which is funded by the 3.2 million. And again, it's. It's actually nutrition. You know it's.

It's things that are actually paid for to student athletes or you know like nutrition. It's not actually personnel.

Is any of these special funded positions now that you're asking for General funds.

Not with not this number 17 request that is new positions. I currently.

Okay. So is there any in this Governor's Budget. I know it's in your regular budget that you'd ask for converting positions 36.

Positions that's in that was in the University Board of Regents University.

But it's not something the Governor approved.

That was not included in the governor's.

Accordingly they're saying in an independent audit audit that was done in December. I don't know when it was done but came out in in the news in December that the Athletic Department incurred a $2.1 million deficit for fiscal year that ended on June 30.

For. For their operating unaudited. For operating. Right.

Okay. So how much. How much do we actually. Because we keep saying that football generates the funds to pay for a lot of the other activities. So if we're incurring deficits how much program actually generated these last couple years.

So I would like your indulgence to call Manoa. So whatever deficits are in any of the any programs including athletics are covered overall like by the campus. So how much that is and where the funding go and but the breakdown by individual sports.

Well, I don't want to break down an individual sports. I just want to get a sense because it's. It said that the reason why football is so important and I agree that they they raised and I thought they did they raised money to support all the others.

But if they're having a deficit then I'm not sure you know that computes that they're raising all this money to support the other program. So can you explain that I do.

Believe it is true that be that football generates the lion's share the vast majority of lion's share related to support all of the athletic programs.

I think it would be fair to say that for the amount of revenues that are generated by football and all the other parts of the athletic program hold it is usually not sufficient to that alone cover all of the expenses for athletics.

According to this it says the reports show the football program earned more than 13 million in revenue with expenses of nearly 14 million for a net deficit of $636,000. So I'm. How. Where is the money coming to support the football and all the other programs? If that's the case.

Can you speak into the Mic.

Athletics Director UH Manoa, I want to bring up Tiffany Kuraoka, but I. The deficit can be related to several things. One of them is that since we moved back from Aloha Stadium to have football on campus because of the closure, the annual loss that we had is $1.7 million a year in the football program.

But also the deficit that you are referring to. Tiffany. This is Tiffany Kuraoka, Athletics Director for operations.

Yeah. So the deficit that you were referring TO also includes 1.6 million of hazard pay that was accrued for our employees that had to be paid related to Covid.

Okay. I understand there are certain circumstances that would require you would have to pay out and do more. I'm just trying to.

How do we reconcile the fact that it's always said that football raises all of this money to pay for all of the other sports, but if there's a deficit, then I guess where is the support coming from? Where are you. How is this money being made up?

So, yes, we have had deficits and it's called covered by the University or Manoa's surpluses. Sometimes we have. I'm sorry, Sometimes we have surpluses.

Surpluses from where?

We might have a net income from, say football stage. Football is better than we might have.

Does it come from current expenses? Which account does the money come from?

So in consulting with Manoa approval. So the additional funds is typically from campus funds. Right. So that would mean highly likely tuition. So it's net revenues of the campus, which would be any revenues that are generated by the campus that are available for. That could flow or are fluid to various funds like athletics special funds.

So that would be tuition.

So what's the annual amount of deficit for the Athletic Department that comes out of tuition? Or you can break it down if there's another pot of money that you're using. What. What amount of money is that?

It. It varies from year to year. The week. In the last. Since 2018, we've had as high as 3.7 million deficit and we've had a surplus of 1 million in one year. So every year is a little different depending on how it.

So how do you get a surplus with a deficit? Can you.

Something I'm not sure understand exactly, but in some years we do go away and play football. Games that offer large guarantees. Like one year we went to the University of Michigan and we got 1.9, I believe, $1.0 million from playing at Michigan. And in other years we don't have.

Yeah, but that wouldn't be a surplus. There would be added. Shouldn't you add to the whole thing and you would have a lesser deficit.

Then it's factored into the deficit.

So I'm not sure when you talk about you had a 3.7 million and yet you had a 1 million surplus.

So each year it's a different amount, either, you know, a surplus or a deficit.

Okay, and so what year, what year did you have a surplus and no.

Deficit was 2023 and 2024.

Yeah, but the report is saying that in this year you had a deficit.

Okay, so in 24. Sorry, the number that I talk about is Department only. Whereas the report that was reported includes, uh, foundation. It's consolidated for NCA purposes. That's a requirement by the NCA to consolidate the foundation accounts. So.

This is kind of confusing. Can you please come back to us and give us a breakdown of, of the deficits and how the money. Because in addition to these deficits, don't you have a running, running deficit for the Department? What is that amount?

I think at this point it's about. Actually, it's probably zero right now. A few years ago it was transferred to Manoa.

So it was about 8 million. Right. Was the running deficit.

The accumulated deficit was actually higher. It was I think over 10 years maybe. I think it was over 20 million.

Okay, so over 20. Over 10 years we had a 20 $1.0 million deficit. Running deficit up until. When did it go over to.

I think in 23. I think they moved it in 23.

So in 23 they wiped you clean. And I don't know where that deficit ended up coming from. So maybe provost can answer this. But then. So now you're accumulating more deficit. What is the total deficit?

So since money has. Since that was wiped out, then those two years after that we've had surpluses. So right now It's a maybe $1.2 million surplus at this point.

Okay, I guess I'm having a hard time. How do you get a surplus if the football program raises the money and the football program having a deficit. So can you guys send that in, explain that to us? That's troubling. Yeah, unless somebody else has the answer. Bruno, you have the answer for that? Provost?

I can answer the question.

Here, Michael, you want to see.

With respect, Michael Bruno, provost at UH. With respect to the deficit that was brought into the. The central Manoa budget and that's been done over the years for other units as well. I recall the law school, we had to do that. And then there is a.

Essentially a payback program established where each year the unit comes back to Manoa and provides a payment over time. That was the anticipation in that case as well, I'm told. Okay.

I'm sure the Committee will get deeper into this.

How much does athletics still have to pay back to the campus?

This was done with maybe even before us, but I'm not sure what. What the dollar amount. Sandy Rickard.

So we. The athletics Department doesn't have to return any money to the University. Manoa is covering that deficit that was transferred.

No, but he said when he. When they often cover other programs, there's usually a payment plan to go back to pay back the COVID whatever they covered.

I don't think that was disagreement for.

We can come back to you with that. Our CFO, the Manoa CFO is out today. She's been out this week. So we can come back to you on that. Yeah.

Okay. I had a question on the hazard pay then. Which. Which units are you covering with athletics? Yeah, but which are they? Which union are they with? Which unit? Which bargaining unit? Unit 8. Is that covered?

Only The General Fund?

No I'm talking about the hazard pay bill. Okay. Because we passed a separate bill for hazard pay that we funded for all the units that were. That were negotiated. So I'm surprised you're taking it out of athletics when we already passed a bill to Fund that chair.

So you. That bill was for HGEA units, including unit 8, which is an HGA unit. That's the unit that operates at uh. But the bill, as with all collective bargaining appropriation bills, you're appropriating and providing General funds. The General funds are only available to cover employees that are their salaries are paid with General funds.

In that collective bargaining bill, you're providing additional ceiling to the non General funds. So special funds and the way it works for the state in General, including at UH is if whatever Fund is paying for the salaries must pay for the fringe and the additional benefits.

So not only for UH but for all state departments for hazard pay and with athletics, they are funded by, let's say the athletic special Fund. So if those employees are paid salaries via the athletic special Fund, the athletic special Fund must also pay for the fringe if they are funded.

If their salaries are paid with the tuition and fees special Fund, then the tuition and fee special Fund must pay the fringe. So this expense that Tiffany is referring to is for those employees that were funded via some other special. Other Fund other than the General Fund.

Okay. But earlier she asked that this 3.2 million would probably help cover some of that.

The 3.2 for operations like team travel guarantee. So those are specifically for like. Yeah, but when salaries or anything, we don't include any salaries or benefits in that 3.2.

But when you mentioned the deficit, the deficit was caused by. You said one of the things that helped cause it was the hazard pay.

Yeah, 6 million. Yeah, was 1.6 million.

So none of this 3.2 is going to cover any of that.

No, that's strictly for operations of our sports that happen every year.

So how many employees is that?

About 100, 110 employees. We have about 140 total and about 30. I think 28 are General funded.

So the remaining funded, they all qualify for the hazard.

Not all. I would say the vast majority qualified. Yeah.

It's only HGEA chair. Yeah. It's a little bit of a shell game though, right, because the General Fund is still subsidizing athletics.

Yes. Yeah. We have the 28 employees as well as the 3.2 million which is used for operations. But we spend more than the 3.2 operations.

Okay, sure. I guess the question that I have is I was told, you know, the person that told me this is no longer there, but I was told that the deficit is going to continue to get higher because unless we do something. So I think, because the person that's no longer.

I'm talking about former athletic Director is no longer there. I think we need to understand what is the strategy to get the deficit under control. I think you propose some things.

The government obviously agree, but I think we need to know if the new Administration coming, especially the new President, are we going to get this deficit under control? As I think, you know, our higher ed chair brought up. The good point is it's confusing.

Like we kind of need to know that is it going to increase or is it not or especially because it's your number one priority. You know, do we have a plan going forward? Because that's what I asked. I said, what's the plan?

At the time there was a plan, but we don't know what the plan is at this juncture. Right.

Thank you for your question. We are currently trying to figure out the settlement of the.

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but the House settlement in the NCAA, where it's a landbreaking settlement that's going to cost $2.8 billion over the next 10 years to pay back student athletes for name, image and likeness losses dating back to 2016 to current. And then that's, that's what they're calling back pay.

And that to the University of Hawaii, that amounts to about half $1.0 million in money that we did not, could not plan for additional money. And then there's the, the house settlement also allows us to do something that we call rev. Revenue sharing.

So revenue sharing from the broadcast, the media rights and things like that, that is going to cost upwards of $4 million to share with our student athletes because of the, because of the settlement. So those are new costs. As far as strategy, we are trying different angles.

We're going to try and raise money for name, image and likeness. And we're also trying to fundraise, which is almost the same thing, but kind of not. But we're also trying to figure out scholarships that we have. We don't have to, but we can maximize scholarships.

So one of the things that came out of the house settlement was the scholarships can be unlimited. Now where roster sizes before could be unlimited. You could, a football team could have 200 people on their, 200 players on their team and now they are not able to. They, they're capped at 120. But their scholarships were 85.

But now they can go up to 108, 100. And I'm sorry, the new cap is a 105. The new roster size 105. And so they can go up to 105 from 85. And that's happening across all sports. So where there is a roster limit now but no scholarship limit.

So when do you think you're going to have a plan, a documented plan that we can review?

I, I think the plan is in motion right now, but there's a lot of changing things with.

We just, something just came out yesterday from, from the NCAA or from the, from the Office of Civil Rights telling us how we need to administer the revenue sharing as it relates to Title nine, where that did not come out until just yesterday.

So we now know how we can raise money and how we need to administer it. Whereas before there was talk about how 90% needs to go to football and the other 10% for the other sports.

But are there non traditional ways that you could look at too, to help?

Yes. So we're going to the business community and we're asking for help there. We can look at working with the campus leadership on scholarships and how we administer the scholarships, whether it's through WUI or through tuition waivers and special talent waivers.

This is just you talking out loud. Or you actually have a plan?

Oh, that We've been working on a plan.

So there's no. You're working on a plan or is there a plan for scholarships? There's always talking about what Senator Hashimoto talked about, making sure that the deficit no longer. How do you extinguish that? What's the timeline and the plan so that. That's not.

Well, we need to manage our expenses so we can't go full scholarships if we don't have the money to go full scholarship.

So we're trying to measure that. Are those details in a document of how you're going to achieve this?

Not at the moment, no. It's a working. It's a work in progress right now because we're waiting for more.

Is there a deadline to develop something?

July 1st is the deadline because that's when the House settlement comes into.

For your. For your overall plan on the extinguisher.

I would like to have it before that. But July 1st is when, if the judge approves the settlement in April, July 1st would be the enactment date of all of this.

Yeah, but that also includes what you talked about in regards to working with the business community.

And that's happening now. We're having discussions now.

But isn't that just like a one time, one time thing? I mean, and these are to the students. But that doesn't necessarily adjust all of your expenses. Right. Because.

So the new expenses are the house settlement expenses in order for us to remain competitive across the board with cost of attendance and all, as well as the back pay and the revenue share.

Right. But you don't have those expenses now and you have a deficit. So you're going to get additional things that are going to continue to. Correct.

So we're going to have to manage our spending depending on how much money we have.

Okay. Maybe you should come back with a much more detailed plan before the Senate gets the budget from the House so that we can review this 3.2 million again.

We'll be happy to do that.

Is this something that the Board of Regents has addressed at all?

I have not had any direct conversations about the Board of Regents with it, but we have had. You know, I've talked to Chair Lee about some of the issues that we're facing, and they're trying that. And he's helping us in the business community as well. But we can definitely put together a plan and come.

Yeah, because I watched the hearings and stuff. And I don't hear the board, regents bringing up with these issues and trying to be proactive. It shouldn't reach us. At some point it should be dealt with with the Board of Regents and then bound to the Administration.

I can just add, this is moving so quickly nationally. Every college in the country is having this conversation, particularly colleges that are in Division 1, but not at the top of Division 1. It is an extraordinarily challenging time with moving parts in the mosaic of finances and expenses and costs.

And we, we actually have had several conversations already about this. I understand the desire to have more certainty and we certainly will take that back and work. But I do want to commend the Department. We it's already been brought to my attention and we are already working on this.

So we will come back to you with a more complete plan that answers your responses.

So with the contribution, you're going to ask the business community, where is the. Foundation in this picture as well?

So the foundation is working towards. We're trying to figure out a structure for NIL right now. So once we figure out a structure and what structure best fits the University of Hawaii at Manoa, then we can figure out how the foundation plays into it. But we also. So they're still, they're part of the. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you.

I think in just hearing your plan though, what concerns me is nowhere was the strategy of converting all those positions to G funded positions that the Governor didn't Fund. I thought in my mind that when I was told about the plan, it was in theory that was supposed to be a big part of the plan.

But you know, if that doesn't happen, I don't know if any of this is going to really work out because I was told a lot of it is, you know, wages increasing. But in your conversation just now, there was nothing about that.

So, you know, maybe there was not enough justification for the Governor to approve it, I don't know. But it in here, we didn't hear anything about it. So I think that also needs to be a part of the overall picture.

Absolutely.

I think though also President, I understand what you're saying, but the overall picture is whether or not, you know, Hawaii needs to continue to look at being a D1 football program or are we looking at something else or what? Whatever. I mean, those are the conversations. It's not an easy conversation.

It's one that's been battered around the community. But is that something Are you going to looking at the whole picture and then come back to Us because it really needs to, to have. And that's a conversation that the regents need to have. And I'm surprised that they haven't.

I can't speak to whether they've had that conversation. I can say what you, what you, what you have just articulated is exactly correct. There's obviously a significant public investment in sports in this state. And the University of Hawaii is the sports program of the state with no professional sports team.

And if there is an absence of state investment in that, it will be increasingly difficult under these new circumstances with the NCAA to continue to function at a level of excellence that's necessary in order to be part of, for example, the Mountain West Conference, who expects a certain level of investment in order to justify our participation in the conference.

So. Absolutely correct. It's, I think, as I said, every program pretty much around the country is, is dealing with this and we're talking to all of our peers about what strategies they have, how they're approaching this, and we will have a plan. We have to have a plan.

Thank you. Just last question on recurring, on the. Recurring request for the athletic program, does. That include uh, Helo campus as well?

Lorraine, that's the next slide.

That's the next slide.

Okay, why don't we move on to then.

Just one quick question. So with all of this trials and tribulations we're having with athletics, you guys are still continuing to think to build out and put some more money into the stadium at the University of Waimano?

We, we are planning to continue to put in what is required to minimally maintain the current CHING stadium complex to be the place for uh football. That being said, though, our plan a priority is we support the state's effort to construct the nascent project Aloha Stadium in Halawa.

So that as the case, we, we really are trying to just afford and maintain the current state on a temporary basis because we are anticipating that a lower stadium project would be the, the longer term solution.

It bothers me that whole stadium was supposed to be a temporary stadium that we put permanent in, you know, temporary permanent putting structures in there. That of course again I bring up the fact that somebody that was working daily life, I was supposed to be a temporary one.

University should have a better plan in worrying about a lost stadium and worrying about a lost stadium being built. 300, 400 million. We're still waiting. Why you get up a comp? You guys have a lot of land on West Oahu because they're so condensed over here in Manoa.

You guys still try to piss me things there, then you guys grumbly, you guys more money and revenue.

But if you guys don't have an open site, build something big enough that you guys can hold the capacity of what you try to say to peace meal, what you guys need to make money over there because we keep dumping money into there as a temporary structure.

Okay. You know, why don't we wait till we see their plan in a couple of months and we can go over their overall plan on how they're going to finance athletics because if not, we're going to get sidetracked and we have quite a bit of budget items to go through.

I just had one last comment, Mr. Chair. So as we talking about the athletics and the future and the plan, we were doing so without even an athletic Director. So that's something of a concern. So I'll leave it at that.

Okay. Hilo athletics.

Item number two on table six. So similarly to the. The what the discussion we just had regarding UH Manoa Athletics, there's a request included in Governor's Budget for $500,000 specifically for subsidy to UH Hilo Athletics. Same as the what I stated for UH. This is funding that currently is actually in the present budget. It's non recurring.

It's an amount to UH Hilo for UH Hilo Athletics. However, on this one I would like to point out that the amount that's included in the governor's request, $500,000 is actually less than what was. But what is the current subsidy and be-

No, we can see that for ourselves. You don't have to point that out.

Thank you.

Okay, number three.

This is related to Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology HIMB. It's to. Well, it's to make permanent what is funded and requested in Act 181 from 2023. This does include positions. Three positions to be put in to be permanent. Again, these are items that already exist, including the positions currently.

So these are live bodies?

I believe they are live bodies, yes.

Okay. This is special project so far?

Well, this came via a corporation Bill. Yeah. So this is just to go through the force of asking for it to be put into the permanent budget.

And they're all filled?

Yes.

Okay. Number four.

Similar to what we just discussed related to the Pamantasan Council, for item 4 and 5, there's this. This was appropriation currently existing but came via appropriation bill. There are positions. This is a program that is throughout the University system at community colleges and at Manoa.

So it's it's positions and funding that currently exists, but again to make it recurring in the budget. For item six. This is funding for the BA in Education Studies Program at UH Hilo. And it's to provide a funding that would make the current level of funding in the program on a full time basis. For item 7.

For item 7, the funding for mental Health Technician Certificate Competence Program at Windward Community College. Again this was provided initially for via an Act 107 in 2024, so last year. So this again is just to continue the program as permanent. And then item 8.

How many students have gone through? Can you come forward?

State your name. Just state your name.

We've had 83.

Aloha. I'm Ardis Eschenberg. I'm the Chancellor at Windward Community College. We've had 83 graduates to date over the past two years. We have about a 75% completion rate for those in cohorts. And this fall we graduated a cohort of police officers as well as a cohort of corrections officers to help serve in those capacities with those skills.

So once they graduate, where are they placed? Or do you have internships? So they're placed in the state.

So we work with the. Initially, the program was developed with the Hawaii State Hospital, which is the second largest employer on our side, and it results in them being able to move a step up in their pay at the state hospital. And those were existing positions?

Yes, and they had, over the last time I looked, they had over 100 empty positions for mental health tech. So we're also helping to provide for those positions where they would be qualified. And we've worked with other agencies as well, like the police and Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Do you recruit new students so that they can actually add staffing so that we can reduce the vacancies?

Yes, we do. And we also work with Altra Staffing because we were having a hard time based on the timing of when positions opened for the state hospital. So now we're also working with the staffing company that they use for their temporary positions. They get temporary position experience and then can apply when the positions themselves become open.

So how many grad, classes graduate a year?

Because it's based on courses, they're not only cohorts, they're accepted in a rotating basis and they can take the courses in separate. So we've graduated 83 students within that we had four specific cohort programs. The cohorts graduate at a higher percentage than the students who just come in randomly because they have that peer support.

So we're working to grow more cohort programs.

Any participation with the neighbor islands?

That's what we hope to do through these positions, is to grow and serve more facilities and agencies on the neighbor islands so that we grow this capacity statewide.

And the preferences, at least there's a health facility around the hospitals.

Yes. We've also worked with places like transition homes like Hina Mauka to help. And I'm meeting with them in the next few weeks as well to look at it. So just need someone other than me and a part of a counselor to help steward the program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Number eight.

Number eight is the last item related to existing funding. It's related to Act 74, which is passed in 2023. Provide funding for the Practical Nursing Bridge Program at Maui College. So the amount $330,000 would make that funding sustainable for the existing program.

Number nine is, really is for new positions for enrollment management, but specifically in the area of providing financial aid counselors at UH Manoa for six positions. Half. Expected, half FTE filled in the first year, running up to full FTE in the second year. Total running rate at about 398,000. Similarly at, UH West Oʻahu.

Sorry, wait, that's number nine, right?

Number 9 and 10. 9 and 10. Okay. Ask both of them in the last question.

Yeah, well, that makes me 10, then.

Yeah, number 10. You want to talk about number 10 and then we can.

Number 10 is. That is for admissions and financial support. So this is a paid position at UH West Oʻahu. Again, half expected to be half time FTE, half FTE across the first initial year, but the full run rate at $75,000 in the second year.

I have some concerns that the enrollment, especially in West O'ahu, five years in a row of decline, and that the program that the University had projected a 6% increase continually. And so they're far below that. And right now West O'ahu has less students than Campbell High School, and it's continued for five years in a row to decline.

So I'm just wondering as to how are you justifying adding more positions? In addition, the University has spent, what, $6 million? $6 million in the EAB contract. $2.61 million 5 year contract in 2020. Another $4.1 million in this year, 2024, to increase the enrollment across the board. So it's troubling that you're, you know, spending all that money.

Can you explain what we've gotten out of those contracts? Have you given students scholarships? Out of that $6 million that we spent on a contractor to increase enrollment, we would have increased enrollment. Right. Your scholarships.

Aloha. I'm Maenette Benham. I'm the Chancellor at UH West O'ahu. I'll try to answer your questions in. When we had the EAB contract, which was just to help us to automate our enrollment recruitment process, we did actually reach over 3,000 our banner year in 2019 and into 2020, when Covid hit, of course, we began to decline.

But beginning in 2022, we have slowly been increasing our count as of spring 2025. So in the fall of 2024, our count was 2,814. In the fall, we graduated 230 students. And our count as of this week is 2,818. You know, we do have an enrollment management plan in place.

It is now on our website, and we are slowly increasing across all of the different pools that we've been working on from transfer students. So two out of our three student. Two out of three of our students are transfer students. From our community colleges. And that's beginning to increase.

We're slowly increasing our intake from our regional high schools, although right now their college going rate is very low. And so they're working harder to get their college rate going going up. Returning adults are going up as well.

Chancellor, that sounds really good, but the numbers speak for itself. And you said in 2022 you had 2,913. 2023 it dropped to 2,863. 2024 dropped again, 2,814. And you're saying now you're currently at 2,818. So it's not going up. It's certainly decreasing.

And when we asked about the EAB contract before, it didn't say just to automate your program. They were supposed to reach out and help you increase and bring in more enrollment. So we spent 2.0 what, $2.7 million. And we didn't get any long term increases.

It was for that period of time of 2018 to 2020-2021.

But they're supposed to put in long term so that you can not just that initial year that we only had.

A very, we only had the very beginning of the EAB contract. We, we weren't able to continue it so that we could actually institutionalize it. Since that time, we've done everything manually.

Okay, so an EAB contract that we spent $2.7 million is not supposed to be just for one year. I mean, you bring the contractor in, you learn from them, you get all the, all the whatever it is that they put together. And then you're supposed to, you as the entity, supposed to use that knowledge to sustain you.

Because we're not going to pay $2.7 million every year to you to continue this contract. Although we're paying $4.6 million as of this year for another two years.

We no longer have EAB.

No, but Manoa does, right? Yes. As of 7/1/24 to 8/31/26, $4.1 million. $4.1 million. How many scholarships and students could we have, we have subsidized and brought in.

Shall I answer for Manoa? So Manoa's experience is quite positive with EAB. We have 3000 more students on the Manoa campus than we had five years ago. 3000 students, times call it $10,000 in tuition more than makes up.

Okay, so in fall of 2021 you had approximately 9,098 students. Fall of 2022 you had 9,074 students. In fall of 2023, that went up by about 200 students, 19,000.

Are you sure you're looking at the Manoa?

I'm sorry, 19, not 9. 19,098 in '21. 19,074 in '22. Fall of '23 19,240 and fall of 2024. You finally hit 20,000, which is what you had back in fall of 2013.

Right. That's right.

So 2013 you had 20,006 students. And so you increase that this year by six students from your high.

Yes. That's a record incoming class for the third year in a row. So this is success. I'm not saying this is going back 12 or 13 years ago when we were last at this level, but it's not that long ago we were at 17,000 students. So that's what I'm saying. In that increment of time.

If you're spending that kind of money, what's the return on investment? Because then you get West O'ahu. That's a decline. And every time we've gone to West O'ahu, nobody's there on campus. It's like a ghost town.

I can provide a little bit of national context. This technology is used across the country and it's not. I mean, I'm super pleased that we're continuing to grow, but it's also worth asking the question of what we would have lost if we didn't have it.

When it's done manually, that means you have to reach out and touch every single person by hand. The ability to do that at scale is almost impossible. And certainly impossible when you're competing against other universities that have the technology to be able to reach, automatically, thousands, if not tens of thousands of people with the marketing, with the customer relation management.

When I was at, UH West O'ahu and found out that they're doing it by hand, that in itself is a huge limitation on their ability to move the enrollment forward.

So just I understand we're talking specifically about what's happening on these campuses, but do want to say that technology is infiltrated throughout all of higher education and can and has been proven in many places to be a game changer in terms of allowing numbers to grow at a time when they're otherwise shrinking as a demographic decline.

But aren't they shrinking across the country? Enrollment as a whole shrinking across the.

Number of 18 year olds is declining. And so the question is, what are we doing to do the workforce programs and meet the different needs and create the access points with the online program, for example, that is quite a highlight and a good one at UH West O'ahu.

I understand the concern about making sure we have robust on campus engagement, but the, the working adults are the ones who are unable to say, I will be at a Monday and Wednesday class every day at 11 o'clock or you know, twice a week.

And so having this option of online programs not only allows us to continue to grow that enrollment where the growth is because it's not an 18 year old, but also should then connect into other islands where these specialties are not currently being offered so that the strategy is sound.

I think from my perspective there are many additional pieces we can do to be more effective, but the use of technology is truly essential in order to even begin to compete with other universities that are in our backyard with these students.

I agree that online is certainly very important, but what's troubling is if we're investing in bricks and mortar, and we invested a lot of money in bricks and mortar at West O'ahu, we've got brand new science building there that every time we visit there's no classes being held, things are locked up.

And so it's, you know, if we're going to go online, then we shouldn't be investing and putting all this money into bricks and mortars. And if we have brick and mortar, then we should be sharing it because then we're renting. We have a whole list of places that UH is leasing property.

Why are we leasing when we have empty buildings within our campuses? So again, this is a, a broader picture that we need to address.

Yeah, those are, those are very good questions and we should be looking at those. And I believe we are looking at those questions, but I would just say it's not an either or, it's a both and.

We need both robust on campus programs as well as robust online programs to really be the access institution and fulfill our mission in that way to be the higher education system for the state.

So I, I know that Chancellor Benham is looking at strategies to increase the, the in person enrollment at the same time and trying to make those adjustments and something we've agreed that we're going to work on closely this year.

Okay, one last question. So I'm looking at this. Projected trends in enrollment, University of Hawaii West O'ahu. That was done by the Institutional Research Analysis Planning Office at the University of Hawaii. I'm not sure who heads this up, but this had a whole projection that West O'ahu was going to grow by 6.6% immensely.

Says enrollment to forecast to increase 0.7% in the fall of 2021. To reach 3,189, to continue to increase at an annual rate of 0.6% through fall 2026. We haven't even increased, we've declined. So I'm not sure who comes up with these forecasts. I mean, I don't know what.

I'm trying to remember when that report was actually done.

November 2020. November 2020.

November 2020. Yeah, that, that's. I do remember that report. And it was our trajectory prior to Covid. So if in the fall of 2020 was one of our banner years at over 3,000 students. And then when Covid hit, we began as many of our campuses had also been hit by students not coming back.

But I would think they did this report.

Excuse me?

I would think that they would redo this report at some point. So who's in charge of. Who is this? Institutional research.

So institutional research is. I've been the Director there now. Since, June of last year. So for my time we had analysts working on that.

So did you see this report at any given time?

I have to go back.

So you haven't looked at it or even realized that it should be updated or this is.

I should take a look.

Okay, thank you.

And we can update it.

Thank you.

I'll just. Again, just to provide some context, which hopefully is helpful. Nationally, the sector that has suffered the most post Covid are the regionals, the four year regional institutions. We saw community colleges across the country tank during COVID. The regionals went down too. The community colleges have gone back up.

The regionals have not been able to recover at the same rate. In part because I think it's figuring out what that mission is in between the R1s and the two year colleges. So the kind of report that you have there, it's critical that we redo that as part of our strategy and frankly.

And then also look at the emerging trends in terms of workforce development, which with the advent of AI, which wasn't even on the agenda in terms of generative AI in 2020, it probably isn't worth much of the paper it's written on at this point.

So that is definitely my objective to get these reports current and take a look.

Thank you for that. Because West O'ahu was supposed to be the shining star in that area. That's the fastest growing area of the island. The population, the students, all of that. You know, we're busting at the seams at Campbell High School.

And so for all of that going on, to see the kind of decline, Covid or not Covid, I mean, we've been out of it, you know, it's really troubling for that. Sorry.

I would like to go back to your EAB contract and what it's comprised of. What does it do?

I think Manoa has the EAB we no longer have.

But I wanted to know what does it consist of? Because if you had the EAB contract, it would be the same.

Yeah, our EAB contract was to set it up, to set everything up.

So what was the scope of it? What was it supposed to do?

What it was supposed to do was to increase our recruitment of high school, high school students into our campus, not only across the islands, but on the continent.

Was it through technology or through actual people going out?

It was through automated technology. So our first couple of years really was assessment and setting everything up. But we had to stop our contract. So we didn't have the benefit of getting the automated system in place. So we had to take over what they had done and do it manually.

So I'm asking then, Manoa, you have a system wide IT person and program. Why isn't there more consolidation and cooperation that you're having? Each campus having a contract, 4 million, 2 million. What are you doing to consolidate with you more?

This is an area where I think the University of Hawaii has not maximized its impact or efficiency. We should be able to. This is.

This would be part of a baseline standard of care that every single institution on our campus should have because it literally, as I said, is the difference between growing enrollment or doing it by hand, which is really an unacceptable place to be. One of the conversations I'm already having with Vice President how do we.

Yashimi. To. I did know that. I know, I know everybody's name at this point. Is to, is to consolidate the technology at the system level so that we can buy it at scale for a lower price and negotiate lower contract costs and ensure that we have a consistent, consistent level of access across the institutions.

This is in my mind maybe one of the biggest opportunities we have right now to really increase our effectiveness and lower costs at the same time. I'll add one other thing.

To date, the only use saying it's EAB is a bit misleading because there are multiple components that are part of EAB navigate and most of them have not been implemented anywhere across the University of Hawaii system.

It is possible to get to the point and we will be looking at this to literally evaluate hundreds of data points on every day for every single student so that as they begin to go off the path of success, an advisor is triggered to do the intervention at that moment.

So, you know, when you talk about enrollment, you have to remember it's one thing to get them in, it's another thing to keep them there.

And I think this. But what we're looking at is you need to recruit students in. So that whole system approach, whether it be on the neighbor islands or Manoa or West O'ahu, there should be one entry point and that you should have data across the board so that you can bring them into the whole system.

Totally agree with you. That's correct. And that's something I will be working on this year.

More consolidation and integration of your campus, especially if you have technology.

So why would we have invested $2.7 million at West O'ahu, don't continue it, and now go on and put $4.1 million at Manoa, and not even follow up with West O'ahu? What's the thought process on that? Right. We give them something we don't. Yeah.

So because of the pressure that we got about having an EAB contract, we did stop the contract, but we didn't have the resources. Part of our payment to UH was actually paid by the UH system to help us to get it up. But we, we could not afford the entire amount.

Did you request it?

Pardon?

Did you request it?

We, We. We could not get the money that we needed.

Did you request it?

From the system? We could not. We exact. We used all the money we could. Get for the EAB

From the system.

Yeah. And you folks all pressured us, too, about EAB as well.

We didn't pressure. We questioned you on it. Just as we're questioning you now. So it's up to you to be able to make your justification of why it's needed.

Well, the provost said that it actually returns money. You know, you invest in it and you get more students and you get more tuition.

We, we did not have the resources to continue it.

But did you ask for it as a question? Because it didn't come back to us.

Okay. Senator Hashimoto.

So I guess the question, the overarching question, you know, when we're talking about enrollment, when we're talking about programmatic expansion and this goes on to the next budget item as well, with the nursing program.

I guess part of the issue at West O'ahu is the flexibility and the focus on what's the emerging type of, you know, things that people want to do. And I think maybe this question is really for the President.

Have you really looked at allowing the campuses to do what they need to do and to meet the workforce demands? Because I think the hard part about the last President and I think he did a very, very good job, but the tendency was to be very manoa centric. Right.

Especially in this next line item with the nursing program. I'm finally glad that we're looking at expanding this nursing program, but it doesn't stop at West O'ahu. I'm trying to push hard to get a nursing program at Maui, but it's been stopped time and time again from the system level.

But when we take a look at how do we get people to enroll, it's the programs, right. And it's meeting community need. Right. And so I think that feeds into what's the problem at West O'ahu.

But every campus is going to see that if we're not really strategic about the type of degrees that we're offering at each of the campuses.

Again, I couldn't agree more with what you're saying. Here, in week two, I have already requested a system wide assessment of how our degree programs map in with demand. Where there is unmet need, where there is an emerging workforce area, frankly we need to be looking not at next year. Right now we're looking behind. Right.

What we need to be looking is at 5, 10 years out, anticipating where the growth is and leading into those programs so that we are preparing people in advance as they're coming online.

So literally that study, I just spoke two days ago about having that commissioned, I did that in my last position and it resulted in a considerable increase in enrollment.

So we cannot be effective if we are not in touch and leading frankly at a system not at an individual campus level, but then offering opportunities at each of the campuses as those correspond to different opportunities.

And I get that. But I don't think we should wait for a study. I think like some of the campuses need to move on programs now. Right. Like Maui College, they could implement that four year degree now. Right. But they were just being held up by the system.

Part of the question is where do you want to put resources in a system? If we are going to act as a system, then duplicating programs exactly, particularly in an online space, is going to be wasting resources. Or at least let's say it's not going to be advancing because there's only so many people who will be matriculating.

Those type of studies that I'm talking about take maybe three or four months. These are not long term studies. And that allows us then rather than waiting the way a usual program develops, whether it's. Well, it's not so much the technical degrees.

But the other degrees is at the faculty level, grown up, which can take years to develop because of the number of, just the amount of time that that takes.

What I've experimented with and what I'm hoping to discuss with the campuses here is identifying through this market demand where the opportunities that are the big returns are both for the workforce, but also for access and incentivizing that to get it up and running quickly.

Right. And I think the example, it took us years to make moves on nursing. But what is their acceptance rate at Manoa? It's 17% at Manoa for the BS degree. And we say there's, you know, we need to finally expand it. It took us years to do that.

We should be opening up Maui next year at that 17% acceptance rate because we're sending all these people to O'ahu. Right. And our acceptance rate is 17%.

The most. The problem with nursing programs, just so that we're all clear, is it is one of the most expensive programs to run and it is limited by the number of clinical placements that we can put and frankly the number of nurses that will come in as faculty members.

They make considerably more money as nurses than they do within our own, within the academy. And so it is a national struggle, the mismatch between the demand and the need and the placement. So in terms of that, I agree with you. I would not say it has to be at any particular campus.

It's can we meet the demand wherever that demand sits. But it is, it is a very expensive endeavor. And a little bit of time at the front end to make sure it's aligned with where the demand is will save us a lot of time and energy on the back end.

I get it. And I think you have to look at the system. You have a lot of work to do. But I think those are like important examples if we're going to see institutional success.

Agreed.

Low hanging fruit right there. Right. And I look forward to your leadership.

Any Low hanging fruit you see, let us know. We're excited to take advantage.

And I hope you're going to coordinate this with the Board of Regents because they approved the Atherton and we said that you should put in a nursing facility there. Long term care nurses can go in. They would have places, places to go. And then we put in a innovation center with premium dorms.

And these are the kinds of things that is just not going along into the future. So I hope part of your study is looking at what can we do away with. Like if we have colleges that enrollment is down 50%. And, and there are workforce that is not really in demand. How do we replace them?

Because we can't be all things to all people. You know, we have to look at what are our demands and that of Hawaii and our Hawaii students. And part of that leadership has to come from the Board of Regents.

I think again that you're absolutely correct. It is impossible to be all things to all people. And with the. We simply cannot continue to come with our handout to ask for additional funding. We have to be good stewards by doing our own hard work about programs that are in demand and in decline.

And in some places combining programs was speaking with the.

Actually at, UH West O'ahu, where there are small programs that are not sustainable in a particular place, if we take a system approach, we should be able to combine those faculties, do a mix of hybrid and in person and online, and maintain a broader array at a lower cost.

So there's a lot of, I think I, I'm convinced, opportunities here to reduce costs and actually increase service. So I agree with you.

And for the record, the regents that I have discussed that I will come to them after I'm completed with the 10 campus visits that I'm doing and come with a plan for discussion with them that is much more concrete than this conversation we're having now.

Go ahead.

So have you been to, UH West O'ahu yet?

I have been twice this week.

Great.

Yes.

So their fall enrollment numbers have been declining for several years and I'm not sure what steps have been taken to maintain or increase the enrollment. Chancellor Benham. But is there a plan? And can you share that plan with us?

Particularly because of the money that was spent for, you know, the Academy of Creative Arts.

There is a plan in place. We've been working on it for the last 18 months. It is now posted on our website. And yesterday at. Yesterday? At the Board of Regents meeting, we actually provided all the regents a hard copy of that enrollment management plan.

And basically what it has done is that it has pulled together faculty and staff to be working with different targeted groups for recruitment. And when we recruit them, then first year experience for our freshmen so that we can retain them to graduation. We also have a transfer focus.

We have brought in a number of grants to use to help us to extend our transfer services to Kauai. Well, we now have a Kauai transfer agent right there on campus and to Maui as well. We have one at LCC and we work with Honolulu CC as well as with Windward CC. So we have transfer students.

We have a group working on returning adults that continue in outreach students as well. And so we are seeing an uptick in the number of applications that we're getting from across the board. But we do need to automate our services because right now we are doing it all really by hand.

A lot of personal contact, which we know in our zip code. It's really important to have that personal relationship with our schools and our families. So we are up, you know, we graduated 200 students in the fall and our spring numbers are higher than our fall numbers in terms of enrollment.

So we are, we are getting more and more students into our, into our program.

I'm looking forward to seeing that information. So those students that you graduate, how many have been able to find positions in?

Yes, yes, we have that as well. We can tell you how many of our students have graduated. I don't have it right here, but yesterday at the Board of Regents meeting we did.

We do have figures that show that one year out of graduation, about 79% of our students are full time employed in the careers of their choice here in Hawaii and that their medium income is higher than the average in early employment. So we do have a number of those numbers that we can share with you.

We can put it all together and provide them. It's also online, our entire presentation with our numbers. So working really hard to get those, recover a lot of those numbers.

Thank you. I would appreciate that. Because I think that for a long time, the investment that we put in West O'ahu and the ACM program, that we were not aware of what's going on and how many of the students are actually finding jobs.

The ACM program, just for you to know, it, is the third largest, the fourth largest program on our campus behind Business, Applied Sciences and Social Sciences. Right now we have 334 students majors in the ACM program. So it's very high.

I think that's number 16. I'm sorry, ACM is on number 16. So we'll probably have all these questions. Okay.

Okay. I just wanted to bring up real quick since we're talking about enrollment and the role P20 and the Vice President of Academic affairs should be playing in this. So I would just hand to you.

Thank you.

Some documents that I got this document I got in 2021 from the community colleges and it shows the different IT pathways. Then the CIO Council, which includes, uh, they gave me the second document in 2023.

But it's only recently when you look at P20's website, that now we actually have this outlined as to which High schools have cyber which. Where the internships are, where the jobs are. And it's taking. It took so long to get to this point from 2021 to. I mean three years just to get to this.

And this is just one. And I'm really hoping that a lot of the career pathways are going to be this detailed so that parents can see line of sight. They know what high school they want to send their child to if they want to get into cyber, which community college program, what the internship is.

And this is just one. And the reason why I'm sharing with the others is that I'm hoping the others will be able to. The other programs are going to have something similar.

Yeah. I will just add, obviously I'm just coming into this conversation but one of the things that those different technologies I was referring can do is actually map this and allow want someone to walk through it on their own access from the public. So that we can connect very deliberately. You can't be what you can't see.

And it's often our fault that we make it so complex that the student knows some kind of what they want to do but can't get there. See the path. This kind of transparency can be done. Can be done.

Yeah. I feel like the student is stifled in trying to figure out oh, where do I go? What classes in duplicating and the schedule is not aligning. So we make it so difficult.

It is often us that is the problem. I often said we blame students for not succeeding. And the truth is if we looked at ourselves as. As a bureaucracy and looked at what's hidden in the background that's precluding people from advancing and just remove those barriers, we would solve half the problem.

So I'm very committed to that as part of my role here.

Because some of this actually should align with facilities. So depending on the focuses of West O'ahu, how does that. That might attract not all everyone, but people with those attracted to those specific programs. I'm hoping that whoever the Vice President of academic affairs in the P20 can be a lot more aggressive in lining this all out.

The opportunity is extraordinary here given that it's a Single K through 12 system and a single higher ed system. And I think obviously some good work has been done, but it has not tapped its potential at this point. I look forward to working with.

And part of it is because there's so much frustration or impatience with some of this. I know DBED started to hire their own workforce development coordinator to try to line it up because they had A hard time working. Working with the systems that we have in place. So then now we have all this duplication.

Yeah, that's not good either.

Of programming. Trying to figure this out when we actually have people who are supposed to be in charge of this. When I originally met with some of your staff from different areas, they said the counselors knew all of this, that the counselors know how to do this.

But I think it's important that the general public and the parents and the students can figure this out. Not just the counselors. They have to be able to see line of sight. And I feel like this can also help with enrollment because if they know that they're going to get a job and they can see the intern.

Then it's, you know, you're likely to say, okay, I can see my end game. Don't go to school just for the degree. It's now a really a stepping stone for. For a real job.

Well, and it also can show. Some of these programs that have been developed can show you not only what job you think you want, but the six or seven other ones around it that don't require quite the same skill set and what they earn and what their trajectory is.

So it really opens up doors, especially for low socioeconomic students who only really, you know, may not have all of that panoply in front of them.

So I have to give some credit to Della because, you know, she worked really hard on a lot of this, and she came in midstream. I mean, a lot of these documents were before her. And she heard my frustration and she tried to figure it out, but it seems like there are resources out there.

She needs resources, but we can't give her new resources when there's already resources that are supposed to do it.

Understood.

And so that has to be cleaned up.

Will do.

Any other questions? Okay, why don't we move on to 11? What was that?

11 is funding and positions for the UH Manoa, UH West Oahu Nursing Collaboration. So actually, this is a - this is an approach and initiative that has already been in place, but we're calling it phase three because it's about the evolution of that: the program expansion of the pipeline. So, this is position and funds to implement the, for both of those campuses, a collaboration specifically for nursing. It expands the overall pipeline, that is enrollment, and it's also tied to actually the next item too: item 12.

You know, I just. I just have a question. Not necessarily on this budget item, but your approach, because we have multiple nursing programs, and I know I heard you say that there's really should be a university program. And so how do we make sure that different campuses aren't starting their own programs?

That there is one level of excellence that every one-program recommendation versus duplicating throughout campuses?

Yeah. So as was already indicated, nursing has an extraordinarily low acceptance rate. It's a very difficult program and a difficult program to enter into. It also has among the most strict accreditation requirements. So, the student faculty ratio cannot go above 12. So, we're limited by that number on the Manoa campus and elsewhere.

So, the pathway that we're talking about from West Oahu to Manoa was built in part to address that issue, but also to reach out into another part of the island to, to encourage, to inspire young people to pursue nursing.

I'm just wondering if it's more of a hub and spoke model or are we duplicating programs?

Hub and spoke model. So, the West Oahu students, after two years, then move over to Manoa to complete their program.

Actually, they complete their entire program at West Oahu and the students that are in the cohort, the pre nursing cohort. So, if I can please say mahalo to Senator Kidani for putting the fire underneath us to get this started. So, the students are coming from the west side of Oahu.

Yeah. But there's also the community colleges and making sure that this all-ties in, right? So, with the hub and spoke model?

Yes. So, we do have transfer students who are coming into our program as well: westside students.

How is it branded, though? Because I know at Leeward, for instance, it's the KCC nursing program at Leeward. So, it's not like it's Leeward's going to stand up its own.

No, that's right. That's right. And so. And they transfer into.

Okay, but I guess Maui might have its own though, right? Does Maui have its own? So that's not a hub and spoke model. Maui has its own program separate from KCC. Okay. I mean, I'm not going to dive too much into it, but I'm not sure if the - how similar or how different they are or.

Yeah, we had to fight-

I can't figure that out.

-in Kalihi neighborhood board wanted to have a program at Honolulu Community College because all the nursing was at KCC. But where are all the care homes? Where are all the - it's from Kalihi all the way to Waipahu. And so, yeah, you didn't have - you didn't have it at West Oahu. You don't have it at HCC.

And so, you know, I had to work with Mike Unebasami to see if we can get a hub and spoke to get something over at HCC. I don't know how. How far along we've got on that, but those kinds of things shouldn't take the community to have to fight for it. That should be happening.

But the hub and spoke model is a better model.

Yes, it is a better model. And our partnership with UH Manoa has been extraordinary. We have been able to bring in a number of nurses from the west side. We are pushing our limits right now.

In order for us to bring in more students from Waipahu, from Campbell, from Kapolei, from Mililani, we have to grow our faculty in order to meet that need. We're working with all the health providers as well. So, we have clinical positions.

So, these four positions are going to be housed where?

It's 2 and 2. For them, it's four. So, it's four that does the BSN program.

No, the four that you're asking for.

Now, we have no permanent faculty right now to do this.

Okay, so these four will be at West Oahu.

Yes, yes. And that will be our permanent faculty in order to increase. Right now we have. So in the three years that we've been doing this, we have admitted 72 students. This cohort, we have 55 students, and about.

We'd say about 32 to 40 will actually pass the test to get to be eligible to be accepted into Manoa or to another nursing program. The next cohort that's beginning in the fall. Right. We anticipate over 100 applications for maybe 48 spots. And if we do get more positions, we can push it up again.

Okay, Any questions? Okay, number 12.

Well, before she goes, I got a question from one of the people watching saying that the numbers that you gave us for enrollment. What percentage is part time. Because they're saying a huge amount of money.

All the nursing-

No, I'm talking about your overall enrollment. That's what they're asking about, the overall enrollment.

The percentage is pretty high.

It's high, right? In part time.

Yeah, it is pretty high because the average age of our students are 26. Many of them full time employed with families. And so-

Yeah, but people watching when you say enrollment, they think that's full time. So, we need to make it known that it hasn't grown exponentially with full time because you have a lot of part time as well.

It's headcount. Yeah, you're right.

Send that information to us.Thank you.

Okay. Number 12.

Number 12 is related to UH Hilo. So, this is for positions five positions, 357,000 plus in the first year, 475,000 moving to 475,000 by year two at full run rate. But this will increase the current nursing program for BS in nursing at the UH Hilo for approximately 40 students.

So, is this part of the hub and spoke model or is this a separate program?

This is UH Hilo's nursing program.

Okay. There's no, you know, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it should all be together.

This is the existing 4-year nursing package.

Well, part of the ch - the lack of system-ness rather evident in this. Right? I mean, it gives you a sense of how some things are done this way, some things are done that way. Can we bring them together and do them more effectively and efficiently and frankly, strategically. Right.

And I think the answer to that is clearly yes. It also then leads to transfer issues. Right. If somebody leaves and we have not aligned the curriculum in multiple places that are doing similar things, that's when students lose credits, when they lose time to graduation. So one of the things that we've been.

That I'm hoping to speak about is creating discipline councils that come together from across the different places where it's taught and create a more unified approach to the curriculum and the programs.

Chair, while we're on the nursing program, and this is an issue that we talked about previously with the Wham committee as well, the graduates of the nursing program out of the UH Hilo and Manoa. The certification program is different. And why is that? Because I understand-

That's why she just said that. So, she's going to call a dis Discipline Council to try to reconcile that.

Essentially people who are teaching the same subject in different places need to coordinate more clearly to reduce some of this red tape. Now it may be, I don't know if Michael, you have-

But your red tape comes. The issue with the Neighbor Island certification program is controlled by the feds on that particular. What - there's a name for it, the testing program, but when we started investigating the certification program, I think my staff called your division here and they said, "No, Manoa is separate. You're not involved."

So, she said she's going to take a look at it.

Yeah, I'm happy because there's clearly the federal regulations that everybody has.

We need nurses to be at the job. But we have a stall. So what?

I'm not familiar with the differences in the-

I think she answered the question. She's going to review it. She's going to review it. Okay. Number 13.

Yes.

Thank you.

So, number 13 is actually part of the previous discussion regarding the pre nursing pathway. This is at, UH West Oahu for positions, but it is also tied and related to the, UH Manoa, UH West Oahu collaboration that we just discussed.

Oh, so this is what you, the chancellor was saying. Four is going - the first four is West Oahu. These two are going to go to Manoa?

Well, these two and two is actually at UH West Oahu for item number 13.

I thought there was some?

Yeah, four in total. But the way that the governor - we asked before, but the way that they were going to do it was two first year, two second year.

I see. No, but, yeah, but number 11 says four?

This is just from the pre-nursing portion, which is UH-

Okay, so you're going to have six?

Four will be for the BSN piece. And two will be for the pre-nursing piece. Six all total.

Okay. And this is to help scale up?

Yes.

Is it the same 55?

It'll take us up to - right now we're only supposed to be at 48, but we pushed it to 55 because we had to. So, this will help us to not only stay at 55 but maybe grow another 10, 15 more.

Okay, questions? 14.

14 is related to Johnny Burns School of Medicine. So, this is a request for general funds to help supplement or augment funds that are needed for debt service on existing bonds that exist at the medical school.

So back in time, the University of Hawaii sold revenue bonds and the state, by statute put up a portion of the state's share of the National Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

So, the portion of those funds comes to the state, it's distributed by statute to a number of beneficiaries, one of which is the University of Hawaii for JABSOM, explicitly to go towards debt service; these funds have been declining. They've been declining since the master settlement was established.

The amount coming to the state has been declining per schedule. That has resulted in the portion that comes to UH, also declining on a pro rata basis.

The past or the current fiscal year is the first time that the amount of the master settlement portion that comes to the university for debt service was less than the actual debt service itself. And that is expected to continue to decline. The current debt on the JABSOM bonds runs through 2033, so another eight years.

So, this request is to provide an amount to help supplement as the master settlement portion continues to decline, but to have sufficient funds to meet the existing debt service.

So, it's my understanding that the legislation and the act for JABSOM was that the monies were supposed to be used strictly for the building and debt service and that, in 2009 or 07, that they came in and asked if they could use some of this money for operations. Then it dropped dead.

Then they came back into extended, and it went until 2015, I believe 2014-2015 where it dropped dead, and that the money again had to be only for the building. So, my concern and my question is knowing that the revenues were going down, knowing all of this, then I know you have a little bit of.

They put a little bit of money in reserves, but they didn't put any other in Reserve when this money was clearly intended to pay the debt service and not for operational. And yes, they needed it, but nothing was saved enough to cover this for the next eight years.

I mean they had a lot of money coming in where they used it for operation instead of for the building and the debt service.

So, so the initial establishment of the statute was again, so this is just factually historic, right? So, the initial establishment of the statute, the court, the distribution of the master settlement was explicitly or exclusively for debt service. At some point in time, historically, for a number of years, the statute was amended to allow for including non-debt service expenses.

Yes, because we were asked.

But it is currently and then it was subsequently amended or revised and currently it is exclusively for debt service.

It was drop dead in 2015 where the statute dropped it.

Collapsing.

Right, because they kept asking for it to be renewed. But again, knowing that, why didn't more money not put into reserve? To understand that this thing, this was dwindling, that you're going to come back to us to keep asking for more money.

And there were some funds that had been established as a reserve or reserve balance because that's what was tapped to meet the-

The 2.5 million, right? That's in the reserve.

Yeah, well, the shortage in the last pursuit was on the order of about 700,000. So, there was sufficient from that reserve to meet the debt service.

2.5 million. And knowing the debt service and we have eight more years; shouldn't we have planned?

It's like when you buy a house and you have mortgage, don't you plan ahead to make sure that you have money for the roof, you have money for the debt service instead of spending all the paycheck and then have nothing or knowing that.

All I can say is whatever expenditures went to operations historically, you know, it was done so in accordance with the what was permissive under statute.

Understand it was in with the statute. However, listening to when the budget is being reviewed, when the budget is being passed. I didn't hear one region talk about financial, you know, looking at how do we do financial restraint? Are we paying our bills? Where is the money coming?

Oh, let's just go to the legislature, ask them for more money. Let's ask them for this, let's ask them for promise, let's ask them for this.

But I think it's the responsibility of the board to make sure that these kinds of things are being looked at and that there is fiscal responsibility going on because we cannot always take from Peter to pay Paul.

Chair on this one. I think we're going to look for alternative approaches. As Calvert said, and you correctly said, for six years the statute did change to allow for operating expenses. We did not save enough money during those six years for what is going to happen in the future.

So, we have internal discussions amongst ourselves to see maybe how we can mitigate this problem. Maybe by not asking you as much, but maybe we can put some skin in the game as well. So that's-

Why do we wait till the last hour to say we need these funds instead of looking forward and saying, "Hey, we anticipate this."

Personally, on this one, I don't think we were aware that we're going to run short on the debt service. We believe that there would be enough revenue to cover the JABSOM debt service. So that one, I think we, we were caught a little bit by surprise.

Okay. Which leads us to the next measure which is the cancer center. The same situation, correct?

Yeah, similar. I don't want to say related. Similar. Similar, item 15 is a request for general funds to help supplement cancer center debt service and operations. This one, there are existing debt on the construction of the cancer center facility and there is corresponding debt service annually. By statute, the university receives a portion of the cigarette tax.

The cigarette tax per cigarette is currently 16 cents of which 2 cents of the 16 cents comes into the university for the for the cancer center special fund. By statute the permissible uses are for first charge debt service and secondly also for non-debt service operation expenses.

Cigarette tax very much like the, you know as I mentioned earlier with the master settlement, cigarette tax has been declining statewide for you know, a number of years, decades. The consumption of cigarettes has also been declining. Therefore, it corresponds to a decline in the cigarette tax revenue. As that cigarette tax revenue has been declining.

The debt service has continued to be nearly a fixed level. This debt will run through 2041 about, and it is forecasted that cigarette tax will very short.

Cigarette tax revenue short of a revision in the cigarette tax statute will very quickly go the same way as jab somewhere the rate of revenue will decline below the current rate of debt service.

So, this request is to consider general funds to augment the cigarette tax revenue in order to meet debt service demands but also to provide funding for our cancer center operations.

For $9 million; can I ask the - I'm going to ask the Board of Regent Chair. So, Chair Lee, when you folks discuss this, I did not hear anything brought up about the revenues and the expenses of the cancer center.

So, were you folks aware that since 2007, and members, you all have copies of this on your desk, since 2007 to today, 2025, that the cigarette tax distribution has been $2.5 million plus? $2.5 million should I say, and that the debt service is only 4. Is it a million or billion? Million.

So, you had an excess of over 1.5 over the years and none of it was saved. None of it was put into a reserve. Were you folks aware of this?

No, I wasn't aware of the composition of what was debt service and was.

Did you guys even ask about it?

We've - although we may not ask about it in the board meetings, there are a lot of discussions when it comes down to the committee meetings as well as outside conversations with the vice president and President Lassner at that time.

We are learning more about the cancer center from the time that we you had that hearing last year on February 6th. And that's something. And as same thing with this hearing, we are learning a lot too.

I've been raising this concern. You know that. So back in 2014, this article came out. 2014. "Costs Outweigh Funding Revenue:" research grants won't cover the cost, that they knew back then that the cost, that the revenues, were going down 2014. And in 2016, the board of regents, January 27, 2016, the board of regents had a meeting, and they did say "The time is critical because the reserves of the center will run out in less than the projected time." Okay. And in addition to that, we have very many studies and reports done by the University of Hawaii, done by Facilis.

Your group have done the study right where the Warburg study. All of these were happening since 2014. We knew this is was going to happen. And we kept asking; I've asked last year, the year before, I've asked the cancer center after new director, what is the plan? What is the long-term plan?

And I keep hearing, "Oh, we just raised the tobacco tax by 2 cents." That is not a long-term plan because smoking is going down. That's going to continue to dwindle. You know, so what is going on? And I and this question has been raised to the board of regents.

There are regents, under Regent Higaki, did a report and did a study that said to me the same thing. So, I'm just concerned that your answer is to come in and asked the legislature for $9 million to continue that when more monies were put into reserve knowing that this was going down. Dr. Syrmos, you want to answer that?

I don't know why you're looking at me, but-

No, because you did that report. You did that one report.

We knew back in 2015 that at that point we had projected that the annual decrease of the cigarette tax would be 7%. So, we knew exactly we will be here back in 2015.

Unfortunately, we didn't save enough out of that reserve out of the $250 million as you said.