A K LEO T H E
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 20 to THURSDAY, NOV. 21, 2013 VOLUME 109 ISSUE 33
Serving the students of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
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The budget-balancing act DAVID SMITH Staff Writer
The Student Network for Action and Progress is planning a march on the state capitol on Nov. 22 to protest the decrease in state funding to the University of Hawai‘i at M ā noa. “ The march itself is to bring attention to the loss of funding to University of Hawai‘i system over the last five years,” march organizer and SNA P founder Christopher Stump said. “Fortyseven million dollars has been lost this year alone.” According to Stump, the organization hopes to be able to give the student body the ability to lobby for its interests directly. y He hopes the march will “bring “ that attention to the fact tha at the university here in Hawai‘i is the best investment for the state staate of Hawai‘i’s future.” “By cutting programss thee legislatures are limiting ng themtth outside selves to tourism rism and ou utside sources,” sources ces,”” Stump S said.
Stump said the state legislature is putting public tax money into infrastructures that benefit tourism, which he believes is the state’s main industry. “(The last few years) have been boom years, so you have to think there is a lot more money coming in, so why are they cutting funding?” Stump said.
THE UNIVERSITYʼS FUNDING According to Rep. Isaac Choy, the issues surrounding the state’s allotted money are complex and involve several parties, as the university benefits from public funding because it is a public school. State legislators dictate how much public money goes to the university system as a whole and to individual campuses. Each campus’ administration on dispersed dictates how the funds are re dis within the campus ampus system. The decides what to set Board ard of Regents R student tuition at, calculating how much funds are required from the student body.
Choy said the budget budg is divided between the student tuition and public tax funds allocated by the allo state legislator.
RISING COSTS FOR THE UNIVERSITY “State support, as w wonderful as it has been, has dropped by over $4,000 per undergraduate at UH U Mā noa in just four years,” UH Mā n noa Chancellor Tom Apple said. “Our utility costs have risen by over $1,000 per student Those in that same four-year period. pe two things account for more than one-half of our current tuition.” tu costs The rise in operating opera along with the decrease decreas in funds tuition being has led to student tuit g raised several times during du ring the last several years. years ears. s According Accordi ccording to Choy, as the worsened economic climate wo orsened around 2008, UH continued contin nued to several expand, taking on severa al large development projects. proj ects.
At the center of these projects has been the UH M ā noa Campus Center. The Campus Center project was partially funded by the state legislature. “We did support partial funding of that facility at the Campus Center,” Sen. David Ige said. “Part of it was that the students came to ask for it and were willing to commit their funds.”
SIMILAR INTERESTS A UH M ā noa graduate, Ige said he believes many legislators share the same concerns oncerns students have ass they hear from students ts and their parents. “(An) educated society and workforce betters everyone’s life and is very important to the economy,” Choy said.
JUSTIN GUSHIKUMA /KA LEO O HAWAI‘I
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Jan Sullivan, chairwoman of the BOR Budget and Finance committee, said the university needs the commitment of the state to properly support higher education. “But we also need the commitment of the board, the administration and all of those employed by and affected by the university to help make the positive changes that will allow it to operate more responsibly, efficiently and with the best interests of its be benefi ciaries – the students,” udents,” Sullvian Sullvia said. numerous Choy said there are num university’s. needs besides the university dollar; we “We spend ever y dollar said. don’t save anything,” Choy sa legislature “So if you want the legislatu to give more money, what do d yyou want us to cut? There are so s many needs – the homeless, the e elderly, public safety.” Choy said that every UH Mā noa student should “think this through.”