A K LEO T H E
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 19 to THURSDAY FEB. 20, 2014 VOLUME 109 ISSUE 55
Serving the students of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
V O I C E
www.kaleo.org
Losing control
NICHOLAS SMITH KA LEO O HAWAI‘I
NeW bIlL wIlL mAkE Uh cOmPeTe fOr fUnDs NOELLE F UJII News Editor
The university may lose direct management over how its tuition and fees are expended, as a new measure would repeal the university’s tuition and fees special fund. “Should the tuition and fee special fund be repealed, the tuition revenues will be deposited into the state general fund, and the university would lose direct management over how these
funds are budgeted and expended,” Director of University Budget Laurel Johnston said. This would force UH to compete with all other state-funded entities for about 70 percent of its operating funds, according to Johnston. Currently, UH only competes for about 35 percent of its funds. House Bill 1492 and Senate Bill 2551 state that “all income from tuition and fees charged for regular courses of instruction and tuition-related course and fee charges against
students shall be deposited to the credit of the general fund.” “What that means is all tuition and fees now go to the general fund to be appropriated back to the university,” Rep. Isaac Choy said. Choy introduced the House version of the bill last month. The bill will also transfer all unrestricted money remaining on balance in the university’s tuition and fees special fund at the close of June 30, 2014, to the general fund. According to Johnston, the Univer-
sity Controller would work with the state’s Controller to determine this amount if the bill passes.
UNIVERSITY REVENUES “Tuition revenues are received by each campus and deposited by each campus into their respective campus’ tuition and fees special fund, which is kept separate from their annual general fund appropriation,” Johnston said. “Thus, the campuses manage how their tuition revenues are budgeted and expended.”
If the university no longer directly manages these revenues, it would lose the ability to manage tuition revenues like awarding scholarships from tuition. According to Johnston, general funds cannot be reallocated by UH in the same manner as tuition funds can be. “The intent isn’t to take away any money that the university is currently spending through the See Funding, page 2