UH System Finances Better Than They Look
The University of Hawaii System’s financial picture is far better than it may have been portrayed, a university finance analyst announced at a UH faculty workshop Friday morning.
“Contrary to what you may have heard, the University of Hawaii System isn’t anywhere close to broke, which is one of the things we’re going to show you later on,” promised , a professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University who is nationally recognized for his expertise in evaluating university budgets.
University budgets can be misleading because they often omit certain revenue and expense items while overstating and understating others, a group of about 50 faculty and administrators were told on Friday. (Another 50 or so participated in the workshop from home.)
The two-day workshop is sponsored by the and presented by the . The workshop goes through Saturday and is being led by two professors respected for their analysis of university budgets: Bunsis and , professor of economics with the Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
The goal of the workshop is to ensure UH faculty members and staff are appropriately versed in university finances. A basic understanding of university finances and a healthy skepticism about what they’re told are necessary if the faculty is going to be involved in setting priorities and holding administrators accountable, Bunsis said.
“We are trying to get university administrators and faculty to talk about priorities, and give faculty members the tools to ask the right questions,” he explained to Civil Beat during a break.
Both professors encouraged faculty to look at audited instead of the university’s . Financial statements are more comprehensive and show actual revenues and expenditures. Financial statements also reveal certain things that otherwise would be hidden — for example, the difference in the number of budgeted and actually filled positions.
“The budget is just a plan,” Fichtenbaum said. “I’m sure all of you have plans, but stuff happens. The same is true with the budget, so I want you to think of it as a guide.”
The duo said they will share their five-year projections for UH this weekend. Overall, Bunsis said, the university’s finances are in better shape than some. The system has not frozen hiring across the board like many higher education institutions have.
But that doesn’t mean its financial priorities are necessarily in the best interests of education, Bunsis warned. For example, class sizes have increased, he said. And although data show that in 2010 the administration made significant cuts to its operations, the university spent the previous three years beefing up expenditures at the administrative level.
“The faculty should always be asking what’s going on with higher education,” Fichtenbaum told the group. “Really you need to be a part of a larger state or national organization that asks what the university is about and can help lobby for the purpose of it, which is education.”
He pointed out a seeming double standard in university accountability.
“The faculty get inspected, detected and prodded every which way,” he said. “Everyone is talking about accountability for faculty, but we’re the ones who are already evaluated the most. People barely look at the administration.”
