UH budget request breakdown for 2020 Legislature

From UH News, December 17, 2019

Kalbert Young, UH vice president for budget and finance and chief financial officer, shares his analysis of the 2020 UH budget request to the Legislature.

The end of the year is usually a time of holidays and preparing for the new year. For the University of Hawaiʻi, it is also usually a time that includes budget preparations and preparing for the upcoming legislative session. On November 21, 2019, the UH Board of Regents (BOR) approved a supplemental operating budget request, which was submitted to the governor and, separately, the Legislature. The budget request is to provide additional state general funds during the upcoming fiscal year that starts July 1, 2020. The governor has considered the university’s request and has included portions as part of the executive branch’s budget proposal to the Legislature. The executive budget proposal was transmitted to the Legislature on December 16, 2019.

The UH BOR supplemental budget request totals $28,156,280 in FY21 for various programs across the UH System. The governor’s executive branch proposal includes $24,993,560 for FY21 for UH. For reference, UH currently receives about $526.5 million in state general funds as part of its $1.1 billion operating budget.

The following table shows the operating budget request approved by the BOR and the amounts included in the governor’s budget:

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a few of the items that impact our students directly in the operating budget: the expansion of the Hawaiʻi Promise Program, increased mental health services for UH students and the establishment of a medical school cohort and residency program on the island of Maui.

In 2017, the Legislature appropriated $1,829,000 to the UH Community Colleges to create a scholarship program for qualified students with financial need called the Hawaiʻi Promise program. This program assists approximately 1,400 community college students annually by providing the “last dollar” they need to cover the direct costs of their education. The university seeks to expand the Hawaiʻi Promise Program to qualified students attending our four-year campuses at Mānoa, Hilo and West Oʻahu via a BOR request of $17.7 million. The governor has chosen to increase the amount in his proposed executive branch budget to $19 million for Hawaiʻi Promise.

Student mental health is a growing concern at universities across the country, and UH is no exception. The university desires to increase the range of services offered for mental health, and the BOR approved budget requests totaling $2.65 million for 19 new psychiatrist positions to increase mental health services at all campuses across UH. These additional positions would lower the ratio of students to mental health professionals to the national standard of 1,500 to 1. Included in this request is additional funding for various programs including suicide prevention, mental health stigma reduction and outreach campaigns.

Finally, in recognizing the need for additional physicians in Hawaiʻi, this budget request includes a major university initiative that would help advance improving the pipeline for health professionals in the state. $1.4 million has been requested in the BOR’s budget request to establish a new medical school cohort, including a residency program, on the island of Maui. Experience at the John A. Burns School of Medicine has shown that 80 percent of physicians who attend medical school and perform their residency training in Hawaiʻi remain in the state. However, those experiences are primarily Oʻahu based. By expanding the medical school program to the neighbor islands, it is hoped that this will help to address the physician shortage on those islands.

The capital improvement program budget request was approved in August 2019, and revised in November 2019, by the BOR. The university is requesting $236.8 million for FY21 to address capital renewal, progress on deferred maintenance and funding for projects to modernize each of the campuses within UH. The governor included $86.8 million in FY21 in his budget request.

The following table lists the projects from the board-approved budget and the amounts that were included in the governor’s request:

The governor’s executive branch budget request will be deliberated by the Legislature, which convenes on Wednesday, January 15, 2020. This supplemental budget will be for the upcoming fiscal year that runs from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021.

As in years past, I hope to provide readers updates throughout the legislative session to show the progression of the budget for our university as it moves through the process.

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