UH performance suffers from lack of maintenance
THE recent newspaper headline blasting University of Hawaii facilities' "disrepair," sequent to an external management audit, is probably not the end of the matter. How can an issue where UH-Manoa is an estimated $250 million in the hole in deferred maintenance disappear? The serious problem that Hawaii has not awoken to is that we can attempt to improve the efficiency of facilities operations; we can strive to adapt best practices; we can train and retrain our personnel; we can become "professional" in our approach, but there is no way we can create $250 million that is needed for repair -- items like materials, contracts, equipment and labor.
Hawaii is either the only or among the few states that does not automatically allocate maintenance expenses for public buildings at the time of construction. Maintenance allocations should be automatic, but our legislators and politicians just do not realize the importance of this. They wish for UH administrators to beg each biennium for repair funds, and still do not give UH the money. When will the community begin to care?
Of course, that does not completely let the UH administrators off the hook. The most absurd decision of de-linking capital improvements projects from facilities was made by our administrators about five years ago, perhaps for political reasons. When politics interferes in this fashion in technical matters, sometimes supported by technical people under political pressure, then that is the end of good judgment. The external management audit chastised UH for separating CIP programs from facilities. The reason: It is technically difficult to run a $2 billion operation -- the value of UH's assets -- where you have to maintain something you did not construct.
Perhaps the Legislature feels that UH can raise money through research activities for building maintenance. That is true only to a small extent, because overhead funds from external grants have to be used for numerous other items -- the library, laboratories and student services, for instance. But that notwithstanding, UH has itself shortchanged facilities for 30 years now. A classic issue is that UH reports each year to the federal government that it spends 38 percent of its on-campus research overhead earnings on facilities, but in actuality spends only 6.3 to 9.5 percent. This is not illegal, I understand, but it does sound unethical and UH is throwing dust in others' eyes by this type of reporting. Where does the money go? Well, it is often unscrupulous deans, directors and other administrators who thump the table hard and squeeze the money out for their own operations.
UH is a university running in disrepair, let alone the condition of its facilities. The library is $7 million short, resulting in the cancellation of numerous subscriptions; the School of Medicine overspent by $9 million; energy expenditures are going through the roof, reaching $18 million per year; faculty housing is in crisis; faculty salaries are losing ground while the administrators bask in the sun; and our administrators are short of vision. Such conditions threaten the accumulation of expertise and reaccreditation itself.
UH appears to be running itself into the ground. India and China -- here they come!
Amarjit Singh is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.