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IN AND AROUND THE CAPITOL
Gov: UH can’t
expect bailout
from state
'If the university wants autonomy,
they will need to be held accountable'House committee OKs gun re-registration bill
By Crystal Kua
Star-BulletinThe University of Hawaii Board of Regents should live with its decision not to raise tuition and should not look to the Legislature or the governor to bail the university out, Gov. Ben Cayetano said.
"This time, I'm not going to do it," Cayetano told reporters yesterday. "If the university wants autonomy, they will need to be held accountable for their actions."
The Board of Regents on Thursday voted down a proposal by University of Hawaii President Kenneth Mortimer's administration to raise tuition 3 percent to 4 percent systemwide over each of the next five years --an increase that the administration considered modest.
That would have meant an extra $48 a semester next year at UH-Manoa for full-time resident undergraduates and $24 at community colleges. The regents rejected the tuition increase after students organized a "sleep-in" to protest the proposal.
The Board of Regents directed Mortimer to look for money elsewhere and cut any inefficiency or waste before increasing tuition.
The governor said the regents he spoke to told him that they did not want to impose the added cost on students and felt that they could find $2 million in savings in the university system.
UH tuition is affordable and a good deal, and talk that the cost is not affordable is just that -- talk, Cayetano said.
"The tuition at the University of Hawaii is one of the great bargains in the country for the kind of university that it is. And (the tuition increase) was very, very small," the governor said. "If the regents don't want tuition increased, then fine, then find the money elsewhere."
But Cayetano criticized the university administration for not doing enough so far to cut costs.
"The University of Hawaii administration has not really made the kind of tough decisions and set priorities in a way that's going to realize much savings," Cayetano said. "They pretty much look to the Legislature and the executive branch to bail them out. This time, I'm not going to do it."
A university spokesman said Mortimer was out of town and unavailable for comment.
House committee OKs
By Richard Borreca
gun re-registration bill
Star-BulletinA bill to increase the restrictions on who can own a gun in Hawaii appears headed for a conference committee as a House committee gave approval to a bill calling for mandatory re-registration.
The House Judiciary Committee yesterday approved the bill similar to one already passed in the Senate.
State Rep. Eric Hamakawa, Judiciary Committee chairman, yesterday moved to replace the Senate version of the bill with the House version, standard procedure when a committee wants to move the measure into a conference committee.
"This bill still has a long way to go," Hamakawa said.
The gun-control bill approved yesterday calls for a mental-health history and criminal-record check on a staggered basis every five years.
The actual process of performing the mental-health check would be left up to the county police departments.
Current gun registration laws require persons to waive their privacy rights to allow the police to search medical records for treatment for serious mental illnesses.
The new proposal would require the the mental-history check to be extended on a regular five year basis.
The House version of the bill does not include the requirement that only those with a legally registered gun be allowed to buy ammunition.
That provision was included to make it more difficult for criminals or persons possessing stolen guns from getting ammunition for them.
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