Catching Frazier off-balance
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist
Perhaps only at the University of Hawai'i this year can a school be paying the salaries of two athletic directors but not have either claim the budget as his own.
Herman Frazier has been in place as the athletic director for two months but cringes visibly at any mention of this being "his" budget.
Hugh Yoshida served as the athletic director for nine years and remains a consultant, but signed off on "his" last budget June 30, the end of the fiscal year.
One thing nobody disputes at this point, however, is that balancing this budget is a job for Superman.
Which is probably why no one is in a hurry to claim ownership of it.
These are challenging times for the state's only Division I-A athletic program, nowhere more so than when it comes to mastering the bulging bottom line. The last fiscal year ended with UH dipping into and nearly exhausting its auxiliary account to make up for a $1.5 million deficit.
Now, three months into the new fiscal year, Frazier is poring over spread sheets and meeting with an analyst in an attempt to close the gap between almost $20 million in initial requests and an opening projection of a little more than $15 million in revenue. He is trimming and "tweaking" in an effort to avoid asking Chancellor Peter Englert for relief.
With two hands wide apart above his head like a man attempting a sobriety test, Frazier illustrates his own financial balancing act, saying "We're trying to bring this side closer to that one."
"Coaches will tell you they have to have this and they have to have that, but I guarantee you there's fat in every budget," Frazier said. "For the common good of everybody we've got to get everybody on the same page. So, you take a look and say, 'OK, coach, do you really have to go to New York for this competition versus going to Texas? And, do we really have to have five new sweatsuits compared to three?'"
This year an already challenging budget climate has been complicated by the change in administration, the settling of some contracts and deferring of most budget decisions until Frazier's arrival.
Frazier was hired on June 18 and, after winding up business with the U. S. Olympic Committee and at his previous job at Alabama-Birmingham, settled in at Manoa Aug. 1 to begin whittling the budget.
What Frazier inherited was a picture of declining revenue and rising expenditures. For example, he found on his desk a newly negotiated television deal whose guaranteed revenue was cut 46 percent while contracts for several coaches and administrators had risen significantly.
Small wonder it is a budget people are having trouble wrapping their arms around.
