Compliance, which UH spokeswoman Carolyn Tanaka said could come as soon as Monday, will end a more than four-year battle by news organizations and others to gain details of the agreements between the school and one of the state's most prominent figures.

The Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, KITV and UH professor Beverly Keever are among those who have sought details of the contracts under the Uniform Information Practices Act, Hawai'i's open-records law, according to Tanaka.

Jones, who agreed to his initial contract in December of 1998, still is operating under terms of that agreement until he signs the new five-year $800,016 deal that was approved in June by the school's Board of Regents.

Once the new deal is signed, "the university will also release Coach Jones' new contract," UH said in a news release.

Jones was not immediately available for comment.

UH president Evan Dobelle said "we will, of course, release the contract. It's in keeping with my openness policy."

In its directive, the OIP ruled: "We find that, because of the public nature of his position and the fact that he is one of the, if not the, highest-paid state employees, Coach Jones' privacy interests relating to the contract are outweighed by the public's right to know."

Moreover, the OIP said:

"... the public clearly has an interest — one which we find to be quite significant — in knowing the terms of Coach Jones' contract."

The OIP also dismissed UH's claims that disclosure could jeopardize athletic director Herman Frazier's ability to negotiate other contracts.

The OIP opinion said: "... it is simply too unrealistic to think that, even if another coach knew all of the terms of Coach Jones' contract, he or she could demand terms similar to Coach Jones' deal. Accordingly, we do not see why UH believes that disclosure of Coach Jones' contract will impair athletic director Frazier's ability to negotiate other contracts."

In addition, the OIP ruled that neither Frazier nor his predecessor, Hugh Yoshida, had "... authority to waive (a) state law."

The OIP also blasted UH, saying "an agency is not permitted to use this office's backlog of opinion requests to delay disclosing records or portions thereof which the agency cannot reasonably articulate a statutory basis for withholding disclosure."

Frazier did not respond to requests for comment.

Jeff Portnoy, a media law authority with Cades Schutte Fleming & Wright, said, "(they) cannot bargain away the public's right to know. The public has the right to know what is paid to the football coach and the sources of it. There's nothing simpler than that."

Gerald Kato, a UH associate journalism professor, said: "June Jones is a public employee, whether he admits it or not. He's hired by the University of Hawai'i, which is a public institution, and he coaches the football team at a state university. There's no way he can be considered a private employee."

Kato added that "the public is entitled to know where and how a public employee is being funded. What if the coach was being funded by a company that makes footballs, something in which there would be a perceived conflict? I think the public should know that. ... The public does have a right to know what is contained in a contract of a public employee, whether (the employee is) a football coach or university president or athletic director or, for that matter, a lowly college professor."