Karl Kim, interim vice chancellor for academic affairs at UH-Manoa, said the system's flagship campus would need to trim $4.3 million, if applied on a percentage basis. That's how much it costs to pay for 77 assistant professors, 100 instructors or 338 lecturers, he said, which would result in the loss of between 300 to 1,000 classes.

"Cancellation of classes would result in increased delay for students in terms of graduation," Kim said. "This would also produce a decrease in tuition revenues if students dropped out because of the absence of needed courses."

Further, the loss of instructors would mean "a chilling message would be broadcast throughout the international academic community," Kim said. "We would, in fact, be destroying the future of this institution."

The cuts call for slashing $31 million this fiscal year and the next two fiscal years from the UH general fund.

State Budget Director Georgina Kawamura, after listening to several UH administrators state their case, said UH officials have had ample opportunity since mid-January to raise protests but gave only initial indications that it would be able to absorb the rollbacks.

Deane Neubauer, UH interim vice president for academic affairs, said the administration of former Gov. Ben Cayetano had whacked $6.2 million from its budget last year and $2.9 million the year before that.

"The current proposed cuts, following these previous reductions, have resulted in significant, serious and substantial erosion of the university's base budget," Neubauer said. The numbers, he added, do not reflect an additional $3.4 million more in expenses that are required for merit increases and other salary adjustments that are the result of recent collective bargaining contracts.

The university is supposed to be in the midst of a systemwide strategic plan that increased the UH budget by $117 million last year and $99 million two years ago.

The 5 percent cut mandated on the university by Lingle are supposed to be on discretionary, non-instructional money, Neubauer said. "There is no such thing as discretionary in this context."

Kawamura said other agencies have approached her staff with "appeals" to either keep intact or minimize certain areas of their budgets. UH administrators, she said, indicated in mid-January that they would be able to comply with the $7 million reduction and that she had not heard from them since.

"It is regretful, and I'm saddened by having to sit in this arena to learn of their concerns rather than, again, revisiting us anytime between Jan. 17 and today," Kawamura said. "Every day, we've been trying to get the details because we owe this community those details. I'd only wished we had had an opportunity to have this discussion in our office."

Neubauer, however, said UH officials were given the impression that the cut would only be for the current year and that there was no avenue for appeal. "We sought to support the governor and we sought to support the executive branch in its need to extract revenues in this budget. We did that by accepting the $6.9 million. We did not mean to imply that we had $6.9 million of money sitting on a shelf that we could give back ... and say this is inconsequential."

Kawamura said that she is willing to consider some pullback from the $7 million, but that it would need to be negotiated and that she would need to see details. She noted also that the $7 million represents only a small portion of UH's $484 million current annual budget. The $7 million was calculated based on a determination that about $140 million of the budget was discretionary and non-instructional.

Earlier in the meeting, Kawamura told lawmakers that she expects the 5 percent cuts in discretionary money to save the state about $28 million annually. Kawamura said a firm 5 percent cut was projected to save $41 million but the administration allowed a cushion for appeals and was banking originally on getting about $35 million each year.

The cuts are part of the administration's attempt to leave untapped the $184 million Hawai'i Hurricane Fund, which Cayetano proposed to use to balance the budget.

Rep. Michael Magaoay, D-46th (Kahuku, North Shore, Schofield), said he wanted to know what to tell constituents, many of whom "are just making ends meet," about cuts in programs that would hurt them.

"There's just so much money to go around and we have to make hard decisions," Kawamura said. "I'm not an insensitive person, but you can only do what you can do with the money that you have available to do it."