UH loans athletics $1M

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

The University of Hawai'i-Manoa has loaned its athletic department $1 million to cover a deficit for the fiscal year that ended yesterday.

It is the second consecutive year the 19-sport department has run a deficit. Athletic director Herman Frazier was not available yesterday to say how much this latest deficit will be. Associate athletic director Tom Sadler said it would be two weeks before UH had final figures.

According to UH officials who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, the interest-free loan must be repaid within three years.

When all the bills are in, the UH athletic department expects to have spent between $18 million and $18.5 million this year.

Should the deficit amount to more than $1 million, Frazier would be required to ask Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert for an additional bailout, although the athletic department was looking at other avenues to keep that from being necessary.

The previous year UH had a $1.43 million deficit that was covered by tapping the department's "rainy-day fund" accumulated through previous surpluses. But that withdrawal all but exhausted the legislatively mandated fund, forcing Frazier to ask Englert for relief.

Frazier has said that no tax or tuition money will be used in financing football coach June Jones' $800,016 contract. Jones' contract, which was scheduled to take effect today, will be paid half from department-generated revenue and half from donations, Frazier said.

In May, Frazier said he believed the athletic department could return to self-sufficiency in fiscal year 2003-04, which begins today. Said Frazier at the time, "We just have to get though (FY 2002-03). This is just a pivotal year for us to get through."

Sadler said yesterday, "We see some daylight for the future."

Frazier has said he expects to operate on a budget "somewhere north of $17 million" for 2003-04. Meanwhile, the athletic department is bracing for a drop in state general funds as part of Gov. Linda Lingle's restriction on spending.

A memo last week ordered state agencies to cut non-fixed costs in both general and special funds by 20 percent in the first three months of the fiscal year. That could cost UH-Manoa approximately $50 million.

The department receives about $1.4 million in state money, $480,000 of which goes for maintenance of the lower campus, where athletic facilities are located.