As of July 2002, the annual salary of David Iha, who serves as executive administrator and secretary to the board, rose from $124,000 to $185,000, an increase of $61,000, or 49.2 percent. At the same time, executive assistant Carl Makino's salary rose from $78,500 to $129,500, an increase of $51,000, or 65 percent.

As with all raises for UH managers, the board approved the increases under then-chairman Bert Kobayashi.

The new salaries of the two regents' staffers are equivalent to — or higher than — those paid chancellors of community colleges and some vice presidents of the entire 10-campus system.

Current board chairwoman Patricia Lee said the two raises were an attempt by the board to bring people up to salary levels recommended by the national College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, which offers guidance for salaries, among other things, to 1,600 colleges and universities nationwide.

"We can't say it's part of a plan," Lee said. "Everything is ad hoc. We'd like to get a plan."

Iha said CUPA guidelines set his job at the higher pay level.

"When I applied for this position it was ranked a lot higher than campus provosts. It was a promotional opportunity after working in the system for 37 years," he said.

Makino, meanwhile, said "there's a lot of inequity" in pay among executive and managerial positions throughout the system, especially at the community college level, and that the regents have asked the administration to look into the situation.

"When they (the Dobelle administration) brought in some of the new guys, they brought them in at the 80th percentile for CUPA, above the median, and everyone else who has been here for years was below the 20th percentile," Makino said.

"In all fairness to the administration, they weren't aware (of it) when they recommended these salaries to the board. And the board said, 'Let's take a look at where everyone is throughout the system so we can address it from an equitable standpoint.' "

For comparison's sake, Jan Yokota, who handles building and repair projects for the UH system, is paid $120,000; Sandra Sakaguchi, who is overseeing planning and design of a new campus in Kona, was paid $106,000; Sam Callejo is paid $200,000 as chief of staff for the entire system; David McClain is paid $260,000 as the system's chief academic officer.

Chief financial officer J.R.W. "Wick" Sloane, whose contract ends in December, is paid $227,000 a year, and the former vice president for external affairs, Paul Costello, was paid $184,000.

Upon Costello's departure in January, the associate vice president took over his duties at substantially less pay.

The question of equitable pay for executives at UH dates to a mid-1990s report by the consulting group Public Administration Services, which was hired to review and examine executive and managerial positions and their compensation levels. At the end of 2001, the board approved new salary levels for executives, and Iha's and Makino's salaries were raised as part of those changes.

But under Dobelle's leadership, the subject has become highly charged. Although he has been repeatedly criticized for managerial salary levels that have risen in general for new hires since he assumed the presidency in July 2001, there's been no mention of the salary increases in the regents' office. In their evaluation of his second-year performance, regents noted that:

"The faculty ... were 'devastated' and 'demoralized' by the establishment of your chief-of-staff position and the filling (and continued filling) of administrative positions at 'outrageous' salaries. The board reluctantly supported these appointments to allow you to realize your preferred staffing design but will now hold you accountable for their commensurate productivity and benefit to the institution, particularly its academic and research mission.

"This inconsistent treatment of salaries has created internal and public concerns over equity, fiscal responsibility and priorities of the university," continued the evaluation. "Salaries of your CFO and VP for external affairs exceeded that of the former UH president ..."

Iha's $185,000 salary also exceeds that of former UH president Kenneth Mortimer, who was paid $168,000.

The evaluation also chastised Dobelle for not bringing other administrators in the system up to levels of the new hires. Dobelle has said there hasn't been the money to do so but his administration is studying how that can be done.