Salary cuts for a couple dozen executives are being considered as the University of Hawai'i at Hilo grapples with an unprecedented $4 million budget cut out of the $33 million in yearly funding it receives from the state.

That's the amount that will be trimmed under Gov. Linda Lingle's plan to balance the state budget. The $4 million is on top of a $2.3 million cut in UH-Hilo's budget approved by the Legislature and recently signed into law.

UHH's total annual budget is around $50 million.

"We will probably look at a rollback of salaries of executives. Those folks are non-unionized," said Gerald De Mello, university relations director.

"The budget reductions will affect class size, there will be an impact to part-time jobs for students," he added. "We'll have to look at positions we're recruiting for to see if hiring can be delayed."

But university officials haven't yet worked with its long-range budget planning committee to decide exactly where the cuts will be made.

No specific directive have come down yet from the UH system, which faces a total of $76 million in cuts for the fiscal year that started July 1 — $50 million of those cuts falling on the UH-Manoa campus. Community colleges will have to cut $14 million.