As the 2025 state legislative session enters its final weeks, the University of
Hawaii is closely watching ongoing conference committee negotiations that will determine how much state support the university will receive in the coming fiscal biennium.

With the session scheduled to adjourn May 2, lawmakers from the House and Senate are now tasked with reconciling their budget bills — and the implications for the university system are significant. The disparities between the House and Senate versions, particularly in general fund support for UH’s operating needs and long-term financial obligations, are stark.

Kalbert Young, UH vice president for budget and finance and chief financial officer, noted that the budget proposal recently passed by the Senate includes a more limited level of general fund support for UH in several key areas, compared to the versions put forward by the governor and the House.

One of the most pressing issues is the future of funding for the John A. Burns School of Medicine and the UH Cancer Center. While both the governor’s and House budgets include funding to help cover debt service and
operational costs for these institutions, the Senate
version does not.

This omission comes at a critical time. Young warned that federal funding for
biomedical research is expected to decline under the new federal administration, though research at JABSOM and the Cancer Center remains essential to improving health outcomes for Hawaii residents.

“First, nothing in the legislative budget request is to address any issues related to the federal supplantation of funds, so that worry has not yet been addressed,” Young said. “There will come a time when a question will be put to the university and the state about how those services and programs will continue if they are to continue without
federal funds.”

According to Young, the state originally had chosen to fund the medical school and Cancer Center in the 1990s through special revenues — primarily cigarette taxes and tobacco settlement funds — rather than general funds. But those revenue streams have been shrinking for years.

“Cigarette consumption has been waning each year over year,” Young explained. “The amount of the master settlement agreement that comes to the university to pay for the debt service at the medical school was already short this year, and it is forecast to be even farther off this coming year and
every year until the finishing of the debt.”

He added that the Cancer Center’s funding source is also projected to be insufficient starting next year.

Despite the shortfall, Young stated that the university will not default on its debt. He indicated that tuition revenues could be affected as a result, adding that it is likely tuition revenues will be used to address the gap.

The broader concern looming over UH is the predicted reduction in federal biomedical research funding. While the current budget debate focuses on capital and operational expenses, the larger issue is whether the university can sustain its research capacity without federal backing.

“Some (research) is on the radar from the current administration that may get curtailed or canceled,” Young said. “That’s probably more into the next fiscal year and beyond … That will be a bigger question, bigger than the debt service.”

The Senate’s proposal to allocate $252.9 million for UH capital improvement projects includes $120 million for student and faculty housing at Kauai Community College. However, Young said this support
is misaligned with the
university’s actual capital priorities.

Young said that the proposal “disproportionately
ignores” the university’s specific request for capital funding support for existing student housing.

For UH Manoa, the Senate is proposing nearly $120 million in capital funding for student housing, with half coming from general obligation bonds. The remaining funding would need to be raised by the university through revenue bonds, which would add to its debt obligations.

“Both the House and the Senate provided 50% essentially, of what is required or what is going to be needed,” Young said. “The other 50% … UH (is) to take on debt.”

The Senate also imposed a condition requiring UH to provide financial aid for students housed in any new dormitories funded by debt, raising red flags about the long-term viability of the plan.

Young said that if the state’s approach is to withhold general funds and instead have the university take on debt, there must be a clear way to repay that debt. He noted that, if rent revenue is insufficient to cover the debt and additional payments are required to support tenants, the financial model does not balance.

The Senate budget also proposes eliminating 105.35 vacant full-time positions and 2.5 temporary positions across UH. However, Young noted that only eight of these were funded by the state.

“The rest of the positions are actually funded by the university,” he said. “So eliminating the positions does not, in and of itself, save the state money.”

Young said UH is working with the Senate Ways and Means Committee to identify which programs or services the proposed vacant positions are tied to and assess what impacts, if any, their elimination would have. He noted that it is unclear what types of positions are involved — they could be faculty, administrative, student support roles or a combination.

He referred to a similar situation in 2019, when a proposal to cut 121 faculty positions at UH Manoa and 100 systemwide vacancies was ultimately reversed
following public pushback.

Young said that because the positions targeted this year are currently vacant, “I’m not really getting too spun up about the elimination of the positions, but we have to better understand the implications.”

“The budget conference just opened about an hour or so ago for this session … There is closer alignment between the House and governor’s budget proposal than either of them to the Senate,” Young said Tuesday afternoon. “That’s a little bit different than what I’ve seen in the past.”

Conference committees — where differences are
reconciled — are largely opaque, according to Young, with the Tuesday session serving mostly as a public reporting venue.

“Most of these negotiations are occurring behind closed doors,” Young said. “There are some agreements … but there are still a lot of differences. I don’t think that there was anything reported today related to UH.

“The No. 1 objective is to maintain the University of Hawaii’s level of rigor and stature in providing tier
one academic programs
for Hawaii residents and
students,” Young said. “University of Hawaii does a lot as a university, but we also do a lot for Hawaii. So, it is a very large animal.”

With only weeks left in the session, UH administrators and supporters continue to press lawmakers to fund the institution’s priorities. Whether those efforts will succeed remains to be seen, but Young was clear about what’s at stake.

“Now is the time to watch for where efforts to support higher education programs and services in Hawaii
materialize,” Young said.

A Hawaiian teenager is facing up to 10 years in prison after he and pal stole a woman’s pet pig and slaughtered it to cheat their way into a $1,000 hunting contest prize.

Jayden Jarnesky-Magana, 19, and accomplice Krys Ryan Saito-Carino, 20, allegedly snatched “Eddie” from Sarah Haynes’ Maui farm last May and then filmed their dogs viciously attacking the poor creature in a sham hunting video they posted on social media.

They proceeded to kill and gut Eddie and entered him at the last minute in a local “biggest pig” hunting contest — but the hunters there became suspicious after noting that the pig had been neutered and was much heavier than the typical wild pigs entered into the contest.

“Nobody believed him,” Haynes told KHON2.

Eddie was even too heavy for the two men to carry from their truck to the weigh-scale, Haynes said, but they ended up walking away with the $1,000 prize money for the biggest pig hunted.

Jarnesky-Magana and Saito-Carino were both arrested and charged in August with animal cruelty later last year following a police investigation, Maui Now reported.

In January Jarnesky-Magana changed his plea from not guilty to no contest and is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday on felony counts of first-degree animal cruelty and livestock theft — which each carry a five-year max sentence. 

Saito-Carino, is expected to also change his plea to no contest on Wednesday, according to KOHN2.

Haynes has organized a rally outside of the Wailuku courthouse to raise awareness about animal cruelty.

“Eddie was super friendly,” Haynes said. “Little kids could hug him, you know, he’d sit. You could get him to bark like a dog. I mean, he was just the most adorable, sweet, gentle soul.”

She had adopted the pig several years ago and brought him to her Kitty Charm Farm in Haiku after he was found running around Kihei with scars and rope burns, presumably because he was used to train hunting dogs.

“And you know, his life started with cruelty, and I was determined to make that go away for life. And, unfortunately it ended the same way it started, you know, with hunting dogs.”

“I don’t want to ruin anybody’s life and I don’t think there’s any possibility of them getting the 10 years, but what I would like to see, I would like to see a punishment,” he added.

“This wasn’t an innocent mistake, this wasn’t confusion about the law. This was a planned attack on my pet,” she added.

(BIVN) – The ongoing eruption at the summit of Kīlauea remains paused as of Tuesday morning, and scientists expect the next episode of lava activity to begin at any moment. 

The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported Monday night that if prior patterns of inflation hold, Episode 18 is likely to start between now and late Wednesday. 

Overnight, both the north and south vents within Halemaʻumaʻu crater were degassing and displaying a strong glow. 

The USGS HVO posted this analysis on Monday:

The current eruption has been characterized by episodic fountaining not seen in any of the other Halemaʻumaʻu eruptions since 2020. Fountains and lava flows have erupted from two vents that we refer to as the north vent and south vent. Each of the previous 16 fountaining episodes lasted from a few hours to over a week and has been accompanied by strong deflation of the summit region. Pauses between the fountaining episodes have been marked by an immediate change from deflation to inflation as the magma chamber recharges and repressurizes.

USGS: “This reference map depicts the Kīlauea summit eruption within Halema‘uma‘u crater that began on December 23, 2024. As of this posting on April 9, the eruption has had seventeen episodes, with the most recent concluding earlier this morning. However, most of the map data included here were collected during a Hawaiian Volcano Observatory helicopter overflight on April 2, immediately following episode 16; for this reason, the provided statistics only reflect the first sixteen episodes of the eruption. Additionally, the collected data were insufficient to calculate the total lava volume for the eruption at that time.”

Analysis of inflationary tilt patterns prior to the onset of each fountaining episode allows a time window of probability for the onset of new episodes to be estimated. These are calculated using both minimum inflation necessary to start a new eruption and the rate of inflation fit to data derived from past eruptive episodes. The onset of episode 17 occurred earlier than forecasted, as the fountaining began prior to the tilt rebounding to the expected threshold that had been previously associated with episode onsets. If the eruption returns to pre-episode 17 inflation behavior, data suggest episode 18 is likely to start as early as today or as late as Wednesday of this week, within the 0-3 days, with Tuesday most likely. This window may be adjusted if inflation rates change significantly. Based upon prior cycles of fountaining and deflation, episode 18 fountaining is likely to be less than 24 hours long.

The USGS Volcano Alert Level for Kīlauea is WATCH.