$31 million in the red

The University of Hawaii's flagship Manoa campus is facing a multimillion-dollar tuition shortfall for a fourth straight year as state support continues to decline while energy and personnel costs escalate.

Manoa officials are projecting a $31 million deficit for the fiscal year that ends June 30, despite efforts to curb spending.

Interim Manoa Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman, who took the reins Sept. 1, said he is actively seeking ways to cut costs but cautioned that Manoa's debt could keep growing as the campus re-evaluates its spending priorities.

"Our goal is to fly level for this year, and during this year try to reconnoiter and figure out where we're going to go in the future," Bley-Vroman told the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday. "The university as a whole needs to fly level. I think we can do it. I think it will be tough, and we may see our bank balance decline even more for a while, but we can do it."

The overspending began in 2012, when the campus incurred a $2.6 million deficit under then-Chancellor Virginia Hin­shaw.

UH-Manoa had started that year with a $21 million surplus in tuition revenue but was instructed by UH system administration to spend down some of its reserves for fear that the state might view the surplus as too healthy, said Kathy Cut­shaw, Manoa's vice chancellor for administration, finance and operations. Tuition revenues were subsequently spent on faculty salary restorations, student laboratory space and information technology upgrades.

The shortfall swelled to $17 million and then $26 million in the following two years under then-Chancellor Tom Apple. Those shortfalls were covered by university reserves.

Utility costs ran over budget by a combined $13 million in those years. Among other added costs, the campus also paid out $6.4 million for 3 percent faculty salary increases that it had expected the state to cover, and suffered a $7 million cut from the Legislature, in fiscal 2014.

Manoa's financial crisis was the chief reason UH President David Lassner gave when he fired Apple on July 30 with three years remaining on a contract.

Ebola spreading

[10/6/14] MADRID » In the first known transmission of the outbreak of Ebola outside West Africa, a Spanish nurse who treated a missionary for the disease at a Madrid hospital has tested positive for the virus, Spain's health minister said Monday.

The female nurse was part of the medical team that cared for a 69-year-old Spanish priest who died Sept. 25 in a Madrid hospital designated for treating Ebola patients after he was flown home from Sierra Leone, where he served as the medical director of a hospital there treating infected Ebola patients, Health Minister Ana Mato said.

The nurse is believed to have contracted the virus from that priest, though she was also a member of the team that treated another Spanish priest who died earlier from Ebola.

More than 370 health workers in West Africa have become infected in the outbreak, and more than half of those have died. Doctors and nurses there have worked under difficult conditions, treating patients in overflowing wards, sometimes without proper protection. But even under ideal conditions, experts warn that caring for Ebola patients always involves a risk.

WHO estimates the latest Ebola outbreak has killed more than 3,400 people.

The World Health Organization on Monday night confirmed there has not been a transmission outside West Africa in the current outbreak prior to the Spanish nurse.

Hong Kong protests

The protesters aren't backing down, China isn't giving in, and the world isn't looking away.

Pro-democracy demonstrations continued in Hong Kong's streets for a sixth day on Wednesday over anger at China's refusal to allow the open selection of candidates for Hong Kong's leader in the city's first democratic election, scheduled for 2017. Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous city that is officially ruled by China.

The Chinese government is fighting social media's power of connectedness to keep mainland China in the dark, while Hong Kong protesters are harnessing it to ensure the world hears them.