02-10-2018, 06:44 PM
There have been several news reports in the last couple of days about the bill to transfer management of Mauna Kea science reserve from UH to some other entity and have observatories pay a "true" rent (Senate Bill 3090). I'll pick this one just as it has fewer videos and adverts than other sites I've visited:
http://www.wthitv.com/content/national/473701633.html
""All revenue whether it's commercial tours, whether it's charging for access to Mauna Kea or revenue generated from the ground lease, rent that the telescope should be paying, fair market value, all of those revenue should go to ultimately the Office of Hawaiian Affairs but it should also go to native Hawaiians," Kahele said."
There we have it. Forget education, it's OHA that wants more money. Let me outline briefly what this would mean for the observatories.
Let's say an observatory has an operational cost of $10 million to operate every night for a whole year. The rent they pay is 15% observing time to UH which goes to the university for research and educational costs. It is factored into the costs the observatory partners have to pay to keep the observatory running.
If that observatory now had to pay rent, at 15% that would be $1.5 million a year, that money would disappear from education and be taken away from the observatory's operational costs. That means, in order to keep the observatory operational every night, the cost to the partners would increase by 15%. Funding is already tight and such a large increase might not be possible to raise. If it can't, local jobs are lost. I know UKIRT and some other telescopes would soon be in trouble (and remember, UKIRT is currently the most scientifically productive telescope on the planet right now). And let's not forget the observatories have already signed leases until 2033.
Changing the system might be OK if the funding went to STEM education, after all, that's what the observatories are all about; they don't exist to line the pockets of the OHA.
http://www.wthitv.com/content/national/473701633.html
""All revenue whether it's commercial tours, whether it's charging for access to Mauna Kea or revenue generated from the ground lease, rent that the telescope should be paying, fair market value, all of those revenue should go to ultimately the Office of Hawaiian Affairs but it should also go to native Hawaiians," Kahele said."
There we have it. Forget education, it's OHA that wants more money. Let me outline briefly what this would mean for the observatories.
Let's say an observatory has an operational cost of $10 million to operate every night for a whole year. The rent they pay is 15% observing time to UH which goes to the university for research and educational costs. It is factored into the costs the observatory partners have to pay to keep the observatory running.
If that observatory now had to pay rent, at 15% that would be $1.5 million a year, that money would disappear from education and be taken away from the observatory's operational costs. That means, in order to keep the observatory operational every night, the cost to the partners would increase by 15%. Funding is already tight and such a large increase might not be possible to raise. If it can't, local jobs are lost. I know UKIRT and some other telescopes would soon be in trouble (and remember, UKIRT is currently the most scientifically productive telescope on the planet right now). And let's not forget the observatories have already signed leases until 2033.
Changing the system might be OK if the funding went to STEM education, after all, that's what the observatories are all about; they don't exist to line the pockets of the OHA.