Salary cuts for a couple dozen executives are on the table 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 UHH'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 the university hasn't yet rolled up its sleeves to work with its long-range budget planning committee to nail down -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.

It's not known how the cuts will affect Hawai'i Community College.

"It's premature to discuss specifics on the budget situation; essentially, we do not have enough information to make a responsible statement at this time," HCC Chancellor Rockne Freitas said.

UH system President David McClain said that some 200 executives in the UH system would lead the way with salary rollbacks, for a total savings of $30 million. De Mello did not know exactly what percentage the executives' salaries would be cut.

McClain also announced that campuses would close all but essential services during winter and spring break.

Before taking further steps, the university system had been waiting for Thursday's decision by First Circuit Court Judge Karl Sakamoto, which blocked Lingle from implementing furloughs outside of the collective bargaining process.

"I think we have to wait for the university president to come down to us and say, 'Look, this is what we need to do,'" De Mello said.

McClain said in a July 1 update that pay cuts in some form — either via furloughs or salary reductions through the collective bargaining process — would be necessary "because of the sheer magnitude of the problem."

While McClain listed early retirement incentives as a possibility for closing the budget gap, De Mello said his experiences with early retirement in the 1990s are that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.

"You've lost your talent and you end up needing to hire people back," he said.

De Mello said campus projects like the new science and technology building continue to move forward.

But because a high percentage of students major in science, technology and mathematics, the technological component makes it more expensive to educate them, De Mello said.

"A budget cut of this magnitude is disastrous," De Mello said. "It will fundamentally change the way we deliver education."