Scrutiny is increasing over the spending of private donor money under the tenure of former University of Hawaii at Manoa Athletics Director Jim Donovan.

The small rock garden outside of the athletics department at the lower Manoa campus is just one of the things that Donovan submitted receipts for.

It listed $1,300 for materials on a project that Donovan said included donated labor to give a facelift to a weed patch.

Sounds reasonable and looks nice enough, but is there more to the picture than meets the eye?

Is there more to the stacks of receipts released publicly, which included travel and meals for staff which Donovan said covered what public funding fell short on.

The foundation did reimburse many meals for donors and sponsors, a practice not unreasonable to further advance the UH Athletics program.

It also included meals for print and broadcast sports writers including KITV's.

A media watchdog group cautions about the practice.

"The journalist has to think for himself to accept even a lunch or friendly dinner from a source that I am going to cover.  You have to think 'I am going to cover this person, I have to assure the person that I can be fair.' How would that appear to the public that I was presumably serving.  It raises some serious questions," said Gerald Kato of the Hawaii Media Council.

And there are questions about the foundation's oversight.