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UUP calls for change in SUNY funding pattern

 

Albany, Feb. 5, 2004 - United University Professions (UUP) urged state lawmakers to alter the pattern of flat budgets for the State University of New York (SUNY) and make a greater public investment in the University system, in testimony it gave today at a joint legislative budget hearing in Albany.

In its testimony, delivered by UUP Vice President for Professionals John Marino on behalf of UUP President William E. Scheuerman, the union emphasized that the 2004-05 Executive Budget proposal continues the pattern of flat budgets for SUNY, which won't cover increased costs such as inflation and record enrollment growth.

And, another flat budget will force campus leaders to "cannibalize their own campuses" and University administrators to "pull money from some campuses to help others," Marino said.

The pattern of flat budgets for SUNY is also occurring within the context of long-term declines in both state funding for public higher education and the number of full-time faculty -- which "may soon put the quality of a SUNY education at risk," UUP said.

While in 1980 SUNY's state-operated campuses received about 60 percent of their funding from the state, last year, nine of these campuses received less than 30 percent of their funding from the state, UUP said. Moreover, the campuses have lost nearly 1,000 full-time academic faculty since 1993-94.

"Today, we have reached the point where SUNY students pay more for less," UUP said, noting that classes are larger, librarians are fewer and lines at the registrar and financial aid offices are longer.

UUP also urged lawmakers to: restore proposed cuts to the Educational Opportunity Program and the New York State Theatre Institute; reject the executive proposal to privatize SUNY's teaching hospitals; and refute the plan to spend public capital on private colleges - a proposal the union called "unthinkable, given the history of the state's underfunding of SUNY."

 

 

UUP represents more then 34,000 academic and professional faculty on 29 New York State-operated campuses, and is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO and New York State United Teachers (NYSUT).    

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