UUP Press Releases

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 7, 2005

 

Scheuerman pleads union’s case for more SUNY funding, against hospital “sick tax” or privatization

The head of the nation’s largest higher education union — United University Professions — today urged New York state lawmakers to pass a state budget that includes $85 million in public funding for the State University of New York’s 29 state-operated campuses.  In testimony before the state Senate and Assembly’s fiscal committees in Albany, UUP President William Scheuerman said SUNY has been underfunded for the past 20 years, and warned that without the funding, the SUNY system would be forced to impose drastic cuts to faculty and programs affecting tens of thousands of students.

“The bottom line is, without the $85 million that SUNY identified as the minimum required for the basic needs of the University, the state-operated campuses will be forced to lay off as many as 1,700 academic and professional faculty and cut classes and programs that will impact more then 34,000 SUNY students,” Scheuerman said.  “Our position on using tuition as a source of revenue for SUNY is simple: Unwarranted tuition increases are a symptom of the larger problem of declining state funding.  Tuition is an unpredictable and volatile source of revenue and should only be used as a last resort.”

Scheuerman also detailed the billions of dollars worth of positive economic impact of SUNY’s campuses on the communities in which they are located throughout New York, including  $1.25 billion from the University at Buffalo; $1 billion from the University at Albany; $213 million from SUNY Oswego and $195 million from SUNY New Paltz. 

The union leader called on the legislators to protect the return on the state’s investment in public higher education.

“Dollars invested in SUNY return to the state in tax revenues, research spin-offs, job creation and other forms of economic development.  It is time for the state to protect its investment in SUNY—and the huge return on that investment—by increasing funding for SUNY this year,” Scheuerman testified.

While Scheuerman praised the Executive Budget proposal to grant SUNY a $37 million increase in the subsidy for the SUNY hospitals, he warned that other proposals to tax the public hospitals, privatize them and cut Medicaid funding and graduate medical education threaten to erode the added aid.

             “One hand takes away what the other delivers,” Scheuerman cautioned.  “We strongly oppose the proposed 0.7 percent “sick tax” on gross hospital revenues and proposed cuts in Medicaid funding and graduate medical education,” which he said would cost Stony Brook Health Science Center $9.1 million, $11.7 for Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn and $6.7 million for Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse.

“This is bad public policy, especially when Downstate Medical is the fifth largest employer in Brooklyn, when eighty-five percent of its employees are New York City residents, and when Downstate's total direct, indirect, and induced economic impact on New York State is more than $627 million. For every $1 New York State invests, SUNY Downstate returns more than $12 to the state economy. 

“Given these numbers, the ill-considered plan to transfer the SUNY hospitals to private, not-for-profit status makes even less sense this year,” he continued.  “We urge you to immediately kill this counterproductive idea.”

Scheuerman said UUP also opposes the $7.48 million or 48 percent cut in funding for the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) in the 2005-06 Executive Budget Proposal, and opposes the proposal to allow private colleges and universities access to public capital funding.

“With SUNY playing such an important role in New York's economic development, the state's highest priority for capital funds must be to ensure that the SUNY campuses have the resources necessary to carry out their historic mission of providing high-quality, accessible, affordable higher education.”

Scheuerman also recommended the lawmakers support the following changes:

• set a specific timetable for SUNY to reach the point where full-time faculty teach 70 percent of the courses at state-operated campuses, providing students with the courses and services they need to graduate on time;

• fund the educational and operational needs at the SUNY campuses, including funding for hiring new faculty and retaining current faculty;

•fund teacher education programs and libraries and the SUNY Trustees'  general education curriculum;

• fund the continued rebuilding of the SUNY health science centers in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse, including funding for the geographic pay differential for full-time faculty at SUNY's medical schools; and,

• increase funding for academic and professional faculty at the New York State Theatre Institute in Troy.

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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