Executive Budget proposal shakes SUNY’s foundation

The 2003-04 Executive Budget proposal was presented in late January, and it didn’t deliver very good news for UUP or the state university.

The fiscal plan cuts overall state support for the University’s state-operated campuses by $183.5 million — or more than 15 percent — and threatens thousands of jobs and the foundation on which SUNY is based, according to UUP.

“SUNY’s base is under attack,” said UUP President William Scheuerman. “The last few years, the base was more or less intact and we were talking about add-ons. That foundation just turned from bedrock to quicksand and, if this isn’t fixed, we’re looking at layoffs.”

Aggravating matters, the Executive Budget relies on a tuition increase of $196.9 million to replace the reduction in general fund appropriations. Under the budget proposal, tuition at SUNY’s state-operated campuses would rise by $1,200 a year, to $4,600. The state Legislature must approve any tuition increase.

“This is a lose-lose plan,” Scheuerman said. “This funding scheme will threaten nearly 4,000 faculty positions if tuition isn’t increased as proposed, and it will mangle SUNY’s mission to provide a quality, affordable and accessible education for students.”

The proposed tuition increase is a “symptom of a larger problem, which is inadequate state funding,” he said. “The answer isn’t tuition, it’s state support for SUNY.”

The $183.5 million cut “looms large, and if the hole isn’t filled, the doors to the University will close,” Scheuerman said.

Also, a reduction in state aid based on the assumption that tuition will cover the revenue shortfall is “a tenuous budget plan based on a house of cards,” Scheuerman said. “It’s very possible tuition won’t be able to replace the lost state revenue because enrollment is likely to drop from such a huge tuition hike.”

Scheuerman continued: “We’re in the fight of our lives. If we don’t prevail, thousands of us will lose our jobs and tens of thousands of students will be turned away.”

While the Executive Budget recommended a $92.6 million appropriation for the SUNY hospitals — a $500,000 increase over last year — the plan also promoted privatization as a way to “stabilize” the fiscally beleaguered health science centers.

“We think that proposal is ‘DOA,’ but we’ll have to fight it,” Scheuerman said.

As part of its plan to bridge the state’s $11.5 billion budget gap through cuts, the Executive Budget totally eliminated the Educational Opportunity Program’s financial aid component — which constituted 50 percent of the program — and cut the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) by $161 million, or 22 percent.

These reductions are examples of what the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) — a nonpartisan research and education organization — characterized in an early February budget briefing as “painful budget cuts” included in the Executive Budget proposal.

In its February 2003 publication — “Balancing New York State’s 2003-2004 Budget in an Economically Sensible Manner — the FPI said that, in “making the hard choices” to close the 2003-04 budget gap, the state must choose “that mix of revenue increases and service cuts that have the least negative effect on the economy.”

The Executive Budget’s proposed increase in tuition and cut to TAP is “bad for the economy” and “bad for New York’s attractiveness in terms of its public higher education system,” said FPI economist James Parrott.

Alternatively, the FPI recommended — among other proposals — a “modest, temporary surcharge” on a portion of New Yorkers’ adjusted gross income above $100,000 as a “fairer” and “less damaging” way to help balance the budget, according to FPI Executive Director Frank Mauro.

— Lisa Feldman Reich