Capitol Corner

FYI on ERI, SUNY 02-03 financial plan

Traditional ERI

Based on an early summer go-ahead by the SUNY Board of Trustees, the chancellor and campus presidents may now implement the traditional Early Retirement Incentive (ERI) for eligible University employees in state retirement systems (ERS/TRS) and the Optional Retirement System (ORP, TIAA-CREF/Aetna/Valic).

At their June meeting, the trustees elected to make the traditional ERI available to employees of the state-operated campuses and System Administration. They authorized the chancellor or his designees (i.e., campus presidents) to target eligible titles and individual campuses to set the length and window of the applicable open periods.

The open period must be at least 30 days, but not longer than 90 days, and, for faculty, must end no later than Dec. 31.

As the result of UUP and NYSUT advocacy, the ERI legislation allows for the replacement of positions of people who take the incentive.

“55/25” ERI

There is also a new, separate “55/25” ERI that is mandatory for employers. Under this incentive, employees in tiers II, III or IV of TRS or ERS can choose to retire -- without penalty, within a set open period -- if they are 55 to 61 years old with 25 to 29 years of service, unless SUNY determines their positions are critical to the maintenance of public health and safety. According to the trustees, campuses will make these determinations.

The trustees authorized the chancellor to set the 90-day open period, which must begin by Jan.1, 2003.

In other news, the SUNY trustees recently rubber-stamped the 2002-03 Financial Plan for the state-operated campuses as recommended by the board’s Finance and Administration Committee. According to UUP, the RAM-based, $1.8 billion allocation underfunds the University.

“This is a flat budget and we’re taking a hit,” said UUP President William Scheuerman, disputing SUNY’s reported characterization of the plan as a small budgetary increase. In fact, when contractual raises and inflationary costs are factored in, campuses will suffer at least a 5 percent cut from the 2001-02 academic year, according to UUP.

Moreover, the Division of the Budget (DOB) had imposed an additional 1 percent cut based on its projection of savings to the state from employees’ participation in the ERI. However, reports at publication time indicate that DOB may reduce the cut to less than it originally inflicted.

Meanwhile, UUP was successful in its efforts to prevent layoffs of full-time University employees as part of this year’s budget negotiations. The union recently convinced the governor to extend that protection to part-timers.

“We call it the ‘stealth budget’ this year -- an election year -- when SUNY doesn’t want the real facts out,” Scheuerman said. But in a bad fiscal year for the state, UUP avoided any negative impact to its members due to budgetary constraints, he said.