Sent on behalf of SUNY University Faculty Senate President, Bruce Simon, and Stony Brook University Senate President, Brenda Anderson:,
We survive by annual funding that closes critical gaps in our funding structure. That makes us vulnerable in every annual budget negotiation. For that reason, we have to raise our voices to advocate for the support we desperately need. Please see the permalink to the open letter (within the digital repository, click the link on the left under “Files”). Please consider using this google form to join as a signatory to the letter.
As New Yorkers you are free to (1) join as signatories on the open letter, (2) send the open letter to the Governor and your own state legislators in the NYS Senate and Assembly, and (3) support UUP, PSC, and/or NYSUT advocacy efforts as we head into the home stretch of state budget negotiations.
To make it easy for you, here are a few key features of the letter:
- We thank Governor Hochul for proposing a $45M increase for SUNY state-operated campuses and statutory colleges (for a total of $595M) and for proposing $314.2M for critical maintenance at CUNY, along with a $57.3M local sponsor match for critical maintenance at CUNY’s community colleges.
- Very special thanks to the Senate for building on the Governor’s proposal with an additional $1.8B for one year of a five-year capital plan for SUNY and an additional $1.8B for one year of a five-year capital plan for CUNY.
- Very special thanks to the Assembly for building on Governor’s Hochul’s proposed increase with an additional $405M for critical maintenance, $460M for research capital, and a $10B multi-year plan for four-year SUNY campuses; an additional $7.8B for a five-year capital plan for CUNY; and an additional $200M to the New York State Urban Development Corporation including educational institutions for gran
- Develop a multi-year capital plan to provide the state-of-the-art infrastructure on which innovation depends, to help attract leading researchers, and to make each SUNY and CUNY institution a safer, healthier, greener, and more accessible, engaging, energy-efficient, and sustainable place in which to learn, search, serve, teach, work, and live.
Middle of page 3,
- Fully fund, on a recurring, annual basis, all negotiated contractual increases and other mandatory operating cost increases for all SUNY and CUNY institutions, including community colleges (in partnership with local sponsors), and SUNY hospitals.
- We urge you all to fully fund all mandatory operating cost increases for all SUNY and CUNY institutions. This is necessary to sustain adequate numbers of full-time faculty, professional staff, advisors, counselors, and other student support personnel and to avoid shifting state obligations at community colleges onto local sponsors, students, and already-strained campus operating budgets. Community colleges are especially vulnerable because unreimbursed mandatory costs quickly erode academic offerings, student support, and workforce capacity.
Bottom 1/3 of page 3.
- We urge you all to fully fund all prospective SUNY union contracts. Anything short of full funding is a cut to our campuses, offsetting other gains from the following proposals:
- We thank you all for continuing to provide a $54M increase for state-operated campuses in lieu of a tuition increase (for a total of an additional $445M over the last four years) and continuing the $53M increase of direct state tax support for funding new full-time faculty at state-operated campuses that began in the SFY23 Enacted Budget.
2nd paragraph, page 6
- Continue efforts to increase access to higher education through programs to offset tuition hardships by moving to a more progressive tuition system recognizing variations in cost of living throughout the state and allowing for flexibility in degree costs, while further expanding financial aid eligibility, increasing financial aid amounts, ensuring that all state scholarships and grants can be used on any cost associated with attendance at any SUNY and CUNY campus, and rethinking the parameters of the Excelsior Scholarship.
- continuing on
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- We thank you all for continuing to close the TAP Gap and for continuing the state-operated tuition freeze, tuition revenue spending authority, and extension of flexibility for non-resident tuition rates.
3rd to last on page 6
- We thank the Senate and Assembly for proposing to restore funding for the Educational Opportunity Program ($2.6M), for mental health services ($1M), and for the High Needs Nursing Program ($1M).
- We thank the Senate and Assembly for proposing to increase EOP funding (by $3.8M and $17.5M, respectively); we support the Assembly proposal.
- We encourage you to add dedicated, recurring appropriations to the SFY27 Enacted Budget to expand SUNY and CUNY campus child-care centers, sustain hunger-free campus designations, and develop transportation-support programs for commuting SUNY and CUNY students.