Taking a proactive stance, NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin and union higher education leaders will be meeting soon with senior SUNY trustees to discuss planned cuts to the state's higher education budget that could exceed $277 million.

Lubin discussed the schedule of meetings this month before a gathering of NYSUT labor relations specialists for the union's community college locals.

NYSUT higher education leaders have been waiting for the SUNY Board of Trustees to show how they will distribute cuts in the face of an expected $210 million shortfall for the State University system.

"If we don't show them where we can be flexible, we're going to have no say in the matter," Lubin said.

SUNY is facing three major budget problems: budget cuts announced in the spring; an additional 7 percent reduction in Gov. David Paterson's announcement in July that he would be cutting state agencies; and a state mandate imposed in the spring that SUNY set aside $109 million in revenue it generates from tuition, hospital payments and other sources.

Both the SUNY Finance and Administration Committee and the SUNY Board of Trustees met earlier this month to discuss the cuts, but neither meeting produced any reassurance, definitive action or plan for the campuses that are about to feel the hits.

"SUNY must act immediately to protect its core mission to provide a quality education for the greatest number of New Yorkers," said Philip Smith, president of United University Professions, which represents 35,000 SUNY academic and professional faculty.

With the City University of New York facing a $67.7 million shortfall, the Professional Staff Congress is taking the offensive. In a message to the union's more than 20,000 members, PSC President Barbara Bowen said, "Both the Legislature and the governor should be held accountable for undermining CUNY once again, but special responsibility falls on CUNY's central administration."

Getting involved

UUP and PSC are urging their members and other concerned New Yorkers to use the union Web sites (www.uupinfo.org and www.psc-cuny.org) to send messages protesting the cuts directly to lawmakers or administrators.

NYSUT will continue to press for restoration of the funds at both systems, Lubin said.
"The governor is correctly pointing out that New York state is facing an imminent fiscal crisis," Lubin said. "We hope to help him realize that cutting higher education is exactly the wrong response to this crisis."

Community colleges were not included in the governor's 7 percent cuts to statewide agencies, but those cuts will have a trickle-down effect that will hit those campuses, said Ellen Schuler Mauk, president of the Faculty Association of Suffolk Community College and chair of NYSUT's Higher Education Council.

Community colleges have already been feeling the tighter economy with flat funding for the current year, Schuler Mauk said.

As the economy worsens, New Yorkers tend to go back to school for retraining or to get a degree that will help them in a tight job market.

"All of our classes are filled to overflowing," she said.

- Darryl McGrath