Gov. David Paterson's plan to close the state's budget gap by making deep cuts to public schools, higher education and health care would inflict harm on New York's children and working families, said NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi, who is urging a focus on increasing revenues through a more fair and progressive tax system rather than cutting essential services.

"Midyear cuts would have a concentrated, painful impact on students — from pre-K through higher ed — and the neediest New Yorkers, who rely on public services and who are already feeling much of the pain from the current crisis," Iannuzzi said. "I'm confident the governor recognizes this, but believes there is no choice other than the steps being proposed. We respectfully disagree."

Call for better solutions

The statewide union is committed to constructive solutions, Iannuzzi said, but state officials must focus on the revenue side.

"Asking the richest New Yorkers to pay their fair share of the solution makes greater sense than compromising services the most vulnerable New Yorkers depend upon," he said.

Paterson's proposed cuts cannot happen without approval from the state Legislature. Senate Republican Majority Leader Dean Skelos has said the GOP is against making midyear cuts to education.

Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith also has expressed opposition to cuts that would adversely impact the state's public schools, higher ed and health care work force.

Iannuzzi said the union would continue to remind state lawmakers of their positions. Legislators were to address the plan in a special session Nov. 18.

Paterson's plan would:

• Immediately reduce aid to schools by $800 million. Those cuts would range between 3 percent and 10 percent for individual districts. The governor said the percentage cut would vary, considering a school district's wealth, concentration of at-risk children and property tax burden.

• Eliminate $10 million over the next two years for the Mentor Teacher-Internship Program, which provides money to pay substitute teachers so veteran educators can spend time mentoring new teachers. The plan would also slash $35 million for teacher centers over two years.

• Take $572 million from Medicaid.

• Cut state support for higher education by another $115 million, and recommends increasing annual undergraduate tuition by $600 at both the State and City University of New York.

• Reduce state aid to community colleges by an average of 10 percent. (To recognize the disproportionately adverse impact this would have on smaller community colleges, he's proposing legislation to reduce the cut for colleges with fewer than 3,000 students by $160 per full-time equivalent; colleges with 3,000 to 6,000 students would be reduced by $230 per FTE; and colleges with more than 6,000 students would have base aid reduced by $300 per FTE).

The governor also has called on state employee unions, including United University Professions, which represents more than 34,000 academic and professional faculty at SUNY, to postpone a scheduled 3 percent salary increase and defer five days' pay between now and the end of the year.

Acknowledging his proposal "represents a series of difficult choices across virtually every area of state spending," Paterson characterized it as "shared sacrifice."

Speaking at an Albany news conference, UUP President Phil Smith said the state's higher-ed system has sacrificed enough. SUNY and CUNY have already been forced to contend with $277 million in cuts this year.

Smith and Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Conference at CUNY, say it's hard enough to attract faculty members to SUNY and CUNY campuses. Now, budget cuts and forgoing pay raises would only "make a bad situation worse," Smith said.

He added that further budget cuts would mean fewer faculty and available classes, translating into fewer students being able to graduate on time and more college applicants being denied entrance to SUNY.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin said that during tough economic times the state should be investing in its higher-ed system. "Public higher education is essential as the engine that can jump-start our economy," he said.

The governor's budget-cutting plan also was assailed by a broad-based coalition of more than 200 organizations representing education, health care and social programs, which took Paterson to task for not requiring the wealthiest New Yorkers to shoulder any burden during this economic crisis.

The coalition, composed mainly of two groups known as the Better Choice Budget Campaign and One New York, called on the governor to impose a temporary income-tax surcharge on those New Yorkers' earning more than $1 million per year.

Need for balance

"The governor is not taking a balanced approach to the crisis," said coalition member Billy Easton of the Alliance for Quality Education. "There have to be revenues, too. You cannot just cut your way out of the problem."

Easton said Paterson's plan effectively "passes the burden of funding schools out of Albany and onto the backs of taxpayers."

Ron Deutsch, executive director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, said besides a "millionaire's tax," the coalition wants Paterson to await action from Washington on a possible federal stimulus package for economically troubled states, and to tap into the state's Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund — one of the state's "Rainy Day" funds. Specifically created to address end-of-the-year budget deficits, the fund now totals $1 billion.

NYSUT, besides pushing for the millionaire's tax as a way to raise revenue, has called on the administration to use the reserve fund to close this year's shortfall.

Iannuzzi and Lubin have met privately with the governor regarding the budget crisis. During meetings with editorial boards across the state and in interviews with print and broadcast media outlets Iannuzzi has been making the case that painful cuts can be avoided through a millionaire's tax and tapping "rainy day" reserves.

"If this isn't a rainy day, I don't know what is," Iannuzzi said.

Meanwhile, in addition to working with New York's congressional delegation and state leaders to secure additional federal aid, Lubin said NYSUT has proposed to the Paterson administration a menu of constructive solutions.

They include: urging the state to look more closely at using BOCES to share services, bulk purchasing of prescription drugs and closing existing tax loopholes to collect additional revenue.

Though Paterson suggested his cuts were actually reductions in spending growth that was enacted for the 2008-09 budget, Easton vehemently rejected such a notion.

"When there is money going into a classroom today that the governor wants to take out tomorrow, that is a cut," he said.

— Matt Smith