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Many SUNY schools prepare for funding cuts

June 19, 2008

All but one of the State University of New York’s research, four-year, and technology colleges will receive less state money this year than in 2007-08, but reductions vary from 1.3 percent to 5.83 percent, according to a plan trustees approved Tuesday.

Corning Community College, which is governed by a regional board of trustees, will not be affected, college officials said.

Despite the cuts, there will be no layoffs or tuition hikes at the other schools, Carl Hayden, chairman of SUNY’s Board of Trustees, said before the panel approved the reduced budget.

“I think of particular note is the fact that tuition and fees remain unaffected by the action that you’re going to take today,” said Hayden, an Elmira lawyer.

Each college will decide how to pay for the reductions. The revised budget says they likely will reduce or put off acquisitions for libraries. They could delay academic and research programs or implement hiring freezes. Across the system, purchases of equipment and vehicles could be pushed back, and there will be closer scrutiny of travel expenses to make sure they are necessary and obtained at the best price.

At Binghamton University, President Lois DeFleur told members of the campus community in a recent memo that trimming the budget “will be challenging across the university because a high proportion of our budget is devoted to personnel,” she said.

“Our priority is to protect the quality of our academic programs, and that is why the reduction for the Division of Academic Affairs is 1.1 percent, compared to 3.3 percent for other divisions,” she said Tuesday.

The school will receive $66.37 million in state funds this year, compared with $67.87 million in 2007-08, a 2.2 percent drop. Overall, state support and campus revenues will total $137.57 million, $1.53 million less than last year.

Binghamton officials consider the reduction to be higher, a total of about $2.3 million, because they are adding in separate state funding for negotiated salary increases, inflation on supplies and services and the increasing energy costs. Expenses for energy and inflation on supplies and services are likely to be more than allocated, according to the school.

The state budget includes $45 million in contingency funds that could be used by SUNY and the City University of New York to cover increased utility costs.

Faced with ongoing economic problems and a $5 billion budget gap, Gov. David Paterson and lawmakers called for spending cuts of 3.35 percent in all state agencies. The $121.7 billion budget that took effect in April did not specify how those reductions would be made, so the governor’s Division of the Budget has been working with the dozens of state departments, and SUNY and CUNY, on the specifics.

SUNY’s budget-reduction plan, released last month by the Division of the Budget, had made $38.8 million in cuts in state operating funds but did not provide details of how an additional $11.2 million reduction in state General Fund revenues would be made. The completed budget was released Tuesday.

Most schools will receive between 2 percent and 4 percent less than last year. The biggest cut is at Stony Brook in Suffolk County, at 5.83 percent less than 2007-08. Empire State College, which has multiple locations across New York, is the only one whose support has increased. It is $15.9 million this year, a hike of less than 1 percent.

The amount of the cuts varies at each campus and is primarily driven by enrollment and the cost of providing studies in different disciplines. For example, maintaining a lab for chemistry students is more expensive than classes in political science.

SUNY is cutting many of its programs in research, technology and economic development, including research at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, the Earthquake Center in Buffalo and the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo. However, it is spending $1.85 million more this year — $5.85 million — on programs that train people in professions where there are shortages, such as nursing. The Rockefeller Institute of Government, a research organization affiliated with SUNY, will receive $1.69 million, a 3.9 percent jump.

Source: Star Gazette

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