The fall semester is in full swing and you’re settled in comfortably at your campus or health science center, working hard and looking forward to another good year. You’re doing your thing, working week in and week out to make SUNY work.

And why not? You’ve got a great job with one of the nation’s foremost public higher education systems. You’re not worried about your job, right?

Not so fast.

Here’s the reality. SUNY has been hit with $562 million in state aid budget cuts over the past two years, and those cuts are starting to manifest as more than just cost-saving measures like hiring freezes, and restricting travel and equipment purchases—measures that have been instituted by most campuses.

The situation has ramped up recently. Now we’re talking about the R word—retrenchments. In May, we learned that System Administration’s entire Nylink operation will be phased out in 2011. In September, we got word that non-renewal advisories were sent to 39 unionized Downstate Medical Center employees. In October, UAlbany announced that it expects to eliminate the equivalent of 160 full-time positions over the next two years. Why? UAlbany president George Philip blamed it on SUNY state aid cuts; the college has lost 30 percent of its allocation since 2007.

Still comfortable? You shouldn’t be.

It’s time for every UUPer to stand tall and demand a stop to this financial erosion of SUNY. We need you to get involved.

It’s time for you, for all of us, to step up and help make a difference. If we don’t, it’s certain we’ll be hearing more news about how SUNY state aid cuts have forced the closure of programs or departments at campuses and HSCs that have become too costly to run.

One of them may be yours.

We need you to talk to your local legislators about the importance of SUNY and how continued state aid cuts have weakened this proud higher education system. We need you to tell your friends, students and their parents, local business owners and other unionized workers in your community about what saving SUNY can mean to them and to all New Yorkers.

We need you to work to elect local candidates endorsed by New York State United Teachers in the November election. Already more than a dozen chapters have signed on to participate in phone banks and other election activities.

At the very least, we need you to vote for NYSUT-backed candidates, and get your neighbors and friends to cast their ballots our way Nov. 2.

And rest assured that we haven’t forgotten a promise made earlier this year by SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher to spend $147 million in SUNY reserves to help shore up SUNY state aid shortfalls. We will absolutely hold the chancellor to her promise, especially after my testimony before the state Senate Higher Education Committee in September in opposition to extraordinary salary increases that were handed to top SUNY administrators.

The $147 million won’t solve all of SUNY’s financial problems, but it will certainly help. That’s rainy day money and believe me, it’s pouring out. And SUNY’s got it; the University has nearly $600 million in reserves in its coffers.

We must remember what’s important here: fighting to keep SUNY affordable and able to provide quality programs to all students, and ensuring that the University remains as a viable engine of economic growth for New York.

It’s time to get fired up again.

Your comfort level—and your job—may depend on it.

At a time when SUNY is reeling from a two-year $562 million budget cut, SUNY’s Board of Trustees voted to raise the salaries of three of its top executives, all of whom already earned more than $200,000.

The board’s action—coming after SUNY’s decision to close Nylink and furlough more than 200 staffers—raised the hackles of UUP President Phil Smith.

“Is it appropriate for these increases to be granted when SUNY officials have seen fit to furlough hundreds of lower-salaried System Administration employees and to lay off dozens of others? Of course not. This is unconscionable,” Smith testified at a hearing at the invitation of the Senate Higher Education Committee called to look into the controversial raises.

UUP does not normally comment publicly regarding the compensation of SUNY officials, but Smith said he felt compelled to speak out in the absence of advance disclosure of the raises and the bleak economic climate SUNY students and their parents face.

“Should SUNY be doling out such benefits while at the same time seeking unlimited differential tuition and other increased charges to students and families?” Smith asked, answering his own question with an emphatic, “Absolutely not.”

Smith also took the opportunity to question why SUNY is spending millions of dollars to refurbish executive offices at SUNY headquarters in Albany.

“We need to remind the chancellor and the Board of Trustees that this is not their University,” Smith told the panel. “This University belongs to its students and to the people of New York who expect the priority of the University to be the education of their children. New York state’s hard-working families deserve nothing less.”

Smith also noted that SUNY is sitting on more than one-half billion dollars in reserves as budget cuts have led to larger class sizes, course cancellations and the denial of admission to thousands of qualified applicants.

A week after Smith’s testimony, UAlbany became the latest campus to announce program reductions, with its campus president claiming they don’t have enough money to cover program costs

“We cannot understand why SUNY is not using its reserves to remedy these issues,” Smith said.

In her testimony before the committee, SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher defended the raises, but at the same time presented a compromise. The chancellor and Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer Monica Rimai said they would give up their annual housing allowances, and new housing allowances awarded to two of the three executives who received raises would be withdrawn.

But the $30,000 raises for the three SUNY officers remain intact.

The self-imposed compromise failed to silence the public outcry over the raises.

“The concessions hardly go far enough,” the Poughkeepsie Journal said in an editorial. “What’s more, they came about only after the excessive salary raises and perks were reported in the media.”

— Donald Feldstein

With no advance warning, UAlbany announced Oct. 1 it would be downsizing, and blamed a $12 million cut in state support.

UAlbany President George Philip ordered a halt to new admissions in five programs: French, Italian, Russian, classics and theater. Additionally, he said the campus would lose the equivalent of 160 positions by 2012.

UUP President Phil Smith strongly questioned the need for such drastic action. In a number of media interviews, Smith also questioned the way the decision was announced.

“What the public needs to understand is that this is a public university and there had been no discussion with the public prior to this announcement,” Smith said. “If there had been a prior dialogue, we could have helped to reach a solution to alleviate such a crisis.”

“We are very concerned about President Philip’s announcement to suspend admission to five programs and plan to continue to work in every way we can to see that these suspensions do not result in permanent cuts to the faculty,” said Albany Chapter President Candy Merbler.

Smith echoed that concern about the future of the five targeted programs.

“A university can’t be a university unless it has a strong liberal arts program, and languages are part of that,” he said.

Smith said the ultimate solution is for SUNY to take money from its nearly $600 million reserve fund and apply it to relieve funding shortfalls like those at UAlbany.

“The money is there and should be used,” he said.

The SUNY chancellor promised during a state budget hearing in January that she would release $147 million of those reserves. But so far, that hasn’t happened.

Smith continues to urge the chancellor to keep that promise and plans to ask the state Legislature for assistance in getting SUNY to use its reserves.

“Campuses like UAlbany desperately need those funds, and they need them now,” Smith said. “Educating students must be the top priority, not spending millions to remodel SUNY’s executive offices.”

— Donald Feldstein

Just days after the SUNY Board of Trustees voted to dole out $30,000 annual raises to three of its high-ranking officials, 39 unionized employees at Brooklyn HSC were informed they may be losing their jobs.

In late September, 34 employees in the hospital’s neurosurgery and radiation oncology depart-ments and five more in the dental clinic received non-renewal advisories.

“There is reason to believe that these three departments will be retrenched,” UUP President Phil Smith warned. “None of this makes any sense for an academic medical center, to say nothing of the loss of health care services to the community.” Brooklyn HSC Chapter President Rowena Blackman-Stroud said the news of the non-renewals came without warning.

“The employees, as well as the department heads, were shocked and surprised that their departments were being considered for closure and that action was taken without providing them with the opportunity to engage in productive discussions,” she said.

UUP is working hard to prevent any retrench-ment and protect the jobs of its members. The union is writing letters to state lawmakers who represent the areas served by Brooklyn HSC, as well as to U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, appealing for their support to stop the cutbacks.

The potential retrenchments at Brooklyn HSC come after the retrenchment of two depart-ments at Morrisville; the pending closure of Nylink at System Administration; the New York State Theatre Institute’s loss of half of its state funding and staff; and just before UAlbany stopped admissions to five programs and other cutbacks.

“UUP is prepared to fight to protect the livelihoods of our sisters and brothers in Brooklyn or wherever our members are employed,” Smith said. “We will use whatever means we have at our disposal.”

— Donald Feldstein