Bargaining unit members are able to enjoy special savings through the NYSUT Member Benefits Corporation-endorsed Preferred Savings PlusSM and Home Loans program, provided by MetLife Bank.
Preferred interest rates await members when they open a money market account, high-yield savings account or certificate of deposit. These savings options provide a convenient way to grow funds to buy a home, finance a vacation, save for retirement, or any other purpose.
Deposit accounts at MetLife Bank are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 per ownership category. Account holders have access to a free identity theft resolution service should they become victims of identity theft.
An optional automated savings program allows for regular transfers from a checking account at another bank into a MetLife Bank money market or savings account.
Account access is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by phone and online. High-yield savings and money market accounts are accessible at atoms worldwide.
Whether buying a home or refinancing an existing mortgage, MetLife Home Loans, a division of MetLife Bank, offers a range of home financing choices, including fixed- and adjustable-rate loans; specialized loans for first-time home buyers; FHA, VA and conventional financing; and jumbo loans.
Mortgage specialists can help members choose the mortgage that best serves their needs and will assist with every step of the loan process, from application to closing.
In certain circumstances, members may save on origination fees and closing costs.
Members can apply for a deposit account or for home financing by calling toll free (866) 697-8822 or by using the link from the NYSUT Member Benefits Web site.
Go to www.memberbenefits.nysut.org and click on Preferred Savings Plus & Home Loans under the Financial navigation bar.
For information about this program or about endorsement arrangements with providers of endorsed programs, call NYSUT Member Benefits at (800) 626-8101, visit www.memberbenefits.nysut.org or refer to your NYSUT Member Benefits Trust Summary Plan Description. Agency fee payers to NYSUT are eligible to participate in NYSUT Member Benefits-endorsed programs.
Once again, SUNY finds itself left out in the cold in Gov. David Paterson’s proposed Executive Budget for 2010-11.
Did I say cold? Deep freeze may be a better way to describe it.
In January, the governor lopped off another $118 million in state support. Now, SUNY?is being subjected to an additional “employee savings” cut of $34.4 million, bringing the total cut to nearly $153 million.
As if that weren’t enough, he also proposed his so-called Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act that would allow SUNY campuses to enter into contracts, leases, partnerships and joint ventures without legislative approval or oversight by the attorney general and comptroller. Let me be very clear: This act will lead to privatizing SUNY and its workers! It is clearly an anti-labor proposal.
The plan could also raise tuition by as much as 10 percent next year. It would let campuses unilaterally impose differential tuition fees that wouldn’t be subject to a cap.
SUNY hospitals and health science centers didn’t fare well; they’d be required to absorb $75 million in new mandatory costs and fringe benefits, a recurring theme for more than a decade. This comes on top of $6 million in Medicaid cuts.
And the governor again set his sights on the New York State Theatre Institute (NYSTI), this time proposing that NYSTI’s state funding be reduced by more than half this year and completely cut off by 2011 so it can become a self-supporting agency.
Is it freezing in here, or what?
One thing is certain. Our union will not take this lying down. Enough is enough. We must stand up and fight.
To be successful, we’ll need your help. We must bring our message to state legislators and urge them to keep the University an affordable, accessible educational avenue for students and to provide adequate funding for SUNY hospitals and health science centers.
There is much to fight for. For starters, if the governor’s $153 million cut goes through, SUNY will have lost more than $562 million in state aid over the last two years! That’s well over 25 percent of SUNY’s annual operating budget, and it would leave SUNY with $85 million less in state support than it got in 1990—when it had 40,000 fewer students.
Try cutting your household budget by 25 percent and see how difficult it becomes to make ends meet.
As you well know, many campuses are reeling from the continued cuts to SUNY, and are trying to make do with the least amount of impact to students, staff and programs.
It hasn’t been easy.
Retrenchments are already happening at Morrisville and are under discussion at Fredonia. Hard hiring freezes are in effect at Cobleskill, Fredonia and Stony Brook. At Delhi, operating dollars are at 2002 levels. And most campuses are experiencing larger class sizes and offering fewer courses as fund reserves begin to dwindle and the budget impacts begin to take hold.
This lack of access flies in the face of SUNY’s mission to provide an accessible, affordable, quality education to all New Yorkers. If cuts to SUNY continue, more and more students will be forced to stay in college for an extra semester or an extra year to get the courses they need to graduate.
And students and parents will continue to pay more for less. This year, they shelled out three-quarters of a billion dollars more in tuition than they did 10 years ago.
Gov. Paterson’s plan to let SUNY unilaterally raise tuition is one of the deepest flaws in his Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act. If passed, tuition may rise by as much as 10 percent next year, hitting the proposal’s cap on across-the-board increases. But there’s no cap on differential tuition, a supplemental fee above and beyond across-the-board tuition.
And we’re not buying SUNY’s claim that this “flex plan” will create 10,000 new campus positions and more than 64,000 construction jobs. Tuition would have to rise by $765 just to cover the governor’s proposed cuts—no job creation there.
Hospitals and NYSTI
SUNY’s hospitals must be adequately funded. Besides their teaching mission, our hospitals provide care to indigent and hard-to-treat patients. These institutions have been forced to cover more than $233 million in unfunded, unavoidable spending growth since 2007-08. The time has come to reverse that trend.
Finally, Gov. Paterson’s plan to make NYSTI self-supporting is ill-conceived. NYSTI is much more than a venue for theatrical performances. It is an invaluable educational and cultural resource for children that complements their public school opportunities. For many students, NYSTI provides their first exposure to theater and the arts.
We understand that New York is in financial trouble, but cutting SUNY to the levels proposed by Gov. Paterson and opening the door to huge tuition increases is unfair, unwise and unacceptable. Investing in SUNY is an investment in New York’s future. Now is not the time to slash SUNY.
For UUPers, it is a time of action. We need you to speak out against these cuts and proposals. We need you to get involved.
Please, volunteer to take part in one of our Albany advocacy trips to meet with legislators. Get involved on your campuses. Visit our new micro Web site—SaveSUNY.org—and sign a petition, or go to uupinfo.org and fax a letter to your local legislators.
Now is the time to act. The very viability of SUNY is at stake.
The blare of police sirens echoed through Albany’s West Capitol Park, intruding on UUP President Phillip Smith’s impassioned call for action to more than 300 unionists at a rally to save SUNY from massive proposed state budget cuts. The irony wasn’t lost on Smith.
“Yeah, there are sirens,” he shouted over the din as the crowd cheered. “This is an emergency! We have to defeat these budget cuts. We have to defeat the so-called Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act. We cannot sacrifice SUNY.”
The Feb. 5 rally—attended by UUPers, members of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the AFL-CIO, students and other SUNY supporters—was the latest in a series of UUP’s advocacy efforts to reverse Gov. David Paterson’s planned $153 million cut to SUNY. If approved, SUNY’s budget cuts would total $562 million over the last two years.
The rally wasn’t the only effort UUP made to fight the cuts.
UUP brought busloads of members and supporters from chapters across the state to Albany in January and February to urge legislators to save SUNY. On Jan. 26, the union’s largest Advocacy Day contingent—65 members and supporters—traveled to the Capitol to meet with legislators.
In February, the union kicked off a far-reaching television and Internet campaign opposing the budget cuts. The commercial will be shown across the state (see related story, page 6). UUP also launched SaveSUNY.org, a Web site to inform SUNY students, parents and the public about the impact of the planned state cuts.
The site includes a petition and letters to state lawmakers, and visitors to the site are urged to ask their e-mail contacts to also take action.
UUP’s chapters also mobilized. Members at Brockport, Cortland, Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, Plattsburgh, UAlbany, Purchase and the New York State Theatre Institute (NYSTI) have met with local legislators to spread the word that SUNY’s mission as an accessible, affordable higher education option for state students will be in jeopardy if the governor’s reductions aren’t derailed.
And the UUP Web site, www.uupinfo.org, has a series of letters members can fax to legislators calling for an end to SUNY budget cuts and the Act, to support the hospitals, and to save NYSTI.
“We’ve got to let the legislators and the governor know that the cuts the governor has planned for SUNY will hurt the citizens of New York,” said Winfield Ihlow, an Oswego delegate who marched in the rally.
The budget cuts aren’t the only battle UUP is fighting.
The union is also working to turn away Paterson’s so-called Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act. If passed, SUNY tuition could jump by as much as 10 percent next year. The “flex” plan—which Smith has dubbed the “Endangerment and Injury Act”—would allow colleges to unilaterally impose differential tuition at SUNY schools and limit legislative oversight.
NYSTI is in the governor’s cross-hairs; Paterson wants to eliminate state funding to NYSTI by 2011-12, forcing it to exist on ticket sales and donations. That’s impossible, Smith said. SUNY’s teaching hospitals and health science centers would be required to absorb $75 million in new mandatory costs and fringe benefits in Paterson’s budget proposal.
“Our message has been that in a time of economic downturn, people have the greatest need for education and affordable healthcare—the two things that Upstate Medical University does,” said UMU Chapter President Carol Braund. “We are united in spreading the word that the level of cuts being directed at SUNY is disproportionate to the cuts to all other areas of spending in the budget.”
Smith and the other speakers embraced that message at the rally, one of the largest in UUP history. Members and supporters—many of them from NYSTI—marched loudly on the park’s oval sidewalk, waving signs and chanting slogans such as “Hey hey, ho ho, budget cuts have got to go.”
Assemblyman John J. McEneny (D-Albany) told the crowd that it is wise during hard times for the state to invest in education and its young people.
“Our SUNY system was free at one time,” McEneny said. “How far we have sunk since then.”
UAlbany student Alex Naidoo thanked UUP for standing up for students. He said that he and many of his friends may be forced to drop out of school if the Empowerment Act were adopted and tuition soared.
“I think this is going to affect me personally and it’s going to affect tons of other students,” he said.
NYSUT Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta applauded UUP for standing up to the cuts for the sake of K-12 students who are “still in the pipeline.” He urged the union to fight
Paterson, who he said was trying to “privatize” public higher ed. “What you’re doing here today is the right thing,” Pallotta said.
During his short speech, former NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin contrasted President Obama’s statements on the importance of higher education during his 2009 visit to Troy’s Hudson Valley Community College and Paterson’s penchant for slashing SUNY.
“We hear the president of the United States say how important higher education is and then we come home to Albany and hear our governor say it isn’t that important at all,” said Lubin, as the crowd roared its approval.
Smith, who railed at the budget cuts and picked apart the Empowerment Act, ended the rally by asking members to turn toward the Capitol and tell the governor “No!” The crowd responded by chanting “No more cuts!”
“Help me to tell this governor we’re not going to stand for it,” Smith said. “We’ve had enough cuts. You’re not going to abandon us.”
The New York State Theatre Institute as it is today will cease to exist if Gov. David Paterson’s plan to cut state funding to the Troy theater becomes reality.
So says NYSTI Chapter President John Romeo.
Romeo would know. He has fought his share of budget battles, including Paterson’s unsuccessful 2009 attempt to merge NYSTI with The Egg.
The stakes are much higher this year.
Under the governor’s proposed Executive Budget, NYSTI would lose all state funding by 2011-12, leaving it to operate as a self-supporting entity dependent on ticket sales, corporate donations and government grants. NYSTI, created by state legislation in 1974, relies on state funding for about 85 percent of its budget.
“The governor is saying he can’t afford us and we’re saying you absolutely cannot afford to lose us,” said Romeo. “The value of education NYSTI provides is way beyond the funding we get from the state.”
“The education aspect of NYSTI is about 90 percent of what we do,” Romeo continued. “It would be a death knell if the state pulls out its money. We’d have to raise tickets to a price that most people could not afford. We want to keep NYSTI accessible to families; that’s our main goal.”
Paterson’s proposed cuts to NYSTI defy the theater’s state-mandated mission to “produce professional theater of the highest artistic standards for family and school audiences” and “to use those productions to provide provocative and innovative arts in education programs.”
“NYSTI is a true gem, an important, vital entity that provides educational opportunities for thousands of students each year,” said UUP President Phillip Smith. “For the governor to simply cut NYSTI loose would be to remove a resource used by teachers across the state and deprive many students of what may be their first exposure to theater.”
“We’ve been fighting this battle since 1989,” said Romeo. “It’s always a struggle.”
NYSTI’s small but vocal 25-member chapter has mobilized in a big way. Close to a dozen NYSTI members were part of a large Jan. 26 UUP contingent that met with legislators in Albany to advocate for SUNY. NYSTI, with UUP’s help, created and is distributing cards to teachers, students, parents and patrons, urging them to speak out against budget cuts to NYSTI. UUP is also placing ads with a similar message in the Legislative Gazette.
“The governor wants us to become this kind of fundraising organization, but setting up that kind of mechanism takes years,” said Romeo. “We are an educational program.”
Romeo explained that as much as 90 percent of its program is education-based. NYSTI stages between six and seven performances a season. The theater draws as many as 30,000 students annually to their plays, which, in most cases, are chosen by teachers to coincide with lessons they teach in class. Five of NYSTI’s eight weekly performances are for students.
While most students come from the state’s Capital Region, schools from downstate and in the Adirondack region often travel to the theater. Every other year, NYSTI treks to Queens to present a play for hundreds of New York City area students whose schools can’t afford to bus students upstate.
“The idea is to keep arts in education,” Romeo said.
NYSTI accomplishes that in many ways. Actors talk with students before and after performances and prepare classroom study guides. NYSTI offers educational outreach and teacher in-service programs, puts on a summer Theatre Arts School and hosts an educator-in-residence program.
More than 1,500 interns from more than 90 colleges and high schools and 13 foreign countries have worked and studied at NYSTI. Professional staffers mentor about 25 interns each semester. The interns learn about technical, acting and business aspects of theater and work in a variety of jobs—including on stage, behind the scenes and in the business office.
“It was NYSTI that inspired me to go to college and they’re helping me reach that goal. There’s no other program like NYSTI,” said Kellyrose Fluty, a Troy High School senior and NYSTI intern.
“The bottom line is that we’re keeping the idea that theater is a viable source of education,” said Romeo. “Our performances are for families.”
New York can’t fix its budget woes on the backs of students and their parents. But that’s exactly what’s happening. The governor’s Executive Budget proposal again slams SUNY, this time to the tune of $153 million.
UUP knows that students and parents would be asked to pay more, and get less, if these cuts are enacted. That’s why the union is fighting back with a multifaceted public awareness campaign that includes a television ad, and a new proactive Web site that urge lawmakers to keep their promise of a quality, affordable college education for all New Yorkers.
Television ad
The 30-second TV ad—which features UUP members and SUNY students—was videotaped in January at various Capital District locations, including the UAlbany campus, a local diner and a homeowner’s kitchen. It hit the airwaves in major media markets—including Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Long Island, New York City and Syracuse—in early February and continues this month. The union’s Communications Department produced the TV spot.
“The governor says he’ll keep cutting millions from the State University of New York,” the TV ad begins. “What do you say?”
Answering that question are a SUNY student, a worker, a business owner, and a parent:
“If tuition goes up, I’ll have to drop out. … Cuts hurt students.”
“I won’t be able to afford college for my kids. … Cuts hurt families.”
“To turn things around, we need a skilled, educated workforce. … Cuts hurt the economy.”
The final note: “We can’t afford to sacrifice our children’s future. Tell Albany to reject the cuts and save SUNY.”
Featured in the TV ad are UUPers James Pasquill and Karen McNeill of UAlbany, Ron Komora of the New York State Theatre Institute, and UUP Secretary Eileen Landy.
SaveSUNY.org
The television ad prompts viewers to visit SaveSUNY.org, UUP’s Web site designed specifically to educate students, citizens and lawmakers on the deep cuts to SUNY in the last two years. It encourages all New Yorkers to speak up for SUNY by signing an online petition and faxing letters urging lawmakers to reject Executive Budget proposals to cut SUNY funding.
In addition, UUP has placed banner ads that tease SaveSUNY.org on Web sites such as Syracuse.com, weather.com, CNN.com, PressConnects.com, BuffaloNews.com, Newsday.com and Facebook. The banner ads are “geotargeted” to New York state.
Ads will also appear on Google when people actively search for information about SUNY or UUP. The ads will prompt them to the SaveSUNY.org site.
Under the banner “Save SUNY: Don’t balance the budget on my future,” SaveSUNY.org features testimonials of students and parents who would be directly affected by the governor’s proposed cuts, as well as the TV ad and relevant news articles on the more than $400 million in cuts already imposed on SUNY. It also links people to UUP via Facebook and Twitter, and cross-links rally video and the TV ad to YouTube.
“The threats to the state university are urgent,” said UUP President Phillip Smith. “We will use every media outlet available to get our lawmakers to see that derailing public higher education is the wrong way to serve New Yorkers or to get the state’s economy back on track.”
The governor’s Executive Budget doesn’t bode well for the University. If enacted as proposed:
• SUNY would be asked to absorb a cut of nearly $153 million, bringing the total cut in two years to $562 million—at a time when enrollment has grown by 40,000 students since 1990. The $153 million cut represents 25% of the total state agency cutback in the 2010-11 Executive Budget.
• State funding for SUNY would be $85 million less than it was in 1990-91.
UUP opposes plans to:
• Eliminate an additional $152.4 million from SUNY’s operating budget.
• Cut $1.8 million in funding for NYSTI.
• Reduce Medicaid funding to SUNY teaching hospitals and health science centers, and double the “sick tax” from .35% to .75%.
• Require SUNY hospitals and HSCs to make an extra $20.5 million payment to ERS to make up for losses.
• Ask unions to re-negotiate contractual pay raises or to consider a payroll lag.
• Grant SUNY the full authority to raise tuition without legislative approval.
• Grant SUNY the full authority to impose differential tuition, which is prohibited under current law.
• Eliminate state appropriations for SUNY’s expenditure of tuition, fees and other campus revenues.
• Permit SUNY to lease campus property, and to enter into contracts and variations of public/private partnerships with limited oversight. Grant SUNY the full authority to raise tuition without legislative approval.
• Grant SUNY the full authority to impose differential tuition, which is prohibited under current law.
• Eliminate state appropriations for SUNY’s expenditure of tuition, fees and other campus revenues.
• Permit SUNY to lease campus property, and to enter into contracts and variations of public/private partnerships with limited oversight.
Delegates to the 2010 Winter Delegate Assembly in Albany covered a wide range of union business Feb. 5-6. They debated policy, attended meetings, wrote and faxed lawmakers to support SUNY, and listened to committee and officers’ reports. They also heard about the challenges confronting public higher education—both in New York and around the country—and heard pledges from UUP and AFT leaders that their unions will not relent in the battle to save public education. Read on for highlights of the union’s two-day winter policymaking convention.
“The state of our union is strong,” UUP President Phillip Smith exclaimed as he began his hour-long address at the opening plenary session of the 2010 Winter Delegate Assembly. He pointed to the largest rally UUP had ever held (see related story, page 4), to the biggest turnout of members for a union advocacy day (Jan. 26 in Albany), and to chapters conducting meetings with state lawmakers in their home districts.
But Smith indicated UUP will need to muster every ounce of that strength to meet the challenges it faces.
“Our University is on the critical list,” Smith warned the nearly 400 delegates, observers and committee members attending the Winter DA, held Feb. 5-6 in Albany. He said the nearly $153 million cut for SUNY called for in the governor’s proposed budget represents 25 percent of the total amount of state agency reductions. But Smith cautioned that the hit to SUNY could directly impact members’ wallets.
The governor is looking to save $250 million through contract renegotiations, and SUNY’s share of that amount is $34.4 million. What does that mean for UUP?
“We don’t know what the governor has in mind,” Smith said, suggesting the administration may want to cancel the 4 percent contractual salary increases for this year or impose a pay lag. But Smith pledged the union will remain firm. “We will not negotiate on any of this,” he said.
Smith saved his strongest criticism for the governor’s proposed Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act, which he said could more accurately be referred to as the “Endangerment and Injury Act.”
“This bill is nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse for the state to walk away from funding public higher education,” he said, leaving SUNY to rely more heavily on tuition for revenue. The proposal would allow SUNY to raise tuition without legislative approval and permit campuses to set their own, varying tuition rates.
Smith took aim at the bill’s provisions to allow campuses to lease land and negotiate public/private partnerships with minimal oversight. Smith warned that no money would be generated by such deals, and that the staff working in new buildings resulting from such deals may not be UUP members.
“This bill is anti-labor. It will cut our throats. We can’t let it happen,” he said.
In an earlier address to chapter presidents and vice presidents, Smith took issue with the grandiose claims SUNY is making, such as the promise of 10,000 new faculty jobs.
“The stuff SUNY is putting out is just incredible,” he said. “People must understand that this proposal is not a panacea. We’re concerned about students who are trying to get their foot in the door to higher education.”
Smith told delegates that UUP is preparing a public awareness campaign to defeat the proposal.
The delegates gave a standing ovation to state Assembly Higher Education Committee Chair Deborah Glick, who has supported the union in its fight against A./S. 2020, a similar “flexibility” bill, last year. On hand to accept UUP’s Friend of SUNY Award, Glick pledged her opposition to the governor’s proposal.
“SUNY is a state university and it will remain a state university,” she said. “I pledge to you to do everything I can to minimize the damage. They will not stampede us into a wholesale privatization.”
Another long-time ally of UUP, AFT President Randi Weingarten, delivered an impassioned speech to the delegates. In her Friday dinner address, she saluted UUP as “a bastion of higher education organizing,” citing its growth from 3,500 members at its inception to 35,000 today.
Weingarten cautioned the delegates about a political backlash building against unions in the wake of high unemployment. She said that, more and more, the labor movement is being portrayed as a special interest because it protects its members’ jobs.
“If we don’t get out of this recession, think about what some of these folks will say about college professors. What do they do? How long do they teach?” she said.
Weingarten advised the delegates to take action before this happens.
“Say that students matter and students count. Do it more and more,” she recommended. “We’re successful because people know we care about the people we serve, not just the people we represent.”
Delegates also had a full menu of committee meetings during the two-day convention and took action on a number of resolutions.
More than 75 academics packed the Academics Delegates Meeting to hear from three Oneonta faculty members. Robert Compton, Hanfu Mi and Ho Hon Leung explained how faculty from different academic disciplines collaborated to put together a book titled, Imagining Globalization: Languages, Identities and Boundaries that explores the various aspects of globalization. Nine of the 12 authors of the book are from SUNY Oneonta. The discussion was moderated by Vice President for Academics Frederick Floss.
“This was a wonderful project done by wonderful colleagues,” said Leung, the book’s principal editor.
Meanwhile, the union’s new guide for professional employees was the main topic of discussion during the Professional Delegates Meeting. More than 75 professionals attended the meeting and took the opportunity to get answers on the handbook and issues such as permanent appointment from statewide Vice President for Professionals John Marino.
UUP also collected $1,920 through a silent auction to benefit the UUP College Scholarship Fund, which awards annual scholarships to SUNY?undergraduates.
Their first DA was exactly what they had hoped it would be. There were movies and snacks, video games and coloring books. And nap time.
Of course, that’s to be expected if you’re under the age of 10.
At the request of the Task Force on Family Friendliness, UUP launched a trial “Family Hospitality Suite” designed to ease the burden on parents trying to juggle family and union activities. Eight youngsters between the ages of 3 and 10 spent most of the two-day convention under the watchful eyes of three nannies from the New England Nanny Service.
“Members of the task force brainstormed on what we could do to make it easier for our newer, younger colleagues to come to a DA,” said Geneseo delegate Meg Stolee, task force chair. “Why should having kids be an impediment to being active in your union?”
At times, parents brought their children into plenary sessions or other union meetings. At others, nannies took the kids on a walk around the hotel, which included a stop at the fountain to make a wish.
The idea of a hospitality suite was brought to UUP President Phillip Smith last fall. He wholeheartedly endorsed the concept and set the wheels in motion.
“I think this experiment was very successful,” Stolee said. “The parents were thrilled at how it worked out.”
Kudos were expressed by Bruce Simon of Fredonia, whose two children shared in the union’s hospitality.
“I really appreciated being able to bring my family to the DA with me,” Simon said.
“The girls had a great time playing with kids their age from around the state, while my wife was free to pursue some professional development opportunities in
Albany. I hope the Family Hospitality Suite is here to stay.”
The task force is planning to hold an open forum at the next DA, where delegates can suggest other ways the union can be more family-friendly. One idea under discussion is offering a hospitality suite for elder care.
“We will make more recommendations if some are called for,” Stolee said.
Taking advantage of the hospitality suite were Victoria and Michael Behun, children of Kimberly and Michael Behun, both of Buffalo Center; Jada and Jalen Ghee, children of Patricia Ghee of Buffalo State; Chet and Vivian Guenther, children of Wendy Gordon of Plattsburgh; and Chika and Maya Simon, daughters of Fredonia’s Simon.
— Karen L. Mattison
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