Category Archives: Monthly Voice Editions

In other words; VP for Academics Fred Floss: Fair tax rates key to fiscal, SUNY stability

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Taxes are always a hot button issue, and at UUP’s 2009 Winter Delegate Assembly, our delegates unanimously supported a progressive tax increase as the fairest way to share the pain of the current economic downturn. I was asked to take up the issue on behalf of the union.

I was happy to go around the state to make the case for a progressive tax system and the increased tax revenues it would yield to ensure the state’s stability. Of course, this is only half the battle. Now that the Fair Tax Act has been passed, we need to make sure we get our fair share. We must make sure the additional state revenues it will raise will help protect our students’ access to the high-quality public higher education that SUNY provides.

According to most polls, more than 65 percent of people making $250,000 or more supported raising their own taxes through a progressive income tax. Our state affiliate NYSUT, along with other state unions and even groups of economists, pushed for fair tax legislation. Therefore, it is no surprise that a progressive tax increase was part of the solution to the state’s current economic crisis.

So why am I writing a column about our progressive tax agenda? It is not to tout a victory or even to thank those who worked so hard to see the legislation passed, although those are laudatory goals. By passing the Fair Tax Act, it is estimated that $4 billion will be raised this year in additional state revenue and even more next year. But at the end of the third year, the fair tax program is set to sunset. That’s exactly the same time when the federal stimulus funding runs out.  New York state will be back in financial trouble once again.

We need to start now to put stability back into our tax system and, in turn, help to ensure SUNY’s future stability. To do that, we need to make the fair tax system permanent. Over the last 30 years, the state has repeatedly continued a negative cycle by lowering tax rates and making our system less progressive, only to find time after time that rates must be raised if minimum levels of services are to be provided. Then, during each of these cycles as the state runs out of funds, SUNY tuition is raised to fill holes in the general fund portion of the state budget. Businesses make

future plans based on these lower, unsustainable rates, only to find that rates must go up and they are not prepared for the new fiscal environment.  Counties and homeowners expect a certain level of services from the state and set property tax rates to pay for their share of these programs, only to find state funds lacking and their sole recourse is to raise the regressive property tax.

Like homeowners and businesses, parents and students will be better off with a rational tax system with permanent progressive tax rates which stops these “boom and bust” cycles.  Over time, everyone will be better off with these higher tax rates because we can make better predictions about government services and costs which will lead to better decisions and higher economic growth. 

Above are the talking points we used to help persuade the Legislature to pass the Fair Tax Act. We need to take them up again and ask our legislators to make the progressive rates permanent before we find ourselves back in financial crisis with the cycle staring again. Our students and campuses and all New Yorkers deserve better.

— UUP Vice President for Academics Fred Floss

VP for Academics Fred Floss: Academic freedom must be maintained

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During these tough economic times, hold on to your wallet—and your academic freedom. As we are seeing in the Bernie Madoff scandal, even very financially astute investors can find themselves in what is actually a very simple Ponzi scheme. In higher education, we are involved in our own version of a Ponzi scheme that poses a new threat to our academic freedom. It seems every bad idea contemplated over the last 10 years ends up in a crisis plan without discussion or review. Only years later will we find out the true costs brought to us by these academic Madoffs and their schemes.

The Feb. 6 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education contains an article headlined “Balance of Power: Downturn Threatens the Faculty’s Role in Running Colleges.” It discusses how management at colleges and universities in Tennessee, Florida, and Ohio are using the economic crisis to challenge the role of faculty in faculty governance. At stake is control over the academic programs and the topics we teach. Where David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights failed, will the nation’s economic crisis succeed in taking away faculty autonomy to teach without interference from political ideology?

Closer to home, the president of the University at Buffalo has proposed a plan for differential tuition by program and year, a concept strongly rejected by the New York state Legislature year after year. Why is it here again? It is back because in a crisis, the hope is that the Legislature will be afraid not to pass the plan. I propose to you a simple concept: if a plan were not acceptable after thorough review in good times, it must definitely be rejected in bad ones.

Academic freedom and faculty governance have gone hand in hand in creating the modern American university and making it the envy of the world. It is our job as members of the faculty and UUP to protect these rights. In the next few months, elections for Faculty/College Senates will take place and there needs to be vigorous elections. In a number of places, administrators are saying that the faculty is too worried about their research to be actively involved in governance. Another line given by critics of the faculty is that only the irrational fringe get involved in the Senate. It is time for each of you to consider running for a governance position if you are not already doing so and it is time for active participation in the process. Just by voting in the Faculty/College Senate elections, you are showing support for academic freedom and your rights to control your courses and educational programs. If we do not take up this challenge in these difficult financial times, we may find that our rights will not be there in the good times.