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Nearly 400 union members and advocates came to Albany on an unseasonably cool May afternoon to protest a move that would clearly leave SUNY out in the cold — a spending freeze that prevents the university from spending nearly
$110 million it collects from students and hospital patients to run its operations.
UUP President Phillip Smith led the noon hour rally outside the state Capitol, with strong support from UUP’s state affiliate, NYSUT, and other advocates.
“Without a doubt, this is the most devastating financial crisis SUNY has ever faced,” Smith said.
“Unless these cuts are restored, SUNY will be effectively dismantled.”
Access, quality at stake
As if the nearly $110 million spending freeze wasn’t bad enough, Smith noted that this year’s state budget had already slashed SUNY’s operating funds by $38 million. In addition, Smith said the state’s failure to authorize payment of
$36 million in contractual raises for workers at its three public hospitals leaves SUNY with a total financial shortfall of $180 million.
Smith warned that unless the state Division of the Budget releases the funds, access to SUNY will be curtailed, courses will be canceled, class sizes will balloon, and the quality of SUNY’s academic programs and hospital care will erode.
The UUP president also noted this is a matter of simple fairness.
“We are not talking about taxpayers’ money — the state is freezing money that SUNY students and their families have paid for tuition, room and board, and other fees,” Smith said. “This is money SUNY hospital patients have paid for health care. Is that fair?”
The crowd responded with a resounding “no,” and began chanting “Save SUNY now.”
NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin lent his sense of outrage to the rally, saying the budget division had “stuck a knife in SUNY’s throat.” He urged the demonstrators to call their state legislators and ask them to use their influence on the governor to stop the attack on SUNY.
“Tell them you are not going to destroy our University, you are not going to destroy our upstate economy, when everybody is looking to bring jobs and bring work to the Upstate area,” Lubin said. “We educate the kids, and we provide the jobs for the work they bring in, you can’t bring them in if the University is folding.
“We will stand by your side until this horror is over,” Lubin promised.
“In tough economic times, the state should be investing more in SUNY and in students who will ultimately fill the high-quality jobs created by business here in New York state,” NYSUT
President Richard Iannuzzi said in a statement of support.
Smith also stressed the negative economic consequences of the state budget cuts and spending freeze.
“SUNY is the economic engine that provides the skills for the workforce that employers need to remain or relocate to New York in the 21st century,” Smith said. “But combining this year’s budget cuts with the SUNY spending freeze, this engine will burn out, and our state’s economy will decline.”
Smith called upon Gov. David Paterson to “rescue SUNY by providing more state aid and unlocking the funds the University has already collected.”
UUP drew support at the rally from other sources, including state Sen. Neil Breslin (D-Delmar), who asked the unionists to lift their voices.
“This is a very compassionate governor who listens,” Breslin said.
“If you keep your voices risen, if you keep them high, we will succeed,” he said.
California Faculty Association President Lillian Taiz fired up the crowd with a spirited address.
“I bring a message of solidarity from the 24,000 faculty of the California State University system,” she boomed.
“The question we must ask our state leaders is, what kind of state will we be as the 21st century proceeds? Are we states that will hamstring our children by taking away the key to their prosperity and that of the state, or will we invest in them and in our own future?”
“Fight on,” she urged.
More than 200,000 SUNY students are affected by the freeze. Two of them, Chelsea Cawley and Jessica Reid of UAlbany, addressed the rally. Cawley summed up their concerns.
“The money we pay in tuition and dorm fees is not just our money, it is money we’re borrowing to pay (for SUNY). I expect this money to stay in the SUNY system, because it’s the students’ money,” Cawley said.
NYPIRG Chair Cheryl Lynch, a student at Stony Brook University, also sent a statement of support.
“When students pay tuition and dorm fees, we expect those dollars to be used to run the University,” she said.
— Denyce Duncan Lacy and Donald Feldstein