SUNY campuses already had their hands full coping with $562 million in budget cuts over the past two years. The last thing they needed was an additional reduction, yet that’s just what they got.

In late October, Gov. David Paterson imposed a midyear budget cut of $23.5 million on the University to help meet his budgetary target of $250 million in agency spending reductions in the 2010-11 state budget. This latest reduction brings SUNY’s share of the agency cuts to more than $175 million for the current fiscal year.

“Once again, SUNY is being forced to bear a disproportionate share of the burden, and it’s making a bad situation worse,” said UUP President Phil Smith. “The consequences of these reductions are hitting our campuses hard.”

CAMPUSES FEELING PAIN

Those consequences are taking various forms. A number of campuses are not filling vacant positions or delaying the hiring of replacements. For example, Morrisville is not replacing most of its 37 retiring faculty members. Old Westbury is dealing with a $340,000 midyear budget cut through a combination of a slowdown in hiring for vacant faculty positions and drawing upon some of its reserves.

“We can’t absorb any further reductions without cutting services to students,” Old Westbury Chapter President Kiko Franco said. “We’re maxed out and already understaffed.”

The midyear budget cut has forced the administration at Fredonia to consider eliminating 20 positions instead of the 14 originally targeted.

Geneseo is phasing out three academic programs—computer science, communicative disorders and sciences, and studio art—in the face of a 22 percent drop in state support in the last two years. “This is the most wrenching decision I’ve made in 15 years as president,” Geneseo President Christopher Dahl said.

The UAlbany campus community remains up in arms over the campus administration’s decision to target five programs—the classics, French, Italian, Russian and theater—for likely elimination and the potential loss of 60 full-time positions.

But Albany Chapter President Candace Merbler said the move is having a spillover effect on other programs.

“These deactivated programs are affecting other majors in several other departments whose requirements include language or taking a theater course,” she said.

NYSTI UNDER THE GUN

UUP members at the New York State Theater Institute were already hurting financially when the NYSTI board – consisting largely of Gov. Paterson’s appointees—voted in October to suspend NYSTI’s operations Dec. 31 unless private funding is secured.

UUP President Smith issued a statement saying he was deeply concerned and disappointed by that decision. Smith also said the union “will continue to support NYSTI’s fundraising operations. We remain hopeful that adequate private contributions will keep this valuable resource available to the public.”

As The Voice went to press, UUP, NYSTI and its supporters were working to save the theater institute, whose state funding was cut in half in the 2010-11 state budget.

Donations to NYSTI can be made at www.nysti.org/Support/index.htm.

MEMBERS CALLED TO ACTION

“The bleak outlook for NYSTI and SUNY campuses statewide increases the need for members to get active,” Smith said. He called on members to become active by participating in efforts to garner additional resources for SUNY to stave off a worsening financial crisis, including meetings with state lawmakers in their district offices. Smith again invoked his call to action: “If not now, when? If not you, who?”

In late November, Smith sent off a letter to state lawmakers, relating the financial suffering that SUNY is enduring. He appealed for a stop to any further budget cuts.

“We urge you to protect SUNY’s current operating budget and to find ways to repair the damage that has been done to what was once a vital public university system,” Smith wrote.

— Donald Feldstein