More than 50 members of the UUP Outreach Committee gathered for their annual retreat Aug. 10 in Syracuse to look back at their performance over the last year and look ahead to the challenges they face.
UUP President Phil Smith introduced Gideon Dunkley of Downstate Medical Center as the new Outreach Committee chair. Dunkley has served on the committee for four years. Smith minced no words in saying the committee will have its hands full in the coming months.
“The last year has been tough. The next few years will be just as challenging, so we need your help,” Smith said.  
Tier VI, shared services loom
The proposed Tier VI pension plan is among the issues UUP faces. Smith said Tier VI is “something we have to fight,” coming after Tier V that was just adopted last year. Introduced by the governor in June, Tier VI would hike the minimum retirement age from 62 to 65, end early retirement, and raise from 10 years to 12 years the time it would take for new employees to be vested. The governor has listed Tier VI as among his top priorities, raising the prospect of the issue coming to a vote in the Legislature if lawmakers return to Albany before the end of the year.  
Smith said UUP also has to keep an eye on SUNY’s shared services initiative, which sparked controversy at the outset when the University initially tried to oust Joseph Kennedy as SUNY Canton president. SUNY later announced that Kennedy would be retiring after the 2011-12 academic year to serve as a special adviser to the chancellor. SUNY also said that Kennedy and SUNY Potsdam President John Schwaller would work on a plan to share services between the two campuses. The controversy sparked rumors of program mergers between Canton and Potsdam.
“SUNY must engage the union and faculty on such matters,” Smith said.
Two weeks later, SUNY announced it would recommend to the Board of Trustees that the president of SUNY Institute of Technology also serve as president of SUNY Morrisville, and that SUNY Delhi’s president also function as president of SUNY Cobleskill.
Convincing lawmakers to extend the progressive income tax is another issue for the committee to tackle, Smith said. Revenue from the tax, due to expire Dec. 31, could be used to offset some of the prior losses SUNY has suffered in its level of state support.
Despite the tremendous political obstacles UUP confronted earlier this year, Smith noted the union achieved a significant victory on NYSUNY 2020. He credited UUP’s outreach efforts and the persistence of its advocates for convincing lawmakers to exclude differential tuition and public/private partnerships from the bill eventually signed into law by the governor.
Smith also cited the inclusion of maintenance of effort language in the NYSUNY 2020 legislation, requiring that state support for SUNY cannot be cut from the previous year’s level. That precludes future budget cuts for SUNY, unless the governor declares a fiscal emergency.        
Smith and Dunkley stressed the necessity of building coalitions to maximize their influence when meeting with state lawmakers.
“It’s very important that we reach out to people and groups in our respective communities,” Smith said. “We need to have local citizens know the value of providing a quality public higher education for their children, and help us deliver that message in meetings with lawmakers.”
The new chair called for increased participation in outreach activities.
 “We need you to encourage more of your chapter’s members to become involved in advocacy, beginning this fall with visits with state legislators in their district offices,” Dunkley said.
— Donald Feldstein