SUNY leaders must put budget boost to work
It’s not very popular to hear someone say Albany did a good job solving a serious problem. But in a decade of serving as president of United University Professions and advocating on behalf of the SUNY system, I have to say that the budget agreement passed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature may be the best we’ve ever seen.
Now, it’s incumbent on Chancellor John King Jr. and the SUNY Board of Trustees to ensure this new funding is used in the way it was intended by the governor and the Legislature: to fix glaring problems and massive deficits at nearly two dozen campuses and teaching hospitals across the state.
UUP has spent years highlighting this crisis. After more than a decade of Gov. Andrew Cuomo starving the SUNY system through inadequate state funding, the start of 2023 found 19 state-operated SUNY campuses carrying a cumulative operating deficit of more than $160 million. At the same time, New York’s teaching hospitals — including SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn — faced imminent financial ruin.
Allowing these institutions to fail would have deep repercussions for students, our communities and our state’s economy. Nearly 1.8 million SUNY graduates work in New York, and 34 percent of the state’s educated workforce has a SUNY degree. According to a 2018 Rockefeller Institute of Government report, SUNY’S annual economic impact on New York is nearly $29 billion, and every dollar invested in SUNY generates $8 in economic output. In most cases, SUNY campuses are the biggest employers in their communities.
At UUP, we made it our mission to get the word out about this crisis, crisscrossing the state and urging legislators to join our cause. And our voices were heard: The enacted state budget provides $163 million in operating aid to campuses, $53 million to hire more SUNY full-time faculty and $75 million in transformational funding. It also includes measures to help address the untenable financial situations faced by our public
A6 teaching hospitals, providing debt service relief, a $72 million increase in Disproportionate Share Hospital payments, $500 million more in distressed hospital funds and a 7.5 percent increase in the Medicaid in-patient hospital reimbursement rate.
The budget was a huge accomplishment, but more work remains. Now that the state leaders have delivered on the investment they promised, we’re calling on Chancellor King and the SUNY Board of Trustees to take the next steps: They must close campus deficits, hire more full-time faculty and staff, invest in high-demand programs and give these institutions the opportunity to provide New Yorkers with an affordable education.
When she first took office, Gov. Hochul promised to champion public higher education in New York. Taken in total, this budget lives up to that promise. Its funding will go far to benefit our students, our patients and the dedicated employees of SUNY, who have been working with far too little for far too long. Now it’s up to SUNY to put the plan into action.