2008 Woodie Awards
State budget threatens large cuts in SUNY education
Benjamin Pomerance
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: News
Originally published: 4/3/08 at 4:23 PM EST
Last update: 4/3/08 at 4:21 PM EST
In May 2007, the news looked great.
In January 2008, the news looked fine.
In April 2008, the news is looking quite poor indeed.
Less than a year after former Gov. Eliot Spitzer released his Commission on Higher Education Report advocating sweeping improvements throughout New York State's higher education systems, the soon-to-be-released 2008 New York State Budget appears to be destined to squash these reforms for the coming year.
While the final budget has yet to be passed by the state legislature, the SUNY system is all but guaranteed to receive a 5.85 percent cut in operating expenses for the 2008 fiscal year, Deputy Secretary of Education Manuel Rivera said Monday.
Spitzer's executive budget, released in January, informed SUNY leaders that they would be facing a 2.5 percent reduction in operating expenses but allowed for the implementation of several costly recommendations brought up in the commission's report. After Spitzer's resignation in early March on the heels of a scandal linking him to a prostitution ring, however, new Gov. David Paterson announced that significant budget cuts in departments across the state would be necessary to ensure a manageable financial plan for the coming year.
Part of these cuts include an additional 3.35 percent operating expenses drop for the SUNY and City University of New York
(CUNY) systems, a decrease that would translate into several hundred thousand dollars less in the operating budget of every SUNY and CUNY campus.
A target amount of $90 million is likely to be made available to offset some of this dramatic drop-off, but Rivera said state universities in New York will still suffer significant budget cuts even if this entire sum is allocated to the SUNY and CUNY systems.
The sum of these figures, Rivera said, points to a fiscally conservative year for state-funded systems of higher education.
"There will have to be some adaptations made, of course," Rivera said. "But this really isn't anything that new. Committees have been working on budget issues for quite some time now, and it was becoming obvious that the news wasn't what most of us wanted. With the national economy in a downturn, it's not that surprising that the state budget is going to be a tight one this year."
In January 2008, the news looked fine.
In April 2008, the news is looking quite poor indeed.
Less than a year after former Gov. Eliot Spitzer released his Commission on Higher Education Report advocating sweeping improvements throughout New York State's higher education systems, the soon-to-be-released 2008 New York State Budget appears to be destined to squash these reforms for the coming year.
While the final budget has yet to be passed by the state legislature, the SUNY system is all but guaranteed to receive a 5.85 percent cut in operating expenses for the 2008 fiscal year, Deputy Secretary of Education Manuel Rivera said Monday.
Spitzer's executive budget, released in January, informed SUNY leaders that they would be facing a 2.5 percent reduction in operating expenses but allowed for the implementation of several costly recommendations brought up in the commission's report. After Spitzer's resignation in early March on the heels of a scandal linking him to a prostitution ring, however, new Gov. David Paterson announced that significant budget cuts in departments across the state would be necessary to ensure a manageable financial plan for the coming year.
Part of these cuts include an additional 3.35 percent operating expenses drop for the SUNY and City University of New York
(CUNY) systems, a decrease that would translate into several hundred thousand dollars less in the operating budget of every SUNY and CUNY campus.
A target amount of $90 million is likely to be made available to offset some of this dramatic drop-off, but Rivera said state universities in New York will still suffer significant budget cuts even if this entire sum is allocated to the SUNY and CUNY systems.
The sum of these figures, Rivera said, points to a fiscally conservative year for state-funded systems of higher education.
"There will have to be some adaptations made, of course," Rivera said. "But this really isn't anything that new. Committees have been working on budget issues for quite some time now, and it was becoming obvious that the news wasn't what most of us wanted. With the national economy in a downturn, it's not that surprising that the state budget is going to be a tight one this year."
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
John Rickett
posted 4/09/08 @ 12:39 AM EST
I don't know what it will take for our state government to wake up. First, they say they want all these great changes to improve the state universities in New York, and now, they're taking away even the most basic improvements that we could get thanks to their budget tightening. (Continued…)
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