For Immediate Release
April 22, 2024
United University Professions’ dogged advocacy for SUNY campuses and its embattled public teaching hospital in Brooklyn was rewarded in the 2024-2025 enacted state budget.
From fighting for more than $150 million more in state aid for campuses and expanded Tuition Assistance Program eligibility to effectively killing SUNY’s plan to close Downstate University Hospital, the efforts of UUP—the nation’s largest higher education union—can only be viewed as a success.
“This is a very good budget for SUNY, our students, our patients and for our state,” said UUP President Fred Kowal. “We thank Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislators for hearing our message and acting on it. Our leaders understand the necessity of supporting a world-class university system that provides an accessible, affordable education to all who seek it.”
The enacted budget contains $114 million in new operating funding to campuses, $60 million more than what Hochul set aside in her Executive Budget. Another $53 million was also budgeted to hire more full-time faculty.
These dollars are in addition to $163 million provided to SUNY in the 2023-2024 budget—aid UUP strongly advocated for to eliminate multimillion-dollar deficits at nearly 20 campuses. Decades of SUNY state aid cuts and underfunding are the main reasons for the deficits.
Pushed by SUNY Chancellor John King Jr., administrators at SUNY Fredonia and SUNY Potsdam have announced program, faculty and staff cuts to reduce deficits of $17 million and $9 million, respectively. As it did last year, UUP is again pushing for the SUNY Board of Trustees—which allocates direct state aid to campuses—to distribute the money based on campus need. This year, 19 cash-strapped campuses have a combined deficit of $146 million.
“We will press the Trustees to do the right thing and use the direct aid increases to reduce or eliminate deficits at our financially distressed campuses,” said Kowal. “We must support all of SUNY’s campuses, not just enrich the wealthy ones. If we don’t, we run the very real risk of seeing more cuts to programs and faculty at more campuses.”
UUP’s relentless fight to defeat Chancellor King’s plan to close Downstate hospital ended with approval of the 2024-2025 budget, which scuttled his plan to shutter the hospital. The budget also includes funding to keep the hospital operating through spring 2025.
“The chancellor’s ill-conceived plan to shut down the hospital, which he floated in January without so much as even asking the community its thoughts on his plan, is dead,” said Kowal. “It’s dead and buried.
“We couldn’t have achieved this without the dedication of our members at SUNY Downstate and the community, which sent a loud, unmistakable message to the chancellor that there was no way it would allow our hospital to be closed,” Kowal said.
The budget also requires the formation of a 9-member panel, the Community Advisory Board for the Modernization and Revitalization of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. The board will examine options to strengthen Downstate and the long-term viability of the hospital and medical school.
The board, which will include representatives from the community, the governor, the state Senate and Assembly and labor, must issue a report on its findings by April 1, 2025.
UUP’s other legislative wins include:
- $1.4 billion for SUNY capital funding, including $860 million for campus maintenance and improvements, $150 million for SUNY hospital renovations; and $500 million to create the Albany Nanotech Ultraviolet Lithography Center.
- A $5.1 million increase in aid to cover the TAP gap and the doubling of the minimum TAP award from $500 to $1,000. Income eligibility thresholds were expanded for families of dependent students (from $80,000 to $125,000); independent students (from $10,000 to $30,000); and independent students with a spouse and no other dependent (from $40,000 to $60,000).
- $2 million for campus mental health services; $1 million for SUNY’s Pre-Medical Opportunity Program; and the restoration of a $1.9 million budget increase for SUNY’s successful Educational Opportunity Program.
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