March 18, 2026

With potentially devastating federal funding cuts coming at New York state in the next year, the State University of New York could be thought of as balancing on the edge of a budget precipice.

With that very real fear in mind, dozens of state lawmakers told some 200 UUP leaders and chapter members at UUP’s annual Advocacy Day March 17 in Albany that they will do their best with this year’s budget to pull the nation’s premier public higher education system back from that edge.

“I know that it’s tough, I know that there are many, many challenges,” Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky, chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee, pictured above. “We want to hear what you have to tell us, what UUP has to tell us. You have a lot of friends in the Legislature.”

UUP will need those friends to secure not only $100 million in general operating aid for SUNY, but an additional $41.8 million that the union seeks to resolve devastating, long-term operating deficits at four campuses— SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY Buffalo State University, SUNY Fredonia and SUNY Potsdam—that range from $6.5 million to $16 million.

UUP President Fred Kowal told members that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Executive Budget contains many solid funding proposals for SUNY, but he added, “We need more operating money.”

Federal tax-and-spending law will wreak havoc

“The whole idea is to prepare ourselves for what’s coming next year with the Medicaid cuts,” Kowal said. The concern is that if SUNY does not get the money to close those funding gaps at those four campuses in the upcoming budget, Kowal explained, the opportunity to do so will be lost.

“That’s my fear, and that’s why we’re fighting so hard for those four campuses,” Kowal added. “Then the fight begins with the [SUNY] Trustees to make sure the money goes where it’s needed.”

At issue is the massive tax-and-spending bill that Congress passed in the summer of 2025 under pressure from the federal administration. The new law will fund massive tax cuts for the country’s richest people by imposing devastating cuts in federal funding to states for programs such as Medicaid, food assistance and support for people with mental health needs and drug addiction.

Among the other lawmakers who stopped by the Advocacy Day event in a large meeting room along the Empire State Plaza Concourse: senators Joseph Griffo (53rd District) and the ranking member of the Senate Higher Education Committee; Robert Jackson (31st District); Jessica Ramos (13th District, who chairs the Senate Committee on Labor); and J. Gustavo Rivera (33rd District).

Assembly members included Michael Cashman (115th District); Brian Miller (122nd District); Phara Souffrant Forrest (57th District); Monique Chandler-Waterman (58th District); Thomas Schiavoni (1st District); and Jonathan Rivera (149th District).

Personal connections to SUNY

In conversations with members at tables, and in remarks to the entire group, the lawmakers all delivered spirited testimonies about the value of a SUNY education; many of them are SUNY alumni.

Speaking to the gathering, Forrest recounted delivering her daughter at SUNY Downstate University Hospital on the day of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“The action is very clear: We have to stand up for Downstate and we have to stand up very strong,” she said. “We’ve been undercutting our public health system for years.”

Downstate received $1.1 billion in capital funding in last year’s budget, for a major renovation and construction project to a hospital that the state nearly closed two years ago. A major campaign by UUP reversed that plan.

Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO and NYSUT President Melinda Person also spoke to members.

The state Senate and Assembly have released their own budget proposals. Both houses show strong support for SUNY in key areas, and they propose more funding than the governor did for some of the needs in the SUNY budget. Both houses, for example, propose $80 million to fund debt service at the three SUNY hospitals, even though the Executive Budget proposal did not recommend any funding for that purpose.

The state budget is due April 1. UUP will continue to advocate for SUNY until a final enacted budget deal is reached.