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Testimony of Alan B. Lubin on the Proposed 2005-06 Executive Budget for Higher Education February 8, 2005.
Testimony of Alan B. Lubin Executive Vice President New York State United Teachers to the Senate Finance Committee, Owen H. Johnson, Chair, and Assembly Ways and Means Committee, Herman D. Farrell, Jr., Chair, on the Proposed 2005-06 Executive Budget for Higher Education Senator Johnson, Assemblyman Farrell, honorable members of the Legislature and distinguished staff, I am Alan B. Lubin, Executive Vice President of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT). NYSUT represents more than 500,000 education and healthcare workers statewide. My testimony represents the concerns of nearly 60,000 faculty and professional staff who work in colleges and universities across New York State. These include the members of United University Professions at the State University, the Professional Staff Congress at the City University, faculty and staff at many community colleges, and at a growing number of private colleges and universities. I am joined today by Dr. William Scheuerman, President of United University Professions (UUP), and by Dr. Barbara Bowen, President of Professional Staff Congress (PSC). First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank this joint legislative committee for convening these public hearings and for the opportunity to testify today. Second, I want to thank the Legislature for responding to the needs of higher education in the 2004-05 budget by providing SUNY and CUNY with an additional $94.5 million in desperately needed operating aid and by restoring $331.9 million in Executive cuts to higher education. Unfortunately, the Governor made the wrong choice by capping the additional operating aid and by vetoing the restored cuts. This year, you are faced with a more difficult charge in passing a state budget due to the recent Court of Appeals decision. While this decision will make your job more difficult to modify the Executive Budget, there are things that you can still do to ensure that SUNY and CUNY are able to carry out their missions of providing the citizens of this state with an affordable, accessible and quality higher education. State Operating Aid for SUNY and CUNY Four-Year Institutions The single most important thing you can do is to provide more operating aid to these institutions. NYSUT supports the requests for additional funding by the Boards of Trustees of SUNY and CUNY. Clearly, the overwhelming problem that has plagued both SUNY and CUNY for over a decade is the lack of state support for these institutions. In fact, from state fiscal year 1993-94 to 2003-04, the level of state appropriations to SUNY and CUNY has grown by only 21.6%. That equates to an average of just over 2% a year which does not even cover mandatory costs such as collective bargaining and rising energy costs. New York State's 21.6% rate of growth over this ten-year period ranked 41st in the nation.1 In other words, only nine other states had a worse growth rate than New York State. SUNY and CUNY are commonly referred to as "state-funded" institutions, but at a 21.6% increase over the last decade, they are hardly even "state-aided." They should be referred to as "state located." In 2004, New York State ranked 42nd in the nation in appropriations of state tax funds for operating expenses of higher education per $1000 of personal income. 2 Moreover, New York's per capita support of higher education ranks us 35th in the nation.3 These are extremely low rankings that exemplify New York's continued financial neglect of its higher education institutions. This neglect stands in stark contrast to the crucial role that colleges and universities play in fostering the expansion of business and our economy. If you look at the rise of business during the last two centuries, we know that businesses were formed around rivers, canals and other waterways. Today, they are formed around colleges and universities. This shift is due to changes in our economy. We are competing in a much different economy today than in past centuries. Today's economy is a high-tech global economy that requires innovative research and highly trained and skilled workers that SUNY and CUNY supply. New York State has the nation's largest and third largest public university systems in SUNY and CUNY. Yet, instead of capitalizing on these assets by investing in them, we choose to starve them by providing them with the bare minimum in resources. As a result, we have not maximized our economic potential in producing a workforce needed for the new economy. The Albany Times Union recently featured a story that exemplifies this point. The story focused on a report released by regional Workforce Investment Boards that pointed out the Capital Region's inability to provide the "4,000 to 5,000 skilled workers necessary to staff a computer chip fabrication plant." The report concluded that there must be immediate increased efforts "to train workers for those future jobs" if the Capital District hopes to lure high-tech businesses to the area. I suspect that this problem is not limited to the Capital District. The point I am making is that we can do better! We must do better! We must do better not only for SUNY and CUNY to maintain the current level of academic programs and services to educate and train our future workforce, but more urgently, to maintain the fiscal integrity of these institutions. The level of state operating aid (taxpayer support) to SUNY and CUNY in the 2005-06 Executive Budget is not sufficient for these institutions to carry out their important missions. These institutions simply can not maintain stability under current levels of state operating aid. There is simply no more fat left on the bone! Sadly, again this year, proposed state operating aid is cut for SUNY state-operated campuses, and while there is a slight increase for CUNY's senior colleges, it will not begin to undue the damage caused by years of under funding. Instead of providing an increase in public funds, the 2005-06 Executive Budget relies on revenues from increased tuition rates to meet SUNY's and CUNY's basic needs. While there will be much debate over tuition this year, NYSUT believes it is the symptom of a much larger problem: The lack of state support to SUNY and CUNY. The lack of adequate state support puts SUNY and CUNY in a difficult fiscal situation again this year. The bottom line is that unless SUNY receives $85 million to cover its mandatory costs, you will see course cancellations, larger class sizes and faculty layoffs. To maintain the integrity of CUNY's academic programs and services, $70.5 million is needed. We have starved SUNY and CUNY too long! I urge the Legislature to provide this funding. Community colleges, already grappling from last year's $65 cut per full-time equivalent (FTE), will also find it difficult to maintain current levels of academic programs and services. The Executive Budget once again ignores the needs of community colleges and their students by not providing additional state base aid to these colleges even after last year's cut. If this proposal is enacted, community college students will be asked again to pay more for what certainly will be less. In fact, for years students have been paying more than their fair share to attend a SUNY and CUNY community college. Section 6304-a of the education law provides that the state must pay 40% of operating costs for all community colleges that implement full opportunity programs. Well, the fact is that all community colleges in this state have implemented full opportunity programs. They all have open enrollment. Further, section 6304-d of the education law provides that tuition and fees shall not be more than one-third of the amount of operating costs of community colleges. The reality of how community colleges are being funded is quite different from the requirements of the education law. In fact, the direct opposite is occurring. For example, in the current year, the average state share of operating costs for SUNY community colleges has fallen to 29% while the student's share is 39%.4 For CUNY, the state share is 31.2% and the student share is 38.2%.5 New York's community colleges are already the third most expensive in the nation and average tuition and fees well exceed the 2003-04 national average of $1,905.6 The average cost of tuition for SUNY and CUNY community colleges in 2004-05 was $2,817.7 Thirteen colleges cost $2,900 or higher, with Suffolk County being the highest in the state at $3,200.8 The average increase in tuition was $112, with eight colleges raising tuition by $150 or more.9 Westchester County raised tuition by $500 and Suffolk County's increase was a staggering $600.10 It is wrong for the state to ignore the provisions of the education law every year. Many community college students are self-supporting and must work to attend college. We are pushing them out of the market. It is no wonder that the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in its report, Measuring Up 2004, gave New York State an "F" in affordability. Sadly, there has not been an increase in community college base aid since SFY 2002-03. NYSUT is asking for an increase in base aid this year of $290 per FTE to stem the tide of rising tuition and to maintain access for students. In addition, many campuses do not have adequate facilities to accommodate record breaking enrollments and must rely on leasing additional space. The loss of 50% in rental aid two years ago, which has not been restored, makes it nearly impossible for some campuses to provide adequate classroom space for their students. We urge you to restore this funding. The Need for More Full-time Faculty Another area of great and continued concern to NYSUT is the lack of full-time faculty at SUNY and CUNY. I thank you for providing funding to hire more full-time faculty in the 2004-05 budget. However, more funding is needed if we are to adequately address this problem. There is no doubt that the loss of full-time faculty and the over-reliance on part-time faculty has had an adverse impact on SUNY and CUNY. Throughout the period from 1990-91 to 2003-04, there has been a decline in the number of full-time faculty at both SUNY and CUNY. As full-time faculty staffing has declined, there has been an increase in the number of part-time faculty. It must be stated that part-time faculty make an important contribution to higher education. They are however, by definition, only part-time, and often have other employment. Moreover, most part-time faculty do not have offices on campus and it is by virtue of their part-time schedule and lack of office space, that they find it difficult to meet with students. Part-time faculty are not paid to conduct research or to advise students. Nor do they participate in the development of curriculum or shared governance. A look at faculty staffing is revealing. As the chart below illustrates, full-time faculty at both SUNY and CUNY declined from 1990-91 to 2003-04 while the number of part-time faculty grew dramatically. This is another example of the lack of inadequate state support to SUNY and CUNY. As full-time faculty retire and enrollments grow, college administrators must meet their staffing obligations with limited funds by employing part-time faculty who receive less pay and little or no benefits.
A number of things can be seen from a review of this chart. They are:
In 2003-04, part-time faculty at SUNY community colleges constituted 68.2% of the staff compared to 31.8% in full-time faculty.11 At CUNY community colleges, part-time faculty make up 66.2% of the faculty compared to 33.8% for full-time faculty.12 In other words, at both SUNY and CUNY community colleges, part-time faculty make up more than two-thirds of the total faculty. At CUNY senior colleges, the percentage of full-time faculty is 45% compared to 54% for part-time faculty.13 At SUNY state-operated campuses full-time faculty are 63% full-time and 36% part-time.14 These percentages for SUNY state-operated campuses are skewed somewhat due to the inclusion of the SUNY hospitals. The reality is that at many SUNY campuses the ratio is 50-50, full-time to part-time. As the data shows, there is a serious full-time to part-time faculty imbalance that is only getting worse over time. The lack of full-time faculty at SUNY and CUNY has significantly impacted many professional programs. For example, a recent State Education Department report estimates that New York State will have a shortage of 12,500 registered nurses by the end of 2005 and a shortage of 30,000 by 2015. Yet, growing numbers of qualified nursing student applicants are being rejected simply because of limited program capacity at SUNY and CUNY. A 2004 study by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing found that last year CUNY turned away 172 qualified nursing students. SUNY turned away 512. The study cited the insufficient numbers of full-time faculty as the greatest reason given by colleges for not accepting all qualified nursing applicants. The lack of full-time faculty is especially troubling when you consider that since 1998, total enrollment system-wide at SUNY has increased by nearly 43,000 students. CUNY's enrollment is now nearly 214,000 students, the largest student population in 28 years. As a result, many students are not able to get the courses they need to graduate on time. Yet despite this fact, the Executive Budget proposes a new program, Partnership to Accelerate Completion Time or otherwise known as PACT. This program provides funding to colleges for every student that graduates on time. NYSUT believes the funding for this program would be better spent on providing SUNY and CUNY with more full-time faculty so students could actually graduate on time. The "PACT" should be between the state and the student, not the state and the college. NYSUT urges the Legislature to reject this ill-conceived program and to use this funding to provide more full-time faculty. NYSUT is pleased that the Executive Budget increased the subsidy to the SUNY hospitals by $36.8 million. The proposed 0.7 % "sick tax" on SUNY hospital revenues however, stands in contrast to the increased state subsidy. We do not understand why the Governor gives to the hospitals with one hand, but takes from them with the other. If enacted, this assessment would cripple SUNY's hospitals. NYSUT is also strongly opposed to the Governor's proposal to privatize the SUNY hospitals. The SUNY teaching hospitals at Brooklyn, Stony Brook, and Syracuse are well managed, appropriately staffed with highly qualified employees, and provide a high level of clinical care that is critical to the people in their communities. That level of care exists because the State of New York oversees these hospitals. The SUNY hospitals are directly accountable to the SUNY Trustees, the Legislature and the Governor. If these hospitals are restructured and become privatized, direct oversight and accountability will be lost and the current level of clinical care will be jeopardized. One only has to look at the Westchester and Nassau County hospitals that were restructured as public benefit corporations and are now in danger of closing, to see that this is a bad idea. If privatized, it is likely that many of the most expensive and unique critical services that SUNY hospitals provide to the citizens of the counties that they serve would eventually be discontinued or cut back. Again, we urge you to reject this proposal. We are also concerned about the proposed Medicaid cuts which will negatively impact SUNY's hospitals. In particular, we are distressed over the cuts to Graduate Medical Education (GME) as these cuts would have a severely negative impact on our medical schools. We urge you to restore the GME cuts in order to maintain student access and quality at SUNY's medical schools. Educational Opportunity Programs Speaking of the need to maintain student access, the 2005-06 Executive budget cuts SUNY's and CUNY's educational opportunity programs by nearly 50%. SUNY's EOP and CUNY's SEEK and College Discovery Programs are well-run and enable thousands of students to pursue their dreams of higher education. EOP serves more than 5,300 students at SUNY and more than 10,000 students participate in the SEEK and College Discovery Programs at CUNY. The Executive Budget cuts to these programs will slam the door to higher education for thousands of students. It just does not make sense to cut these programs. We all benefit from an educated society. Baring students from college will cost the state money. For example, the New York State Department of Education's Office of Collegiate and Professional Development Programs Unit has compiled data that illustrates the economic impact of SUNY's EOP program to New York State. As of SFY 2001-02, the Department reports that 80% of EOP participants have stayed in New York State. Income tax revenue from EOP participants has generated over $170.4 million and the total sales tax revenue generated has been over $28.4 million. Public assistance savings to the state due to this program equals $20.1 million. Finally, the total revenue generated by EOP to New York State is just over $219 million. Opportunity programs must be restored to preserve access to SUNY and CUNY for our most economically disadvantaged students. Not only is it the right thing to do for our students, it is fiscally the right thing to do for our state. Providing student access to higher education is only good if students have a safe and healthy environment in which to learn. Again, I thank the Legislature for responding to SUNY's and CUNY's capital needs in the 2004-05 budget by providing an additional $460.4 million to SUNY and $263 million to CUNY which was later vetoed. Although NYSUT is pleased that this year's Executive budget provides additional capital funding to SUNY and CUNY, we don't think the amount is sufficient to fully address the critical health and safety concerns that remain at these institutions. The Executive plan also does not provide funding for the Educational Opportunity Centers many of which are in deplorable condition. More funding is also needed for SUNY's and CUNY's community colleges. The Executive Budget once again proposes the Higher Education Capital Matching Grants Program that provides a total of $250 million in capital funding. Of that $250 million, $100 million will go directly to private higher education institutions. The remaining $150 million will be awarded on a competitive basis between the private and public sector. Awards would require a 3-to-1 match of non-state money to state money. This matching component unfairly favors private institutions as SUNY and CUNY can not meet this requirement. NYSUT strongly opposes this proposal as state operating aid to SUNY and CUNY has been grossly under-funded for well over a decade, and both systems are in need of a significant increase in capital funding. In these tough economic times New York State must make wise choices with limited public funds. The state must first ensure that our public higher education systems are adequately funded so they may live up to their missions of providing the citizens of this state with an affordable, accessible and quality public higher education. Diverting public money to private institutions is contrary to that public mission. Adequately funding the public sector must be the priority. NYSUT believes that until and unless SUNY's and CUNY's needs are met, no public capital funds should be diverted to private colleges and universities. To do otherwise, is poor public policy. In conclusion, NYSUT is extremely concerned about meeting SUNY's and CUNY's basic needs this year. Without the resources to cover these needs, the quality of educational programs and services will be seriously jeopardized. It's time we realize that SUNY and CUNY are not just another state expense. Rather, they are sound investments that history has shown to pay high economic dividends. Thank you for your consideration. I'll now pass the microphone to Dr. Scheuerman to discuss in more detail the needs of SUNY and his UUP members, to be followe by Dr. Bowen to do the same for CUNY and her PSC members. 1 Grapevine Center for the Study of Education Policy, Illinois State University 2 Ibid Postsecondary Education Opportunity 3 Ibid 4 NYSUT Briefing Bulletin 04-15, Community College Base Aid Cut by $65 per FTE, October 2004 5 CUNY 2004-05 New York City Adopted Budget and New York State Adopted Budget Preliminary Analysis, University Budget Office and the Office of Facilities Planning, Construction and Management, August 24, 2004 6 American Association of Community Colleges Survey August 2003; Trends in College Pricing 2003, the College Board 7 New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), Tuition Increases at New York's Public Community Colleges, July 30, 2004 8 NYPIRG 9 NYPIRG 10 NYPIRG 11 Statistical Release 40B, Fall 2003 Employee Faculty Summaries, SUNY August 16, 2004 12 Staff Facts Fall 2003, the Office of Faculty and Staff Relations CUNY 13 Ibid 14 Ibid |
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