Members of the SUNY Fredonia faculty union held a silent march on campus Tuesday to protest anticipated cuts in programs and staff to address a “$17 million deficit.”
Fredonia President Stephen H. Kolison Jr. is expected to announce the cuts and a deficit-reduction plan in an address to the campus community at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Kolison has described it as an update on “the roadmap we are building to ensure a brighter future for SUNY Fredonia.”
Fredonia’s chapter of United University Professions said they have learned the university has plans to discontinue 10 degree programs and associated faculty and staff.
Fredonia’s enrollment has declined 40% in the past decade while programs and staff did not, according to SUNY, which has estimated that cuts to 10 low-enrolled programs will affect 2% of its 3,200 students. SUNY also said Fredonia’s deficit is $10 million, not $17 million.
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Fredonia and Buffalo State are among 19 SUNY campuses with structural deficits, according to the UUP. That means they have a long-term imbalance in revenues versus expenditures that can’t be resolved in the short-term. SUNY has requested deficit-reduction plans from several schools and is working with them on cost-cutting and revenue-growing measures to resolve their deficits over the next few years.
Western New York legislators, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, state Sen. Tim Kennedy and Assembly members Monica Wallace and Jon Rivera joined UUP representatives at Buffalo State on Tuesday to push for more SUNY funding.
The expected cuts at Fredonia follow announcements of program cuts at other SUNY schools, including SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Rockland, to address big deficits.
SUNY Buffalo State University recently announced a hiring freeze to address a $16.5 million structural deficit as it prepares to welcome a new president, Chance Glenn of the University at Houston-Victoria, whose selection was announced by SUNY Tuesday.
In recent weeks the state chapter of United University Professions has blasted SUNY for failing to rescue its most at-risk schools in a time of need.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2023 budget allocated $163 million in new, recurring general operating aid for SUNY state-operated campuses, an increase that schools said was long overdue after decades of underfunding by the Cuomo administration.
But state UUP President Fred Kowal said the bulk of the $163 million went to SUNY’s four university centers in Buffalo, Stony Brook, Albany and Binghamton instead of assisting the smaller schools experiencing deficits.
“SUNY could have erased deficits at Fredonia the other campuses had it distributed that state aid to campuses based on need,” Kowal said. “Instead, SUNY’s four university centers received the lion’s share of those funds.”
The four university centers got $80 million total, “while SUNY’s remaining campuses – many of them smaller comprehensive and technical colleges located in economically depressed rural, upstate communities – split the rest,” Kowal said.
“It’s imperative that campuses like SUNY Fredonia receive equitable funding, so they are able to serve the diverse educational needs of students across the state,” he added.
SUNY Fredonia received $2.8 million of the new state funding, the UUP said. SUNY Potsdam, which announced in October it is cutting 14 degree programs to reduce its $9 million deficit, got $2.5 million. Buffalo State received $6.4 million and still has an estimated $16.5 million deficit after factoring in expenses for a new labor contract.
“I am frustrated and disappointed that SUNY chose to allocate those monies the way it did,” Kowal said. “If SUNY had allocated the $163 million as UUP had argued for – to eliminate multimillion-dollar deficits at 19 SUNY campuses – it would have allowed those campuses to plan for a future without the pressure of an artificial crisis.”
Kowal said massive cuts during the recession of 2008 and 2009, combined with more than a decade of austerity budgets under the Cuomo administration, are mainly to blame for the deficits at smaller SUNY campuses.
When adjusted for inflation, direct state funding to SUNY was slashed by $7.8 billion since 2008-09 – a 39% decline, the UUP said.