With less than a month before the New York state budget deadline, we urge you to tell your elected state representatives to support funding for SUNY and SUNY's public teaching hospitals.

The proposed 2023-2024 Executive Budget provides some investment for SUNY, but what's budgeted falls far short of the funding desperately needed by our campuses. Nineteen campuses are facing multimillion-dollar structural or projected deficits, caused in large part by more than a decade of budget cuts and austerity.

And there is no direct state funding in the Executive Budget for our three public teaching hospitals in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse. The state must recognize the critical importance of these academic medical centers, which New Yorkers relied upon during the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, they have been teetering on fiscal insolvency for years.

UUP and our community partners, students, families, and state colleagues are requesting that the governor and the Legislature provide $160 million for a “Distressed Campus Fund.” This fund is imperative for financially troubled SUNY campuses to stabilize their budgets and prevent layoffs or programmatic cuts.

Additionally, the enacted budget must include the restoration of $175 million in mission funding for our hospitals, as also requested by the SUNY Board of Trustees; and funding to start a multiyear capital program at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, with an initial investment of $100 million to modernize and upgrade the emergency department and the maternity ward.

Please send this letter to urge the governor and state leaders to make a strong investment in SUNY to assist students, support faculty and staff, and ensure the life-saving care offered at our SUNY teaching hospitals.

Now is the time to press our elected representatives to push to include crucial funding for SUNY campuses and our public teaching hospitals in the 2023-2024 state budget.