Tell the Senate to Pass 281a, a Bill to Improve CUNY Funding
New York State Senate
We're sorry, your elected official was not a target for this action. You can still take part by signing this petition:
Albany is close to passing a bill critical for CUNY’s future. Please send a letter right now to give it the grassroots push it needs to become law. On Wednesday, June 9 the State Assembly passed A5370a, an act that would provide future funding for the PSC contract and ensure that tuition hikes go to improve education, not to cover unfunded mandatory university operating expenses. The Senate version of the bill, S281a, has cleared the Higher Education Committee, but as of Friday, June 12 has yet to clear the Senate Finance Committee. A5370a/S281a keeps the promise made to students in 2011 when lawmakers enacted five years of annual $300 tuition hikes. The hikes were supposed to fund additional faculty, course-offerings and student services for CUNY and SUNY. But the State has not funded routine inflationary cost increases for rent, utilities, supplies and equipment, and regular university expenses for fringe benefits and contractual salary steps.Without adequate State funding, CUNY has used tuition-hike dollars to cover the gap rather than improve education. A5370a/S281a would make it harder for the State to underfund CUNY by strengthening and making permanent the State’s “Maintenance of Effort” provisions for CUNY and SUNY. Send a letter today. And ask your colleagues to do the same.
Sponsored by
To:
New York State Senate
From:
[Your Name]
As your constituent and an employee of the City University of New York, represented by the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, I urge your strong and vocal support of Senate Bill 281a, a law to protect the quality of education at both CUNY and SUNY. Please make clear your support to your colleagues, in conference and with the Senate leadership.
Sponsored by Senate Higher Education Chair Kenneth LaValle, S281a honors the promise the Legislature made to students and families in 2011 when it enacted five years of annual $300 tuition hikes for CUNY and SUNY. The tuition increases, passed as part the SUNY2020 plan, were intended to fund additional faculty, more course offerings and expanded student services for New York’s public university systems. This was the promise of SUNY2020: students would pay more, and the State would maintain its support for CUNY and SUNY operating expenses. The students kept their promise; the State did not.
Since 2012, the State has failed to provide adequate funding to cover CUNY’s routine inflationary cost increases for rent, utilities, supplies and equipment. The State has also failed to fund other mandatory costs, such as regular University expenses for fringe benefits and contractual salary steps. CUNY has been left with no recourse but to use the increased-tuition dollars to cover these gaps. Students will pay CUNY $63 million more in tuition next year, but all of it will be used to cover mandatory cost increases. That’s not fair. It is time to fix the existing SUNY2020 maintenance-of-effort provision so that higher tuition paid by students fulfills its original promise to improve educational services.
Without sustained and adequate public investment, CUNY cannot hire the additional faculty needed to improve its dismal full-time faculty-to-student ratio. Nor can it pay the competitive salaries that are required to recruit and retain talented faculty in a national market. In the absence of a commitment by the State to meet mandatory maintenance-of-efforts costs, CUNY is also unable to provide enough counselors for students or improve working conditions for the majority of its faculty—who are part-time adjunct instructors. The University’s collective bargaining agreement, covering 27,000 faculty and professional staff, cannot be resolved while public disinvestment continues. CUNY employees have not had a collective bargaining agreement since 2010 or a raise since 2009; most New York State employees and 80% of New York City employees have up-to-date agreements.
SUNY and CUNY are lifelines for our state. Hundreds of thousands of New York families depend on them for a chance of a better life. Nothing fuels economic development more than investment in public college education. S281a protects the quality of our public universities and ensures that the State’s maintenance-of-effort for CUNY and SUNY covers increases in collective bargaining costs, utilities, and other basic operating expenses. I call on you to speak up for it in conference, encourage the Senate leadership to support it, and vote for it when it comes to the floor.