UUP Editor’s Note: Pictured above, State University of New York/Buffalo State United University Professions (UUP) Members and students get ready for today’s #FundSUNYNow rally.  UUP Officials called on New York State to invest more state funding into SUNY Campuses.  (Photo Courtesy of UUP Via The Social Network Twitter)

(BUFFALO, NEW YORK) – Across New York State today (Tuesday, February 25th), United University Professions (UUP) Members at State University of New York (SUNY) campuses sent a loud, strong message to State Legislators and Governor Andrew Cuomo: Fund SUNY Now!

UUP rallies were held at SUNY Buffalo State, SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Old Westbury, where UUP Representatives collectively called for more state funding for SUNY.

On those three campuses, dozens of UUP Members and SUNY students were joined by representatives from other local Labor Unions and community members as they waved signs that read: “#fundSUNYnow!” and “Real Progress for SUNY.”

Together, they loudly demanded state lawmakers stand up for SUNY by increasing direct state funding to the University System in the 2020-21 State Budget.

UUP President Frederick E. Kowal, Ph.D., (Pictured below/photo courtesy of UUP via the Social Network Twitter) also called on legislators to create new revenue streams for SUNY, such as enacting an enhanced Millionaires’ Tax and a pied-a-terre tax.

“We have reached a point where ‘this can’t continue,’” said Kowal, who spoke at the Buffalo State rally. “It is time for the state to ‘stop its decade-long disinvestment’ in SUNY.  ‘We are not’ a ‘quasi-public’ higher education system.  We ‘are the State University of New York - a public higher education system.’  The state ‘has an obligation to provide necessary funding to allow our campuses and our hospitals to offer quality, affordable, accessible education and world-class health care to all.’  ‘And we certainly have the resources to pay for it through a much more progressive and fair’ tax system.”

Governor Cuomo’s proposed 2020-21 Executive Budget is an essentially a flat budget that does nothing to reverse years of disinvestment in the University after a series of damaging Great Recession-era funding cuts to SUNY, UUP Officials said.

Those reductions, combined with a series of flat budgets for SUNY, have resulted in a $660 million drop in direct state aid to SUNY campuses from 2007-08 to 2019-20, they said.

Many SUNY campuses - including Buffalo State, New Paltz, the University at Albany, SUNY Fredonia and SUNY Plattsburgh - are financially struggling and desperately trying to close budget shortfalls caused by years of SUNY underfunding, Union Officials said.

The gaps are also due in part to the widening TAP (Tuition Assistance Program) Gap - the difference between full SUNY tuition and the amount campuses are allowed to charge TAP-eligible students - which campuses must cover, UUP Officials said.

Buffalo State is facing a $3.4 million budget shortfall, the exact amount of the campus’ annual TAP Gap loss, Union Officials said.

SUNY Plattsburgh and SUNY New Paltz, meanwhile, are struggling with budget deficits of $3 million and $2.9 million, respectively and they pay $2.1 million and $2.9 million, respectively, to cover the TAP Gap, Union Officials said.

The TAP Gap at SUNY’s 29 state-operated campuses is expected to be around $75 million in 2020-21, said UUP Officials, who are calling for the addition of $75 million in the 2020-21 state budget to close the gap.

UUP estimates an enhanced Millionaires’ Tax could generate an additional $2 billion in new state revenue.

A pied-a-terre tax - which would tax luxury residential property not used by their owners as primary residences - would bring in an extra $560 million in new state funding, they said.

“It is the ‘state’s obligation to fairly fund’ SUNY and ‘we believe it is time for the state to make a real commitment to and a real investment our university system,’” UUP’s statewide Vice President Tom Tucker said at the SUNY New Paltz rally.

UUP is also pushing for the restoration of an $87 million state subsidy for SUNY’s beleaguered Public Teaching Hospitals in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse.

The rallies will continue on Wednesday (February 26th) at SUNY Plattsburgh. 

SUNY Cortland UUP Members are scheduled to rally on March 3rd.  

Five other campuses handed out information today and urged Workers and students to tell their local state representatives to support SUNY.

UUP represents 42,000 Academic and Professional Faculty and retirees, with Members at 29 New York state-operated campuses, including SUNY’s Public Teaching Hospitals and Health Sciences Centers in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Long Island and Syracuse.

UUP is an affiliate of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA) and the AFL-CIO.