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March 8, 2010

SUNY unions concerned about education proposal

By STEPHEN BARTLETT

PLATTSBURGH — State University of New York administrators are drooling over Gov. David Paterson’s proposed public higher-education reforms.

They’re eating up the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act before the meal’s been served.

But for university union employees, the dish is less appetizing than rotten eggs and smells worse.

“We are calling the Empowerment Act ‘the Endangerment Act,’” said Dr. David Curry, a Plattsburgh State nursing professor and president of the United University Professions chapter there.



CONCERNS

Critics say Paterson’s Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act threatens SUNY’s existence. They see it as an attempt to privatize public universities that will push education beyond the reach of the less affluent, while squeezing parents and students for money the state no longer invests.

The union contends the legislation could affect individual jobs while allowing New York state to further abandon its obligation to provide affordable and accessible public education.



LESS STATE MONEY

“If these proposals go forward, the state contribution would be less than it contributed 20 years ago,” Curry said.

Paterson’s budget would reduce funding to SUNY by $152 million.

“This represents an additional funding cut that, in a span of only two years, reduces state aid to SUNY by some $562 million — nearly $85 million less than it was 20 years ago,” UUP President Dr. Phillip H. Smith wrote in a letter to members.



TUITION WORRIES

The union says the legislation will not create jobs but will instead be costly to parents and students, largely because it gives SUNY the power to raise tuition, including differential tuition, without government approval.

The group says that while across-the-board tuition increases are limited to 2.5 times the five-year rolling average of the higher-education price index, differential hikes could be added on top of the limitation.

“A 2-percent increase every year would be rational if that is what it would be,” Curry said. “But there would also be differential tuition, which is separate from across-the-board.”

Nursing, for example, would be a good place to institute differential tuition, because it is popular, Curry said, but that would limit an applicant’s ability to pay.

The proposal does not include any guarantee that student tuition and fees will be restricted to a use benefiting the academic mission of the campus.

That has never been a guarantee, though — the past two years, the State Legislature has kept money generated from tuition increases.



OUTSOURCING

The bill would enable SUNY to enter into public/private partnerships with little oversight, the union said, and removes prior approval by the state comptroller and legislature when making purchases or beginning construction.

UUP says this could result in campuses outsourcing work instead of giving it to union employees.

“Public/private partnerships, once formed, don’t necessarily carry any labor protections with them,” Curry said.

“If they are not going to threaten our jobs, then why are they asking permission to do it?”



PROS, CONS

Paterson says the bill would bring SUNY in line with other public colleges and universities and stave off steep tuition hikes.

SUNY campus presidents have praised the proposal, saying it would give them the power they need to climb out of a fiscal crisis, while increasing the efficiency of operations.

Critics, including UUP, New York State United Teachers and the Professional Staff Congress, are strongly opposed to the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act.

“This is an attempt to privatize education and take the state out of it,” Curry said.

“We are supporters of SUNY. We just don’t think this is the right way to do it.”



E-mail Stephen Bartlett at:

sbartlett@pressrepublican.com

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