February 16, 1995: Vol26n17: Johnstone assesses impact of SUNY cuts

By STEVE COX
Reporter Staff
"I must confess, it's a good time not to be chancellor."
	So says the one man on campus who would surely know.  D. Bruce
Johnstone, once SUNY chancellor himself, weighed in recently with his
assessment of the impact that changes in state and national politics
might have on secondary and higher education. He spoke to students,
faculty, alumni and former colleagues Feb. 7 on "The Politics of
Education: 1995," in a discussion sponsored by the Graduate School of
Education's Alumni Association.
	Johnstone spent eight years as president of Buffalo State
College and nearly six more as chancellor of the State University
before resigning in the spring of 1994 due to ill health. He is now a
faculty member in UB's Graduate School of Education.
	Why were SUNY's cuts so deep? Well, for at least three
reasons, SUNY was an easy target for Pataki, says Johnstone. First,
through tuition, SUNY has a unique ability among state agencies to
raise its own revenue. Second, SUNY has demonstrated an ability over
the years to manage cuts. Finally, Pataki's closest political allies
hail largely from suburban New York counties like Nassau, Suffolk and
Westchester. "Those suburban Senators widely hold the view that SUNY
is an upstate institution and it is vastly overbuilt."
	Johnstone also believes Pataki's call for some sort of tuition
increase is "absolutely inevitable." Pataki is a "pro-tuition,
pro-private sector" governor, he explained, "and there is a strong
feeling out there that SUNY is getting an extremely good deal. You
have to realize, the people who elected Pataki see their friends
spending $20,000 or $30,000 a year on college," Johnstone said, "and
then they compare that with SUNY tuition."
	If tuition takes an exceptional leap this year, part of the
blame, says Johnstone, may belong to Mario Cuomo. "By leading students
to believe that higher education ought to be free, Mario Cuomo did the
whole state a disservice." Rather than a cost-sharing between the
state, parents and students, as Johnstone and his trustees had
advocated, Cuomo "so politicized tuition that students felt there
should be only two, or perhaps just one source of funding for higher
education," he said.
	Despite managing previous cuts well, Johnstone doubts the
ability of SUNY to absorb the magnitude of cuts the governor has
proposed without doing substantial damage. "Over five-and-a-half years
as chancellor, I cut SUNY by nearly $200 million," he recalled, "and
the better you manage, the more often they look to you for cuts. But
now, there's not a lot of fat there. Higher education is a very
labor-intensive enterprise. There are not a lot of travel funds to cut
around here," Johnstone chided. SUNY Central estimates that closing
the budget gap will require the laying off of 1,900 faculty and staff
system-wide.
	The prospect of closing campuses arises whenever large cuts
are contemplated. However, Johnstone says, that is not really a viable
short-term alternative. "The only campuses that could be closed
without wreaking havoc on the system are small, so they won't save
much money," he said. Campuses such as the Maritime School in
Manhattan, Old Westbury on Long Island or Purchase in Westchester
County are attractive candidates because their property is valuable.
"But, I don't see how that is much different from selling Attica
prison to the Urban Development Corporation; it's a one-shot revenue
raiser."
	Nevertheless, Johnstone seemed to expect a budget much like
the one Pataki presented Feb. 1. Albany politics, he says, contributes
to the budget-making equation. "Historically, the legislature has been
pro-SUNY. This means the governor must cut deeply, under the
assumption that the legislature will restore some funding. That way,
the governor can end up where he wants to be."
	The good news? To Johnstone, the future of education is still
bright. "I really do not see an anti-education sentiment out there. We
are just caught up in the strong anti-tax sentiment, but education is
still viewed as an engine of social mobility and economic progress in
this country."