February 16, 1995: Vol26n17: Wagner urges PSS to voice concern over budget cuts

Write your state representatives to voice your concern about SUNY's
$290 million budget reduction, UB Senior Vice President Robert J.
Wagner urged members of the Professional Staff Senate at a general
membership meeting held Feb. 13.
	If the state legislature gets the message that cutting the
SUNY budget by one-third is "no big deal," Wagner said, "then this
thing will just happen. Your ability and willingness to do something
to get the message out is going to be very, very important."
	With every area of the state budget facing cuts, "we've got to
get our voice above the rest if we want something to happen," Wagner
said. "Advocacy is the key."
	SUNY and UB are in the initial stages of sorting through
devastating budget cuts that Gov. George Pataki announced Feb. 1, and
the impact those numbers will have on students, programs and the
respective institutions. "We frankly have a lot of challenges ahead of
us," Wagner said.
	SUNY Chancellor Thomas Bartlett has made it clear that he will
not approach the budget by simply allocating to each campus their fair
share of the cuts, Wagner said, but "it's way too early to know what
the chancellor will target and what impact it will have on this
campus."
	One thing is for sure, he stressed. "This change is not a
one-year change. It's not a little dip in funding....The assumption is
that this is a long-term change in the funding for universities in the
State of New York. It's going to be the pattern of the future."
	One of the greatest concerns over the 1995-96 executive
budget, Wagner said, is the assumption that SUNY can overcome the
budgetary shortfall by raising $215 million of additional income,
primarily through increased tuition. That assumption could actually
lead to what the senior vice president called a "secondary budget
reduction."
	"As a simple example, let's say tuition goes to $4,000 (next
year)," Wagner said. "UB has an enrollment target. Let's assume we
have to make the same number in 1995-96, but we don't and we miss it
by 1,000 students. Multiply 1,000 students by $4,000. We've got $4
million in lost revenue."
	In fact, the executive budget targets enrollment to rise
slightly-by 375 students throughout SUNY-from 158,750 in 1994-95 to
159,125 in 1995-96.
	"How elastic is the demand curve for higher education?" Wagner
asked. "We'll find out the answer to that question in the fall of
1995."
	Part of the reason SUNY has taken such a big hit in the
executive budget is the perception that the system offers a good
product that is significantly underpriced, Wagner said.
	An alternative to significantly raising tuition that would
allow SUNY to make up the shortfall, Wagner noted, would be to cut
approximately 7,000 positions across SUNY. Or, "the system may have to
look hard at how many campuses are viable. The answer lies somewhere
in the middle," he said.
	But if SUNY were to shut down both the UB and University at
Albany campuses, it still would not save enough to close the budget
gap. "It might help, but it won't solve the problem. The number is
simply too big," Wagner said.
	So, while it is obvious that the budget reduction will have a 
significant impact on UB, it is difficult to predict specifically what
will be affected because nodetails are known yet. But some assumptions
are already being made, Wagner said.
	"Particularly in the academic units, this (lack of specific
information) will be a problem," he said, because departments
traditionally make employment offers to new faculty and students in
the late spring, although this year not all the budget details will be
worked out by then. "We're going to have to go out and take some
risks," Wagner said.
	UB students also should expect to pay much higher tuition in
the fall of 1995. Professional school tuitions also will increase. "I
wouldn't want to be an incoming medical student, or pharmacy student,
or law student or dental student in 1995-96," he said.
	Likewise, "meeting our overall enrollment targets is very
important because missing those targets will mean further reductions,"
Wagner said.
	And early retirement packages may be proposed as a means of
offsetting the budget reduction. "We're spending 70 cents of every $1
on people," Wagner said.
	Can SUNY-and UB-close the budget gap without laying people
off? "I simply don't know," although avoiding retrenchment is part of
the university's strategy, Wagner said.
	The university is going to have to change the way it thinks
about students, as the gap in tuition costs between public and private
universities becomes smaller. "The treatment of students will have to
change," Wagner said.
	"For students, it's going to be a plus. We're going to have to
direct a lot more (resources) toward students," he said. "Students and
the supply of students has to play a more important role than it has
in the past in how we make decisions and how we allocate resources."
	As budget issues are sorted out this spring, university
officials will be talking with peers from the University of
Massachusetts and University of California systems, which also have
suffered major funding reductions, to ascertain what worked for them
and what did not.
	"The governor believes he has a mandate to reduce taxes. There
has to be an ongoing dialogue about what kind of higher education
system New York State wants to have," Wagner said.