The $92 million SUNY reduction proposed in the executive budget "would translate to a $14 million reduction to UB," a shortfall that the university will find virtually impossible to absorb without measures that could include retrenchment.

Calling the proposed cuts "a non-partisan withdrawal of support," Greiner noted that Pataki is not solely responsible for the financial problems SUNY faces. "Cuomo started us down this track," he said.

"We've always had this funny game that we played in the past," Greiner said, where the governor set the budget, the legislators gnashed their teeth and the chancellor and trustees criticized the governor.

And in the past "essentially the legislators haven't done anything (to restore the budget). The executive budget was 'what you see is what you get,'" Greiner said.

This year is different, though. The trustees aren't going to battle the governor. They're going to work real hard with what they've got. "My point is, I think the ball is really in the legislators' court this year," Greiner said.

If UB receives a $14 million budget cut, "we've got a real disaster on our hands," Greiner said. "I'll tell you, I think the SUNY system is broke. We've taken the tax money out of the system and backfilled it with tuition."

The State legislature currently has before it four measures that, if passed, would help alleviate the severe cuts contained in the executive budget proposal. They include management effectiveness, which would allow campus flexibility; health care management; retirement and severance flexibility; and SUNY Cap, a program that would provide a bridge from high school to college.

Noting that "we run the best and most cost effective medical school in the SUNY system and we don't get enough credit for it," Greiner explained that the health care management bill would move the SUNY teaching hospitals toward "the Buffalo model" of affiliated not-for-profit agencies rather than their current role as state agencies.

SUNY's statutory colleges are a financial drain on the State University system and the funding they receive needs to change dramatically, Greiner said.

"One-sixth of the tax dollars in the SUNY system this year go to Cornell," he said. "The undergraduate kids are pumping (tuition dollars) in to see to it that they don't have to take too big a cut at Cornell or the School of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) or Alfred or the Health Science Centers....And changing that is going to be hard."

Although the executive budget proposes reducing the allocation to the statutory colleges, "$8 million is what they're projecting to take out of the statutories, which means $1 million (in additional funding to UB). It's too little," Greiner said.

"I understand how hard it will be for Cornell to change their ways but if they're not willing to change, they shouldn't be in the SUNY system."

SUNY's central office also needs to be pared down by two-thirds, Greiner told PSS members. "I don't think we can afford to carry a thousand-person central office. We don't need it," he said.

What SUNY does need is restoration of funding for the Tuition Assistance Program, Greiner said. New York State's legislators need to be told to put more money into TAP and to allow for a more realistic tuition policy. He called it "perverse policy" to cut TAP while at the same time raising tuition.

He added that his first priority is to restore TAP funding, even though that will make it more difficult to convince the governor to restore funding to SUNY.

Legislation must be passed that would allow campuses to charge their own tuition rates and keep their own tuition revenues. "Cornell and the community colleges all keep their own tuition...and I don't know one community college that has been driven out of business by the predatory practices of another community college," Greiner said.

"I don't think the current system is good for UB. If it works for the community colleges it can work for us, too."

The costs of educating students varies from campus to campus and should be reflected in tuition rates, Greiner said. "I don't know why kids at ESF have $18,000 (per student) in state appropriations backing them up," versus $5,500 per student at the state colleges and $7,800 at UB. He added that the average state appropriation per student at the Health Science Centers is $25,000 at UB and $40,000 at Syracuse and Stony Brook, and state appropriations are $67,000 per student at the College of Optometry.

"I'm ashamed that the primary reason students give for coming here is money....It should be quality. UB should be a bargain because we're so good, not because we're so cheap."

It is vital that the four measures in the legislative package be passed, Greiner said. "The legislative package has no cost to the taxpayer. It's a no-brainer.

"If they want to do something for us this year, pass the legislation, restore TAP and then see what you can do about the $92 million."