Ryan's Testimony to Senate Finance & Assembly Ways & Means Committees

Budget Request

The State University’s 2006-07 budget request has two main focuses:

• To support the mandatory and base-level needs of our campus’ faculty, employees and students; and
• To increase the number of full-time faculty to meet the academic needs of our current and prospective students, and to better serve the state’s economy.  While the total number of faculty has increased, the percentage of full-time faculty has continued to decline; reaching a low of 62.2 percent for the current academic year.  This trend must be reversed.  While adjunct faculty provide wonderful instruction and are a necessary part of the campus community, they do not provide the level of student counseling and mentoring, nor the total program support and quality control of their full-time peers.

The budget request was a result of a collaborative process with and among SUNY campuses.  It took into account the significant fiscal challenges facing New York State over the next several years, but was mindful of the need to provide adequate resources to support the statutory mission of the University.     

It was a disciplined budget request.  More than 75 percent of the additional dollars requested are necessary to simply support base-level costs.  It was also strategic, with funds targeted to economic development and performance initiatives that will have an extraordinary positive impact of New York’s economy.  It focused on all of this, but yet, represented a state investment of less than 3% of the University’s all funds budget.

On behalf of the Board of Trustees and the entire University, I would like to thank Governor Pataki for including in his Executive Budget Proposal a number of the items outlined in the University’s budget request.

We are pleased that the Governor’s budget recognizes most of University’s base budget costs such as collective bargaining agreements, fringe benefits, and general inflation.  We are particularly grateful for the State tax dollars recommended for SUNY’s unanticipated energy cost increases in the current year and projected escalation next year.

The Executive Budget also recognizes the contributions the State University is making in economic development throughout the state.  The University is proud to be host to three of the five Centers of Excellence the Governor has established at leading universities throughout the state.  The Governor, along with the Legislature and our corporate partners, have invested billions of dollars in the SUNY based public-private partnerships in nano-electronics at State University at Albany, bioinformatics at the State University at Buffalo, and wireless and information technology at the SUNY’s Stony Brook University.  These Centers are prime examples of how the State University is helping position New York State as a global leader in high-tech business growth and private sector development. 

The Senate’s Ge*NY*sis and the Assembly’s RESTORE programs are also great contributors to the state’s economy through the investment of over several hundred million dollars at numerous State University campuses in conjunction with private partners. We are grateful for this support.

A new key initiative called the Empire Innovation Program in the Executive Budget builds on the Board of Trustees’ proposed Excelsior Faculty Initiative.  It will enable our campuses to recruit 200 of the most promising new research faculty over the next three years.  New faculty will be hired in clusters focused on areas the University is already demonstrating national and international strength, including our Centers of Excellence in nanotechnology, bioinformatics and wireless technology.  By 2011, we expect that these additional faculty will attract nearly $300 million in new federal and private research and development grants, resulting in over $1 billion of growth in New York State’s economy.

Meeting today’s workforce needs in the areas of economic development and public health was also addressed in the Executive Budget.  The $1 million investment will help the University begin to increase the course sections and faculty in high need areas, thus increasing the number of graduates demanded by our economy and communities for engineers, information technology specialists, nurses, and allied health professionals.

The University’s contribution to public health is centered at our three hospitals at Stony Brook, Downstate in Brooklyn and Upstate in Syracuse.  These hospitals are integral elements of SUNY’s research, teaching and public service missions.  They provide a full array of patient care services designed to meet the needs of the communities they serve, while providing a unique environment to train the next generation of health care professions—the majority of whom remain in New York State to care for its citizens.  I look forward to ensuring that SUNY’s hospitals are efficient and economically viable, and continue to serve the critical health care needs of their host communities and regions.

The Governor also proposed a rational tuition policy that would lock in tuition for the 2006-07 academic year and begin indexing tuition with the 2007-08 academic year.  I support this plan and strongly believe that our students, prospective students and their parents deserve a predictable tuition plan.  A rational tuition plan will also provide a great benefit to the University by allowing the campuses to plan long-term investments in academic quality for full-time faculty, technology, academic equipment and other educational resources needed by the students.  I hope to be able to work with you this session to implement a rational tuition policy.

We believe the Executive Budget provides a good base on which the University looks forward to building upon in partnership with the State Legislature in the coming weeks and months. 

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