Ryan's Testimony to Assembly Committee on Higher Education

Introduction

 

Good morning, Chairman Canestrari, members of the Assembly and legislative staff.   It is a privilege to come before you today to comment on the impact of the 2006-2007 State Budget on the State University System.

 

Before I begin, let me congratulate Majority Leader Canestrari upon his appointment.  This is well-deserved recognition.  My colleagues and I at the State University look forward to working with you in your new and expanded role.

 

On behalf of the entire University, I would like to thank Speaker Silver, Majority Leader Bruno and the members of both the Assembly and Senate and your hard working staffs for this investment in the State University. Let me salute Governor Spitzer for the positive words he said about the State University throughout his campaign and most recently in his State of the State address.  SUNY is one of the state’s largest employers and will be a leader in NYS’s innovation economy.

Your investment in direct state support and much-needed capital support is helping to provide the University with the foundation to take a good public University and make it great while maintaining our historic mission of access and affordability. 

 

With these goals in mind, I want to outline where the University stands today, and where, with your continued support, we envision moving in the future. 

 

Facts and Figures about SUNY

 

The State University’s enrollment is at a record high of over 418,000 students making SUNY the largest, comprehensive system of public higher education in the country.  Over 80,000 minority students are now enrolled, accounting for almost 20 percent of the student population.  The academic preparation of our students continues to improve each year.  Our market share of college-bound New York State high school graduates continues to rise and is now over 45%.  On average, each student who earns a baccalaureate degree will earn nearly $1 million more over his or her lifetime than a high school graduate. 

 

We are also focusing on growing other revenue sources.  SUNY has made great strides in raising non-state revenues, an absolute necessity.  Sponsored research at the University exceeds $895 million supporting some 10,000 research projects and resulting in over 18,000 additional jobs statewide.  Revenue from royalties is over $13.5 million.  Our share of federal targeted funding has increased and in the aggregate totals over $102 million.  As a result, the State University is responsible for creating real jobs in NY.  According to the National Science Foundation, for every $1M in research awards generated by SUNY, 29 jobs are created in our state.

 

Philanthropy is another key component of SUNY external funding sources.  In the past five years, SUNY has raised over $1.38 billion and will surpass our goal of $3 billion in giving to the University by 2012.  These funds help guarantee access and improved quality for our students.

 

2006-07 State Budget

 

Last year I began a five-year budget planning process with SUNY’s 64 campus presidents.  The effort coincides with SUNY’s nationally recognized Mission Review II process for institutional strategic planning, including the establishment of quantifiable goals to be achieved during a five-year period.  SUNY’s budget planning has enabled the University to develop a strategy for achieving our academic goals and for identifying and meeting our fiscal needs.  As a result, SUNY has provided the Executive and Legislature with a budget that is grounded in real needs targeted to the achievement of coherent goals that are system-wide.  Each goal involves measurable results.

 

Last year, using the SUNY Plan, the State University requested a budget that reflected realistic needs of its campuses.  We requested an additional $195 million in funding for the state operated campuses; more than 75 percent of those dollars were necessary to cover mandatory base-level costs, unfunded enrollment growth, and improved retention.  A key part of this funding enabled campuses to hire more full time faculty.  The remaining amount was targeted to economic development and performance initiatives that will have an extraordinary impact on New York’s economy.

 

Our 2006-07 allocation is categorized as follows: 

 

$59.7 M – State support to replace the proposed tuition $500 increase

$22.1M – Additional mandatory and base level costs

$17.5 M – Enrollment funding and full-time faculty at state-operated campuses

$ 2.8 M – High needs programs at state operated and community colleges

$ 9.3 M – Community College Base Aid increase of $75 per FTE in addition to the $100 included in the Executive Budget

$ 1.0 M – Community College Contract Course Training

 

Mandatory - Base Level Costs

 

The State University is pleased to report that, as a result of the $59.7 million appropriation, no tuition increase was necessary at the State University.  This amount, along with the $22.1 million, allowed SUNY to cover fully its collective bargaining contractual agreements, fringe benefit costs, and general inflation in non personal services. 

 

Enrollment Funding

 

As you know, the State University is charged with providing “educational services of the highest quality, with the broadest possible access, fully representative of all segments of population in a complete range of academic, professional and vocational post-secondary programs…”   SUNY is not funded on a per capita basis, and therefore enrollment funding is needed to accommodate this increase in the number of students: additional students require increased expenditures for faculty and programs.

 

In State FY 2006-07, the State University received approximately $17.5 million for additional full-time faculty and academic programming to support our current and prospective students.  Our campuses have begun the process of hiring new full-time faculty, and we are pleased that over 200 new full-time faculty have joined the SUNY ranks this academic year.  Recruitment continues, and we anticipate this number will continue to grow as the academic year unfolds.  Our goal is to build our full-time faculty proportion from its current 62% back to approximately 72 percent where it was a decade ago.  The recovery of appropriate levels of full-time faculty strength will take several years and additional new investment .In addition, SUNY’s enrollment in the current academic year of over 418,000 is more than 4,000 students above last year’s totals.  To support expected further increases in enrollment, the University will require additional funding this upcoming fiscal year.

 

Empire Innovation Program

 

The State University used $6 million to establish a new initiative called the Empire Innovation Program.  This program is a results-oriented plan for boosting economic development across New York State while also significantly enhancing the University’s doctoral sector, the flagships of the SUNY system.  With this funding, SUNY campuses have hired or are recruiting some 33 new faculty researchers.

 

When fully implemented over the next two years, this program will add 200 new research faculty who are extraordinarily promising researchers.  Many will be hired in clusters focused on areas in which the University is already demonstrating national and international strength, including our Centers of Excellence in nanotechnology, bioinformatics and life sciences, wireless technology and small systems packaging.  By 2011, it is expected these additional faculty will win nearly $300 million in new, additional federal and private research and development grants annually, resulting in over $1 billion of growth in New York State’s economy.  We look forward to continuing this crucially important program with an additional $19 million appropriation in the 2007-08 budget.

 

Examples of such faculty include:

 

• Dr. Hao Wang at Binghamton University’s Small Scale Systems Integration and Packaging Center of Excellence.  Dr. Wang was recruited from the Michigan Technological University; is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and holds a Career Award from the National Science Foundation and over $4 million in NSF grants.  He already has a company established at the Binghamton University Incubator.

·        Dr. Lorna Role has been recruited from the Ivy League to head the Stony Brook program in neurosciences and behavior.  Dr. Role received her Ph.D. from Harvard University, and holds numerous grants and awards.  Her research focuses on central cholinergic systems that have been implicated in disorders of memory, mood and motivation, and her work has implications for studies of schizophrenia, depression and Alzheimer’s dementia.

This type of recruitment is occurring across the University system’s doctoral campuses.  Funding was distributed according to the legislatively prescribed formula based on federal sponsored research.  We respectfully suggest that, as Empire Innovation Program funding is continued, we look at changing that distribution formula to allow the University some discretion to invest in projects that are the most competitive and promise the largest return on investment across the state. 

 

Our researchers, instead of averaging the anticipated $300,000 in external grant funding, are averaging over $452,000…so if this trend continues, the out-year economic impact of the Empire Innovation Program could be even greater than projected. 

 

High Needs Programs

 

The University received $4.8 million to increase the course sections and faculty in high need areas, such as engineering, information technology, nursing and allied health.  This funding was allocated to both state-operated campuses and community colleges.  SUNY is implementing the following:

 

State-operated campuses - $3M

 

Engineering and information technology: 200 new FTEs and 14 faculty;

Nursing and Allied Health: 450 – 550 FTE and 29 faculty.

 

Community Colleges - $1.8M

 

Supporting 24,000 FTE in Nursing, Allied Health, Engineering, and Information Technology.

 

It should be noted that New York State continues to experience significant shortages in nursing and allied health related professions.  Continued support and expansion of these programs will enable SUNY to prepare students in these areas but also generate the much needed faculty to ensure the viability of these programs. 

 

Community College Funding

 

The University’s Community Colleges were also the recipient of much needed funding in the 2006-07 state budget.  The budget added $18.5 million for base aid per full time equivalent student. This was done in two component parts: (1) the Executive Budget proposed a $100 increase; and (2) the Legislature added an additional $75 bringing the base aid increase to $175 per FTE.  While we are grateful for this support, the University was seeking a $250 total increase to bring the state’s community college funding share of 1/3 to a reality. 

 

Community colleges also received an additional $1 million for meeting today’s workforce needs in the areas of economic development and public health was also addressed in the Executive Budget. 

 

Capital Facilities Funding

 

As you may know, the State University has over 94 million square feet of space, a physical infrastructure equivalent to a small city.  This space supports our 418,000 students and 81,000 faculty and staff in nearly 2,700 buildings across the state on our 64 campuses.

 

Since 2003, the state has provided the University with over $4.2 billion in support for improving the academic, hospital and residential facilities throughout the SUNY system. We currently have 237 projects in the design phase, and 421 projects under construction for a total of $1.77 billion in active educational facility and hospital capital projects.

 

The 2006-07 state budget specifically provided $1.2 billion in capital facilities projects. 

·        $486.2 million for state-operated campuses to renovate and construct educational facilities,

·        $82.6 million for community college projects,

·        $350 million for residence hall projects,

·        $290 million in campus related economic development projects such as the University at Albany nanotech ventures, Buffalo State College Technology Building, and Cornell University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab.

 

These capital projects are helping update our critical academic facilities while also providing productive construction employment in every part of the Empire State.

 

We look forward to a continued investment in the University’s capital facilities.

 

Conclusion

 

In conclusion, higher education is the key to the state’s future economic development and betterment of its citizenry.  The state’s investment in higher education is returned multiple times through a better educated citizenry, direct and indirect contributions to the local and state economy, and a fully employed workforce.  You will hear additional specific inputs from several of our outstanding Presidents later in this hearing.  All of SUNY looks forward to working with our new Governor and the Legislature to ensure a bright future of higher education in New York State.

 

Thank you for this opportunity. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.