SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry faces a $6 million structural budget deficit, and there are contrasting viewpoints on the severity of the problem and how to fill the gap. SUNY wants the college to close the gap in the next few years. Matthew Smith is Director of Libraries and ESF chapter president of United University Professions, the union representing faculty. He said the deficit can be traced back to an annual reduction in state aid that remained in place for a decade.
“When you look at the whole picture, we've done a fantastic job,” he said. “And that's what's not really coming out particularly from SUNY. That's the really discouraging part.”
Smith said the small college is number one in research per capita in the SUNY system and has a 97% job placement rate, all in the face of budget cuts. Enrollment is also the fourth highest in more than two decades.
“I can't come to any other conclusion then it's then it's a refusal to look at the evidence in front of them,” Smith said. “And you know at this point, since Chancellor King won't hear that message, we need to reach the Governor.”
He said they’re also meeting with Syracuse-area state legislators to make their case for relief.
Conversely, ESF leaders said SUNY has been supportive, restoring some of the state aid cuts in recent years. But resident Joanie Mahoney said in an effort to chip away at their deficit, the college is offering early retirement until the end of October.
“Our problem is not an enrollment problem, so we don't have to cut undersubscribed programs,” she said. “For the last several years, we have been running with an operating deficit that SUNY is requiring be closed by 2027-28, and they want to know how we plan to do it.”
But union leaders said staff and faculty attrition could threaten the very programs that are boosting enrollment. Matthew Smith said more funding, not cuts, is what’s needed.
“It seems like the obvious decision to make, rather than this this clouded war of attrition against us to undermine our capacity to decrease our quality and then leave us a shell of what we were.”
