The College Senate held its second meeting of the semester Oct. 12 with several agenda items taking up
the majority of the time, including a possible loss in some of the funding given to the school by SUNY.
SUNY has proposed a new way to allocate money to the schools in the SUNY system. While nothing has
been changed yet, the budget model being discussed would cut Buffalo State’s funding by $2.7 million
over the next three years, or $900,000 per year over the next three years. Buffalo State would not be
the only college taking a hit with the budget model.
The possible change comes in how SUNY values sponsored programs, said Buffalo State President Aaron
Podolefsky in his address to the College Senate. SUNY plans on having a set model to take to the SUNY
Board of Trustees in December, and have it ready to go for the 2013-14 academic year.
Despite the possible reduction in funds, the budget will still increase, due to tuition.
“I’m not announcing budget cuts at Buffalo State,” Podolefsky said. “I’m now announcing likely slower
growth.”
While the news may be disappointing, Podolefsky said he plans to keep advocating for Buffalo State as
SUNY gets closer to a working model.
“This is unfortunate,” he said. “We certainly had a plan that was in place. We had certain expectations.
We’ll keep fighting, and we’ll see where we come out.”
Ted Schmidt, chair of the Budget Staff and Allocations Committee, also brought up the potential change
in the SUNY budget allocation model and urged students to get involved in the process. It isn’t the state
taking money from SUNY, he said, it is SUNY Central deciding to give more money to university centers
in the system.
“We certainly encourage our students to get involved in this process,” Schmidt said. “You can influence
Albany as well.”
Students agreed to a five-year rational increase in tuition, Schmidt said, and some of that money could
go to the university centers, if the proposed budget model takes hold.
“Even though they express that it’s based on objective factors, well, they keep tweaking these things
until they get the right outcome,” Schmidt said.
Senator Trivet Jarmond, who is also the associate vice president for Campus Affairs and Government
Relations through United Students Government, asked Schmidt how students could get involved with
the process.
Students who are going to lose funding at their school should be heard, Schmidt said, especially in the
middle of a five-year tuition increase agreed upon by students at some of the colleges who would lose
money.
“Essentially, what’s happening, is the state allocation resources is being shifted from the colleges to the
university centers,” he said. “What happens in this process is that subsidies that the state provides to all
of the universities and colleges, the university centers get significantly more subsidized than colleges like
Buffalo State.”
Other items on the agenda included the middle states review currently being done at Buffalo State, and
finalizing the intellectual foundations changes.
Michael Canfield can be reached by email at canfield.record@live.com.