Post Classifieds
LeVine settles into vice president role
By Katie Anderson
On September 26, 2012
After just two months as Buffalo State's new vice president of finance and management, Buffalo native
Michael LeVine said he's made "the right choice."
"This seemed like a perfect move for me," he said. "It's the next level of my career, to get different kinds
of responsibilities and move to a vice-presidential position."
Although the position is new to him, LeVine is wasting no time plunging into his new responsibilities. He
said the focus of his first two months has been the budgets.
"Initially, the focus was on the capital budget because we're working with the State University to do a
new five year capital plan," he said. "Lately, it's been the operating budget because SUNY is looking to
do their planning for the 2013-2014 year, so we've spent a lot of time with that."
Although the future state budget could effect the school budgets, LeVine said he hopes there will be no
need for cuts.
"This year there were no cuts to the campus," he said. "With the rational tuition program that was
implemented a couple years ago, we shouldn't see the need to do those kinds of cuts."
Levine has also been meeting new people and getting familiar with the campus while looking for
opportunities of improvement.
"I've been out meeting with the deans, all my staff and external people to learn what they think about
my operations and what they think about the campus," he said. "I'm trying to get a feel for where there
might be opportunities to change operations, save money and be more efficient."
Although new to Buffalo State, LeVine's 28 years experience as part of the administrative staff at the
University of Buffalo makes him a good fit for this position, he said. Not only did he serve as UB's
internal audit director for years, but also, as associate vice president and controller for 11 years, he said.
LeVine said he hopes to accomplish at Buffalo State some of the same tasks he managed at UB, including
automating transactions to reduce paper usage and financial and business reporting.
"We went through a process of automating so that transactions flow from the initiator to the approvers
to the business offices to SUNY and the research foundation automatically without paper flow," he
said. "It speeds things up and creates efficiencies so that the staff and business offices can be focused
more on strategic verses transaction processing."
President Aaron Podolefsky, in a press release announcing LeVine's new position over the summer,
said, "His experience as a university administrator and as a senior executive, and his understanding of
the many challenges of higher education administration, will be an asset to the institution."
LeVine was appointed by Podolefsky in June after his predecessor, Stanley Kardonsky, who held the
position for 18 years, resigned abruptly last year. LeVine had worked with Kardonsky a few times during
routine meetings of Western New York business officers from several SUNY schools.
"He was also a speaker each year for a class I helped teach at UB, so I got to know him," LeVine said. "I
knew that he was talking about retiring."
LeVine said he had been waiting for this opportunity.
"I've been watching for this position to open up for quite a few years," he said. "I was born in Buffalo
and lived here all my life so I wouldn't think of moving anywhere else."
Vice President Hal Payne said that he looks forward to becoming more professionally acquainted with
LeVine.
"I embrace LeVine as a new colleague," he said. "I look forward to working with him."
LeVine's enthusiasm has been increased due to what he considers an impressive campus atmosphere.
"My staff seems very, very strong ... everybody is about the campus," he said. "It's all for the good of the
campus, from the president on down to the clerical staff."
Katie Anderson can be reached by email ay anderson.record@live.com.
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