Vetoes Affect SUNY, CUNY

If upheld by the New York Legislature, Governor George Pataki's recent vetoes to the legislative budget will cut funds to state and city universities.

Pataki's vetoes include $500 million in cuts to State University of New York funding that was largely earmarked for construction projects. Regarding the City University of New York, he has decided against $20.01 million in operating aid from the senior colleges, though he did not veto the $47.5 million designed to eliminate a $300 dollar tuition increase.

The governor also vetoed $302.08 million in capital funding which would have gone to various projects, including a new science building at the City College of New York.

The vetoes comes five months after CUNY announced a new financing plan, the CUNY COMPACT, "that would be shared," according to a a November 2005 memo, "by the State/City, the University (through internal efficiencies), philanthropic sources, and the students through enrollment growth and modest, predictable tuition increases."

In his statement on the legislature's budget, CUNY Chancellor Mathew Goldstein said that the budget fully funded the COMPACT. But in his statement on the vetoes, he did not mention whether or not this was still the case.

Goldstein expressed hope that the Governor's vetoes were not the final word on CUNY's finances. "Let me state at the outset that the process is far from over," he said. "We are optimistic that there will be further negotiations between the Governor and the Legislature that will result in improvements to the Executive Budget."

Such improvements could prove vital to CUNY students. "I think that we need more funding, especially for operating aid," said CUNY Student Senate Chairman Carlos Sierra, before hearing about the vetoes. "The more funding we can get for operating aid, the less students have to pay for our tuition."

Furthermore, Pataki's insistence that students take 15 credits to qualify for TAP aid could negatively affect some CUNY students. Sierra had praised the legislature's budget for extending them to part-time students, saying that many CUNY students faced financial difficulties and therefore could not attend full time.

"They have to work. A lot of them have kids," he said.