Budget Fight Reveals Stony Brook's Future Must Be Independent of NY State

Opinion By Nathan Shapiro

Governor David Patterson’s budget directive to freeze special revenue generated by state agencies, including Stony Brook, is unjustified and damaging. But at the same time it illuminates the limits Stony Brook has reached as a state-run institution and forces us to think outside the box when plotting its future.

Patterson’s plan is more than simple budget cuts—it’s an order from the governor to effectively impound $109.5 million, or 3.35 percent, of all SUNY special revenue funds (such as tuition, fees and even Stony Brook’s hospital income) for the entire year—already on top of a slashed budget due to the economic downturn. It’s a move that seems to be unheard of before today.

As the governor, Patterson represents all taxpayers in the state of New York and must act in their interests above all else. He would be acting well within his role as chief executive to direct Stony Brook, as a state agency, how to manage its budgeted tax dollars. In fact, such spending ceilings are commonplace, reasonable and executed by the university without a whimper.

But he crossed a new line by trying to regulate how and when Stony Brook can spend revenue earned from non-state sources. “It doesn’t save the state tax fund any money,” said Dan Melucci, the university’s associate vice president for strategy, planning and analysis.

Since tax dollars aren’t involved, how the state benefits isn’t clear; nor is it clear what they intend to do with the frozen funds. “When we asked the Division of the Budget, ‘do you have plans to steal that cash?’ They said, ‘not in fiscal year 08/09,’” Melucci told me.

Without a promise to allow SUNY to use the frozen funds the following year, this sounds like a plan for the state to take SUNY’s money and use it to plug budget gaps elsewhere.

This is simply unfair. Students pay tuition with the expectation that their money will be spent on their education. Hospital patients pay for the healthcare services they are provided. They don’t pay those fees to fill up the state coffers.

There’s a name for this already: taxation. In fact, it’s double-taxation because we already pay state and county taxes to support Stony Brook. And our taxes are high enough already.

The situation is still fluid and nothing is finalized yet. Stony Brook and SUNY are still negotiating with the state budget office to come up with a mutually acceptable solution. Hopefully a compromise includes, at the very least, a promise to allow the university to use the frozen funds next year. They are also hoping the state will credit SUNY the $38.8 million cut from the enacted budget against the $109.5 million spending cap—which would reduce the overall impact of the governor’s move.

No matter the outcome, we must see this simply as a new tune in the same old dance Stony Brook has with the state every fiscal year. So long as it is a state agency it will be at constant loggerheads with the political class over its budget, and be at the whim of governors and budgets and the state’s economic booms and busts.

But Stony Brook isn’t like your corner welfare office or the DMV, and it shouldn’t be treated the same as those government agencies. And while there are many benefits to being a public university, there are constraints as well.

If the university hopes to grow and prosper, it needs to do so without the unstable footing the state’s rigid legislation and inconsistent budgeting provides. Eliot Spitzer’s proposed endowment was a good first step, but we need to go further.

Stony Brook (if not all of SUNY) has to change its legal relationship with the state and take step closer towards independence, although an all-out break isn’t necessary. At the very least, it needs to be able to set, collect and spend its own tuition according to its own needs without state interference.

In exchange for state aid, Stony Brook University should be contracted to provide low tuition for residents and continue to offer an opportunity for capable students to receive affordable higher education.

This budget fight is only a glimpse of a larger problem for the university. Stony Brook cannot fulfill its mandate to provide quality higher education if it's simply a small cog in the state's government machinery. Its future must involve independence, flexibility and innovative restructuring to meet its goals.

Our student's deserve no less.