We the Undergraduate Student Government at the City College of New York want to inform all of you, the students, about the challenges our college faces and the school administration’s strategies to cope with the deficit.
President Lisa Coico and her staff provided the Undergraduate Student Government at CCNY the following details. CCNY assumed they would reach $88 million in tuition revenue. Unfortunately, recent estimates showed a $3.3 million shortfall. As a result, administration will use the City University Tuition Reserve Account (CUTRA, which represents tuition surplus from prior years), savings generated in fiscal year 2015, to compensate for the shortage in tuition. Sadly, enrollment in fiscal years 2014 and 2015, did not meet the tuition target that City College set for itself. In addition, the City University of New York will impose a tuition target adjustment, for fiscal year 2016, on City College.
With these budgetary hurdles in mind, the challenges our school must confront in 2016 will affect all of us. The $4.2 million reduction in state funding reduction, $1.7 million reduction in CUNY funding, caused by inflationary increases being eliminated and an increased cost in university-wide initiatives, $3.3 million in CUNY tuition target adjustment, and increased costs at CCNY reaching $5.4 million lead to the $14.6 million deficit.
CCNY’s increased costs are due to the $1.5 million increased faculty costs, $1.2 million in student and academic support hires, $1.6 million in general wage increases, $580,500 in overtime increases on the north campus, $275,000 for adjuncts, and the rest for temp services and other than personal services (OTPS).
Fortunately, the Research Foundation’s Indirect Cost Rate (IDC) contributed $1 million towards offsetting the deficit. Nonetheless, City College’s strategy for closing the 2016 fiscal year deficit of $13,629, 000 will cut $3,341,000 across the academic divisions who lost enrollment, as the tuition target adjustment prescribed. Additional cuts in hiring freeze $5,366,000, sabbaticals returned to division $1,300,000, and targeted reductions: -5% towards administrative divisions and -3.6% towards academic divisions will result in a $6,222,000 scale down. The $3.3 million reduction will affect the Architecture, the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education (CWE), Humanities & Arts, and Education divisions, due to their lack of increased enrollment. The budget cuts for each division are as follows: $46,351 for Architecture; $261,519 for (CWE), $1,577,262 for Humanities & Arts; and $1,444,868 for the Education division. These cuts will affect faculty, students, and staff associated to these divisions.
These budget cuts are partly a result of the SUNY 2020 legislation, which increased tuition to $300 each year since 2011, and will continue to do so if it is extended for another five years in 2016. If you want further information about the budget cuts and how it might affect you, please contact your Undergraduate Student Government. We are here to serve your needs.
