Dear Colleagues,

As we all settle back into our routines following spring break, I thought this would be a good time to provide a quick update on the process currently under way to address the college’s budget deficit.

As you’ll surely recall from the ongoing series of updates from both me and Vice President DiStefano, New Paltz has been subjected to substantial cuts in state support for fiscal years 2008-09 and 2009-10. For the current fiscal year (which ends on June 30), the total reduction in our state support is $3.4 million. We are digging deep into our reserves (i.e., “rainy day” funds) to balance the budget. This gives us time to plan for the recurring cuts (ranging from $3.9 million to $8.6 million) slated to take effect next year.

Intensive meetings of our budget planning group—which includes all Vice Presidents, Deans, senior managers and several faculty governance leaders—continued throughout spring break. The group has been evaluating all the revenue-generating and cost-saving ideas submitted to Vice President DiStefano, testing them against the criteria we’ve developed as a campus. In accordance with the schedule we’ve previously shared with you, the group is now concluding this part of its discussions and we remain on track to make decisions about the college’s 2009-10 budget by the end of the semester.

Several important themes have emerged from our review of the ideas generated all across the campus. As we’d hoped, there were a number of intriguing suggestions that would generate more revenue through tuition for new academic programs and through a variety of new and extant fees. Some of these ideas, while promising, will require more planning and lead time before they result in actual revenues. There were also sets of ideas that would lead to cost savings (in some cases significant savings) in energy consumption, expenditures for supplies and contracts, overtime charges, and costs of temporary staff. Still other suggestions will help us fully leverage the different streams of operating money that flow into university coffers. The planning group will, of course, endorse these kinds of ideas before recommending staff reductions. However, with 84 percent of our state-operating budget in personnel costs, we cannot achieve the necessary savings simply by cutting our utility ($3.7 million) and supplies ($6.5 million) budgets.

Many colleges and universities in SUNY and across the nation have imposed hard hiring freezes to generate fast, attrition-driven savings. We have not done so. Indeed, while we have scaled back the number of faculty searches to 14 from 28, as I detailed in previous reports to the faculty, we feel strongly that a complete moratorium on faculty hiring would severely damage our efforts to build academic quality. Of course, as my faculty colleagues will correctly note, the timing of our faculty hiring process, in which vacated positions typically sit unfilled for a year, includes a substantial delay—a delay that, in budgeting terms, creates one-time “frictional” savings. One of the many cost-saving suggestions was to generate comparable “frictional savings” when non-instructional positions come vacant. The Vice Presidents and I concur that taking such a step would be fiscally prudent, operationally wise, and fair. Accordingly, we have decided to initiate a three-month hiring delay for all positions excluding faculty hires. While this delay period is considerably more gentle and flexible than a hard hiring freeze, it is our hope that this slowdown will lead departments with vacancies to consider, in consultation with their Vice President, the core duties of and continuing need for the empty position. We expect units to use this time to look for alternative ways to ensure that the unit’s critical tasks are completed and quality service to students and other constituents continues. Any questions regarding implementation of this delay should be directed to Human Resources at x3170.

I thank you for your thoughtful suggestions, patience and cooperation during this challenging time. Please know that we are moving wisely and well to craft a budget plan that ensures our college’s continued fiscal health and success.

Steve Poskanzer
President