2015/16 Executive Budget Testimony

Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher

February 8, 2015
Joint Legislative Public Hearing
New York State Assembly Committees on Ways & Means and Higher Education
New York State Senate Committees on Finance and Higher Education

Introduction
Good afternoon. My name is Nancy Zimpher, and I am the Chancellor of The State
University of New York.
I want to thank Chairpersons Young, Farrell, LaValle, and Glick; members of the
Senate and Assembly; and legislative staff for allowing us this opportunity to
share our perspective on the Executive Budget. With me are President Robert
Jones of the University at Albany, President Kristin Esterberg of SUNY Potsdam,
and once again I am happy to be joined by President Anne Kress of Monroe
Community College. Its also my honor to be joined today by Tom Mastro,
President of our statewide Student Assembly, SUNY Trustee, and student at
Binghamton University.
I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the other SUNY campus
presidents who are with us today, I thank them for their time, and their continued
devotion to the SUNY system. And I want to thank SUNY Board of Trustees
Chairman H. Carl McCall and our entire Board for their leadership and support.
I believe that while requesting more support for the State University, I need to
make the value proposition crystal clear. So I want to take this opportunity to tell
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you about our accomplishments and goalsto demonstrate the level of

performance and accountability we are committed to on behalf of our students.
A+C=S
As I shared with you four years ago, we coined a term an organizational
theorythat drives our collective work at SUNY: systemness. For SUNY, it means
leveraging all of our campuses strengths and acting as one formidable force
armed with an ambitious set of goals to create not just a stronger public
university system, but also a better way of life for all of New York. When we say a
better way of life, we mean:
Providing access to high-quality, affordable education to every single New
Yorker who wants oneregardless of age, gender, race, religion, veteran
status, or any obstacle.
It means supporting students through on-time completion. Last year I
shared with you SUNYs ambitious completion agenda to increase the
number of degrees granted annually from 93,000 to 150,000 by 2020.
o Since then, our Provost Alex Cartwright did the math to figure out
how we can get there: we will optimize current enrollment by asking
our institutions to strive for best-in-sector retention and
graduation rates and increase our workforce-ready credentialing.
And we will strategically increase enrollment to approach our historic
maximums and continue to promote online education through
OpenSUNY.
But we dont stop at completion at SUNY. We also talk about success
where students go, what they do, after they graduate, whether embarking
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on a career or advanced degree work. That is why we are committed to

ensuring applied learning opportunities for every student before they
graduateto help put them on the path to long-term success.
Achievements through Systemness
It has been seven years since I came SUNY, and only four years since we started
talking about systemness. Today, I am proud to report that we are working
together better and doing more for our students than ever before.
Let me share just a few examples:
First, seamless transfer. Of our 460,000 students, about 30,000 transfer between
our campuses every year. In fact, 44 percent of our bachelors graduates started
at one of our community colleges. We now have in place a transfer policy that
guarantees that when students transfer they dont lose time, credit, or a single
hard-earned dollar of what theyve invested. They are positioned and
empowered, better than ever before, to complete their degree on time.
We also created and launched Open SUNYthe worlds largest consortium for
online learning. With 230,000 students enrolled in 472 degree programs and
20,000 course sections, Open SUNY is speeding time to degree and driving access
like never before.
In 2012, we launched what has become the nations most proactive,
comprehensive financial literacy tool: SUNY Smart Track. The program includes
financial Literacy resources and tools; student engagement activities for at-risk
student borrowers; and SUNY-wide Default Prevention and Financial Literacy Task

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Forces, which monitor the success of the program and look for ways to
continuously improve it.
Thanks to our affordability and our work through Smart Track, SUNY institutions
across all sectors see lower student loan default rates than their national
counterparts.
In 2011, we committed to sharing services in our system and our regions, to
saving money, and then taking that savings and putting it right back to support
our students. Shared services is truly a matter ofand a measure ofoperational
excellence. Within just a few years of sharing services in human resources, IT, and
procurement, we exceeded our $100 million run rate, and have created an
operational excellence team to ensure we continue to save.
Last year we were honored to be joined by Assemblyman Crespo when we
announced our new system-wide diversity, equity and inclusion policy. We have
welcomed his input and are so appreciative of his leadership in this area and
patience with us as we strive to be the most inclusive university in the country.
Our new policies are a good start, but we know we have a lot of work to do to
ensure our students reflect the diversity of our state.
Our Board of Trustees adopted the policy in September, which calls for each
campus AND our System headquarters to put in place this year a diversity and
inclusion plan that addresses recruitment, retention, campus climate, and more.
Central to the plans: Every campus will have a chief diversity officer, offer cultural
competency training, and report annually on their progress, which will be tied to
campus leadership evaluation.

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Accountability
So this raises the question, with all of these initiativessome with goals met and
some ongoinghow do we know what were doing is actually working?
SUNY is taking bolder steps than ever to be transparent about our performance at
every level.
We created the SUNY Excels performance system. Through two years of debate
we settled on 17 metrics across five areas: access, completion, success, inquiry,
and engagement. This helps us see where we need to improve and target our
resources to get the outcomes we want and New York needs.
As part of this process, last year we put it to our campuses to create individualized
Performance Improvement Plans. And they set ambitious goals. Our presidents
led campus teams that delivered great plans with intentions to establish new
degree programs in high-demand areas, to grow enrollment and improve
retention, and to expand student services.
And in our commitment to transparency, every single one of these plans is
available to view, in full, online.
Budget Request
I sit here today confident that none of this could have happened without your
leadership and support. And we are grateful that the Executive Budget provides a
good start as we look ahead to whats next for SUNY.
Regarding the Governors Budget, we are today asking for your support of
ongoing and new programs included in his proposal; to restore funding levels that

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were cut in critical programs, and to invest in the State University by enhancing
funding levels.
Support
We request your support for items in the Executive Budget: the $15 million Clean
Energy Workforce Opportunity Program, the $3 million apprenticeship program,
and the additional $1 million for Community College Community Schools.
In addition, we wanted to share some details on how we used last years $18
million Investment Fund and why it is so important to renew.
Investment Fund
We maximized the states $18 million investment by pooling other state funding
sources and limited existing resources to create a $100 million Expanded
Investment and Performance Fund. We issued a Request for Proposals to our
campuses to apply for opportunities to scale, replicate, and pilot innovative
programs and initiatives. Given the limited funding, we set up a competitive
process to invest only in what we know works to drive student success.
We received over 200 proposals from nearly every SUNY institution. Last month,
we announced the first $18 million of awards: 32 proposals directly involving 22
State-operated SUNY campuses and collaborations with nine community colleges.
The funded projects include implementing early alert systems, enhanced advising,
stronger K-12-to-college bridges, math competency programs, new opportunities
for applied learning, and more.
We anticipate great things to come from our campuses on these projects and
know from the proposals we were not able to fund that there is much more we
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can do with an additional $18 million this year. We also ask that you consider
expanding eligibility for the Investment & Performance Fund to our Community
Colleges so they can benefit from this innovative approach.
Restore
As with every year, we ask that you restore the legislatively added funding in:

A total of $3.6 million for Child Care, the Graduate, Achievement &
Placement or GAP - Program, and Career Center programs;

$18.6 million for our hospitals; and

other areas including Small Business Development Centers, the

Graduate Diversity Program, and the Cornell Cooperative Extension and
Veterinary College.

Enhance
Base Aid
We have some additional asks that we are referring to as the enhance part of
our request. Every year we talk about the need for increased base aid for our
community colleges and operating support for our State-operated campuses.
This year, we are requesting $37.3 millionor an additional $285 per full-time
studentfor our community colleges. I often hear that base aid isnt a very
compelling ask, so Im glad President Kress is here to share Monroe Community
Colleges perspective, as well as some examples of the difference an increase in
support can make for our community college students and faculty.
[KRESS TESTIMONY]

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For our 29 State-operated campuses, we are grateful for the Executive Budgets
proposed direct support of $708 million. We ask for your partnership in
enhancing this investment. We have not seen a significant increase of operational
support over the past five years, which presents a growing challenge as we face
projected increases in costs.
We are requesting enhanced support of $72.7 million for the State-operated
campuses:
$61.9 million to support the incremental costs of collectively bargained
salaries, and
$10.8 million to offset the costs campuses incur in internally funded
scholarships.

President Esterberg is going to o some perspective on the importance of this

operating support to Potsdam and our other campuses.

[ESTERBERG TESTIMONY]
EOP
We are also asking for $15 million in additional support for the Educational
Opportunity Program, which represents the total amount of requests for funding
we got from our campuses for new EOP funds. With the new funding last year, we
increased availability of seats, helped offset more costs for students, and
expanded summer bridge programs. Any increase in funding makes an
extraordinary difference to the program: last year, SUNY received 30,000
applications for only 2,500 available EOP seats.
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The University at Albany is among our most successful EOP sites. I am glad that
President Jones is here to talk about the success of the program on his campus
and the potential for the program system-wide if more funds are available.
[JONES TESTIMONY]
Research
I would also like to talk a bit about our growing research enterprise. In the last
academic year, our sponsored research expenditures neared $900 million.

SUNYs researchers are committed to solving state, national and global

challenges. But they cannot do it alone. Matching requirements of federal grants
can be barriers to applications from SUNY institutions. That is why our budget
request included $30 million in direct State tax support to establish a matching
program to allow our campuses to more vigorously pursue large-scale grant
opportunities that bring SUNY research excellence to bear on solving some of the
biggest challenges facing New Yorkers today.

Grants from this program would be used to continue to support SUNYs work as
an engine of economic development for the state.

Capital/Critical Maintenance
The Executive Budget included $200 million for critical maintenance funding for
our educational facilities and continued the States Capital Financial Plan, but did
not provide any further investment.

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The $200 million, when supplemented by existing capital resources, is a good

start, but it does not provide for the true level of capital improvement that
SUNYs campuses need. We are requesting:
o $400 million in additional Critical Maintenance funding,
o $294 million to support:
Strategic and mission-critical initiatives,
The upgrading and replacement of scientific instruments and
equipment, and
Other essential investment in SUNY campuses and the
Educational Opportunity Centers.
o $35 million to support the revitalization of Downtown Albany, and
o $20 million in capital support so our healthcare centers are able to
continue their important service to their patients.
Our infrastructure, the true backbone of our educational delivery, is in many
cases over 40 years old and in desperate need of improvement and updating to
ensure the safety of our students, faculty, and staff.
Across our campuses we hear stories of cancelled classes due to power issues,
HVAC system malfunctions and weather-related leaks and damage. In fact, when
Chairman LaValle and Assemblymember Lifton visited with our presidents at
Empire State College, we had to relocate due to an electrical fire.
Without further support in this area, the backlog of critical maintenance needed
to outdated facilities will only continue to grow, making it increasingly difficult to
create healthy and safe campus environments. And of course, the inability to
maintain facilities is just a small piece. We also need the support for significant
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technological updates to create 21st century classrooms that prepare students for
the workforce.
NYSUNY 2020
Ive shared a lot today about SUNYs successes and goals, and about our budget
asks and the rationale behind them, but many of these investments will not be as
impactful as they could be if we dont enact a critical piece of legislation.
In 2011, with your help and support we did what many thought was impossible:
we instituted a stable, predictable, fair tuition policy for our State-operated
campuses.
Thanks to NYSUNY 2020, for five years SUNY students have been able to plan for
tuition costs. Since the tuition plan began in 2011, we have been able to hire 919
new faculty members and approved over 350 new academic programs.
Today, SUNYs resident tuition remains the most affordable in the northeast and
among the most affordable in the nation. SUNY tuition is less expensive than
systems in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, Virginia, Ohio, California, and
Texas. These are the states with the best-rated public university systems in the
country, and SUNY is undoubtedly among themwhile being more affordable.
And nearly 30 percent of the tuition revenue has been reinvested to cover the gap
between tuition and the maximum TAP award, ensuring that the highest-need
students still attend tuition-free.
There are two core purposes of this critical legislation.

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One, to protect SUNY students from unpredictable changes in tuition,

and

two, to provide reliable funding that SUNY can count on so we can

provide the world-class education New Yorkers deserve.

We are glad that the governor included the extension of rational tuition in the
Executive Budget and to once again have the support of our students for the
renewal of NYSUNY 2020. Though our Student Assembly will testify later this
afternoon, I thought it important to show that when we say we have their
support, we mean it. Tom
[MASTRO TESTIMONY]
Thank you, Tom.
NYSUNY 2020 is not just important to us at SUNY and throughout New York State
it is known throughout the country. To my national colleagues in higher
education, to other states policymakers, to our partners in federal government,
NYSUNY 2020 is not just a tuition plan. NYSUNY2020 is a commitment that New
York has made to public higher education. You have shown the rest of the country
your commitment to affordability, to a maintenance of effort, to having
predictable, reasonable tuition increases. That commitment is not something any
of us can afford to back away from.
We dont want to have to raise tuition. The bottom line is that if you invest more
in SUNY, it will have a direct effect on our tuition needs. Our Board as always
weighs potential tuition increases with campus needs put simply: more support
from the state means less burden on our students and their families.
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Conclusion
I thank you for your time, and I hope that our response to the Executive Budget,
our vision for the eventual Enacted Budget, and the comments made here today
will help you in your coming conversations. It is always a privilege to come before
you on behalf of The State University of New York, and I look forward to working
with you all during the upcoming legislative session.
My colleagues and I are happy to take your questions.

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