New York lawmakers narrowly missed setting a new record for late budgets this year by passing the 1999-2000 state budget in the early morning hours of Aug. 4, four months and three days after the start of the state's fiscal year.
While there is some good news for Cornell, the new state budget appears to have a shortfall in operational funding for the statutory colleges and does not include full funding for needed renovations in Bailey and Stocking halls.
"The state budget is a mixed blessing for Cornell," said Henrik N. Dullea, vice president for university relations. "It has good news, bad news, and no news on certain items."
First, the good news: Funding for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), which the governor had proposed cutting by $133 million, was restored, and modest increases were made in the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) and the Education Opportunity Program (EOP). About 1,800 Cornell students receive TAP aid. HEOP and EOP benefit some 200 Cornell students. Cornell also will see a slight increase in Bundy Aid, which was funded at $48.5 million for private institutions across the state this year.
A most welcome surprise in the final budget was the inclusion by Gov. George Pataki of $1 million for expenses related to genomics at Cornell. In a recent meeting with the governor in Albany, President Hunter Rawlings pointed out the economic benefits of the program and briefed him about the competition New York faces from other states that are launching similar initiatives.
"We were very pleased to see recognition at the state level of the importance of university research and development in the state economy," Dullea said.
Funding for the Cornell Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) in Biotechnology was continued at $1 million and an additional $10 million was made available on a competitive basis for the 14 centers across the state.
Other good news includes an increase of $100,000 for the Breast Cancer Task Force and $300,000 in matching funds for the National Science Foundation's Science and Technology Center in Nanobiotechnology at Cornell. Legislators injected $500,000 to support local Cornell Cooperative Extension programs, bringing that funding to almost $3.4 million.
Cornell will "definitely" seek funding from the state under the new "Jobs 2000" initiative, sponsored initially by Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, that includes capital support for research projects that may benefit the state's economy, Dullea said. The legislature appropriated $80 million to support up to six projects. Universities with CAT centers and SUNY-Buffalo are eligible.
For the most part, state funding for separately identified statutory college priorities shows only slight increases from last year:
The biggest shortfall is in the operating budget for the statutory colleges, Dullea pointed out, made worse by the late passage of the state budget. The delay, caused by the inability of the governor and leaders of the state Senate and Assembly to iron out their differences, has created difficulty for educational institutions and government agencies across the state in planning activities and priorities for the coming months.
"We have some very significant problems," Dullea said. The budget for 1999-2000 includes no additional funds for the annualization of faculty and staff salary increases that were partially included in last year's budget. Under the no-growth budget recommended by the governor in January, funding for those salary increases essentially ran out on June 30, leaving Cornell with a shortfall of approximately $2.4 million.
"Cornell will pay our faculty and staff in the statutory colleges the full salaries to which they are entitled," Dullea said. "But, this puts the statutory colleges in the hole. Since we are already almost one-quarter of the way into this fiscal year, we have to save money at a steeper rate for the rest of the fiscal year than we could have if we started on July 1. Fortunately, the budget adopted by the Legislature did include additional funding for new salary improvement programs in the 1999-2000 fiscal year. The details of such programs will be developed across all state agencies in the months ahead."
He added that the state's failure to include any additional funding for mandatory price increases will put yet another strain on the statutory college budgets. Discussions are under way with State University of New York leadership over how the annualization shortfall may be addressed across the SUNY system.
Dullea noted Cornell's appreciation for the efforts made on the university's behalf by many members of the Legislature, particularly local legislators Assemblyman Marty Luster (D-125 Dist.) and Senator James Seward (R-C 50th Dist.). He also thanked the deans of the statutory colleges and the members of Cornell's government affairs staff, including Stephen Philip Johnson, executive director; Mike Voiland, legislative associate; Charles Kruzansky, associate director for state relations, who is based in Albany; and Molly Darnieder, who now is based in Ithaca and serves as director of Cornell Information and Visitor Relations (See story).
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