POTSDAM – Just two weeks after an rebuke from SUNY Central for failing to share a chief financial officer with SUNY Canton, SUNY Potsdam has announced the governing bodies of both local campuses will meet Monday.

There is no public indication what the meeting of the two college councils is for, but the last time the SUNY Potsdam council met on March 7 they resolved to tell SUNY authorities in Albany that they could not comply with the desire to hire a single financial officer for both SUNY Potsdam and neighboring SUNY Canton.

The lack of money for many state operations has had SUNY looking for ways for campuses to economize, and sharing administrators is one way they think might result in some savings.

It was thought to be worth a try to hire one person to fill the jobs of both campus’s CFOs, who both happened to schedule their retirements at about the same time.

But SUNY Potsdam’s council informed SUNY Central Administration that they did not believe there was a single person among the candidates who could do both jobs at once, and would begin looking for person to handle Potsdam alone.

Within days, SUNY administration in Albany had a response:

“The Canton and Potsdam campuses are uniquely situated to share administrative functions, and a shared Chief Financial Officer is a part of that process,” said David K. Belsky, press officer and director of new media for SUNY.

“At most of SUNY’s other four-year campuses, the CFO oversees single units larger than the combined operations of these two campuses,” he said.

That highlighted another round of fencing with SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher and Provost David Lavallee and the board of directors, several of which have occurred since last summer when plans emerged out of Albany that would have had SUNY Canton President Joseph Kennedy step down while SUNY Potsdam President John Schwaller would assume the leadership of both campuses. Albany backed off of that position when strong resistance emerged in Canton and elsewhere.

Belsky, in his recent statement, said Chancellor Zimpher and the Board of Trustees “will consider all of the campus’ recommendations for how a joint administration should be carried out as part of the review process outlined by the Board in November, which includes review of a report to be submitted jointly by Potsdam and Canton by July 15, 2012.”