BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM — The town board is calling on the state to pay off SUNY Potsdam’s $9 million deficit, and others like it at other state colleges.

Meanwhile professors who work at the university are warning of more cuts on the way in April and August at SUNY Potsdam which has already announced that some programs and staff positions would be dissolved.. 

The resolution the board passed at their March 12 meeting also urged the state Legislature to approve passage of Assembly bill A.6430 (Wallace) which reduces the number of trustees appointed by the governor to the SUNY board.

A.6430 also gives the heads of both state Legislature chambers the power to appoint 4 trustees each “to ensure disbursement of allocations to the SUNY system as advocated and intended by the State Legislature…”

The town board resolution which backs the Assembly bill repeats the stance of the United University Professions union that represents college employees, that the state mismanaged $163 million in extra funding and could have bailed out cash-strapped SUNY universities facing deficits.

However state officials and the college administration have maintained that a decline in enrollment has led to hard financial times, a position repeated in part by a recent state comptroller report [see link below].

SUNY Potsdam has responded to its own deficit with a fiscal restructuring plan. Fourteen degree programs have been cut and several buildings closed under the strategy. College employees fear more is on the way. 

Prior to the board passing the resolution, two SUNY Potsdam professors urged the board’s support of A.6430 during the meeting’s public comment time.

Dr. Walter Conley, biology professor and 23-year faculty member of SUNY Potsdam, said he was attending the town meeting March 12 to ask the board to support the resolution.

“You know our struggles,” Conley said, referring to the measures taken to reduce programs and staff at the college to deal with a $9 million deficit. “My main point I wanted to make tonight is that we have done what we can on our campus.”

“But our conversations on this are no longer campus-wide, but they are state-wide. This is a state-wide issue. And, I think that this resolution that I’m asking you all to support is the  type of thing we need to catch the attention of the Legislature who can make those decisions.”

Conley said state colleges like Potsdam have been put into communities that need the economic support the college’s provide, as well as the education access provided by the SUNY schools. He said colleges “raise everybody’s boats.”

Dr. David Curry, SUNY Potsdam philosophy professor, also spoke. He said the state funding for the SUNY system last year, which was a good deal lower than in years past, went to support university centers downstate instead of aiding economically ailing campuses.

“Leaving rural campuses, like Potsdam, Fredonia, and some others I could name, basically wallowing in debt,” said Curry.

“SUNY Potsdam has responded by gutting its school of Arts and Sciences,” Curry said. “A move likely, much more likely in my opinion, to exacerbate than to ameliorate the college’s enrollment difficulties.”

“Those cuts are only the beginning and we really need to recognize that,” Curry said. 

"There are more cuts to the programs, in faculty, tenured faculty, and tenure track faculty and they are coming in April. And they've been announced. They're coming in April and they are coming in August," the professor said.

Curry said by a "conservative estimate" the cuts made by the college so far have not made a dent in the college's $9 million deficit.

The philosophy professor said the UUP calls the crisis manufactured and that the state has not fulfilled its obligation to the SUNY system or the people of the state.

Curry also urged the town board members to vote in favor of the resolution.

More challenges ahead

A recent report by the state comptroller focuses on the issues facing the higher education sector in the future, notably an “enrollment cliff,” growing college cost for students and rising student debt.

Read the report at https://tinyurl.com/2s3utp5m .

State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s report says that is due in large part to changing demographics that “attracting potential students has become more competitive, and New York’s share of enrollment has decreased.”

“In Fall 2022, there were 896,000 students enrolled across all postsecondary institutions in the state. This was the lowest total enrollment over a 15-year period, a decline of approximately 73,000 full-time students, or 7.6% since Fall 2008,” said a press release from the comptroller’s office.

“The college-age population that drives enrollments at postsecondary institutions has been dropping as a share of the total population nationally, and is forecast to undergo a precipitous drop beginning in 2025 – a looming ‘enrollment cliff,’” the press release said.

While the comptroller’s report maintains that a degree from a New York college, whether public or private, will garner a higher salary in the marketplace, the cost to attend college in this state were higher than the national average for private four-year universities and public two-year schools.