ALEX BUCKNAM
Asst. News Editor
Fredonia is facing budget issues, causing the administration to cut majors and look at potential minors to cut.
But why is there so much construction if Fredonia is facing such a big deficit?
The simple answer to this is that the construction money doesn’t come from any of Fredonia’s accounts, but is instead funded by a grant that comes from SUNY itself.
“We have the SUNY construction fund,” stated Fredonia President Stephen Kolison in a meeting about the budget issues. According to the president, this is a grant that SUNY offers to all campuses.
In the 2024 fiscal year budget, New York State put $24.6 million towards the State University Construction Fund (SUCF) to be shared across all campuses.
According to the New York State website, the construction fund is completely separate from the SUNY budget, meaning that the state legislature allocates different amounts of money to both.
So if the state government can allocate a set amount of money for construction to take place on campuses, why can’t they allocate a certain amount to help solve Fredonia’s problems?
According to a WXXI news report about SUNY students and professors who are raising alarms about budget cuts, SUNY schools face a cumulative total deficit of $136 million, which is roughly five and a half times the amount of money put towards the construction fund.
If the state government can find ways to put the same amount of money into the operating budgets as they put into the construction fund, every SUNY school’s deficit would be solved within five years.
This is something that students have been pushing for — most Students for Fredonia (SFF) advocacy events always have a table to sign and send letters to New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul.
At United University Professions (UUP) events, they have pre-written letters that students and faculty can sign to send to the governor. UUP is the union representing professional faculty and staff at Fredonia.
So why hasn’t this happened already?
Well, the legislature attempted to solve it in 2023 — Hochul signed a budget law increasing SUNY operational aid by $163 million.
Currently, it is unclear what SUNY or Hochul plans to do to solve these massive budget issues that each SUNY school is facing.
What can you as the reader do to help solve this problem? SFF and UUP members note that you can call your local state legislator. To find out who your state legislator is, you can go to https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials and contact your state officials. SFF and UUP encourage sending Kathy Hochul an email, a letter or even calling her office to urge her to help out on these budget issues, to make sure that this time, the funding gets rightfully distributed between the campuses that need it the most.