ACTIONS | RESOURCES | TIMELINE
CUNY AND THE ENACTED CITY BUDGET
The enacted City budget for CUNY for Fiscal Year 2022 includes critically needed improvements over the Executive Budget: the Mayor’s $10 million cut to ASAP was eliminated, $6.5 million was allocated for a job training and placement program that will benefit 1,000 CUNY students, and $4 million was set aside for scholarships for Black and low-income CUNY students. Additionally, the Council restored cuts from Fiscal Year 2021 by allocating $1.7 million for remediation programs, $875,000 for food insecurity programs and $600,000 for childcare (an increase from $510,000). The Council also funded other important initiatives, including $4.5 million for CUNY research institutes and $1.5 million for the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies. We thank the City Council for funding these programs and congratulate the student and community allies, candidates for City office and council members who campaigned with the PSC for them. But these programmatic victories are only part of the story.
The budget reduces CUNY’s allocation by $67 million, leaving the University to backfill the cut with Federal stimulus money in FY 2022. Advocacy by the PSC, our coalition partners and allies in City government helped secure a provision in the budget that prevents this cut from becoming permanent. But it still represents a one-year loss of sorely needed revenue. Read the full report on the enacted budget.
#NEWDEAL4CUNY
The PSC is calling for a total increase of $121.5 million over the FY 2022 Preliminary Executive Budget allocation for The City University of New York
- $77.3 million to reverse cuts in the enacted FY 2021 budget and eliminate proposed cuts through “cost efficiencies” in the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget for FY 2022;
- $23.8 million to provide revenue support to offset the loss in tuition from enrollment declines resulting from the pandemic, as requested by CUNY;
- $20.4 million to support the first year of the New Deal for CUNY.
ACTIONS
- Action Closed: Send this letter to your council member urging them to demand full restoration of CUNY funding and invest in the New Deal for CUNY.
- Be part of the movement to make the New Deal for CUNY a reality! Sign up here to support and press the council member in your district.
RESOURCES
- PSC Testimony, Preliminary City Budget Hearing of the City Council Committee on Higher Educatio, March 22
- PSC Testimony: Mayor’s Executive Budget 2022
- PSC City Budget Platform Letter
- PSC Testimony: Mayor’s Preliminary Budget 2022
TIMELINE
- 07/08/21: Outcome and Analysis – CUNY in the City Budget
- 07/02/21: CUNY and the Enacted City Budget
- 06/24/21: City and State Legislators, CUNY Students, Staff, and Faculty Rally against Mayor de Blasio’s Planned Cuts to CUNY
- 06/10/21: Letter to Mayor de Blasio
- 05/21/21: Council Members, Students & Union Rally against Mayor de Blasio’s Planned Cuts to CUNY
- 03/03/21: NYC Council Preliminary Budget Hearing
