As Clarion went to press, Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez said in a letter to the CUNY community that in light of budget woes at CUNY, “All managerial employees under the Executive Compensation Plan (ECP), committed administrators who serve at the highest levels of leadership throughout the University, will be furloughed five days this fiscal year. As ECP members, the furloughs also impact myself and college presidents and deans.”
The chancellor cited a $46.3-million reduction in city funding and $75 million that was spent on emergency costs related to COVID-19. He cited the state’s “temporarily withholding [of] 20 percent of senior college aid, community college FTE (full-time equivalent) aid, and TAP” and said that “If there is no additional assistance from the federal government for New York State, we are facing a real risk of a permanent cut.”
PSC President Barbara Bowen responded, “A five-day furlough for highly paid managers is not a budgetary strategy; it’s theater. And if it is meant to suggest shared sacrifice or soften us up for delays in our contractual raise, it’s an insult. Thousands of adjuncts lost 100% of their CUNY income, not just a few days. Management should concentrate on using the CARES Act money to get those jobs back and on securing more public funding for CUNY, not on symbolic gestures.”
