Albany, NY – Monday, March 14, in response to the Legislature’s one-house budget bills, Professional Staff Congress/CUNY President James Davis released the following statement:
“New Yorkers need a New Deal for CUNY, and the Senate and Assembly one-house budgets are a huge step toward making it a reality.
Governor Hochul demonstrated her commitment to quality public higher education in planning a five-year program of reinvestment for our public university systems. The Legislature rightly recognized the need to accelerate the Governor’s plan and make a truly transformative investment in CUNY in this year’s budget.
The majority of Democrats in both the Senate and the Assembly are now co-sponsors of the New Deal for CUNY, legislation to transform CUNY by setting minimum faculty- and staff-to student ratios and making CUNY tuition-free. We are grateful for their continuing, active support in the budget negotiations. Our thanks go especially to Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Carl Heastie and their leadership teams, higher education committee chairs Senator Toby Ann Stavisky and Assemblymember Deborah Glick, and the New Deal for CUNY prime sponsors, Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Karines Reyes.
New York State is close to making a huge step toward the New Deal for CUNY, beginning to address decades of disinvestment in a thoughtful and systematic way. After years of underfunding and neglect, CUNY needs every dollar proposed in the one-house budget resolutions. The PSC, 30,000 faculty and professional staff at CUNY, and a growing student-labor-community coalition are ready to work with the Legislators and the Governor to make it happen.”
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