There will be no on-time state budget this year since this Wednesday is the deadline and lawmakers are not even in Albany working on the budget. They're off for Holy Week. Opposition to some of the proposed cuts is not taking a break though. Students and administrators clashed at the University at Buffalo north campus on Wednesday over how best to move forward in the face of funding cuts. Their main point of disagreement is over something called "PHEEIA" which stands for Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act. The student protestors fear that PHEEIA would send their tuition skyrocketing.
"We need our tuition to stay low and keeping our tuition tied to our state budget keeps it low," says Joanna Boron, a fifth-year senior at U.B.
"Public education is not a corporation!" chanted the crowd of students.
University administrators want lawmakers to approve PHEEIA because it gives the universities more control over their funding while also enabling more private sector partnerships, and U.B. administrators say it's not true that PHEEIA would cause tuition to increase more than it would without PHEEIA.
"It would give students the opportunity to plan their tuition," says Dan Ryan, U.B. Director of Off-Campus Student Services, "I know there are a lot of folks that had to leave the university in the middle of the year. You say 'Here's what the tuition is for the year' and in the middle of the year they changed it." Ryan says that's not fair and with PHEEIA that wouldn't happen, and he adds that with PHEEIA more money would stay at U.B. instead of going to Albany.
Tension was evident between students and administrators at Wednesday's rally with students at one point calling out Vice President of Student Affairs Dennis Black who was standing near the periphery of the group. "Is Dennis Black over there? Why don't you fight for us?" yelled one of the protestors. Then the crowd started chanting, "Dennis Black! Dennis black!...". Black gave the crowd a sheepish smile and waved but did not come any closer.
"We're doing this (rally) now to get (U.B.) President Simpson's ear, to get politicians ears, to get our fellow taxpayers' ears," says Joanna Boron.
For now PHEEIA is stalled in Albany with the Senate in favor of it and the Assembly against it. "It's revenue neutral, it doesn't cost the state more money so and it will help U.B. grow at a time when we don't have more money to give them," says NYS Sen. William Stachowski (D-Lakeview) who supports PHEEIA.
U.B. administrators are warning that without PHEEIA they will not be able to move forward with the U.B. 2020 expansion plan and that means thousands of jobs will not be coming to the area.
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