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Stony Brook Budget Update

July 11, 2022

Colleagues,

I’d like to thank the members of our campus community for your efforts to support Stony Brook University’s all-funds, multi-year budget planning process. It is designed to be strategic, transparent, and consistent in a way that strengthens our institution. Information on the process and the guiding principles used to support it can be found here.

We will begin communicating budget decisions to campus leadership this week and expect unit leadership to share these decisions more broadly after July 15. Additionally, in the next few weeks we anticipate that we will receive notice of our allocations from SUNY’s new strategic investment and faculty hiring funds. Allocations from these funds will strengthen our capacity for investment in the coming years.While we are in a more positive budget environment than in the past few years, key components that have shaped our constrained budget environment continue. This is our reality:

●     The state budget once again did not include an increase in direct base operating funds;

●     Tuition remains frozen for the third year in a row; and

●     It continues to be necessary for our institution to make up a compounding $10 million-a-year shortfall for faculty and staff salary increases that were negotiated, but not funded by New York State.

That said, we have been responsible stewards of scarce resources and find ourselves in a better financial position as a result. Specifically, we have implemented a number of initiatives, including the Strategic Budget Initiative (SBI); and the multi-year, all-funds budgeting model, which enable us to identify areas for future growth, and leverage our fund balances in responsible ways. These initiatives, along with an increase from the state to support the New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) and anticipated state support for some faculty hiring, enable us to make modest investments in our faculty, staff, and students.

Specifically, we will:

●     Provide funds to open up more class sections to better meet student demand.

●     Make investments in research to provide much-needed support to our faculty and boost research productivity.

●     Authorize faculty and staff recruitment, building on the work we began during our last hiring process, which will bolster both the academic core as well as our support units.

●     Enhance our business systems in human resources and finance, creating efficiencies in operations and campus reporting.

More information on the specifics will be shared by the vice presidents in the coming weeks.

While this is certainly welcome news, it’s important to remember that we still do not have the funds to do all the things we want and should be doing to support the teaching, research and service endeavors of a flagship institution and AAU member. We must remain good stewards of our resources, and continue our work with our partners in Albany to ensure that our institutional needs are understood and supported.

Stony Brook University is an institution on the move with renewed momentum. Working together we have shown that we can maximize resources to fund our most important ambitions. Thank you for your hard work and commitment as we pursue new and innovative means to drive our critical academic and research mission.

Regards,

mcinnis signature

Maurie McInnis
President

 

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