The Daily Bulletin Archive

As you know, Buffalo State College is experiencing a serious budgetary shortfall. Faced with an unprecedented pandemic, we have a projected deficit of nearly $15 million for this year. Campus leadership has been laying the groundwork for several years to reduce expenses and foster innovation across campus to meet the current challenges and prepare for the future. Although we still face many unknowns, what is certain is that it will take time to make the needed changes on campus that will result in decreasing our expenses by such a significant amount. I anticipate a three-year process to reduce a deficit of this magnitude. Our immediate work will be guided by our Strategic Priorities, and we will move ahead in our budget planning guided by our Strategic Resource Planning Process (PDF, 149 KB). Please review this information for the details and timetable of this important plan. We will work to reduce as much as possible each year as we move to complete this goal in 36 months.

Our Budget Landscape before COVID-19
A series of compounding challenges have necessitated thoughtful and intentional changes on campus to stabilize our financial standing and help meet our collective mission to serve our students within Buffalo State College’s urban-engaged context. These include the well-documented demographic shift of fewer high school graduates throughout the Northeast, the corresponding increased competition across the higher education landscape, declines in transfer student populations, and decreased student retention rates.

For several years, we have worked toward identifying greater efficiencies and creative solutions, recognizing that measured changes to our workforce—which accounts for nearly 90 percent of our operating budget—would be necessary. Further, as you recall, I led the campus through a three-year rebalancing process (2017–2020) that has reduced our expenses by $7 million, offsetting some of the consequences of the national and regional shifts that have negatively affected our campus budget. In order to rebalance our budget at this scale, the provost and vice presidents sought to carefully reduce expenses by focusing on savings from retirements, resignations, modifications, and reorganizations. These efforts were executed to be minimally disruptive to our work, our systems, and our current norms. I knew more radical changes and efficiencies would be needed if these downward trends persisted; however, I thought we would have more time to make significant changes. My hope was to allow our renewed focus on innovative practices to stabilize campus finances gradually.

COVID-19 Budget Impact and Our Response
What I did not foresee was a worldwide pandemic, and no one anywhere, not any institution, had planned for the drastic and precipitous drop in the financial resources required to maintain and sustain our campuses. And so we are faced with an unprecedented pandemic and a projected deficit of nearly $15 million for this year as well as a lack of clarity for the upcoming years. We must strategically plan and work together both to survive this situation and to prepare to thrive in the future. Those efforts will be guided by our newly established Strategic Priorities, which will be used to guide our budgetary decisions and allow the campus to continue to invest in those areas that are necessary to sustain mission-critical work now and in the future.

Last spring, division heads accelerated workforce planning to meet our new pandemic reality and the challenges we anticipate post-pandemic. During spring and summer 2020, with serious concerns about the ramifications of the pandemic, I asked all divisional heads to hasten their review and look carefully within and across their divisions to better align our work and find efficiencies that would reduce expenses. To this end, greater cross-divisional cooperation has occurred, additional efficiencies have been developed, and some staff roles have been refined.

These are some of the ways the campus has reduced expenses and shifted our work in creative and innovative ways since last spring:

1. Eliminating all travel
2. Instituting a spending constraints committee
3. Developing a list of potential shared services
4. Leveraging technology
5. Freezing all but essential hiring
6. Eliminating duplication of activities and services
7. Combining positions when possible, including at the cabinet level
8. Reducing energy consumption
9. Promulgating the Voluntary Reduction in Work Schedule program
10. Renegotiating institutional contracts
11. Implementing an enhanced relationship with EAB to provide information, best practices, and benchmarks and to lead campus units in collaborative discussions and planning

I also asked division heads to develop plans that involve a data-informed process to define our strengths and identify areas for improvement.

Moving Forward Together
Campus leadership has been laying the groundwork for several years to foster innovation across campus and to prepare for a prosperous and sustaining future. Planning has been key to this work. It is clear that handling the $15 million deficit we face will require collaboration among all campus constituents, keeping innovation at the center of our efforts as we fulfill our urban-engaged, anchor mission to educate our diverse student body. As noted above, we will move ahead in our strategic budget planning guided by our Strategic Resource Planning Process (PDF, 149 KB). Throughout the process and with a strong commitment to shared governance, our College Budget Committee will meet and consult with the College Senate’s Budget and Staff Allocations Committee (BSAC) on a regular basis to share ideas and receive feedback on the budget process. Additionally, I encourage members of the campus community to participate in the first Bengal Business Forum on Monday, December 7.

As we plan to reduce the deficit over the next 36 months, I will continue to work with the chancellor and the SUNY system to support the campus in the short run. I know this is daunting, and we will need to make significant changes in how we deliver on our mission to meet the challenges we face. I look forward to full campus engagement as we ignite our innovation in new, exciting, and mission-consistent ways.