February 1, 2016 Dear Presidents,

By now you will have read about the letter sent to the State and City University Chancellors from the Governor’s office. I know you share my commitment to the most efficient use of our limited resources to provide high-quality education, be an engine of economic development for New York, and serve our most important constituents: our students.

While I was surprised at the letter, it only tells part of the story. It does not note the work you, your faculty, your doctors, and your administrators do every day to support SUNY’s mission. It does not focus on the fact that, based on the same source cited, SUNY’s 64 institutions have dedicated nearly 20 percent of annual expenditures on direct instruction and student services, with only six percent focused on “overhead.”

Taken in this light, the letter only bolsters the significant work we have already done to identify $100 million in savings through shared services and our ongoing work to achieve greater savings through the operational excellence team. These activities have allowed us to ensure that our operations are efficient, while also propelling SUNY to be the world-class institution New York deserves. Now we have an opportunity to share these experiences and best practices with CUNY, and welcome support from the Governor to find greater operational efficiencies.

SUNY is the most comprehensive university system in the nation, serving 460,000 students, over 1.3 million patients, and supporting an additional two million non-enrolled New Yorkers in communities across the State. We generate $17 billion in economic impact, support 170,000 jobs, and generate $460 million in state and local taxes annually. We are intrinsically different from other state agencies and beyond simple comparisons with other systems of higher education.

The individuals whose salaries are being examined are our life-saving doctors, whose clinical practices are included in their salaries; research faculty that generate over $1 billion in revenues annually; and outcomes-driven administrators, all recruited to deliver the same level of excellence as their counterparts at peer public and private institutions.

We have already commissioned a benchmarking analysis to determine whether our leaders are being offered competitive, market-based salaries. We will expand the reach of that analysis to include hospital administrators, researchers and others to ensure that we are both offering fair compensation and, more importantly, being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.

Three weeks ago I gave my State of the University Address, celebrating how far we have come as a system in the past seven years. Our top-flight doctors and researchers are no doubt contributing to our collective success. But it is through your leadership, the diverse talents of our faculty, and the passion of our students that we will continue to deliver on our promise to New York.

I thank you for your dedication to the State University and look forward to seeing you at next week’s presidents’ meeting in Albany.

Sincerely,

Nancy L. Zimpher Chancellor