The state legislature voted to approve $80 million to CSCU, with the possibility of $20 million more this fall. Congratulations, members, on all of the work you did to secure this huge win! Your work means that no layoffs will be necessary next year, and that we have enough funding to reverse tuition hikes and restore many of the cuts made to our campuses last year.
How did you do it?
You fought back. You held press conferences. Over 1,700 of you and your students and community members contacted your legislators about this crisis and demanded their support. Members and students turned out in the hundreds for town halls with legislative leaders and successfully secured their commitment to fight for emergency funding. You had rallies with our allies. Members and students submitted over 100 personal accounts of how the budget cuts were affecting them at the Appropriations Hearing. Students held informational pickets. In the final month, you held phone banks on half our campuses and held constituent meetings with legislators on the fence.
And you won! Funding for public higher education was the number one priority this legislative session and higher education received nearly half of new funds (reallocated ARPA dollars) in the so-called budget stabilization bill.
The state budget stabilization bill increases ARPA funding for CSCU by $80 million, from $48.8 million to $128.8 million in 2024-25, but it also requires that if an additional $40 million in ARPA funds is identified by the administration, those funds also would be transferred to higher education, with half going to CSCU and half to UConn, provided the next state budget does not slide into deficit. (Read more from the CT Mirror here). In total, CSCU may see a boost of $100 million in 2024-25.
How do we make sure management spends these funds properly?
Organizers have begun to and will continue to meet with chapters about what cuts must be restored immediately and what restorations can be delayed. A union-wide survey seeking your input on priority cuts to restore will also be distributed next week.
Union leadership will be calling for a labor-management meeting with CSCU and CT State and bring our identified demands to the BOR for its June meeting. Our organizers will be supporting the chapters to meet with campus CEOs for campus-specific priorities.
Next Legislative Session
It should be noted that while we were successful in our efforts, these emergency funds are one-time funds. We need to grow our political power by participating in campaigns over the summer and fall, and we need to be active again next legislative session to win long-term, sustainable funding for our campuses.
Congratulations, again, on this huge victory. When we fight, we win!