OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Fenton Hall is home to the offices of University President Stephen Kolison.

State University of New York at Fredonia’s employees do not come cheap. According to a website that provides salaries for employees of public entities in New York, $45,474,259 was paid to the local state university branch’s employees in 2021.

Some 988 people are listed, including part-timers such as adjunct professors, and contractual employees. The website is SeeThroughNY — www.seethroughny.net. Overseen by the Empire Center for Public Policy, it says that it’s “designed to become the hub of a statewide network through which taxpayers can analyze and compare data from the state, counties, cities, towns, villages, school districts and public authorities throughout New York. Most importantly … to give New York’s taxpayers insight into how their tax money is being spent.”

That significant amount of payroll means a great deal to the northern Chautauqua County economy. Much of those funds are reinvested in property and retail sales in the region.

The SeeThroughNY data shows SUNY Fredonia’s top-paid employee in 2021 was President Stephen Kolison with $289,342. In second place is Kevin Kearns, a former vice president of the school who is now a special assistant to Kolison. He made $195,609.

Rounding out the top five in SUNY Fredonia pay last year were Cedric Howard, who has since left, with $191,430, Linda Hall at $181,283 and Michael Metzger, $174,395.

In total, 68 employees made $100,000 or more at SUNY Fredonia in 2021. On the lower end of the scale, one person was paid $8.

Kolison has tagged administrative costs as something that could be cut to help the college slash its deficit, which was around $16 million as of last fall. He announced at a recent meeting of the university council that the school has “paused” three administrative positions, saving $672,855 for 2022.

In the meantime, enrollment issues and stagnant state funding at the university have led to increased calls to hike aid for higher education. According to the most recently released numbers, SUNY Fredonia enrollment is hovering around 3,400 for the spring– much less than the more than 5,000 in 2007.

The United University Professions, the nation’s largest higher education union, and the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, the union representing 30,000 faculty and professional staff at the City University of New York, has held press conferences in the last month highlighting a decade of chronic underfunding by Albany.

Each union requested more than $250 million in state additional funding, for CUNY and SUNY campuses, which includes SUNY’s three public teaching hospitals located in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse.

“(Gov. Kathy Hochul’s) proposal falls short when it comes to providing SUNY with the dollars it needs to overcome a decade of underfunding and flat budgets, said UUP President Dr. Frederick E. Kowal, Ph.D. recently. “SUNY is down $7 billion in state funding since the Great Recession. And here we are, in the second year of a pandemic, and there are zero dollars budgeted — zero — for critical mission funding for SUNY’s public teaching hospitals. For SUNY to meet the governor’s goal of being the best public higher education system in the nation, the state needs to make a long-term investment in SUNY. That must start this year.”

In her 2022-23 executive dudget, Hochul proposed an increase in state aid to campuses, providing a much-needed investment in public higher education. While this commitment was a step in the right direction to secure the SUNY system as a cornerstone of New York’s communities and higher education landscape, the unions said it still leaves issues of economic inequality and injustice that persist and must be addressed to attain a more just and equitable SUNY system.