City Hall says proposed cuts to CUNY won’t affect programs. The university disagrees.

One of Mayor Eric Adams’ top budget officials assured lawmakers that the administration’s proposed budget cuts to the City University of New York wouldn’t severely affect its academic programing. But officials within the university system discredited these claims on Monday, suggesting instead that there’s now “a broad range in reduction in services.”

“CUNY is really an investment – it’s an investment into the city of New York and the state of New York,” said Sherif Soliman, CUNY CFO and senior vice chancellor for budget and finance.

Tense debates are already underway between the Adams administration and the City Council – which are both tasked with compromising on a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July. Adams is continuing to stress the need for mass budget cuts to deal with the financial deficit caused by the ongoing migrant crisis, as well as the end of pandemic-era federal aid.

In January, the mayor proposed a $109 billion budget that called for severe cuts to CUNY, among other reductions in funding for libraries, sanitation and other essential services doled out to New Yorkers.

During the first budget hearing of the year, Jacques Jiha – who heads the mayor’s Office of Budget and Management – told lawmakers that the proposed cuts wouldn’t drastically affect CUNY’s programs.

“Basically, what we did is look mostly in the area of fringe benefits and do re-estimates of the assumptions that were made in that area,” Jiha said during a budget hearing on March 4. “We tried to avoid touching programs as best as we can.”

Jiha also said CUNY would corroborate his claims. But weeks later, Higher Education Chair Eric Dinowitz repeated Jiha’s testimony to officials at CUNY, who refuted the budget director’s claims.

“But why are there fringe benefit cushions to begin with?” Soliman said. “It’s because of the sustained reduction in heads throughout the community colleges due to the PEGs.”

The reduction to the…