CUNY teachers face ax as $115M in coronavirus budget cuts loom

City University colleges are rolling out plans to slash their adjunct teaching staffs as the system faces a nearly $150 million cut in aid thanks to the coronavirus budget crises at City Hall and in Albany.

The famed John Jay College of Criminal Justice is prepared to cut 430 adjunct professors, amounting to roughly 40 percent of its teaching staff, according to their union, the Professional Staff Congress.

Officials at the College of Staten Island are planning to cut course offerings by 35 percent, while Brooklyn College could slash as much as 25 percent of its courses and steep cuts are anticipated at Harlem’s City College, too.

“It’s a disaster because CUNY has already been deeply, deeply depleted. There’s no more room to cut,” said Barbara Bowen, the president of the PSC. “The communities that rely on CUNY the most are exactly the communities that have been hardest hit by the COVID crisis.”

The union figures show that the number of full-time faculty at CUNY has declined from a peak of 11,500 in the 1970s to just 7,700 full-time professors currently.

To fill the gap, CUNY has depended on an army of more than 12,000 part-time adjuncts to make up the difference — where the cuts are aimed.

Bowen said the union will begin running ads on local cable television systems this week to push back against the likely cuts. The PSC is also calling for CUNY officials to use $118 million in promised federal coronavirus relief to keep adjuncts on the job.

Lawmakers in Albany gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo the power to adjust spending levels in the state budget based on actual revenues during times of emergency, cuts that could cost the system up to $95 million, a CUNY budget analysis provided by the PSC shows.

Additionally, the de Blasio administration has already slashed $20 million in city support for the public higher education system in the current budget and plan to cut nearly another $32 million during the next budget, according to CUNY and union officials.

A City Hall representative pegged the reductions at $53 million and said they were another example of the city’s need for federal aid. Gotham’s budget writers are contending with a potential $9.5 billion drop in tax revenues — that could grow another $3 billion thanks to the state’s own budget shortfall, which currently weighs in at $13 billion.

“In order to uphold these priorities and avoid disastrous budget cuts, the federal government must step up and fund our recovery,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Laura Feyer.

Her CUNY counterpart, Frank Sobrino, added: “The state is facing a more than $13 billion revenue shortfall due entirely to the pandemic and if the federal government doesn’t step up to offset those losses, the state will have to reduce spending by billions of dollars to balance its budget.”