June 5, 2021
Allocating $2.9 Million
The first full academic year after the shutdown came with $2,926,843 to spend on getting fifteen thousand students through it. The committee responsible for the plan held vice presidents, the provost, the IT director, and department chairs, alongside a handful of student seats. Victor Kiani, as Executive Vice President of the student government, held one of them.
The technology fee was one of the few levers that could reach students where the year had actually hurt them. The city's own Internet Master Plan had just put numbers to the gap: 29 percent of New York households had no home broadband, rising to 46 percent among families in poverty. CUNY had been forced to pause the entire university for a week in spring 2020 just to get devices into students' hands before classes could continue. And students were vanishing: community-college enrollment nationwide fell 10 percent in the pandemic's first fall, more than half a million students gone.
Figures: the New York City Internet Master Plan, January 2020; CUNY's spring 2020 recalibration pause; the National Student Clearinghouse on fall 2020 community-college enrollment.
The money came in two parts: roughly $1.96 million in projected fee collections, set against an assumed 15 percent enrollment decline, plus $965,964 rolled forward from the year procurement froze. The document itself is plain about where the second part came from:
In March 2020 when the New York Governor enacted the COVID19 pandemic pause, all procurements were delayed indefinitely. This resulted in roll forward of fees for two years of over $900,000.
The carried-forward funds made delayed technology needs part of the next year’s planning. The committee's work was to plan its use as things students could touch: hardware, software licenses, assistive technology, the machines in the open labs. Kiani's seat existed so the people the money belonged to had a voice in where it went; it was, after all, a student fee.
A plan for student access.
Planned funding
$2,926,843
- Anticipated collections
- $1,960,879
- Carried forward
- $965,964
- QCC special initiatives
- $965,964
- University-wide & strategic initiatives
- $796,000
- Licensing / software
- $300,000
- QCC IT hosting & software (50% share)
- $180,000
- Student development
- $175,000
- Other hardware
- $175,000
- Student-use computer replacement
- $120,000
- Instructional podium refresh
- $50,000
- Assistive technology
- $25,000
- Difference not itemized
- $139,879
The nine categories total $2,786,964. The remaining $139,879 has no category specified in the plan.
Collections assume a 15% enrollment decline. Special initiatives remain subject to review; university-wide funding assumes FY2020 levels pending CUNY estimates. Printing and additional computer and podium replacements are on hold without stated amounts; they are not identified as the unitemized difference.
The plan went to CUNY on June 5, 2021. By then, Kiani had already told the SGA he would be enlisting in the Marine Corps; the budget would outlast his term and reach students he would never meet. A budget is a statement of priorities, and the line items that matter most are the quiet ones that keep people from falling behind.