Fiscal Stability Plan
The Fiscal Stability Plan was approved and implemented in September of 2025. The critical worksheets of this plan are here and a deeper walk through of these can also be found in the Board of Trustees slides (beginning on page 42), as well as throughout the messaging shared on this page.
This webpage is live and will be updated with any new information as it becomes available. For those who did not have time to ask questions in recent public forums, and for anyone who would like to share feedback or ask questions, please email [email protected]. Where appropriate, the president will use the feedback and questions to update the FAQ section of the website in order to continue to ensure the broadest possible sharing of information.
We appreciate the support, hard work and patience of the whole campus community as we move forward. ESF is on the right track because of the work done by so many on campus.
Message from President Mahoney
For more than a century, ESF has served as one of the country’s leading academic institutions focused on the study of the environment, developing renewable technologies, and building a sustainable future. We work to address the Earth’s most pressing problems, and students come here because they want to be part of the solution.
Carrying out this mission has required change over time to ensure the college remains an asset not just to New York, but to the nation and world.
On September 18, 2025, we announced a new fiscal stability plan designed to address the college’s structural budget deficit while supporting the high-quality education that current students and more than 20,000 ESF alumni worldwide benefit from.
Strengthening ESF’s future is an all-hands exercise. Developed with careful consideration of all ESF’s offerings, this fiscal stability plan tackles our structural deficit from multiple angles so we can better execute what we know is working and fine-tune what needs to work better. Here are the three drivers of this plan, each of which will dictate how we continue to balance our budget.
- Boosting enrollment: We must continue to drive enrollment gains. This work includes both ensuring New
Yorkers are taking advantage of the ESF value proposition and investing in new student
enrollment campaigns beyond New York. We have launched multiple new marketing campaigns
designed to underscore why an ESF education is something students can’t get anywhere
else. Here’s an example of a landing page where some prospective students who don’t know about us might land.
- Staff allocation and management: A voluntary separation program announced in August 2025 received strong interest,
and as of early November the approval of 40 applicants was made as supported by the
College Foundation. Applicants have until December 1 to formalize their application.
The success of this program will allow us to make more informed decisions at the beginning
of 2026 regarding backfills and restructuring.
- Streamlining programs and services: We have mapped out savings generated by merging lower-enrolled programs, which Provost Quackenbush addresses in the video below. In doing so, we are committed to meeting students' academic needs with the rigorous study and experiential learning that we're known for. We are also asking Forest Properties for help right-sizing their budget and asking student affairs for a plan to bring the athletics budget into balance.
As we work to implement the plan, we encourage both patience and consideration. We are grateful to all those who have engaged in the Voluntary Separation Program, as it helps us both refine and define how close we are to closing our deficit. But we cannot know exactly what future shifts there will need to be to right-size our operations. There is no hidden plan. There is the spreadsheet we work with, with numbers that can fluctuate daily based on how well we meet our budgets.
We can only ask that all members of our community take this seriously, and continue to work collaboratively to enhance the experience of our incredible students.
Academic Updates from the Interim Provost
In this video Provost Quackenbush details the changes that the fiscal stability plan has on the academic side of the house.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is ESF at risk of closing?
A: No. ESF plays a critical role in higher education not just within the SUNY system and New York state, but nationwide. Our mission remains as essential as the day we were founded. The plan we are implementing to stabilize our finances is an effort to maintain high-quality academic programs, student services, and research for decades to come. And we will continue to update the plan in the coming years as conditions change to ensure the mission-driven education we provide is strong.
Q: Why was this stability plan developed?
A: ESF faces a structural dollar deficit that must be eliminated. ESF delivers an education that our students simply cannot get anywhere else, not just here in New York, but nationwide. The purpose of this plan is to shore up the future of our vital institution so we can continue to carry out our mission of serving students and being a force to advance applied environmental science.
It's precisely because of the essential role we play in higher education that we must
take steps to maintain ESF's place as a leader. A strong ESF is essential to fields
like chemical engineering, landscape architecture, conservation biology, land management
and surveying; employers like the state Department of Environmental Conservation;
and to communities not only here in Central New York but across the country that benefit
from our environmental research and work.
Q: Who was involved in the process of making these decisions?
A: SUNY CFO and members of the president’s cabinet have been instrumental in identifying
areas both for growth and that require reducing expenditures. All with conversations
that involve academic and non-academic units across campus. As we take the next steps,
including where adjustments to our workforce are necessary, we are committed to working
through a shared governance process that is transparent, collaborative, and inclusive
as we continue to reduce our institution’s budget deficit.
Q: What has been, and what is going to be done, to reduce ESF’s budget deficit?
A: We have already taken steps to control spending across campus. These measures include slowing new hiring and eliminating non-essential spending.
While each member of the ESF faculty and staff makes key contributions to driving our community’s mission forward, we must, for the foreseeable future, do our work with fewer people. In August 2025 we launched a voluntary separation program that has received strong interest and, as of the deadline of late October, received 40 applications, all of which were approved. The success of that program will depend on the number of applicants who formally accept by the December 1 deadline.
At the same time, we must continue to drive enrollment gains. This work includes both
ensuring New Yorkers are taking advantage of the ESF value proposition and investing
in new student enrollment campaigns beyond New York. Insulating ourselves from the
worst of national enrollment trends isn’t enough on its own to plan for a stronger
future. We need to work smarter and harder to bring in new students.
Q.The stability plan Enrollment tab shows a reduction in graduate students, is ESF planning to recruit fewer grad students?
A: No, the plan is a conservative representation of full time equivalent (FTE) of graduate students in an enrollment model developed in consultation and cooperation with SUNY. We have recently received approval for new non-thesis Masters degrees and our expectation is that we will be able to exceed the conservative estimates in the plan. The stability plan will be adjusted year-to-year based upon actual enrollment.
Q: What is being done to attract new students and increase enrollment?
A: While demographic changes have impacted university enrollment nationwide, enrollment at ESF has remained largely steady in the past decade because we lead in environmental science and forestry education. The class of fall 2025 is ESF’s fourth largest first-year class since 2002, another positive step forward as enrollment also rebounds more broadly across the SUNY system. But it is also smaller than the fall of 2024, so there is work to be done.
Continuing to boost student enrollment will be key to reducing our institution’s budget
deficit. To do so, investment has been made in both in-state and nationwide enrollment
campaigns to attract promising future environmental leaders who will benefit from
ESF’s unique, mission-driven educational offerings. Additionally, President Mahoney
has been hitting the road herself to make a personal appeal to prospective students
about ESF’s value.
Q: What metrics will ESF use to determine the progress of the stability plan?
A: This is an iterative process that requires constant review and additional action when
necessary. ESF has implemented a series of fiscal controls that boost financial transparency
while also ensuring our resources are allocated to only the most necessary expenses
that allow us to maintain our high-quality educational offerings. We are using 2024-25
spending as our baseline to model our budgets for the next five years and must balance
our operating budget by the end of 2027-28.
Q: How is ESF using state funding to address the structural deficit?
A: Over the past three years, ESF has received a combined $6 million in increased operating aid from the state, funding that is critical to carrying out our mission to serve students. We are thankful to the Governor, State Legislature, SUNY Board of Trustees, and Chancellor King for delivering for SUNY institutions statewide.
Addressing a structural imbalance between revenue and expenses ultimately must happen through local decision making. We cannot solely rely on direct state support or ask other schools in the SUNY system to make do with less to increase our state funding allocations. The most fiscally responsible path forward is to maximize the critical increases in state funding we have received by addressing our underlying structural budget deficit locally.
Q: What will happen to ESF students in programs that face staffing reductions or other changes in the future?
A: Regardless of the results of the voluntary separation program and future decisions around staffing and programs, students should have confidence that they will be able to complete their studies in the programs they’re currently enrolled in, they will maintain access to high-quality academic and student service options they need, and an ESF degree will remain as meaningful as it always has been.
Q: Is ESF getting rid of its athletic programs?
A: Our athletics offerings remain the same at this time. Like all areas across campus, athletics needs to be part of our work to align revenue with expenses and we will share more information as we work through the review and budgeting process with staff.
Advocacy Effort Examples
There have been consistent and ongoing efforts to lobby for additional support for ESF. Advocacy is not limited to state funding and can include everything from the numerous ongoing efforts of the College Foundation to conversations with local legislature about new and creative ways to find support.