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Q&A
FY2026 capital budget and new projects
0:25:49
·
3 min
Council Member Brannan inquires about CUNY's FY2026 capital budget and new projects. COO Hector Batista and CFO Sherif Soliman provide details on capital commitments and funding allocations.
- CUNY's capital commitment plan for FY25-29 totals $1.1 billion, an increase of $400 million from the January plan
- Focus is on state of good repair, with a goal to improve the system to 55% good condition
- Currently managing about 800 active projects across campuses
- New funding allocations from borough presidents totaling $9.2 million
- Ongoing work at Bronx Community College mentioned
Justin Brannan
0:25:49
Okay.
0:25:50
I wanna talk about the FY twenty six capital budget.
0:25:55
In the executive plan, CUNY's capital commitment plan for FY twenty five to twenty nine totals $1,100,000,000 which is roughly $400,000,000 greater than the capital budget in the plan back in January.
0:26:08
Are there any new projects that are added to the executive plan since the preliminary plan?
0:27:35
Have you requested any additional capital funds from OMB?
0:29:22
And I think you mentioned in your testimony that on the ongoing work at Bronx Community College.
0:29:26
Right?
Félix Matos Rodríguez
0:26:13
You wanna take them?
0:29:27
That's correct.
0:29:27
Yes.
Hector Batista
0:26:22
So our our as the chancellor as the chancellor said in his testimony, our main focus right now is is really focused on the state of good repair.
0:26:31
There is we currently have about 800 active projects.
0:26:36
And really is to really focus on our strategic goal which is to get the system to 55%.
0:26:42
So there's a lot of projects connect across all our campuses, you know, to really focus in on systems that we believe are gonna have a problem.
0:26:53
I testify in front of the council, in front of the chair of the education committee, and we talked about a facility, we did an assessment, condition assessment of our system.
0:27:03
And what that has done for us is it allows us to really be more more targeted on how we use capital dollars to make sure that we don't have the same problems we had several years ago with with Bronx Community College where the boiler went down.
0:27:15
Now we know and we could be more strategic in terms of targeting our capital dollars.
0:27:21
So a lot of the a lot of the focus is really connected to the state of good repair.
0:27:24
And I'm happy to report that we because of that, we've we started out with a base of 24.
0:27:29
We're now up to 27%.
0:27:31
So we're really making a great headway and really with this targeted approach.
0:27:40
Well, as the chancellor alluded, we have requested money to on a couple of major projects such as hostels, right, a hundred and $50,000,000 to really focus on that project.
0:27:50
We've obviously also have focused with talked to ONB about making sure that Sparks, which is a project that we're very committed to, which is connected to a life science project in Kiss Bay.
0:28:04
Those are projects that are very important to the university.
0:28:07
Plus we have a couple of projects at Hunter, at York that we are very concerned about connected to water filtration and things along those lines.
0:28:14
So those are projects that we really targeted to make sure that you know, those that we don't have those kind of challenges that we foresee at least on those facilities that are in state of bad repair.
0:28:29
So those are the kind of the focus areas.
Sherif Soliman
0:28:32
And in terms of the budget, the executive budget includes the allocation of $9,200,000 in new funding for for borough presidents.
0:28:42
And the breakdown is as follows.
0:28:44
In Brooklyn, it's a hundred thousand.
0:28:46
In Queens, it's 6,500,000.0.
0:28:48
In Manhattan, it's 1,288,000.000.
0:28:51
And in The Bronx, it is 1,400,000.0 for a total of 9.288.
0:28:57
And I just add to what CEO Batista said, which is, you know, we're also, in terms of requests of the administration, we're constantly on the state of good repair.
0:29:08
And the number for community colleges is $200,000,000 based on the replacement value of the building stock.
0:29:15
Right?
0:29:15
So that's something that we we also emphasize that would really allow us to make headway in the state of good repair percentage.