Following the big news items breaking on 9 December 2021, we're following up with a couple of editorials addressing needed next steps related to cleaning up New York's state government and institutions.
- Editorial: Malatras is resigning. Other Cuomo holdovers at SUNY should too.
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The editors of the Albany Times-Union suggests the 15 members of the State University of New York (SUNY) Board of Trustees who voted to support the toxic personality of James Malatras as SUNY's chancellor should now follow his example and aldo announce their resignations from the institution.
From its obeisance in hiring Mr. Malatras — without a national search — at the behest of Gov. Andrew Cuomo to its circle-the-wagons mentality in the current scandal, to its failure even to acknowledge the situation in a fawning acceptance of the chancellor’s resignation, the board’s behavior has been disgraceful.
With most of its members still with some years left in their terms, we urge the holdovers from Mr. Cuomo’s tenure to let SUNY have a truly fresh start — and tender their resignations, too.
The situation at SUNY shows the perils of having a presumably independent board of an academic institution co-opted by a governor bent on extending his influence to every corner of government that he could. In his decade in office, Mr. Cuomo appointed or reappointed 14 of 17 current members of the board (which also includes a voting student representative and two nonvoting representatives of the university and community college faculties).
These are not just people who happen to have been appointed by the governor. Like Mr. Malatras, five of them worked in the Cuomo administration. Another, Edward Spiro, is a partner at Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello, a law firm hired by Mr. Cuomo’s campaign in 2014 during a federal investigation into his Moreland Commission on Public Corruption, and hired this year by the state under a $2.5 million contract to deal with a federal investigation of his administration’s handling of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.
At a minimum, we think Edward Spiro needs to go. Since Malatras participated in the Cuomo administration's "doctoring" of the 6 July 2020 report by New York's Department of Health to conceal the full extent of COVID deaths among New York's nursing home residents during the period Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive, his support for Malatras' continuing as SUNY Chancellor is now associated with the taint of hundreds, if not thousands, of excess COVID deaths in New York.
With his firm benefiting financially from defending the Cuomo administration's from federal criminal charges related to its attempted cover-up of those excess deaths, Spiro had an inherent conflict of interest in voting to support Malatras. He failed to either to recuse himself or to abstain in the board's vote. He has failed the test of his personal ethics.
Meanwhile, the five former Cuomo administration staffers currently on SUNY's board all came from the same toxic workplace environment of which Malatras' documented conduct is representative. It will be difficult for anyone to believe SUNY's board members have SUNY's best interests at heart while they remain.
- EDITORIAL: Malatras situation symptomatic of bigger problems
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The editors of the Schenactedy Daily Gazette focus on SUNY's problems, which they argue are representative of bigger problems requiring reform through New York's state government.
We all are harmed by a system that rewards influence and money over competence.
Malatras, appointed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year as chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), resigned his post under pressure on Thursday.
The pressure came from lawmakers, educational leaders, newspaper editorial boards and others following a series of reports of inappropriate conduct while serving in various leadership positions.
We all are harmed by a system that rewards influence and money over competence.
The editors propose several remedies:
Lawmakers and education leaders must push to change that balance by reducing the number of the governor’s appointments, allowing legislators from both parties to appoint members and expanding membership on the SUNY board to include leaders in various educational sectors and institutions.
The SUNY board also needs to change its bylaws to ensure that a thorough, independent and transparent search is conducted for future chancellors.
Malatras’ unvetted appointment under the guise of the covid emergency was dereliction of board members’ obligation as educational leaders. Such a search should be conducted on a national level and include a diverse field of candidates that includes women and candidates of color.
The Malatras appointment and subsequent forced resignation exposed deep structural problems in state government well beyond Malatras himself.
If the symptoms aren’t addressed, the disease will only grow stronger.
Andrew M. Cuomo's fall from power provides many opportunities for good-government reforms in New York. To avoid failing as Cuomo did, elected state officials must take serious steps toward repairing the public's trust in state government institutions.
