VOTE with your Contribution—to COPE with the Changes!
By now it’s (sadly) become a truism that public higher education is facing changing and challenging times. For years, State disinvestment has made it harder for public colleges like WCC to serve the students that need us most, and recent cuts at the federal level will make it even more difficult for public institutions to get the funding they need to operate—including the money needed to attract and keep top-flight faculty like us.
I know many of us might prefer not to think about this reality; our focus should be on what happens with our students, we might feel, and not on money or the current political climate. But much as we may like to think of ourselves as “apolitical,” we are a public institution, depending on public dollars to deliver a public good to our students. To remain vital, we need to engage with public figures—our elected officials in Albany, and here in Westchester.
That takes money, and we can’t legally use your Union dues to fund that engagement. The only way we can do it is through VOTE-COPE, the political action arm of our State affiliate, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT). It’s completely voluntary, and entirely non-partisan; your VOTE-COPE dollars help elect the people who share our values and support public higher education, regardless of political party.
Part of your contribution goes to NYSUT so they can lobby on the State level. That may seem far away from our concerns here in Westchester, but it’s not. Every year, NYSUT fights for better funding for SUNY and CUNY community colleges, including WCC. NYSUT also lobbies for us in many other ways—like fighting to “Fix Tier Six,” something that directly impacts new faculty (but should concern everyone in our profession).
If you joined the Teachers Retirement System after April 1 2012, you’re probably in Tier 6. Here’s why that’s a problem:
- Unlike Tier 4 members, whose contributions are capped at 3 percent (and end after 10 years), Tier 6 members pay 3 to 6 percent of their salaries into the pension system their entire career — and their contributions grow with pay raises.
- While Tier 4 members can retire at 55 with 30 years of service, Tier 6 members must work to age 63, up to 40 years of service, or face heavy penalties.
We need to fix that inequity NOW, and NYSUT is using your VOTE COPE contribution to do exactly that. In fact, NYSUT is organizing a rally in Albany on March 8 to put pressure on our legislators to get these changes done (more announcements on this to come!).
The rest of your contribution comes right back to us here at WCC. We use that money to provide contributions to the candidates we endorse for County offices, including the County Executive and Board of Legislators. We’ve become increasingly active in this area over the past few years, and now endorse in all 17 legislative races, plus the Executive campaign.
Unfortunately, up until this year, we’ve only had about 20% of our full-time faculty regularly participating. And our VOTE COPE funds have not even remained constant; with recent retirements, we’ve seen the balance in our VOTE COPE account actually go down each cycle. That’s simply not sustainable. If we want to keep these key relationships going, we’re going to have to step up our game.
As you probably know, we are engaging in a year-long campaign in 2025-26 to boost our VOTE COPE participation. Our goal is to have 50% of our full-time faculty participating—approximately 100 contributors. That will enable us to not only stabilize but increase our support in legislative races from $250 (the bare minimum) to $500, and double our support in the County Executive race. We’ll be prominent, rather than peripheral, on their radar.
In the first three months of this project, we’ve already gone from 41 to 55 full-timers participating— a 34% increase! We’ve also seen 12 faculty who were already participating double their contribution— and I’m proud to say that every full-time member of our Executive Committee is participating.
But that only gets us part of the way there.
I urge you to join VOTE-COPE TODAY. You can give any amount ($5 per paycheck is a suggested initial contribution). It’s fast and easy! Just scan this QR code:
(You can also go directly to a link on our website at https://nysut-lp.com/vote-cope/wcc )
We urgently need our elected officials to prioritize public spending on higher education, and enable public institutions like WCC to provide our faculty with a fair salary and benefits. And we need YOU to help your Union send that message to those officials, loud and clear, with your contribution to VOTE-COPE. If you’re already participating, thank you—and if not, please sign up today!
