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SUNY staff get a 4.5% raise under Albany deal
Covered SUNY professional-services employees would get a 4.5% boost in basic annual pay. The signed bill also sets different start dates for workers on calendar-year, college-year and academic-year schedules.
Some State University of New York employees will get a 4.5% increase in basic annual pay under a signed New York bill. The raise applies to covered professional-services staff, and it will start on different payroll dates for calendar-year, college-year and academic-year workers.
That increase would not land on the same date for everyone. The bill ties the raise to the salary base in place on June 30, 2026, then staggers the start by work schedule, so the timing tracks the calendar attached to the job.
Different clocks, different starts
The measure applies to incumbents in positions in SUNY’s professional services unit, not to the university workforce as a whole. In other words, it is a targeted raise for covered staff, not a systemwide reset.
Employees with a calendar-year or college-year professional obligation would get the increase on the first payroll period closest to July 2, 2026. Academic-year employees would get it on the first payroll period closest to Sept. 1, 2026, and some academic-year workers in a 21-pay-period status would follow an Aug. 13, 2026 date.
The bill also preserves a special timing rule for certain incumbents at SUNY Binghamton and at the colleges of technology and agriculture and technology that are specifically identified by the state’s audit and control department.
- Covered salaries rise 4.5%. - The change starts in summer 2026 for some workers and in early fall for others. - The bill reaches only SUNY’s professional services unit.
The labor deal behind the number
The agreement at the center of the bill is a collectively negotiated 2026 deal between the state and the employee organization representing members of the professional services unit. The bill is the vehicle that translates that agreement into salary language.
Available vote records show the bill advanced without recorded no votes.
For employees, the story is not about a distant budget line. It is about whether a negotiated raise makes it into the next paycheck, and which payroll cycle decides when that happens.