State higher education leaders petitioned the Legislature on Thursday for greater aid in the next budget to offset a festering deficit within New York's college and university system and the planned shuttering of SUNY Downstate Medical Center. At a budget hearing in Albany, lawmakers blasted plans to close SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, expressing anger to State University of New York leaders and asking them to reconsider the hospital's future with greater public input. Gov. Kathy Hochul's executive budget includes funding to transition many of the hospital's inpatient services to a SUNY Downstate wing of Kings County Hospital located across the street.
