The 2008-2009 SUNY Budget will allot Stony Brook University $45 million for creation of a law school, and only $3 million toward Binghamton University’s proposed law school, officials said.

The funding could tip the scales again in the race to be top SUNY schools. Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer nominated both SBU and University at Buffalo to be “flagship schools” of the SUNY system during his State of the State address in January.

The money given to SBU and Binghamton will be used for different purposes, according to Matt Anderson, spokesman for the budget division of the New York State government.

“Stony Brook will be beginning the [process of] creating a law school,” Anderson said. “Binghamton’s $3 million will be used for initial design and planning.”

Walter Olson, a legal commentator and editor at pointoflaw.com, said he thinks the different amounts could reflect different stages of progress for the two schools.

“From an outsider’s perspective it seems that a law school is a done deal at Stony Brook,” Olson said. “Getting the money for Binghamton is an important step, but it’s not finished.”

Though the development of a law school at BU has been on the fast track since first announced by University President Lois B. DeFleur in November, SBU first attempted to add a law school in the 1970s but was set back because of a fiscal crisis at the time.

“The idea was revisited in the 1980s and now it’s actually happening,” said SBU spokeswoman Lauren Sheprow. “A law school is the only professional school missing in the major research university equation.”

Sheprow added that the funding would be used to build the school on the main campus of the university, though she did not know when the proposal for a law school had gone through or what committees it had already passed.

But Anderson said SBU proposed the money could go toward either the purchase of another law school or construction of its own.

State Sen. Kenneth P. LaValle, chairman of the Senate Committee on Higher Education, was credited by the Long Island Business News with adding the $45 million item onto the budget, which is part of New York State’s annual budget.

Repeated calls to Sen. LaValle’s office during the week were not returned.

State Sen. Tom Libous and Donna Lupardo, assemblywoman for the 126th district, secured the money for BU from the 2008-2009 state budget because they said the proposal would benefit BU’s reputation and offer economic development. Lupardo and Libous assured the funding even though it was not included in the original budget, which the governor proposes each January.

Jeffrey Gordon, another spokesman for the budget division of the NYS government, said that budget division is still in the process of developing the final financial plan.

“Hopefully we’ll be putting the report out sometime next week,” Gordon said of the budget.

Currently the University at Buffalo has the only SUNY law school.