Darnell Henderson | The Crow’s Nest
By Catherine Hicks
The Wellness Center could face funding issues in the future if student enrollment declines due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The majority of our funding comes from fees so anytime there is a decrease in enrollment, we are impacted,” said Anita Sahgal, director of wellness center and student accessibility services, in an email to The Crow’s Nest. “Thus there will be concerns for the next few years to make sure we are maintaining expenses.”
For the sixth article in our Poynter College Media Project series, Green and Gold, The Crow’s Nest took an in-depth look at the Wellness and Counseling Center budget.
The budget is divided by revenue expected to be brought in by the Wellness Center and annual expenditures.
The total revenue budgeted is $565,300, and it is broken down into four categories.
The largest category is student fees, which total $539,000. This includes “revenue generated for the university when each student pays the health fee,” said Anthony Carinci, director of student success resource management, in an email to The Crow’s Nest.
There are subcategories to break it down by semester, as well as an exemption category that was added with consolidation, which indicates that students who were admitted before this fall will receive an exemption from the OneUSF health fee.
If the university experiences a significant decrease in student enrollment, the Wellness Center’s expected income from student fees would decrease with it.
Other categories include goods and services, which include services or products provided to non-USF students, according to Carinci. In addition, miscellaneous receipts are allocated $1,000.
The final revenue category is interest, at $25,000, which is “interest generated from the cash balance on the account – similar to how a personal savings account would generate interest,” Carinci said.
The annual budgeted expenses total $1,184,083, and are broken down into 22 categories.
Employee salaries are the largest allocation at $517,167. Fringe benefits, which include employee benefits such as retirement plans or health and dental insurance plans, total $121,682.
There is an additional allocation, “Other” which totals $45,797, and “is used to compensate employees who are part-time or not on a salaried position,” Carinci said.
Though travel has an allocation of $2,500, “we didn’t engage in (any) travel post pandemic. We always allocate some money for travel just in case,” Sahgal said. “Generally, the travel (funds are) used for professional conferences.”
$23,050 is allocated to contractual services, which includes custodial services, after-hours services, telehealth platform, electronic record management software, massage therapy services, mental health screening software and the Campus Well magazine, according to Sahgal.
There are other categories such as materials and other supplies, other operating expenses and an administrative assessment, that are included in the overall budget to bring the total to $1,184,083.
