Pictured Above: $250,000 that was budgeted for St. Petersburg was transferred to support the pediatric residency program at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital (left). St. Petersburg Campus Board member Susan Churuti was not happy.
Courtesy of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital on Twitter and USF St. Petersburg
By Nancy McCann
Overriding the wishes of the St. Petersburg Campus Board, the USF administration earlier this year transferred $250,000 from St. Petersburg’s annual budget to USF Health for the pediatric residency program at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
The transfer, which caught at least one board member by surprise, was ordered by USF President Steve Currall, according to Nick Setteducato, St. Petersburg’s interim regional vice chancellor for administrative and financial services.
The move was “kind of undercover” this year, Setteducato told the board on March 25. But going forward, the yearly transfer will be documented in USF’s budget and “completely transparent and in the open.”
Board member Susan Churuti, a property manager and veteran attorney, had pointed comments about the transfer and the way it was handled.
When the issue came up at an earlier meeting, she said, the board was “pretty clear” that shifting the money for the program at All Children’s Hospital – an affiliate of USF Health – would be good for USF Health, “but it’s not necessarily a priority for the USF St. Pete Campus Board.”
Churuti also said there was an understanding that the “message would go back to the Board of Trustees” and the funds would not be taken from St. Petersburg’s budget.
Setteducato responded carefully, saying that he would “just state the facts.”
“The president (Currall) decided that was a transfer that should come from the resources of the St. Pete budget to USF Health.”
“That’s over the objections of the Campus Board?” Churuti asked.
“Once again, we were directed by the president, who ultimately has final control over USF’s budget, to make that transfer,” Setteducato replied.
In a statement to The Crow’s Nest on April 28, Currall said his administration shifted the $250,000 to support All Children’s pediatric residency program after Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed that appropriation in the state budget last year because of “state revenue shortfalls associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“As the USF St. Petersburg campus received new recurring funds in the Fiscal Year 20-21 state budget that was approved by the Governor, USF leadership decided to use a portion of those dollars to maintain our care for these children in need of critical medical attention,” Currall said (see his full statement below).
Currall did not elaborate. He was apparently referring to $6.5 million in “operational support” that the Legislature appropriated to USF St. Petersburg in 2019 to help it prepare to become part of a consolidated, research-intensive university.
The money was split – $3 million for the 2019-2020 fiscal year and $3.5 million for 2020-2021.
‘Kind of undercover’
At the March 25 Campus Board meeting, Setteducato said that a “formal transfer” of the $250,000 will come in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and be documented for both the state Board of Governors and the Legislature “because that has to be approved in our operating budget.”
“So it’s kind of undercover during this year because we’re basically providing support (to All Children’s) informally,” Setteducato said. “But next year it will be completely transparent and in the open.
“The process you’re talking about, the decision-making and executing … I think you’re right – you’re saying it the right way – that the communication may have been not as you would think is optimal in that matter,” he said.
Campus Board chair Melissa Seixas told Setteducato the board understands that final budget decisions rest with Currall.
“What I think you need to communicate is the (board’s) desire for transparency as far as courtesy of notification,” said Seixas, who is president of Duke Energy Florida (see her follow-up statement below).
If the transfer continues, the St. Petersburg campus would lose $250,000 every year.
The transfer comes at a time of widespread confusion and controversy over the university’s budget and marks another example of how the Tampa-based administration has steamrolled St. Petersburg in the planning and early stages of consolidation.
The pandemic drove a deep hole in USF’s finances, and the Currall administration and Board of Trustees have responded with big cuts ordered by DeSantis this year.
Even bigger cuts have been discussed for the 2021-2022 fiscal year, when the university leadership plans for what it calls a “strategic realignment” of USF’s goals and programs.
But the huge COVID-19 stimulus package approved by Congress in March includes $10.2 billion for Florida, including substantial aid for Florida’s colleges and universities. That means the $101.5 billion state budget that the Legislature adopted Friday and sent to the governor is not as lean as Florida’s public universities once feared.
Specific details were not immediately available, but Regional Chancellor Martin Tadlock told the St. Petersburg Faculty Council on April 28 that there has been “a drastic change” for the better.
“I’m breathing much better than I was two weeks ago,” Tadlock said.
Protests and angst
The USF administration’s budget plans for 2021-2022 and beyond have prompted loud protests from leaders of USF faculty, who have accused the administration of surprise moves, lack of transparency and haste in plunging ahead on huge cuts without faculty input and adequate planning.
On the St. Petersburg campus, the angst has been compounded by a series of moves that have diminished the campus and undercut its leadership.
In the months before consolidation took effect, the Currall administration twice released organizational blueprints that would have greatly weakened the authority of St. Petersburg’s regional chancellor.
Both times, fierce opposition forced Currall to walk back those plans. But his administration did reduce the number of key positions that directly report to Tadlock, including St. Petersburg’s director of marketing and communications and its chief diversity officer.
When Currall appointed a 19-member task force in December to help craft a strategic plan for USF’s future, only one member was from St. Petersburg. She teaches in the College of Marine Science, which has long been separate from the rest of the campus.
Although state law stipulates that the campus should be called “the University of South Florida St. Petersburg,” the administration has decreed that – to comply with the principles of consolidation – St. Petersburg should be called “USF St. Petersburg campus,” with a lowercase “c.”
Even the name of the Campus Board, seven Pinellas County residents who help oversee the campus, has been changed. In state law, it is called the St. Petersburg “Campus Board.” But the USF Board of Trustees ignored the law and in December 2019 renamed it the “Campus Advisory Board.”
USF Health is a partnership of the university’s colleges of medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy and its schools of biomedical sciences and physical therapy. It is affiliated with several regional hospitals, where students get training and help conduct research.
According to its website, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital has been an affiliate of USF’s Morsani College of Medicine for more than 40 years. It helps train pediatric residents and offers student clerkships and electives.
A Children’s Research Institute nearby is home to USF researchers who study molecular genetics and adaptive immunity.
‘Maintain our care for these children’
This is USF President Steve Currall’s explanation for taking $250,000 out of USF St. Petersburg’s annual budget:
In Fiscal Year 20-21, due to state revenue shortfalls associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. DeSantis vetoed $250,000 in recurring revenues that historically supported USF’s pediatric residency program at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg.
In conversations with the Governor’s Office, they supported the continuation of this important program in St. Petersburg through other funding sources. As the USF St. Petersburg campus received new recurring funds in the Fiscal Year 20-21 state budget that was approved by the Governor, USF leadership decided to use a portion of those dollars to maintain our care for these children in need of critical medical attention.
We are now evaluating how to sustain this important USF pediatric residency program in St. Petersburg.
‘A culture of transparency and collaboration’
Here is an April 29 statement from Melissa Seixas, chair of the St. Petersburg Campus Board and member of the USF Board of Trustees:
As Campus Advisory Board members, we take our review of our campus budget very seriously to ensure funds are applied to maximize the value to students and program needs.
As we move forward as one university, we’re continuing to refine our processes to ensure a culture of transparency and collaboration. We look forward to continuing to work closely with President Currall as we set priorities for the coming year.
