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Universities ask Florida to spend more on mental health, campus security

 
Published Sept. 23, 2016

TALLAHASSEE — After the Florida Legislature failed to act on similar budget requests for this year, state university officials are once again asking for money to increase staffing levels and beef up resources for campus police forces and student counseling centers at Florida's 12 public universities.

The public university system's Board of Governors wants lawmakers to designate an extra $28.5 million for those efforts, $8 million more than the unfulfilled request it had made for the current 2016-17 budget year.

But rather than asking for all the money at once, as they did for this year, officials plan to ask the Legislature to spread the dollars over two years — giving the universities time to hire more qualified police officers and counselors.

While meeting in Sarasota this week, the Board of Governors emphasized that additional dollars for mental health services and campus security is among their foremost priorities for the 2017-18 budget, which lawmakers will craft next spring.

Data show Florida's university police forces and campus counseling centers are understaffed, officials have been saying for more than a year.

Understaffed counseling centers, in particular, mean students dealing with issues like stress, anxiety or depression can face longer wait times or be forced to seek help through off-campus facilities — which could deter them from seeking help at all, said Christy England-Siegerdt, the university system's associate vice chancellor for academic policy and research.

"These students are suffering and we need to give them the tools to survive and thrive … and it appears we're not doing that," said Board of Governors member Darlene Jordan.

For the 2016 session, the university system asked lawmakers to provide $6.2 million to add 61 staff positions at campus counseling centers statewide. It wasn't funded, and with little progress made in the past year, university officials are now increasing that request to $14.5 million across the next two years.

The money would pay for 137 new counseling positions statewide, with the University of South Florida in Tampa due to receive the most, 25 positions.

Meanwhile, the 12 universities are also renewing their previous request for $14 million to hire 143 more police officers and to pay for other campus security measures — about a 25 percent increase over current staffing and funding levels, said Tim Jones, the university system's vice chancellor for finance and administration.

Statewide, campus police departments have 550 sworn officers and are funded with about $60 million, Jones said. Adding more officers would bring the universities up to a national standard of one officer for every 600 students, he said.

Figures for current staffing and budget levels for the counseling centers were not immediately available.

Contact Kristen M. Clark at kclark@tampabay.com. Follow @ByKristenMClark.