The Student Services Finance Committee approved University Health Services’ fiscal year 2022 budget in a unanimous vote Thursday.

During the budget discussion, Vice-Chair Grace D’Souza said she supports the budget because UHS has been an essential service to students throughout the pandemic. D’Souza also said UHS has made substantial changes to mental health service budget allocation in response to the past calls of SSFC.

“They’ve really risen to the occasion and provided so many services for students during this time,” D’Souza said.

After the vote, Associate Vice Chancellor and Executive Director of UHS Jake Baggot said he acknowledges UHS still has important work to do and looks forward to continuing to progress.

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SSFC Chair Tess Reilly said the committee’s approximate request of the Reserve Board to offset Recreation and Wellbeing’s deficits will be around $100,000.

“When we voted on Monday to offset these costs and pivot to the Reserve Board for any further requests so that there was not that $1.20 increase per student for the RecWell sector of this budget, there are implications here,” Reilly said.

Reilly said pivoting to the Reserve Board was a one-time fix which creates a compound. While RecWell requested a 2% increase this year, it is very likely their request will double for the 2023 fiscal year, according to Reilly.

RecWell’s likely 4.04% increase request might make it painful for students when they see it will be more than a $1.20 increase, Reilly said.

“I just wanted to make that clear for everyone that even though we are pivoting to the Reserve, this is a very temporary fix and it doesn’t really minimize the increases that are further to come in future years,” Reilly said.