Florida has 11 children’s services councils, with more counties interested as funding shortages for such services grow. These groups are taxpayer funded entities that voters approve to provide more services to children -- where there’s a gap in that county. Some Florida CSCs have been around for decades while others are newer, complete with growing pains.
Former Miami Herald Publisher David Lawrence once led a statewide task force on school readiness. He says he learned about the extraordinary number of children who aren’t ready for kindergarten and the fact that they may never read well.
“I didn’t know that 85 percent of brain growth occurs by the age of three -- and a lot of other things," he said. "I came to think that the future of this republic depended on getting more people educated, and the key would be to get started off right…”
An earlier effort to pass a children’s services council in what was then Dade County had failed overwhelmingly. Lawrence found ways to make it more palatable, such as putting a five-year sunset on it.
“...telling folks, ‘Try this for five years, and if you don’t like it, you can dump it,’" he said. "I raised a good deal of money. I didn’t run a campaign on the side of the angels, although I think this IS on the side of the angels. I ran it on the basis of, ‘It’s practical as well as moral imperative.’”
In 2002, the proposal passed 2-1. Six years later, with the Children’s Trust coming up for renewal, county residents voted 84.5 percent in favor of keeping it.
“...meaning, fundamentally, we had kept the trust,” said Lawrence.
Lawrence says the word “trust” is in the Miami organization’s name deliberately. More recently established CSCs are still having to fight for theirs. Paul Mitchell is the treasurer of the Leon County CSC. He recently pushed back on a proposal from the county and the city of Tallahassee to share funding:
“Help me get comfortable with how we are not violating the provision of the statute as well as the will of the voters," Mitchell said. "The will of the voters was, ‘We have a deficit, a deficit of programs to be delivered to kids. The CSC is only allowed to fund those programs which fall into that deficit bucket.'”
According to state law, CSCs cannot duplicate existing services, nor can their funding be used as a replacement for existing resources.
In Escambia County, a different financial fight is also in progress. The county commission wants its CSC to pay taxes and use the money for infrastructure projects.
Holly McPhail is an independent contractor who worked in the campaign to bring a children’s services council to Leon.
“Escambia County is the only one in the state that I know of that’s requiring the CSC to use part of its ad valorum to in essence pay into the [Community Redevelopment Agency]," she said. "To my knowledge, not a single CSC is doing that…in fact, some communities are actively stating that they 'will not do this with our CSC.'”
CSCs can make tempting targets for cash-strapped local governments looking for more revenues. They’re pitched as efforts to support children’s services, with promises made to voters that funding will only go toward those needs. But in both Leon and Escambia, some who voted FOR those CSCs are feeling as if they were deceived.
Recently, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment tying property taxes to inflation—something local governments worry could lead to a further decline in their revenues while their need for services grows. McPhail says it’s a challenge to provide “gap” services in rural, under-served counties.
“Statewide, I think that there’s an appetite for more CSCs forming in different parts of the state," she said. "I think that as we band together as a collective, we’re going to be able to show that children and youth outcomes in communities that have CSCs are better off than in communities that don’t.”
Michele Watson, CEO of the Florida Alliance of Children’s Councils & Trusts, says her 11 members are required by statute to conduct a needs assessment that looks at all the needs in a community. The current 11 organizations invest $550 million annually in direct services and serve 80 percent of the state’s birth-to-18 population. But they take time to get up and running, and once they’re functional, to find their footing.
“It takes time," said Watson. "It takes time to complete a needs assessment. It takes time to look at the current funding landscape. It takes time to go out and do an RFP and conduct that research and evaluation, and then it takes time for multiple years of outcomes to be able to determine if you actually are moving the population outcomes of children in your communities.”
The voters’ patience, Watson says, is the question. CSCs now sunset in 10 to 12 years, depending on their local ordinance.
“When you first stand up a CSC, everyone is in this resource-deficit mindset. And have already -- for lack of a better term -- cannibalized each other, right? Stolen from Peter to pay Paul?" she said. "And so, I think what it takes, honestly, is the first three years for everybody to understand that this is not going away, that these are a continuing commitment of dollars.”
CSC advocates urge patience as some of the newer ones work through their conflicts. Critics, though, worry some of the organizations could see their coffers raided for things unrelated to social services.
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