The Escambia Children’s Trust Policy and Bylaws Committee held a rare meeting on Monday afternoon, amid the recent arrests of Rodney Jones and others with New World Believers, which has received over $900K from the Trust.
If there was one theme that ran through nearly every agenda item, it was this: the Trust is drawing clearer lines around how taxpayer money flows to the providers serving our community’s children — and it’s doing so at a time when the Trust’s very existence is in question.
- Strange Point: The Policy Committee last met on April 23, 2025, according to its website. However, the minutes approved at the Feb. 2 meeting were dated Sept. 24, 2024. Whichever is the case, this committee has not met in months.
Chair Tina Cain presided over a meeting that moved briskly through a stack of draft policies — from motor vehicle use to background screenings to the thorny debate over indirect costs — before wrapping with public comment that underscored just how closely the community is watching.
Motor Vehicle Policy Gets a Five-Year Overhaul
The Trust funds have purchased several motor vehicles for its providers, and the current policy requires the Trust to maintain a reversionary interest — essentially, a lien — for the lifetime of each vehicle. The staff recommended changing that window to five years. Read Vans.
- “A lot of times when you look at the lifetime, when it gets the vehicles are 10, 15 years old, they’re not really any good when they come back to us, but we’re stuck with them,” Trust Finance Director Tammy Abrams explained.
The committee also approved adding a prohibition on personal use of Trust-funded vehicles and a requirement that only drivers who have had a motor vehicle records check completed may operate them.
Contract Suspension Policy: Putting It in Writing
Trust Executive Director Lindsey Cannon brought forward a draft policy on contract suspension and enforcement. Read Suspension.
- “We do need to have the ability to actually suspend a contract as we’ve had to do, especially around child safety,” Cannon said. “But there may be other issues that come up from an administrative side that we need to be able to look at an opportunity to pause our contracts, see if it can be rectified before we go into a termination situation.”
Cannon noted that the policy had been reviewed by the Trust’s legal counsel, with their edits marked in red on the draft. Board member Stephanie White asked whether the Trust had already been suspending contracts without a formal policy in place. The answer was yes—but Cannon stressed the importance of putting it in black and white.
“We do get asked that question — where is this in your policy?” she said. “We need to be able to show that.”
Annual Background Checks Replace the Five-Year Gap
One of the more consequential policy changes discussed Monday involves provider background screenings. Current law requires a Level 2 background check, valid for 5 years. But Cannon argued that the gap is too long. Read Background.
- NWB Problem: When Cannon announced to her board that she had suspended the $585K grant for New World Believers, she admitted the Trust hadn’t received background checks on NWB staff.
“If you only screen these people every five years on your staff, you have no idea what liability you are putting,” Cannon told the committee. She noted that school districts and some government agencies receive automatic alerts from law enforcement if an employee is charged with a crime — but she claimed nonprofits in Escambia County do not get that same notification.
The new policy will require providers to pull annual local law checks — through the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, the Pensacola Police Department, or the appropriate agency based on where staff live or work — and certify that all personnel maintain valid Level 2 clearance.
- Chair Cain pushed back on limiting the check to just one agency. “You could get charged in the county and actually work and live in the city,” she noted, suggesting both the Sheriff’s Office and city law enforcement checks be required. The committee agreed.
The Indirect Cost Debate Heats Up
If there was a single issue that generated the most discussion Monday afternoon, it was the question of indirect costs — the percentage of grant funding that providers can use to cover overhead, such as accounting staff, utilities, and administrative salaries, rather than spending it directly on services for children. Read Indirect.
The current cap is 15%, which aligns with federal grant standards. But board member Tori Woods raised a pointed question that has apparently been circulating in the community.
- “If somebody’s grant is a hundred thousand dollars but then somebody’s indirect cost is $300,000, that’s a lot of money that we don’t have receipts for,” Woods said. “And I would be more comfortable seeing that in an expense than giving somebody a blank check for $300,000 because it’s an indirect cost.”
Woods noted she had been fielding questions from smaller grant recipients who felt the system was inequitable — that larger organizations were essentially banking money through indirect charges while smaller nonprofits were held to tighter scrutiny on their direct spending.
Cannon acknowledged the tension but offered context: larger organizations often split their overhead costs across many programs, so the per-program indirect rate can appear low even if the total dollar amount is significant. She noted that other Children’s Trusts in Florida allow indirect rates as high as 20%.
“It just puts everybody on the same playing field,” Cannon said. “This is for everybody.”
The committee did not change the 15% cap Monday. Instead, Cannon committed to bringing the board a breakdown of what each provider is actually charging in indirect costs, along with industry benchmarks, before the next full board meeting. Woods made clear she wanted that data.
- “Give us a list of what everybody’s end dollar did,” she said.
Board member Woods also landed what may be the most politically charged line of the meeting when she tied the indirect cost debate directly to the Trust’s future on the ballot: “They all aren’t being threatened to be put back on the ballot either. The more that we can show that we are being diligent in the funding, the better chance we have to get that support from the community.”
- Dig Deeper: Escambia County Commissioner Mike Kohler and several others have called for the Trust to go back before the voters. According to Florida law, it must be renewed every 10 years, but Kohler has mentioned several times that he would like to see the vote sooner, possibly this year.
Gift Cards, Gas Cards, and Utility Bills: Drawing the Line on Direct Client Assistance
The committee also tackled a draft policy on participant incentives and direct client assistance—the small-dollar support that some programs provide to families. Cannon made clear that certain practices are being eliminated. Read Incentive and Assistance
“Gift cards are an absolute nightmare — not only for the providers to track but for us to back into,” she said. The committee agreed to strike gift cards, cash equivalents, and stipends from the list of allowable uses.
- Oops: NWB rewarded participants with funds. According to a parent who posted a comment on this blog, NWB would take them to the mall to buy clothes. On one occasion, a participant shopped at Victoria’s Secret, which the Trust refused to reimburse NWB for. See Victoria Receipts.
- The parent wrote, “My child attended this course in 2025 for a civil citation. My child got a weekly ‘pay’ for their attendance to class. NWBHOOPS would take them to the mall, or outings in general to spend such ‘pay’ they had. It never made sense to me why a child in trouble would get paid for their consequence.”
Budget Amendments: From Five a Year to One
The committee took up a long-simmering issue around how often providers can adjust their approved budgets without coming back to the full board. The existing policy allowed up to five budget amendments per fiscal year, each under 10% of the total budget. Read Budget.
Woods illustrated the problem. If a provider made five changes at 9% each — all technically under the 10% threshold — the cumulative effect could be a budget that looked almost nothing like what the board originally approved.
“I’m looking at it, and I’m expecting the same thing that we approved,” Woods said. “And so I’m always asking questions because I have the history to know that.”
The committee agreed to change the policy to a single budget adjustment of no more than 10% of the original budget per year. Any changes that alter the program’s scope must go to the full board.
Vendor Contracts on Hold — The Trust Eyes an Uncertain Future
The final major discussion item carried the heaviest weight. Cannon informed the committee that several of the Trust’s vendor contracts — covering legal services, IT, auditing, insurance, and office leases — are entering the three-to-five-year mark where they would normally be put out for competitive bid.
But Cannon urged caution. The Trust is facing two major existential threats in the coming months: the possibility that Governor DeSantis’s proposed property tax cuts could eliminate the Trust’s funding entirely, and the likelihood that the Trust will need to go back on the ballot in November.
“We have a lot to decide and understand in November,” Cannon said. “I don’t want to sign a three-year contract with someone and not be able to fulfill that.”
The committee voted to extend existing vendor contracts for one additional year — covering legal, IT, auditing, insurance, the office lease at the college, and copier services — and to revisit competitive bidding in January 2026 if the Trust survives those hurdles.
The Bottom Line
Monday’s meeting was a case study in a public trust trying to get ahead of scrutiny — both from the community and from the political forces that could reshape local government funding in the months ahead. The policies discussed are heading to the full board for a vote, and several — particularly around indirect costs — are still being refined.
- The next full board meeting will be the place to watch. The meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Feb. 10. The agenda has not been posted.
Reality Check
An Uncomfortable Truth: These policy amendments would not have caught that NWB’s “audit” could not pass a basic math review, and the Form 990s didn’t match the Trust’s records. The staff and Program Committee should never have recommended approving the third year of the grant to NWB.
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