Budget Reform
As I had written before, Escambia County Clerk Pam Childers hasn’t produced accurate budgets for the past two fiscal years. However, she told the News Journal that every line item in her zero-based budget is justified by performance indicators.
During the second budget hearing, when three commissioners were holding firm to cut her budget $1.1 million, Childers said that one reason she returned over $1 million dollars to the county’s general fund the past two years was because “there was an executive order with the president on passports and we had a lot of revenue on passports, like $300,000 additional.”
Well, Childers was correct about “a lot of revenue”—but her Net Clerk’s Fees were $385,665 and $660,401 over budget for FY 2024 and FY 2025, respectively.
- Despite taking in $638,395 for Net Clerk’s Fees in FY 2024, the clerk only budgeted for $252,740 for FY 2025.
- In FY 2025, Childers had actual Net Clerk’s Fees of $809,611, but she again low-balled her budget for Net Clerk’s Fees in FY 2026 to a mere $285,600.
- Your new budget (FY 2027), only budgeted $300,075 for Net Clerk’s Fees.
Clerk Payroll
FY 2024
Personnel Costs budgeted $4,278,570 but actual was $3,696,577 — missed her budget by $581,693.
FY 2025
Instead of budgeting less for Personnel Costs, Childers asked for more, $4,377,700. Actual was $4,157,406 — missed by $220,904.
FY 2026
Childers didn’t propose a lower budget for Personnel Costs. She asked for $4,947,400.
FY 2027
She reduced her budget for Personnel Costs to $4,786,900 — which could be an indication she missed her budget last year.
The odd issue is her FTEs haven’t changed significantly over five years. FTE stands for Full-Time Equivalent, a standardized unit of measurement used to quantify work hours and convert part-time or mixed schedules into the equivalent number of full-time workers.
| Year | FTE |
| FY 2022 | 44.00 |
| FY 2023 | 45.22 |
| FY 2024 | 45.22 |
| FY 2025 | 46.69 |
| FY 2026 | 47.51 |
