The Escambia Board of County Commissioners meets today. The agenda review begins at 9 a.m., the public forum begins at 4:30 p.m., and the regular meeting begins at 5:30 p.m.
All meetings will take place in the board chambers of the Ernie Lee Magaha Government Building, located on the first floor of 221 Palafox Place. Click here to view the regular meeting agenda.
- The BCC will hold a public hearing to discuss the Escambia Children’s Trust request to be allowed to keep funds that Florida law should have stayed with the county’s Community Redevelopment Agency districts – $1,134,025. The Trust wants an exemption so it won’t have to fork over the money and not pay an estimated $450,000 annually to CRAs.
Who happens next? BCC must complete an analysis before granting an exemption.
In deciding whether to grant such an exemption, the statute requires the local governing body to consider the following:
a. Any additional revenue sources of the CRA which could be used in lieu of the special district’s tax increment.
b. The fiscal and operational impact on the CRA.
c. The fiscal and operational impact on the special district.
d. The benefit to the specific purpose for which the special district was created. The benefit to the special district must be based on specific projects contained in the approved community
redevelopment plan for the designated CRA.
e. The impact of the exemption on incurred debt and whether such exemption will impair any
outstanding bonds that have pledged tax increment revenues to the repayment of the bonds.
f. The benefit of the activities of the special district to the approved community redevelopment
plan.
g. The benefit of the activities of the special district to the area of operation of the local governing body that created the CRA.
Dig Deeper: The Trust is not accountable to the public, and no one can remove members from office except the governor. While the County Clerk micro-manages the county and TDC finances, Pam Childers has sat on the sidelines with the Trust.
- The Trust has funded some programs that have a few measured successes, but its poor judgment has been costly – see Urban Development Center. We have yet to see a final report on the millions spent on the first year of out-of-school programs
The Trust has put an agenda for its May 14 meeting without supporting documentation.
- The Finance and Operations Committee met on Tuesday, but the financial statements ending March 31 and the 2023 audit have not been posted, so we don’t know the latest financial condition.
- As of Feb. 29, the Trust had over $24 million in cash. According to its budget, its overhead is 16.3%—$2 million.
The May 14 agenda has Sole-Source Application: Children’s Home Society (CHS) that the Program Committee has recommended for approval.
- Sole-source applications operate outside of the RFP process without board involvement until they are presented to the Program Committee. The public only hears about them at the meeting before the vote.
- The Program Committee minutes and agenda do not have supporting documents on the application or the analysis done.
The minutes only state: “The Committee reviewed and discussed the Sole-Source application from Children’s Home Society. Ms. White motioned to proceed with recommendation to the Board for approval; Dr. Northup seconded, all were in favor.”
- CHS is the executive director’s former employer.
- The board should give this proposal additional scrutiny to avoid the appearance of impropriety. An independent, outside source should review it before a Trust board vote. Note: Dr. Northup was a big supporter of the Urban Development Center grant -which doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in his judgment. It is interesting to see in the agenda that the committee wants UDC to return computers – but the Century Town Council loaned the money for them and still hasn’t been repaid.
However, no one can stop the board from doing whatever it wants. The Trust board has no public accountability for its actions.
Recommendation: The BCC should do its analysis and ask the Trust for more detailed financial data on the programs it has funded and specifically show each program’s metrics. No decision should be made on the exemption until the public fully understands how the Trust is spending its millions and what we’re getting for the money.
