We were promised that Escambia Children’s Trust would spend the taxpayers’ money wisely and have systems in place to ensure accountability.
If Tuesday night’s meeting is any indication, the Trust is fast becoming a dumpster fire, despite the sincere, well-meaning intentions of its board members.
I hate to say I told you so, but I did write the Urban Development Center proposal was doomed to fail. The program promised to focus on workforce development for 250 middle and high school students a year for three years in the Century – annual budget: $397,556.
This is what I wrote in January:
The Urban Development Center wants money to provide a job development center in the Town of Century for 750 children, ages 11-18. According to U.S. Census Bureau, Century only has 1,979 people, with 18% between the ages of 10-19, which calculates to 356 children.
However, the board believed the research and data in the proposal. They may have second thoughts now.
Urban Development Center has had trouble signing up kids. The group asked the board to lower its age limit to 5. The board sent the request back to its program committee for further discussion.
BUT Urban Development Center already has requested reimbursement for $189,256.70 and is working with only 56 children – of which less than 30 are ages 11-18. Cost per target group: $6,308.
Urban Development Center expenses include $60K personnel, $37K program supplies, $59K sub-grants to partners, and $22K other professional services. Again for 56 total kids – of which 29 are 10 or younger.
And this only covers seven months.
Someone needs to pull the plug and reallocate the remaining dollars elsewhere. A deep audit needs to be done into the $189K already spent.
Here are Urban Development Center’s admissions in its Century_Youth change request:
• We underestimated the need and desire for children outside of our proposed program age range to want to play an active role in the center activities.
• We underestimated the challenge that the children and youth of The Town of Century faced by not having a community-based school culture, which creates proximity and family participation issues.
• We overestimated the desire for youth in our proposed program age range to participate in program activities initially and consistently.
• We overestimated the commitment of parents to actively pursue out-of-school time (OST) and summer program educational activities for their children and youth.
In other words, they did little actual market research before asking for the money.
I have marked the video at the point where the board discusses Urban Development Center.
