According to Denise Potvin, budget chief for the Florida House Pre-K—12 Appropriations, Escambia County’s Early Learning Coalition has been appropriated $15.8 million for FY 2025-2026, an increase of $100K over last fiscal year.
- The PNJ has reported the Early Learning Coalition (ELC) of Escambia County has had its budget slashed by $2.4 million, dropping from $18.3 million to $16.3 million, as part of a statewide $60 million reduction to Florida’s Early Learning Coalition To cope with these cuts, the coalition has stopped issuing new School Readiness vouchers and may have to reduce services from 2,550 children to as few as 2,050.
However, ELC has not been serving 2,550. It hasn’t even been serving 2,050. The actual number is 1,752.02. The wait list is not “nearly 300;” it’s 129.
According to Florida Department of Education data, supplied on June 10, the breakdown of the ELC age groups is as follows:
| Escambia ELC | Number |
| Infants/Special Needs | 90.57 |
| Toddler | 205.29 |
| 2-year-old | 293.01 |
| 3-year old | 319.9 |
| 4-year old | 284.18 |
| 5-year old | 98.32 |
| School Age | 460.75 |
| Total | 1752.02 |
| Wait List | 129 |
At the request of the Association of Early Learning Coalitions, for FY 25-26, the Legislature used the same “forecasted” number of School Readiness children that was used for FY 24-25; for Escambia ELC that was 1,742.96.
Regarding the change in the income level for SR eligibility, the Legislature appropriated an additional $42 million in recurring Child Care and Development Block Grant funds in the SR program allocation to address this eligibility change; $936.4 million in FY 24-25 and $978.4 million in FY 25-26.
CHILDCARE CRISIS
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves has made solving the city’s childcare crisis a priority. However, any sustainable solution will require accurate data from all providers.
- He believes the key to improving quality and accessibility is increasing the pay for childcare workers. Earlier this month, after his second summit on the issue, Mayor Reeves said. “I don’t think the themes changed very much in raising the pay of the people who are watching our most precious thing, which is our kids. How do we get that pay more competitive, and how do we foster growth in terms of access, whether that’s business help or facilities?”
The mayor reaffirmed the city’s financial commitment to addressing childcare challenges. “I made that clear to them that we certainly are ready to be dedicating dollars and facilities to help bridge that gap.”
Let’s meet, Bruce. I will email to set the time.
Rick,
If you like to me to explain to you what the numbers you have really mean and how they can be and in this were misinterpreted I would be glad to talk to you or one of your reporters.
For instance, you were given numbers that are Full Time Equivalents (FTE) that the State uses to estimate costs. These are not a count of actual children in care, nor can the numbers be used to infer how many children a Coalition will actually serve with the money they receive. We have 2,500 children in care today, and if I were allowed to, I could give you the list of their names. An FTE as you reported is not an actual child. It is a factor for calculating cost. We serve a way lost more children than these bast costing factors.
The dollar figures you were given are our base amounts, but they do not account for all the funding granted by the State. We ended the year with $18,342,172 allocated to School Readiness. This includes our base you so accurately report, plus $839,012 for Hold Harmless, $1,059,442 for Wait List Reduction and $537,130 that was re-obligated to us from other Coalitions. Even this year we were granted about $500,000 more than our base for Match Funding and Gold Seal Program, for a total $16,368,553. I would be happy to share with the Notice of Awards from the State with these figures.
Please contact me if you want to real story.